His Masterpiece

by Ava Lore

  “Show me your chest,” he said, cool and collected again.

  “No,” I told him.

  He lifted the gun.

  Panic rose. “You shoot me and you'll never find the evidence,” I blurted, then cursed myself.

  “Oh?” he said. “I thought you didn't know where it was?”

  I ground my teeth. “I might have an inkling.”

  “Here?” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “The warehouse, then.”

  I didn't respond at all.

  He gave another exasperated sigh, then shoved his gun into his coat pocket, keeping it trained on me, and grabbed my arm.

  Old feelings rose up inside me. Fear. Despair. Desperation. The sting of the blade...

  “Don't be too afraid,” he said to me, patronizingly. “If you lead me to the evidence, I will pay you handsomely.”

  He really did think I was an idiot. Fine. I could play that role. “How... how much?”

  He smiled. “A million dollars?” he said. He pulled me roughly toward the stairs and pushed me down the first riser. I felt the presence of the gun trained on my back. “Let's go,” he snapped when I didn't move.

  I licked my lips. There was no way I could run fast enough to outrace a bullet. I clomped down the stairs, stomping on the steps as if the existence of trees personally offended me and I wanted to dance on their graves. “Twenty million dollars,” I said when I reached the bottom.

  “You think you can bargain?” Don asked me as we turned on the second floor and started down to the first. “You think you are in a position to bargain?”

  “I think you won't miss twenty million dollars,” I said.

  “Perhaps not. But you would miss your head. Think of it that way. A million dollars... or your head.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs and I gave him my best glower. He just laughed at me, then took a step forward. He was tall, like Malcolm, and his presence far more oppressive. Dark eyes glared down at me from behind the lenses of his fine glasses. He could have been a college professor, or someone's father if it weren't for the air of menace he carried.

  Well, maybe he could have been someone's father...

  I shoved the thought away, but it was already there, worming into my subconscious. He was going to hurt me, just like my father used to do, and it made me afraid. He saw it in me, too, and a humorless smile grazed over his lips.

  “Perhaps,” he mused, “if you show me what Malcolm thought was so wonderful about you, I'll double that sum.” And he reached out and ran a finger over my cheek.

  Everything in me rebelled. He repulsed me. But I couldn't let him see that. Instead I let my mouth drop open, shocked. “Are you... are you saying you'd pay me a million dollars to wrap you up in a tarp and beat you with a rubber chicken?” I asked.

  The finger on my cheek paused. “What?” he said, then he realized I was making fun of him, and his dark brows drew down. “Don't mock me,” he told me, his voice low and dangerous. He stepped back again and opened the front door. “Let's go.”

  The lump in his coat pocket was still aimed at me. I had no choice.

  I went.

  The warehouse where Malcolm had hidden all his things was north, in the Bronx.

  I had quietly entered the private car Don had brought with him, but the privacy screen was up between the back seat and the front, so I couldn't even see the driver. So much for silently pleading for his help with my eyes in the rear view mirror. Don sat next to me in the back seat, the gun trained on me, and I tried to plaster myself to the door, keeping as much distance between us as possible.

  Now the silence between us was tense as we headed north. I watched the residential streets change and morph from the grand houses of Malcolm's neighborhood into more staid apartments. We crossed the river into the Bronx and I gritted my teeth. The further we drove, the less chance I had to survive. I'd told the driver I'd be back in an hour. I'd burned only thirty minutes of that. By the time he realized something was wrong, I'd be dead.

  Industrial buildings began to creep into the landscape. Graffiti and run-down projects became the background floating past the window. My only consolation was that the sleek black car we were in was going to stick out like a sore thumb. Someone would definitely notice it. Not that that was going to do me much good... but maybe it would make Don nervous.

  We finally found the warehouse. It was a small, squat building painted yellow and covered in tags. It had its own industrial charm, but I was shocked all of Malcolm's stuff could fit into it. His house was huge. Then again, I wouldn't have put it past Malcolm to pick it precisely because of its certain gritty artistry. Rich people love that shit.

  I wondered if I'd have a chance to make a break for it when we got out of the car, but my door was locked from the inside, and I had to slide across the seat after Don to get out. He never let the gun waver from my body, though he kept it concealed in his coat at all times.

  “Walk,” he commanded me.

  I bit my lip, shoving my hands in my hoodie, and walked. I didn't see very many other people, and they were all minding their own business. If I screamed for help, would he shoot me? It didn't seem likely, but then again he was a rich white man and I was... well, I was me. I was white, but not rich, and I was dressed in my poor clothes. If he shot me, there'd probably be reasonable doubt. Someone would think I looked just suspicious enough, that the light was gray enough, that I'd been just threatening enough to let him off the hook. It dawned on me that if he shot me in the warehouse, he would claim he found me here, stealing Malcolm's shit.

  People would believe it, too.

  If it had been possible, I would have hated Don Cardall even more with that realization.

  He nudged me up to the garage entry. There was a keypad next to it and he gestured toward it.

  “You put in the code,” he said.

  Getting my fingerprints on it, I thought. I input the numbers he rattled off, and the deep click of the door unlocking indicated that the combination had been correct.

  “Open it,” he commanded me.

  I shot him a glare. Just to fuck with him, I pretended to struggle with it. I'm just a dumb girl, I thought at him, hoping to beam it psychically into his brain. I'm so weak. Now hurry up and make a mistake, you ass. After much theatrical grunting I finally slide the door open and we stepped inside. Don turned on the overhead lights and closed the door after us.

  The warehouse spread out in front of me, ugly and stark in the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. All boxed up and arranged by type, Malcolm's amalgam of junk and treasure seemed a lot smaller than it had in his house. Again I was reminded of the things someone leaves behind after they die, and a weird sadness swept through me, cutting into the low-grade hum of adrenaline in my veins.

  If I died here, my worldly effects would barely fill a closet. My friends would barely fill three pews. I worked too hard, was too bitter, burned too many bridges. A lump rose in my throat.

  Stupid emotions, I thought to myself. Don't need you messing things up right now, thanks.

  “Where are the files?” Don's voice behind me cut through my self-pitying melancholia. I had to think fast.

  “I'm... I'm not sure,” I said. “He didn't actually tell me where, exactly...”

  “Oh? If you aren't going to be of help to me then I'm afraid you won't be earning that one million dollars.” The rustle of his hand drawing out of his coat, exposing his gun, sent a bolt of fear through me.

  “No!” I said. “I kind of know where they are.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Well?”

  I turned around and looked him in the eye. I wanted to make myself as human as possible to him, but the person that peered back at me was cold and hard as a reptile. “It's... I think they're hidden in or on one of his statues.”

  I was gambling here. I had no idea if he had any statues. I'd only seen the bust by the student of Rodin, but I was willing to bet he had more.

 
My gamble paid off. An expression of exasperation passed over Don's face. “Damn,” he said. “I don't suppose you'd know which statue in particular?”

  I tried to look contrite and shook my head.

  He sighed and checked his watch. “Fine,” he said. “If you do not know where they are, you must find them, and do so in the next quarter hour, or I will shoot you.”

  “What?” I cried. “That's not fair! I have no idea where they are!” I gestured at the boxes around me. “How the fuck am I supposed to find them in all... all this in fifteen minutes?”

  He shrugged. “The clock is ticking, Miss MacElroy. I suggest you hurry.”

  Enraged, I whirled away from him, my mind racing. If I'd been hired to move a crazy rich guy's stuff, what would I do? I'd label everything for starters, and I'd organize it in the warehouse. But would the movers hired have done that? There was only one way to find out.

  Hands sweating, heart pounding, I darted away from Don. I heard him curse behind me as he made haste to follow, and I silently swore that the warehouse wasn't as terribly cluttered as Malcolm's house had been. I could have hidden, maybe... except there was only one way out. I decided to ignore what-ifs and could-have-beens for the moment and concentrate on forming a plan.

  The harsh lights overhead gave the whole warehouse a weird, surreal quality. My orientation was thrown off and I found myself bumping into things as my panicked thoughts chased each other in and out of the labyrinths in my head. I jogged on, through the mountains of boxes and furniture, clipping corners with my hip, scraping my arm over rolled up rugs. My anxious eyes swept over the packages surrounding us, some piled high and neat, others lumped together haphazardly. The only saving grace was that each one was labeled quite clearly, and I found that there was a sort of order as I scurried between the groups while Don, larger and more ungainly than me, squeezed through the narrow aisles.

  Here were the Dolls (Living Room) and there were the Accordians (Library). Collectibles. My hands floated out from my sides, brushing over the scratchy cardboard as I searched for the art section. I passed through a maze of bookcases, then through their neatly organized guts (fiction, fiction, atlases, history...) Large squares wrapped in brown paper—paintings, the descriptions of each floating across the surface of the paper like a pale ghost of the image inside—told me I was getting warmer. I shuffled through the phantom gallery, squeezing between Fox Hunt and Nude Homosexual Couple, making a beeline for the huge, shapeless lumps wrapped in paper and bubble wrap. Those would be the sculptures.

  The chilly air caressed my cheeks as I stopped, breathing hard with fear and adrenaline. I heard Don behind me, his fine shoes scraping over the dirty concrete, and I hoped they had become scuffed to hell and back. As I had thought, Malcolm had quite a few sculptures, but not as many as I had feared. Good. I just... just had to figure out what I was going to do now...

  I stepped forward and dug my fingers into the tight wrapping of one large lump. My fingernails tore at the plastic and tape as behind me Don caught his breath and said, “Ten minutes.”

  Fuck you, I thought. What was I going to do? I tugged and swore until the wrapping had fallen away completely and I ran my hands over a large, abstract sculpture made of welded bits of farm equipment. Rusty corners caught my numb flesh, and I gritted my teeth. Was there something here I could use as a weapon? How would I even get close enough to use it?

  “Shit!” I said. Tears gathered at the corner of my eyes.

  “Eight minutes.”

  I whirled around, breathing hard. So many sculptures, and I had no idea what to do with them. I'd bought all the time I could...

  I reached for another one, hoping it would give me some kind of inspiration, but the packaging came away easily, revealing a ceramic vase painted with naked ladies. I looked inside it, for appearances, but of course there was nothing in it. The thumb drive between my legs poked and prodded me awkwardly. I moved on, ripping wrapping from sculptures and curios, sticking my hands through the gaps, making a show of looking, my mind racing. If I were a shithead, I thought giddily, despairingly, what would I be thinking right now?

  I'd probably be enjoying my frustration... but I'd be frustrated myself. Without knowing where that evidence had gone, I would be forever looking over my shoulder, forever wondering when I would be caught out.

  My hands mechanically ripped away the plastic covering another sculpture, and my breath caught.

  The Rodin.

  I'd thought it was by a student of Rodin when I'd first seen it, but now, close up, my hands actually on it, I realized it was the work of the master himself, and my lungs hitched as I had a tiny, artistic orgasm that had nothing to do with the circumstances I currently found myself in.

  It wasn't beautiful. In fact, it was pretty weird looking, a bust of an old man all pushed and pulled and warped until the weariness of the world rolled off it, but that was the mark of Rodin. The celebration of the real, of the run down, of the tired and beaten. I loved it. It spoke to me, and for a tiny split second the world ground to a halt. The cold air fell away, the high, tight panic in my chest withdrew, the noise of the street outside and Don's impatient sighs faded as I took a tiny moment to enjoy this piece that I'd admired since I'd first seen it.

  A ghost of a thought grazed against my brain. Malcolm saw something in me like I saw something in this sculpture. Something strong. Beautiful despite its flaws. Or maybe because of its flaws.

  Something expressive.

  And heavy, I thought. It wasn't the traditional bronze of a Rodin, but it was plaster. God. I didn't want to do this. I really didn't. I had to, though.

  I'd found the bust sitting on the ground, so I hunched my body around it as I tore the paper and bubble wrap away. I gasped, feigning surprise, and behind me Don's shoes ground over the concrete as he stood up straighter and took notice.

  I ran my fingers over the sculpture. “I...” I hesitated. “I think I found something. It's here, I think.” I remembered then how I'd grunted and acted weak as I'd lifted the door, and I did so again. A great groan burst out of me as I struggled to lift the plaster sculpture. My baggy artist's clothes made me look smaller than I was, and I stopped trying to lift it, breathing hard, though it was from fear more than effort. “Help me,” I panted. “I think there's something under it.”

  The footsteps behind me were hurried, and my stomach drew tighter and harder. He was buying it, but there was no joy in me about that. Not yet. I was so close. My hands were slippery on the plaster, and I frantically wiped them on my jeans. I'd need a strong grip when the time came.

  “What's wrong?” he said. He was only a few steps behind me. I felt the oppressive presence of the gun like a weight in the world.

  I licked my lips. “I need you to help me lift it,” I said.

  He laughed. “You must think I'm stupid if you think I'm going to put down this gun.”

  “But I only have five minutes,” I replied. My voice was starting to shake. If I didn't get him at least close to me, I was fucking dead.

  “Try again. Just shove it over if you have to.”

  Real outrage surged through me. “No! This is a Rodin, it's priceless. It'll break if I push it over.”

  He sighed, but it was impatient. “Here,” he said, reaching down for the head with one huge hand, and there, peeking from the sleeve of his jacket, was a small shiny scar, the size of a cigarette.

  Time stopped and I stared at that wrist.

  Scarred, just like me.

  This man, I remembered. He's just like me. Abused. Knocked around. The world had failed him, too. But I would never kill anyone for any amount of money. Why would he?

  And then, gently, the question turned on its head.

  Why wouldn't I?

  I didn't have to be good. He didn't have to be bad. And yet here we were. Was that part of what Malcolm saw in me, the alternate path Don could have taken? Where the wounds turned rage inward instead of outward? Where the disappointment and the fear and the sadne
ss came out in stunted art and a bitter tongue rather than ruthlessness and cruelty?

  And then I had no more time to think about it, because his hand was almost on the sculpture, and I thought to myself: What the fuck does it matter?

  It didn't.

  So I brained him with the Rodin.

  I heaved. I was not weak like he thought I was, and the plaster lifted from the floor with just enough effort to give it a deadly heft. He tried to back away, but his greed for the evidence had unbalanced him. He was leaning forward, couldn't correct his course in time. The bust swung up and out at the end of my arms, flew gracefully through the air in a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing arc, and slammed into Don's head with a crunch that sounded like the singing of avenging angels.

  I'm not a poet, I'm a painter. But it was art.

  Then the statue cracked in two, and the gun went off.

  White hot pain speared through my side. I couldn't breathe. The lights shone in my eyes, searing hot. The ceiling, I realized.

  I was on the ground, on my back. In slow motion I lifted my head. Don laid across my crumpled lower body, groaning. A dent in his skull was filling with blood. The stench of copper hung around us.

  I've been shot, I thought.

  Then: Get up.

  A heavy weight lay on my chest and shoulder. A piece of the Rodin. For some reason I felt its loss far more than the bullet in my side. With a limp hand I shoved it off me, onto the ground, and I heard it chip. Teeth clenched, pain ripping through me like wildfire, I rolled over, dragging my legs from beneath Don's body. Something shone in front of me, and I squinted, trying to see clearly.

  The gun.

  I lunged for it, but something was off. My balance. My brain. I couldn't think straight, couldn't see straight. At my feet I heard Don gasp, realizing what I was doing, and without thinking I kicked out, sharp and hard. Another crunch, and he howled with pain and collapsed to the ground. One last lunge and the gun was in my hand.

  It felt good. A heavy, solid weight. Safety. Vengeance. I could kill Don right now, if I wanted to.

  I heaved myself to my feet instead.

  Agony engulfed me. I couldn't feel myself think. I pressed my left hand to my side, trying to staunch the flow of blood with the thick fabric of my hoodie, but there was a lot of it. Sticky, hot, but rapidly cooling. The skin of my face was clammy, cold, wet. I stumbled forward, the gun in my right hand, and crashed through the discarded debris of Malcolm's life.