Somehow, it didn’t sound quite like a question. It sounded more like an instruction. He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation—not at the moment, not sitting there with his mother—but Bethany was giving him no choice.
“Look, the truth is I don’t think I’m the guy for you. You’re an attractive woman, you really are. There are a lot of guys who like you. I think you’d be better off with one of them instead of me. You’d have a lot more fun with them, with guys who are interested in the same things that interest you.”
“But I like you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She paused a moment. “You get me hot,” she finally said, falling back on her lusty voice, as if lust was magic that could banish any objections. He imagined that it very well might with most men, but he wasn’t most men.
“I’m sorry, Bethany. You’re a nice enough person, but we’re just not right for each other. It’s as simple as that.”
“I see.”
He didn’t say anything, hoping that she would leave it at that and not decide to make it ugly. It wasn’t like they’d been seeing each other for any length of time. There was no reason to make a big deal out of it. It had been a couple of dates, nothing more. He’d kissed her a few times. That was it. She’d made it clear that he was welcome to go farther, to go as far as he wanted, but something had made him keep her at arm’s length. Now he was glad he had.
“Alex, I’ve got to go. I need . . . I need to think about this.”
“I understand. You think about it, but I think it’s best if we go our separate ways.”
He could hear her breathing for a moment; then, without a further word, she hung up on him.
“Good,” he said under his breath as he used his thumb to push the phone back into the pocket of his jeans.
He glanced over at his mother. She stared unblinking at the ceiling.
Alex picked up the TV remote when he saw another report about the two murdered Metro officers. The place they’d been found was a good dozen miles from where he had met Officers Tinney and Slawinski earlier that day.
It shook Alex to realize that the two men were dead. If he found it shocking, he could only imagine how horrifying the news had to be for those close to them.
Both men had seemed so competent, so in control. He’d seen them for only a few minutes, but it seemed impossible to think that both of those men could be dead. The swiftness of such a thing left Alex feeling shaken and even more depressed.
He envied people who enjoyed their birthdays.
Just then his phone rang again. He was reluctant to answer it, thinking it would be Bethany with a list of grievances over her hurt feelings and wanting to rant at him, but when he checked the small exterior display window it said OUT OF AREA.
Alex flipped open the cover and put the phone to his ear. “Hello, this is Alex.”
Weird, garbled sounds and disembodied whispers crackled through the receiver. The sounds made his mouth go dry.
Alex immediately flipped the cover closed. He stared at the phone a moment, then finally slipped it back in his pocket.
The sounds had been so unusual, so haunting, that he distinctly remembered hearing them before. It had been the call he had gotten earlier, just as he had been about to leave his grandfather’s house, just after he had learned about the land that came to be his on his twenty-seventh birthday.
He remembered that he’d gotten the call right after he had thought that someone had been looking at him through the mirror. It had also been shortly after he had asked if Ben thought he would end up crazy like his mother.
Alex glanced at the polished metal mirror before looking around at the mint-green room. He wondered if he was destined to end up spending the rest of his life in a place like this, like his mother.
He wondered how he would know if he had gone crazy. He didn’t feel crazy.
He bet that his mother didn’t feel crazy, either.
8.
WHEN MR. MARTIN CALLED out of the blue, Alex could hardly believe the news. All six of his paintings had sold.
Holding the phone to an ear with a shoulder, Alex had swirled his brush in a jar of murky water and then wiped it on a paper towel as Mr. Martin asked him to come collect his money. Alex had been deeply absorbed in the work of painting an eerie evening mist along a shoreline of a mountain lake and didn’t want to stop, but Mr. Martin had seemed unusually anxious that Alex get there as soon as possible. He wouldn’t say anything about the person who had bought the paintings, only that they had paid cash and he wanted to give Alex his portion. He had made a weak excuse that he knew Alex needed the money.
Alex hadn’t talked to Bethany since she’d called him while he had been visiting his mother two days before. Things seemed to be looking up in more ways than one. His truck even started on the first try.
When he pulled into the parking lot at Regent Center it was early afternoon. The gray sky looked to be a harbinger of an approaching storm. The air had an unusual chill to it, a first breath of the coming change of season.
Alex parked next to a new Jeep, hoping that his would start again later without a lot of difficulty. With the sale of the six paintings he could certainly afford to get the starter fixed. He had thought to replace the starter himself but he reconsidered; he would need to finish up the painting he was working on when Mr. Martin had called. The gallery would need to have more of his paintings if the buyer should decide to return and collect more of Alex’s pieces, or if another buyer came along. It was far easier to sell paintings and get commissions if there was something on display.
Before he locked his truck, Alex picked the small painting wrapped in brown paper off the floor of the back seat. He didn’t want to give it back to Mr. Martin to sell or display, but he was afraid of it being stolen out of his truck. He’d brought the painting with him because he wanted to give it to the woman if he ever saw her again.
The halls of Regent Center were more crowded than they had been the last time he’d been there, the day he had seen the woman. With the painting tucked under his arm he quickly made his way toward the gallery, checking the faces of people along the way just in case she was there. He thought that it was a baseless hope, even a silly hope, but he couldn’t help himself from hoping to see her. When he caught sight of himself in a mirror displayed in the window of a boutique, he stepped a little quicker to get out of sight of it.
As he walked in front of the gallery window Alex spotted Mr. Martin pacing near the rear of the shop. He had on a dark suit with a bright orange tie, an odd choice that on Mr. Martin somehow worked. The bells on the door softly rang their familiar strain as Alex went inside. Mr. Martin, dry-washing his hands, stepped briskly among the pieces on easels.
“Ah, Alex, thank you for coming so quickly.”
“It’s been a while since my last payday,” Alex said with a smile as he tried to figure out why the man wasn’t smiling.
“Indeed,” Mr. Martin said without catching Alex’s attempt to lighten the mood.
Alex followed the gallery owner to the rear of the shop, where Mr. Martin sat on a rolling swivel chair and nervously worked a key to open a locked drawer. Once he had the drawer open he unlocked a metal box inside and pulled out a thick envelope. Inside was a stack of cash. He stood to count out the payment.
“Wait a minute,” Alex said, holding up a hand. “You usually give me the story, first. I’ve never sold six pieces at once before. It must have been an unusual sale. Who was the buyer? What happened? How did you convince them to buy six paintings? Did they just love the paintings and have to have them all?”
Mr. Martin gazed into Alex’s eyes for a moment as if overwhelmed by the barrage of questions. Alex realized that he was probably spooking the man. Alex frequently found that he made people nervous with his questions.
“Well,” Mr. Martin said at last, seemingly trying to recall it in exact detail, “a man came in. He glanced around but I soon realized that he wasn’t looking at the t
hings that were on display—wasn’t looking at different pieces the way people usually do. He seemed to be searching for something specific. I asked if I could show him something special.
“He said yes, that he would like to see the work of Alexander Rahl. Naturally I was only too happy to show him your paintings.
Before I could begin to talk you up, he said that he would take them. I showed him that I had six of your paintings and asked which of them he would be interested in. He said he would take them all. I was momentarily stunned.
“The man asked how much he owed. He never even asked the price. Just asked what he owed.”
Mr. Martin licked his thin lips. “I was overjoyed for you. I knew how much you need the money, Alex, so as I regained my wits I took the opportunity, as the gallery owner and your representative, to get the best possible price for you. I quickly considered the dated, low price we were asking and then, in view of the man’s interest, added some to it.”
Alex was slightly amused at his good fortune, and Mr. Martin’s quick thinking. “So how much did you add?”
Mr. Martin swallowed. “I doubled the price. I told the man that they were four thousand apiece—and a good investment in an up-and-coming contemporary artist.”
“That’s twenty-four thousand dollars,” Alex said in astonishment. “You certainly earned your commission, Mr. Martin.”
Mr. Martin nodded. “That makes your portion, after commission, fourteen thousand four hundred dollars.”
Without delay he started counting off hundred-dollar bills. Alex was a bit dumbfounded and just stood there as the man counted out the money. When finished, the gallery owner took a deep breath. He seemed to be glad to be rid of the money. Alex straightened the thick stack of hundred-dollar bills before returning them to the envelope. He folded it in half and stuffed it all in the front pocket of his jeans.
Alex couldn’t understand why the man seemed so nervous. Mr. Martin often sold paintings for a great deal more than Alex’s work. One of R. C. Dillion’s paintings would have gone for well over what Alex had just earned for six. Maybe it was just that it had all been in cash.
“What then?” Alex asked, his suspicion growing. “Did the man say anything else?”
“There’s a little more to the story.” Mr. Martin straightened the orange knot at his throat. “After he had paid—in cash, the same cash I just gave you—he said, ‘These are mine, now, right?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’
“He then picked up one of his paintings, pulled a fat black marker out of his pocket—you know, the indelible kind—and started writing all over the painting. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. When he had finished, he did the same to each in turn. Wrote all over them.”