I walked to the hand-carved mahogany liquor cabinet in the living room and debated having a drink. Whiskey sounded really good. As I reached for a clean glass, an image of Samantha flashed through my head, followed by a picture of my mom walking out the front door of my parents’ house for the last time.
After releasing a heavy sigh, I set down the glass and decided to go for a jog up the hill to my grandad’s bench instead. I always loved sitting up there and enjoyed the view. It was meditative and exactly what I needed to relax.
I changed to running clothes and walked out the front door of the house, ready to get my blood pumping.
A black Mercedes convertible whipped off the street and drove up my driveway.
Tiffany.
Great.
Her dad was in the car with her.
Even worse.
The shining car rolled to a stop right in front of me. Tiffany was all smiles, “Hey Christos.”
“Hey, Tiffany,” I sighed. “Hey, Mr. Kingston-Whitehouse.” I hated calling him that. I think he liked that I, and probably everyone else who knew him, hated calling him that. His first name was hyphenated too. Westin-Conrad. No shit. All those syllables. It took two weeks just to say the guy’s damn name. Westin-Conrad Kingston-Whitehouse the Filth.
Filthy, as in dirty.
For short, I thought of him as Wes-Con.
The only difference between Wes-Con and your average street criminal was the expensive team of lawyers he kept on retainer. Fucking nouveau American Royalty.
Anyway, I knew for a fact Wes-Con never drove himself anywhere. He always had a chauffeur. But Tiffany loved to drive, so I’m sure she’d offered to take the wheel for Dear Old Dad.
Wes-Con would do anything for Daddy’s little girl.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked while opening Tiffany’s door for her. Like I said, it was a gentleman thing.
She was all tan legs and about an inch of skirt. Her pastel top was equally minimalistic, showcasing more of her lusciously tan shoulders and delicate neckline.
Tiffany gave me her hand, like she couldn’t stand up without my help. I indulged. It was easier than making an issue out of it. She stood and I closed the door.
Wes-Con gave me a wide-eyed look when I didn’t dash around to open his door, like he was stuck inside Tiff’s convertible. He could get out of his own damn car. Believe it or not, he unbuckled his own seatbelt, but he fumbled with the door handle, like he’d forgotten how door handles worked from lack of practice, before climbing out of the car. He played off his ignorance like it was normal.
He wore standard-issue Martha’s Vineyard golfer’s attire. Had nobody told him this was San Diego?
“Christos,” he said, walking around the car, his hand already out and ready to do some greasing. Wes-Con shook firmly, and held my elbow with his other hand. It was this bizarre, upscale authoritarian thing, like he was saying, “you are now under my control.”
Okay.
“Good to see you, young man,” he said.
I smiled at him. “Likewise. Come inside. Can I offer you two something to drink?” I knew how to play the game too.
“That would be fantastic,” Wes-Con said.
I could tell Tiffany was deferring to her dad. That definitely meant they’d strategized in advance. I remembered reading somewhere that you should never fight a war on two fronts. It had fucked Napoleon, and it had fucked the Germans in World War II. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to fare much better with two Kingston-Whitehouses going for my throat.
Oh well, into the lion’s den. At least it was my den. I led them into the Manos house.
“How is Spiridon?” Wes-Con asked.
“He’s doing good,” I nodded.
“Is he painting again?”
“Not really. I think he’s retired.”
“It’s a damn shame,” Wes-Con said. “Your grandfather is a living legend in the world of landscape paintings.”
Although I wished that was a simple compliment well-earned by my grandfather, I sensed it was merely an opening stratagem. Set your opponent at ease. When their defenses are down, attack with great force. I think Sun Tzu or somebody said that.
I walked over to the liquor cabinet in the living room. I guess I wasn’t getting away from it as easily as I’d hoped. “What can I get you to drink?”
Unlike most people, for whom that meant water or iced tea or soda, for Wes-Con, it only meant liquor. The harder the better. I could respect that.
“Do you have any scotch?” Wes-Con asked.
“Of course.” I poured two glasses of thirty-year-old Glenfiddich single-malt, neat. I knew for Wes-Con, this was the cheap stuff. He could deal. “You want one, Tiff?”
“No, thanks. Do you have any Zima?”
“Fresh out,” I quipped. Nobody drank that shit anymore.
“Never mind,” she snooted.
I handed Wes-Con his glass and we clinked before swallowing.
“Excellent,” Wes-Con said.
It should be, at five-hundred a bottle.
“Tiffany tells me there’s been a problem with her painting?”
He didn’t waste any time. Down to business. I smiled. “Yeah, something about a missing check?” I believed in hitting hard and hitting first.
“I can write you a check right now, from my personal account, if you’d like.” Wes-Con pulled a checkbook out of his blazer and started writing with a thousand-dollar gold pen. I knew Wes-Con was like a samurai warrior with that checkbook of his. Once he took it out, he meant to use it. “I believe the amount was $25,000?”
I knew his check would clear. That was never the issue. We both knew it. Wes-Con just liked to hold onto his money until you showed up outside his front door in the middle of the night with the pitchforks and torches and the rest of the indentured servants. Then he made nice, handed you thirty pieces of silver, threw you some table scraps, and told everyone not to come back until they’d been deloused.
He could keep his bribe.
“Oh, that’s not necessary, Mr. Kingston-Whitehouse,” I said smoothly.
“Nonsense, young man. I can’t very well expect you to do work and not get paid.”
Yes he could, and did.
He tore the check from the check book and handed it to me. Mother fucker. He was good. But he made one crucial mistake. He was trying to buy me for his daughter. And we both knew it.
Problem was, I was not for sale. Especially when it came to the Kingston-Whitehouses.
Wes-Con held the check out to me expectantly. It hovered between us like a victory flag. He was acting like he was Neil Fucking Armstrong about to plant that shit on the moon.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kingston-Whitehouse. I can’t take your money. It’s the principle of it. Think of my painting as a personal gift from me to your daughter. A token for all our years of friendship, and the friendship between our two families.” My shit-shovel was moving a hundred miles an hour. “It looks splendid hanging in your yacht, by the way.”
Wes-Con drilled my eyes with his. “I insist.” It was all he said.
He could drill all he wanted. He wasn’t going to strike oil with me. “I couldn’t.”
The check hovered. Wes-Con’s hand twitched imperceptibly.
I wasn’t going to grab it, and I knew he wouldn’t let it fall to the floor. Mainly out of respect, partially, because I don’t think he could stomach the idea of letting his money touch the ground, like some miscreant would rush out from beneath the couch, snatch it up, and run to the bank with it.
More importantly, he would never deign to simply set it down and say something like, “I’ll leave it on the counter,” or whatever. Because he wanted me to take it. If I took it, we both knew it meant he owned a piece of me.
No dice.
He tucked the check into his blazer. But the checkbook was still out. He wanted blood. “No matter,” he grinned like a lizard, “I would also like to discuss the manner of an additional painting for Tiffany.”
I shot Tiffany a warning glare. She and I had already been through this.
She opened her mouth to speak but clamped it shut when she saw me glaring.
After a moment, I chuckled. “Tiffany and I discussed this on your yacht, Mr. Kingston-Whitehouse. On New Year's Eve. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?”
“We did,” she smiled viciously, “and—”
I cut her off. “And the answer is still no.” I was standing firm. No nude painting of Tiffany.
Wes-Con’s Cheshire grin came out. The trouble with perfect teeth, and I meant the kind that cost north of a hundred grand, was that they were too perfect. Like he had two-times too many of them or something.
“What’s your price, Christos?” Wes-Con smiled.
What I always loved about a good fight was that there’s not always a definitive moment when the tables turned. Sometimes, the superior fighter just wore his opponent down inch by inch.
I shook my head.
Wes-Con’s smile cranked up another kilowatt, “I believe Tiffany had discussed with you the figure of fifty thousand cash, direct to you.”
I shook my head.
“One hundred thousand.”
I was going to string this out.
A knockout fight where the loser dropped to the mat in the first round was always a big thrill, but it was never as sweet as when two heavyweights went head-to-head all the way to the twelfth, pounding the shit out of each other until the loser finally went to his knee in the last minute of the fight, down but not out, struggling to get back up before the final bell. Both fighters would be all battered and bloody afterward, and you knew both contenders were the meanest sons of bitches on the planet.
But one of them was meaner.
That guy was me.
I flashed a thin grin at Wes-Con, toying with him, pushing to see if he would stay standing all the way to the bell.
Wes-Con wasn’t throwing in the towel. His smile stretched a little wider. “One-fifty.”
I could respect that, but I shook my head. It wasn’t the twelfth.
Wes-Con’s smile went all the way. “Two.”
This time I didn’t shake my head.
Just when I thought Wes-Con’s smile couldn’t go any wider, it stretched another half-millimeter. His cheeks quivered. I think he was cramping up. “Two-fifty.”
I stood my ground. I wasn’t for sale to anybody, no matter how much I needed the money.
His eyes twitched. Wes-Con was about to go DefCon. I saw a single drop of sweat on the corner of his forehead. That was his towel going into the ring. But it wasn’t even the twelfth round. I’d thought Wes-Con had way more cash than that, especially when it came to his daughter. Guess not.
They say that every man had his price.
I didn’t. Not when my love for Samantha was on the line.
The battle won, I said casually, “Would you guys like to see the new work?” Meaning, a sneak-peek at my unveiled, upcoming paintings. You always wanted to offer them a token gift after you ransacked their shit. A gift that said, “Hey, your ass has been kicked, but it doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”
“I think we better be going,” Wes-Con said, sliding his checkbook back into his blazer, where it joined the useless check for $25,000. Had there been any samurai warriors on hand, they would’ve broken that gold pen of his on principle.
I was merciful. His pen would remain intact.
“Daddy!!” Tiffany shrieked with anger. “You promised me that painting!!!!”
You know how they say behind every powerful king is a powerful queen? Sometimes all you needed was a princess. They were the worst.
“No, Tiffany,” I said.
Unfortunately for Tiffany, Wes-Con had just become my vassal on this issue. At least she still had her yacht to go cry on. Or she could make Wes-Con buy her something for a couple-hundred grand.
“Daddy!!” she screeched. “I want my painting!!!!”
I shook my head. She was still referring to it as hers. Her entitlement was legendary.
Westin-Conrad Kingston-Whitehouse flicked his eyes at his daughter briefly, then gave me a plaintive, horrified look. I think it was meant to be a private moment between us men.
I actually felt bad for the guy.
I showed them the door and offered them waters for the road. Both declined. Maybe I should’ve offered Wes-Con some earplugs. Poor guy.
When they were long gone, I returned to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a fat glass of the cheap stuff and pounded half of it in one go.
I walked out to the studio and looked at my nearly-completed painting of Isabella. I was not liking what I saw. It was verging on hack work. The problem with showing hack work was that if you did too much of it, no one wanted to pay a premium price for your art anymore. Not long after that, nobody wanted your art at all. We’re talking garage sales and thrift store pricing.
I sighed heavily.
Maybe I was rushing the painting because Brandon was calling every day asking about my status. I had a backlog of paintings to get through for the show. Maybe I could spend more time on the Isabella canvas, turn it into something special.
Or not.
As of yet, no pre-sale money had come in. Brandon had said something about building anticipation to push the prices up before closing any sales. That meant no more money for your’s truly until after the show, which was likely to be months away.
Russell Merriweather’s invoice for services rendered would have to wait, but I could only string him along based on our friendship for so long before I looked like a bum. Russell had bills of his own to pay.
With my trial date breathing down my neck, I wondered how much painting I would get done if I landed in jail. I’m sure the corrections officers would be more than happy to set up a private studio in my cell.
Yeah, right.
With storm clouds hovering over my financial horizon and shit closing in around me from multiple directions, Wes-Con’s $250,000 was money I could’ve used.
But there was no way I was selling out Samantha for any amount.
I tipped back my glass of whisky and downed the rest of it before walking back to the liquor cabinet for more.
Maybe there was an escape hatch from this mess I wasn’t seeing yet.
There was always a way out of any dilemma, even if it was the most drastic one.
SAMANTHA
When I got my mid-term grade for History that day, it turned out I was bombing the class worse than I’d thought. My overall grade was now hovering around a C-minus. The last thing I wanted was a D on my transcript.
Fortunately, I had paid Major Marjorie another visit in her office hours and she had confirmed that my grade would now most certainly be a B, if not higher. That worked for me.
But a D in History? Even I wouldn’t be happy with that. My parents, of course, would put out a contract on my life if they found out I got a D. Knowing my mom, should probably put one out on Christos, too.
Hell to pay…
I needed to start hitting the books twice as hard. I don’t know where I was going to find the time. The only answer was less sleep. Even though I’d agreed to move in with him, Christos and I really hadn’t been spending much time together lately, even when it came to working together in his studio. We were both simply too busy. It was a total drag.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have a shift at either the museum or Grab-n-Dash today. I was free to focus my entire afternoon and evening on the political exploits and daring deeds of the American Presidents. Yipee! Not.
But I was morbidly surprised to discover that many past American Presidents were far from nice people. Many had been involved in all kinds of back-door nastiness. I mean, I’d heard that Abraham Lincoln had secretly hunted vampires, but I didn’t know that some of the previous presidents had been vampires. Seriously. I read it on the internet somewhere.
Groan.
The truth was, I doing anything I could think of to make my reading more inte
resting for myself, but I kept imagining political cartoons of everything I read, which wasn’t actually helping my comprehension and retention.
Maybe I needed some ice cream? I was convinced it helped me remember things better. I stood up to go raid my freezer.
My cell phone rang.
My first thought was that it was Christos calling to tell me not to get any ice cream and that he was coming over to cook me dinner. The idea made me smile.
Then I saw it was parents.
There went my smile.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Sam,” my dad said.
“Hello, Sam,” Mom said.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I asked sarcastically.
“Your mother and I were calling to find out if you had registered for Spring Quarter classes yet?”
Registration was just around the corner.
“Not yet,” I sighed.
“Well, I wanted to be the first to break the good news,” my dad said.
“What’s that?” I asked, pretty sure my parents’ idea of good news didn’t match up with mine.
“I noticed in the online schedule of classes that Managerial Accounting is indeed offered Spring Quarter. Isn’t that terrific, Sam?”
Wow, my parents were totally stalking me. I rolled my eyes to myself. They were so not getting me.
“Now you can change your major back and continue with your Accounting classes without falling behind,” Dad said with a smile.
I steeled myself. It was time to put this issue to bed once and for all, even if it killed me. “I’m not changing my major.”
“And why, pray tell, are you not?” my mom asked snidely.
“Because I don’t want to?” I sneered.
“I told you, Bill,” my mom growled, “it’s that Christos. He’s putting all these silly ideas in our daughter’s head.”
“No, Mom,” I said confidently, “if you remember, art was my idea. Remember you guys said I couldn’t go to art school because it was too expensive? Well, SDU isn’t too expensive, and it turns out the university has a great art program. For the same price as an Accounting major.”
“We’re not throwing away good money on an art education!” my mom scoffed.
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