Iron clouds hang over the city. Fat snowflakes spiral lazily toward the concrete. They’re like pinpricks of light against the washed-out backdrop. Black pavement tire tracks gleam in the center of the street. A woman’s red coat sways from side to side like a bell. Her shadow moves this way and that. The harder I focus, the easier it is to inhale.
I still hate it out here.
The Worth-Kelley building is a modern three-story wedged between a museum and an office building. It’s the opposite of Motif in every possible way, from the gleaming white I to the oversized windows on each floor. I stroll in through the front door. The hardwood here shines, and the air is lightly scented with a hint of something clean and bright. Lemon, maybe. A secretary waits at a desk by the door. She’s a display piece as much as the art. Perfect makeup. Sleek hair. A low-cut top.
One glance at me, and her eyes widen. “Hello, Mr. Leblanc,” she says. “We’re so happy to welcome you to Worth-Kelley. Can I get you anything? A drink? Sparkling water?”
“No.” I take one glove off, then the next. “I’m here for a private showing.” I give the space a cursory glance. She seizes the moment and reaches for something below the lip of the desk. Her hands fly over it. A surreptitious text, no doubt.
“Yes. Of course.” She shows off a row of white, perfect teeth. “There’s no one in the second-floor gallery or the studios upstairs. Peter made sure of it.”
Peter Clay himself ambles down the stairs to the left. He watches where he’s going. When he arrives at the bottom, he runs a hand over his hair.
“Melanie, can you—oh, hi.” His eyebrows go up in perhaps the worst approximation of surprise I’ve ever seen. “The famous collector. Welcome to my humble abode. Mel, I was just going to ask if you could give the mayor’s office a call.”
“About the piece?”
“That’s the one.” My god, I hate him. “Thanks. Mr. Leblanc, all my work is on the second floor. Easier to keep them all in one place. We could talk while you look. I don’t want to make any assumptions, but if it was a commission you’re looking for…”
He leads me up the stairs, talking and talking. The second floor of the gallery is indeed full of Peter Clay pieces. He’s been busy. There are at least twenty in here, but the room has been divided. Carve-outs and alcoves and corners. It’s clearly meant to provide a visual barrier between the works of different artists. Worth-Kelley is betting that he’s as special as they think he is.
“This one.” I point to a random painting. “Tell me about your technique.” Off he goes. Either Peter Clay doesn’t hear the boredom in my voice, or he’s doing a masterful job ignoring it. We reach the next painting. “An interesting decision,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve all but hidden the shadows. Your model is nearly part of the background.”
“Oh, yes. I thought the interplay of—”
You thought you were making art, but you were wasting good paint and canvas. The next painting. The next. The next. I cut abruptly to the other side of the gallery. Peter jogs to keep up.
“You’re left-handed,” I say.
This cuts off his stream-of-consciousness nonsense. “How did you know that?”
“The brushstrokes.”
It’s bullshit. I know because he told me, the fucking fool. He gives everything away. Peter feels very safe in here. Very secure.
I turn away from this painting and turn a corner.
Peter hurries to stand next to me. “This is one of my favorite pieces. I’m looking for the perfect home, because I can’t let it go for—” He’s weak. Unsuspecting. I slam him face-first into the painting. Not hard enough to crack his nose, unfortunately. “Shit, man. Jesus. What the hell?”
I have him by the back of the neck, his left arm twisted behind his back. Pent-up fury is an ache in my bones. I’d like to remove the light in his eyes, but no—no. The security cameras at the front of the room can’t see this space, but the secretary saw me. Poor girl shouldn’t have to discover a dead body.
Peter wriggles, but he can’t get free. His cheek is shoved hard against an enormous painting of a girl with tears swimming in her eyes. I would guess she’s eighteen. He’s captured the self-conscious tilt of her shoulders. Unlike some of the other pieces, this one shows her full body. Her posture, and the set of her feet, give the sense that she’s in the act of turning away.
“You can have all the paintings,” Peter says. “Let’s just—let me up so we can—”
“You’re never going to speak to Daphne Morelli again,” I say. “You’re never going to look at her. You won’t so much as fucking think about her.”
“What?” His eyes bug out with his shock. “What did she tell you? I never touched her. She wanted it.”
I let his words hang in the air until he realizes his mistake.
“We’re friends,” he tries again. “I only wanted her to model for me.”
Anger breaks free. Only wanted her to model for him—fuck that. “You wanted her to model for you?”
“Yes,” he chokes. “She’s beautiful. Of course I wanted to paint her.”
“You use a reference, don’t you?”
“Like most painters.” He has no fucking idea where I’m going with this. In the spirit of honesty, it’s getting away from me a little. I force down the need to cede control to my rage. I will not beat the shit out of him, leaving him bruised and bloody. Not today.
“So the women come to your studio, ready to be painted, and then you make them take off their clothes—”
“They agree,” he insists. “They’re in agreement.”
“And you take the reference photos.”
“Yeah.”
“How do you make them cry?”
His mouth drops open, his visible eye going even wider, and the depth of my hatred expands until it could swallow this pathetic gallery whole. I didn’t plan to say any of this to him. This fucker is still grasping for an answer. If he was smart, if he could lie to save himself, he’d have said I don’t. Of course I don’t. I add that later. Artistic license.
But he is not smart, and he cannot lie, and I tighten my grip on the back of his neck.
I want to snap it. I let go of his arm and Peter flinches. He thinks I’m going to punch him. He’d deserve it. He deserves to have his skull cracked while all these weeping girls watch from their frames.
I put my fingertips on the canvas near his face instead. Trace the thick paint lines there, over her face. “How much do you get paid?”
He swallows. “It—it depends on the piece.”
“Every time you use that brush. How much would you say every stroke was worth?” Peter doesn’t know whether to answer this musing tone, so he keeps his mouth shut. “Oh, it’s quite a bit, isn’t it? American Art Collector called you a modern-day Rembrandt, but I don’t think so.”
Peter Clay is frozen in fear, so much so that he doesn’t bother to hide his arms. I wrench the left one back behind him and bend his wrist. His fingers. Tighter and tighter and tighter. He clenches his jaw, his face going red, and tries to relieve some of the pressure by turning his body.