Kwik Krimes
Page 26
And now he was to have it appraised on Antiques Roadshow. He’d done his homework: the signature on the painting belonged to a Russian émigré, French trained, who lived in Brighton Beach and painted on Long Island in the 1900s, known for his depictions of yachts. One of the artist’s pieces had sold at Sotheby’s for $25,000 several years before, but that was the only auction sale he could find on the Internet. His grandmother’s family were Russian émigrés in Coney Island about this same period, could easily have known the artist. Nothing but scoundrels and thieves, Noni always called her family, which she’d escaped after a mysterious incident she would not discuss; but he always considered it possible the painting was traded for some good or service rendered long ago in the slums of Brooklyn.
He waited for hours until he finally got to the table for American Impressionism, less grand than he’d imagined, in the far back corner of the coliseum. But the appraiser was Lesley St. Clair, one of his favorites, a lively, intelligent brunette with a Brahmin accent. Not as renowned as Nigel Higginbotham, the Scottish appraiser from Christie’s, famous for his accent, but feistier, more thorough in her research.
“What have we got here?” St. Clair said with a clipped smile. “Mhhmmmm.” She took the piece from him carefully and placed it on an easel for examination. “Interesting,” she said, studying the signature. “You’re familiar with the artist?”
“I believe the signature is Vladimir Roikoff,” he responded. “I think he was an associate of my great-grandfather.”
She smiled knowingly. “I believe you’re right. Certainly in his style, and the signature looks good. I think I recognize the flag. New York Yacht Club, I believe.”
She asked him a few more questions about his relationship to the piece, how he came to acquire it, then excused herself to consult the computer. He tried to contain himself while she was gone. This was as good as he could have possibly imagined. Better. He could finally pay off his credit card and get Donna that surgery she wanted.
But St. Clair was huddled over her computer, typing furiously. Then she made a call on her cell phone. Something was wrong; maybe the painting was a fake. Impossible to believe, really, the way the gold washed over the angry waves, the luminosity of the lightning on the far horizon. But these things happened all the time, and deep down, he always wondered how his grandmother had come to possess such a fantastic piece of art.
St. Clair put down her phone and came back to the easel, her smile more clipped now. “Well, I know you have a long history with this piece, with the connection to your grandmother,” she said in what now seemed like a television persona. “The good news is that the painting is absolutely authentic, a fine example of Roikoff’s work. One of his most famous pieces, in fact. Its value is estimated at more than two hundred thousand dollars.”
He forced himself to smile. His mind was a blur. The news was fantastic, a miracle, yet this created new complications. He would have to cut Anthony in now, no question about that, and maybe he and Donna should separate for a while, see how things go after he gets the money. But despite his rehearsed response, despite watching others a million times before, he expressed only the most obvious. “Are you kidding me?”
She nodded enthusiastically, happy to be sharing with him in this moment of revelation. Expensive art was thrilling. Everyone knew that, Lesley St. Clair most of all. But her demeanor saddened as she took him by the arm. “Unfortunately, I’m sorry to tell you this painting was stolen from the New York Yacht Club in 1916. Under US and international law, the piece must be returned to them. There are some gentlemen from the FBI on their way here to see you. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.”
Security men in blue blazers approached him from behind. He thought about his grandmother’s last words. The ghosts! Russian ghosts, scoundrels and thieves. His grandmother had escaped them somehow with the painting. In that moment, he glimpsed the untold story of her life, something dark and mysterious at the heart of it. He turned toward the men, resisting the impulse to snatch the painting and run. His grandmother’s haunting may be over, he realized, but his had just begun.
Andrew Waters works for a nonprofit land trust in Salisbury, North Carolina. His short fiction has been published in The Bad Version, Pembroke Magazine, and The North Carolina Literary Review. His flash fiction has appeared online at Every Day Fiction, Grift Magazine, Yellow Mama, Flash Jab Fiction, Black Heart Magazine, and others.
HELL’S BELLE
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Jim Wilsky
Luke comes roaring down the dark lane like Dale Earnhardt Jr. after a quick pit at Daytona. He bangs through and over an old cow gate without even thinking about the brakes. Sneaking a look in the rearview mirror, he sees nothing but swirling dust.
The high weeds are lit up by the bouncing headlights and they blur by. A tilted mailbox up ahead signals a blacktop country road coming up fast. Downshifting now, cranking hard to the right, he fishtails onto the main road. Loses it to the left, gets it back, and then flirts with the ditch on the right.
Winding out second gear, he grinds it into third and stands on the gas pedal. The dark road ahead is arrow straight. The land is flat as grandma’s pancakes, lit only by a crescent moon in a cloudless sky. Spider’s truck is shivering and shaking, but he coaxes it up around sixty.
He’s beat all to shit. Bruised bad from being clubbed. Bleeding from all the cuts she did, and the deep gash at the hairline is the worst. Flowing blood keeps getting in his eyes. Swiping at it with his forearm, he shouts out in pain. He’s got to have some busted ribs. His breathing is ragged, wet. The only thing he’s wearing is jeans, and those are soaked in blood.
His Katy is gone. They’d messed with him plenty but made sure he stayed conscious to see what they were doing to her. He wasn’t sure how long this shit had been going on, his head wasn’t right, time was screwed up. Could have been two days down in that dank-ass storm cellar. Maybe three. They tried to make it last. Make her last.
Spider had been bad enough, but Alex, his crazy-bitch girlfriend, was the one he feared most. She looked like a homecoming queen and had a smile that would melt you, but the girl was the devil’s own. The things she’d done. The chants and language he couldn’t understand. Her dancing eyes. He could still hear the echo of her deep, husky laugh.
He looks in the rearview again. Nothing but darkness and the single pole light at the old farmhouse. Spider has to be dead. He’d caved his head in with a spade, took his keys, and split. Alex though, he didn’t know where she was.
The engine coughs, pauses, coughs again, and finally roars on. He’s still doing fifty, but his eyes click over to the temp gauge. He’s blown a hose or some fucking thing. Ten seconds later and the old Silverado sputters out for good. It rolls to a smoking stop only about a mile and a half away from hell.
Luke falls out of the truck as much as he steps out and doubles over after a lightning bolt in his ribs. He stands bent over, weaving in the middle of the road.
It’s around ten miles to town. He’ll never make it, but hey. He starts down the road with a painful shuffle, as fast he can go without falling down or passing out. Clearing the fading arc of headlights, he just keeps gimping along in the dark.
Then he hears it. Way off. Not a scream, more like a whoop.
There it is again.
Like a goddamn war cry.
He veers like a drunk over to the shallow ditch and goes down to a knee, looking back toward the truck. He’ll go into the corn rows if he has to.
Time stops.
Then the truck taillights light her up in red. An Olympic track star. At least that’s what Alex looks like as she comes busting ass down that blacktop. Really pickin’ ’em up and puttin’ ’em down.
Slowing to a trot at the truck, she stops dead just past it. Short-short cutoffs, tennis shoes, and an old ZZ Top T-shirt. She has that large butcher knife, and it reflects a quick sliver of light. She doesn’t move.
The crickets and night bugs dr
one on.
Finally in the dying headlights, her head swivels slowly up the road. She looks right at where he’s hunkered down. He swears he sees that gleaming homecoming smile.
He struggles toward the corn with clenched teeth.
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN SHOTGUN HONEY.
Jim Wilsky was born and raised in the Midwest. His debut novel, a crime fiction work titled Blood on Blood, was released in August 2012; it is the first of a three-book series. He has also had short stories featured in some of the most highly respected online magazines such as Beat to a Pulp, Yellow Mama, Shotgun Honey, Rose & Thorn Journal, All Due Respect, Pulp Metal, and Mysterical-E.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
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Otto Penzler is a renowned mystery author, editor, publisher, columnist, and bookstore owner. His love for mystery stories inspired him to establish the Mysterious Press, which published only crime and mystery, and eventually led him to found the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Today, the Mysterious Bookshop is known as the oldest and largest bookstores solely dedicated to mystery novels.
Penzler’s award-winning career includes fourteen years of service on the board of directors for the Mystery Writers of America, and he is the recipient of two Edgar Allen Poe Awards, an Ellery Queen Award, and a Raven Award, among others. To date, he has edited more than fifty crime-fiction anthologies. He currently alternates between living in New York City and in Connecticut with his wife.