She stuffed the cash into her jeans and handed me a sheaf of papers held together by a large metal clip (its shape reminded me of one I'd used on Gloria). Printed on it were several small pictures of paintings she'd presumably done.
"Take this and pick out a pose you want," she said. "I'll see you Monday morning, Mr. Stone. What do you want me to do with this?" she asked holding up the damaged drawing.
"Have it repaired," I said as I handed over a thousand dollars, I knew she'd take it. It was for her one lucky day (and I was cashless). "I'll see you Monday morning, Miss Hampstead." I stared at her, bemused that for some inexplicable reason I was rather impressed by the stuck up little chick. Maybe it was those purple eyes. Go figure.
I turned and left, hoping she'd heard how she'd gone from a Ms. to a Miss.
Chapter Two
Jaesha
What a friggin' ass. The rich guys always were. But he wasn't cheap, I had to give him that, they're usually asses and cheap. He looked almost thirty, tanned, healthy, confident, and I had to admit he was one tall good looking man with his thick deep brown hair and that chiseled face male models go to surgeons for. His physique was solid, pure alpha male, the kind of body women drool over and I wasn't immune, I can drool with the best of 'em. But darn I'd wished I'd doubled my price, he probably would've paid, but I just can't do things like that even to people like him.
He'd sauntered into my studio with that demolished portrait (oh score one for you, lady!) just assuming I'd drop everything and fix it when it wasn't even any good, just a piece of crap really. Well a piece of crap that had paid a month's rent. And if the guy had stared at my butt any harder he would've scorched my jeans. But wow I had fifteen hundred bucks cash in my pocket and I raced next door to Abdul's to pay next month's rent while I still had it, then buy the canvas (the good stuff!) and then even put some to my student loans which were sadly behind.
It was Abdul's son, Ahmed, who squirmed out from underneath a decrepit old Chevy.
"So who was the Porsche?" Ahmed grinned. "He buy anything?"
"Thirty-five hundred dollars worth!" I cooed.
"Way to go, Jaesha!" he said with his rowdy, infectious laugh. "Heh Dad! Jaesha just landed a big one!"
Abdul appeared from his tiny office wiping his hands with a grimy cloth.
"You get paid anything?" he asked eagerly. Abdul was practical, he had to be (with seven kids) and was interested in my money unlike his son Ahmed who was interested in me, but that of course was dead at the starting line.
"Next month's," I sang.
"I'll get the receipt book," he said, and I noticed Abdul was almost singing too.
*****
Screw. The building was twenty floors of steel and glass with a stone insignia outside that said STONE PLAZA. The guy wasn't rich, he was a zillionaire. And I'd worn my crappiest jeans, the ones I always chose last, just before I had no choice but to spring for the cash to do a load of laundry at the laundromat. The jeans were tight and had paint on them, I'd worn them all through college retiring them during my heady paycheck-every-week year long job at Henson's but I'd had to un-retire them after I'd fled that job but fast.
I stood in front of the ego-edifice of an office building not only having to go in, but having to go in and spend what I knew wouldn't be just a half hour with Mr. STONE PLAZA himself, more like an hour. Ah well.
I plunged onward finding (of course) a beautiful woman immaculately coiffed in that severe way ambitious women wear to achieve the illusion of expensively contrived perfection, sitting at a reception desk made of marble in a lobby made of marble filled with people all hustling in and out of (what else) burnished gold elevators.
"Hello," I said. "I'm Jaesha Hampstead, here to see Mr. Stone."
She hid the look of shock on her face too late as her eyes traveled over my paint stained jeans.
"Of course Miss Hampstead, he's expecting you. Twentieth floor, go straight up." She pointed to the elevators and for a brief moment I wondered if the Miss had been at his direction, ridiculous I knew. Guys like Kenneth Stone didn't waste their time deliberately ticking off people like Jaesha Hampstead. All he wanted was his portrait to hang amongst his other trophies (if he had a murdered animal on his wall I was going to puke) to over-establish his dominance and importance to us mere mortals. Still, he hadn't been cheap. I had a soft spot for generous people which was why I myself always seemed to be broke. I was an easy touch for the young kids in the neighborhood, especially the ones with the absent dads and pay-no-attention moms.
I rode the elevator up, it was a long ride. A few people got in, got out, but no one rode with me all the way up to the twentieth floor. The door opened and a polished, impeccably dressed woman about forty years old was standing there as the burnished gold elevator doors opened.
"Miss Hampstead?" she asked. Again with the Miss. "This way please, Mr. Stone is waiting for you. Can I help you with anything?"
I was lugging my easel under my arms with my canvas, pens and inks clutched in my hands.
"Thanks," I said, "I can manage."
She led me through the huge foyer (foyer!) and I had to admit the art on the walls was sumptuous, but then he could afford sumptuous. But the thing was it was also good taste sumptuous, the understated sheer quality kind. That doesn't come from money, it comes from a good eye and brains. He probably had an art purchaser. Thinking about it, I remembered that the woman who'd commissioned the ink drawing of him had seemed to know about art. Sort of anyway.
Secretary-greeter knocked on a door at the end, opened it, and even I had to gasp at the office within. It was beautiful. Cold but beautiful, in that clean, sweeping kind of way, everything melded together perfectly. Silver, beige, and an understated deep blue. Heaven. The only thing that stood out was an unexpected splash of color --a cobalt blue thick glass table that he was sitting behind, obviously what he used for a desk. My heartbeat picked up.
"Hello again, Miss Hampstead," Kenneth Stone said to me with a shadow of a smile or maybe a smirk. Miss. His clear translation? Subservient. He looked so sure of himself as he regarded me so avidly he made my scalp prickle. He was just such a powerful hunk of male-flesh sitting there in his dark blue, form-tailored jacket that simultaneously somehow accentuated and hid his muscles underneath, I couldn't wrench my eyes off him. Men's jackets like that are unnerving, they make you melt, I bet that's why men wear them, they know. But his voice had been a challenge to me and he was waiting.
"Mr. Stone," I said nervously, finally managing to glance about his office. The odd thing was that while I'd expected a décor of macho self-tribute, there were no adornments at all. There were large windows of course, but nothing else. Not even a wife's picture on his cobalt table-desk --now why on earth are you checking that out Jaesha, I asked myself guiltily knowing that I would also check out whether he had a wedding ring, like that would make any difference to me. Twenty-three years old, screwed only once in my life (but good), couldn't even remember it, and I'd long since accepted my self-enforced celibacy. I had my art. And I had the other thing too though I probably would've agreed to be a whore in an opium den to get rid of it. Oh Jaesha, get a grip.
"I like this," he grinned at me mischievously with a look contrived to make me feel like an employee, and for one moment I felt weak. Then I realized he was pointing to a pose in my album he'd selected. You did that deliberately.
"Go sit over there," I retaliated (it felt good) and I pointed to a chair by a window. He smiled ruefully but he obeyed.
"May I call you Ji-shaw?" he asked, his tone light and friendly but I heard the castigating quality in it.
"My name is pronounced Jay-sha and you can call me that only if I can call you Kenneth," I said flippantly as he struck his pose. Turn to stone, Stone! But ooo... that beautiful profile? God's gift to women. I gave myself a mental shake, there was no reason why he was getting to me so, I'd drawn the portraits of lots of handsome men, sheesh, they were the guys who hired me the most.
"You may," he said, his eyes twinkling and I figured, well, anything was better than Miss. I got the irritating feeling that he was enjoying every tedious minute of our repartee. "Now I won't disturb you, Jaesha," he assured me curtly, the utter sincerity of his voice precluding me from trusting one little bit of it, "but let me know when I tire you out." A joke that somehow I knew, wasn't.
After that he mostly just talked to his secretary Janelle, who kept walking in and out with messages that he gave her instructions for while I just wished he would shut the hell up. Something was showing in the drawing as it took advent under my fingers, something I couldn't identify, had never seen before. Something very commanding, very potent, kept appearing, and I didn't like it.
It scared me.
Chapter Three
Kenneth
I figured she wore those old stained jeans just to highlight how poor she was compared to how rich I was. Make me feel bad, probably give me some cockamamie story why she was going to have to increase her fee. But she didn't. Instead she just sketched but the further she got into it, the more she frowned.
"Problem?" I asked her.
"There's something... there," she said in obvious disapproval. "There's something dark about you [and by 'you' I realized she was referring to the sketched me, not the me sitting in front of her me] but I don't know what it is. I've never seen it before."
I had to smile, she was trying to interest me, intrigue me in the art process which really was rather nice of her.
"What does it look like? Does it have horns and a tail?"
She didn't respond, just stayed focused on the canvas.
"Not dark bad," she finally said, pale and motionless. "Dark powerful. But I've drawn powerful before, I know it, this is it but different, it's almost hungry."
Janelle walked in right on time and put iced tea down on a tray beside Jay-sha (I'd been corrected) as I'd told her to do, a signal to Jaesha to start wrapping things up.
"Do you like, herd cattle on the weekends or something, I keep wanting to draw a whip in your hand," Jaesha said dubiously.
Now that definitely caught my attention.
"Mr. Stone is an accomplished horseman," Janelle said, a rarity for her to speak about my personal life to a stranger but she was a horse fanatic who was enthralled with the stables I kept. "Perhaps a riding crop?"
"That's it," Jaesha said suddenly eyeing me quite doubtfully. "Not a whip, a riding crop."
Now I had never used a riding crop in my life, at least not on my horses. Maryanne yes, and Deidre maybe (it was hard to remember) though when I thought about it I remembered that I had briefly considered it on Gloria because she'd had such a tough time, but then it had been unnecessary. But it had been close. A riding crop, yes I'd forgotten about that. But how on earth had Jaesha picked up on it?
"I think we need to call it quits for now," I said tensely, and Jaesha only shrugged, gathered up her things and allowed Janelle to lead her from the room. She stepped outside and there was Sol, early of course for his big payday. Without warning Jaesha shrieked like a banshee and collapsed to the floor amidst a cascade of her art supplies as she gaped at Sol in total horror who simply stared back at her in disbelief. Jaesha's eyes were apoplectic, like they couldn't unfasten themselves from Sol. Janelle --and this is why I pay her the salary I do-- swooped in, seized Jaesha under her arms and pulled her through the foyer into a side conference room and smartly shut the door.
"What the heck was that?" Sol sputtered, agog.
Hell, damned if I knew. Women didn't freak out in my office, my home yes, regularly, but not the office. But a freaked out woman took priority over moneyman Sol any day of the week in my book, so I ushered him into my office and I dashed to the conference room. Janelle had Jaesha in a chair with a glass of water in her hand, Jaesha's face stark white.
"Go see to Sol," I ordered Janelle who left without comment, closing the door behind her. "Are you all right?"
"I'm sorry," Jaesha croaked.
"What happened? Do you know Sol?"
"That man?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"No. I don't... know him." She sipped her water and peeped up at me but I knew she was just trying to buy time, collect herself. She was really shaken. "He's..." she seemed to be struggling with whatever it was.
"Tell me."
"You'll laugh at me. You'll think I'm crazy."
"Maybe. But I happen to have an uncle who if he were here right now would undoubtedly tell you I'm overly familiar with crazy. What is it?"
"He's... a... screamer."
"A screamer?"
"Evil. Unscrupulous. I can feel it. People like that. You're going to give him money. He's ecstatic about it. Because he's a crook. It's not an investment, he's running a giant Ponzi scheme and he's proud of it. He's ripping people off right and left, pension funds, charities, and he's just using it to buy himself yachts and stuff. And he's thrilled he's about to screw you."
I was floored. Sol ran one of the biggest, most successful private investment hedge funds on the west coast, almost a billion dollars under management. And I was about to put in fifty million and nobody knew that except Sol and me.
*****
I was actually uncomfortable about seeing her again. I didn't have answers and I don't like not having answers.
I'd put Sol off (he'd actually raged at me) and hauled Joan in to do two things: an emergency forensic vetting on Sol's hedge fund, and, an emergency forensic vetting on my little artist, Jaesha Hampstead.
Three days later Joan shakily appeared in my office, rattled and wretched. By then I'd already guessed what she was going to say, I'd been deluged with emails and letters from Sol and his attorneys warning me to back off or else. All the signs were that Sol was indeed running one huge Ponzi scheme. Joan's investigation had found that papers Sol should have had on file at the SEC weren't there and that Sol had told investors he'd invested their money in companies and funds that either flat out didn't exist, or had stopped accepting new investment long ago.
It was all one big sham and I had almost fallen victim to it because my Head of Vetting had done what everybody else in the financial world had done. Joan had assumed somebody else had checked Sol out thoroughly. Big clients invested because others had, little clients invested because the big ones had and nobody had done due diligence. Well that's not what I pay my vetting department for. When Joan delivered her report to me trying to blame it all on some understaffers I quietly terminated her. I forwarded the information to a friend of mine at the SEC and ten days later spotted him on TV announcing that "his" investigation had uncovered a major financial fraud, cut to Sol in handcuffs doing a perp walk on his way to central booking.
I had all the answers I needed on Sol, no, the answers I didn't have were on Jaesha Hampstead. All Joan had come up with on her was that her parents were dead, she had eighty-five thousand dollars in student loan debt, four maxed out credit cards to the tune of five thousand dollars, and her last year's reported income was a minus twelve hundred dollars. Joan had found no connection to anything in the business world, let alone high finance.
So how had Jaesha known about Sol? And why had she told me in such a dodgy way? (All that he's-a-screamer-nonsense.) Why not just say it? What on earth was she playing at?
Jaesha had saved me fifty million dollars, I'd expected her to show up after Sol was arrested angling for a reward which I sure would have given her. Heck I would have given her a job. Instead all I got was a young Arab guy in the lobby with a package for Mr. Stone and you can imagine what happened to him. Security practically strip searched the guy before they called me, but he was just delivering the drawing Gloria had slashed, perfectly restored. And an envelope with five hundred fifty dollars and a note that simply said "Cost of repair: $450".
No, I wasn't going to just let it go. She owed me answers and she owed me a final sitting. I told Janelle to call her and arrange it. By golly I was going to get some answers out of Miss Jaesha Hampstead.
I greeted her the same way she greeted me, politely and perfunctorily. She set up her paraphernalia in the same spot and I got back in my posed position but after quite a while she was again frowning at her sketch.
"The riding crop is gone," she said quietly, her eyes carefully searching the canvas. Baby, there had never been a riding crop.
"Well, nice to know I've cleaned up my act," I laughed dryly.
"No, and that's the thing," she said looking irritated, like the problem with her drawing was my fault, "I've taken out the darkness twice, but both times you disappeared. I had to put it back. I don't know how to take it out and keep you in."
"Well leave it in."
"I can't. It won't fit the room, it'll suck the oxygen right out of here. But this," she sighed, "is the best I can do. If you don't want it you don't have to buy it but it'll be a while before I can pay your deposit back, Kenneth."
She'd called me Kenneth for the first time. I noticed it was when she was talking about losing her commission.
I stood up and walked around her easel to look at the drawing and stopped dead in my tracks.
It was breathtaking.
I was there. Every nuance, every fiber of my being was on that canvas and for a moment it shocked the hell out of me. How had she done that? She didn't even know me. But she was right, no way I was hanging that up in my office. And then I realized exactly where the drawing belonged.
"I'll pay you. I'll hang it at my house."
"Really?" she said hopefully and I could hear the relief in her voice that she was going to be paid. "I could try and adjust it, to your house if you like."
Angelique Rising Page 25