“You fucking dick-drip,” Jonas said. “You pissed your pants.”
Nigel Wickland hadn’t heard him. The sweat poured from him and he was sobbing, his body heaving so hard against the knife that the blade broke the skin and his throat burned. He managed to say, “Don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything!”
Jonas moved Nigel sideways until they were standing beside the workbench. And he said, “Pull the cloth off those paintings.”
Nigel reached over and gave a yank on the mover’s blankets, and Jonas stood looking at The Woman by the Water. “My paintings!” he bellowed.
“Oh, no!” Nigel said. “Dear god, this can’t be happening!”
“Get in there and turn on the light,” Jonas said, shoving Nigel forward from the storage room into the office.
“May I sit at my desk?” Nigel said, and he concentrated on one thing: the pistol in his middle drawer. But the drawer was locked!
Jonas said, “Sit!”
Nigel recognized the hooded young man now. He was the panhandler who had come into the gallery just before he and Raleigh left in the van for the Brueger house.
Jonas was feeling omnipotent. He was in total control. He was powerful. He kept moving the blade of the knife twelve inches from Nigel’s face, and he enjoyed the naked terror he saw there.
Nigel reached up and ran his fingers across the burn on his throat. He saw the bright blood on his fingers and said, “Sir, I’m hurt.”
“You ain’t hurt,” Jonas said. “Yet.”
Nigel’s wheezing sounded like radio static, and he said, “Sir, I’m asthmatic. Please let me use my inhaler. I can’t breathe.”
“Go ahead, but take care,” Jonas said.
Nigel drew the inhaler from his pocket, took two puffs, and held his breath.
Jonas looked at him and said, “Hurry the fuck up or it’ll be your last breath.”
When he could breathe again, Nigel said, “I paid the young woman the twelve-thousand-dollar reward you wanted. I did everything you asked me to do. Why are you here now? Why am I being treated like this?”
“You and that cunt scammed me,” Jonas said. “You made a special deal that I didn’t know about. She gave you the paintings behind my back. Did she give you a blow job, too?” Then Jonas said, “On second thought, you wouldn’t want one from a girl, would you?”
“Sir,” Nigel said. “She did not give me my… I mean your paintings. Those pictures in the storage room are replicas. They’re not the originals.”
“Listen, butt-lust,” Jonas said. “Don’t talk to me like I’m straight-up stupid. I got eyes. Those’re my paintings on the workbench. And if you wanna keep your eyes, talk to me like I got some brains in my head.”
Nigel was weeping now and he cried out, “Dear god! Why won’t anyone believe me?”
“Stop your bitch-bawling and talk to me while you still can,” Jonas said.
Now Nigel didn’t know what to say. How could he be logical with an obviously doped-out maniac? Everything he said would be rejected as a lie. He decided to say what the thief wanted him to say.
“Here’s what happened,” Nigel said. “Your friend Valerie came here-”
“Megan.”
“Right, Megan,” Nigel said. “She came here a second time. She said you sent her to give me back my… your paintings to complete our deal. How was I to know she didn’t tell you about it? I assumed you were waiting for her in the car or something. Sir, I did everything you wanted.”
“How do I know you didn’t give her more money the second time?” Jonas said. “I know those paintings’re worth way more than you said.”
“They’re not, sir,” Nigel said. “I haven’t been able to sell them.”
“Have you tried lately?” Jonas said, eyes narrowing.
“No, I just keep them in my van in case a client seems like a prospect.”
“You lie!” Jonas said. “You took them back to that same house tonight. I tailed you, you fucking rump ranger. You got something going with that house and these paintings. They’re worth a whole lot, ain’t they?”
The sweat had soaked clear through Nigel’s shirt. He could only stare at the knife blade floating in front of his face. This gaunt, hooded specter with the menacing eyes would surely begin slashing him if he didn’t say the right thing. He said, “Sir, that client wanted to see them again, but he said the same thing as last time, that they’re not good enough. But I have an idea. May I share it with you?”
“Go ahead,” Jonas said.
“Why don’t you just take them with you? I’d be pleased if you would. If perhaps you could sell them and make a few dollars, more power to you. Would you do that, please? Just take the paintings and go. My heart can’t withstand this kind of tension. I’m not a well man. I have asthma and a heart murmur.”
Jonas said, “You got no shame in your game. So, okay, maybe I’ll call your bluff. Maybe I will take my paintings back. But you’re still gonna come up with something for all you and that bitch put me through. Now where’s Megan at?”
It took Nigel a moment, but he could think of nothing to say except the truth: “I don’t know. She didn’t say where she was going.”
“I think she did,” Jonas said. “Your twitchy eye tells me you’re lying. And I think she got more money outta you. But me? I got shit for all I went through. You and that cunt thought you could jist hoop my flow and kick me to the curb, didn’t ya?”
Nigel opened the expansion band on his wristwatch, tossed it on the desk, and said, “Here, this is a Rolex. Take it. And I’ve got about a hundred dollars in my wallet. May I get it for you?”
“Yeah, get it,” Jonas said.
Nigel reached into his pocket and removed his wallet, tossing it onto the desk next to the Rolex.
Jonas put the wallet and the watch in the pocket of his jeans and said, “The paintings’re worth a lotta money, ain’t they?”
Nigel sighed and paused and finally said, “Yes.”
“I knew you didn’t wanna give them back to me. How much’re they worth?”
“Thirty thousand, maybe more,” Nigel said. “You can get that much from any art dealer in L.A. Take them with you and go. Please go.”
“Now we’re finally getting at the truth,” Jonas said. “So let’s have all of it, you fucking pole climber. Where did Megan say she was going to?”
And that did it. Nigel Wickland decided that he was at the end of this night’s terrible journey. There was nowhere else to verbally run and hide. He concluded that drug-crazed paranoia trumps logic and lie and everything in between. So he summoned courage born of despair and said, “I’ve got about three hundred dollars in the petty cash drawer. You can have that, too. May I get it?”
“Get it,” Jonas said.
“The drawer’s locked,” Nigel said.
“Get the key,” Jonas said.
Nigel opened a papier-mâché box on his desk, removed a desk key, and unlocked the middle drawer with hands so sweaty he almost dropped the key. Then he opened the drawer and said, “Here it is.”
Jonas didn’t see the Smith amp; Wesson 9-millimeter pistol until it was halfway out of the drawer. Then he took a wild swing with the knife and cut Nigel across the mouth, opening up a grotesque smile from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Then a flash and explosion blinded and deafened Jonas for a moment. Nigel had fired a round next to Jonas’s face that missed by inches. Jonas dropped the knife and fell onto Nigel’s lap, grappling for the gun.
The desk chair overturned and both bodies hit the floor, Nigel screaming and Jonas screaming, as each had hold of the pistol. Then Nigel closed his bloody mouth over his assailant’s ear and bit down, grinding the gristle, and Jonas screamed louder than ever. Then it was a test of strength as four hands tried to wrest the pistol free.
Drugs had reduced Jonas’s strength by half, but he was much younger, so the struggle was even. They moaned and grunted and growled and occasionally sobbed as they lay face-to-face on the floor. Then, for a brief second when the gun muzzle was pointed up toward the face of Nigel Wickland, Jonas Claymore got a finger through the trigger guard.