by Multiple
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Of course you have,” Josh said. He straightened up and chuckled. “You guys never get in the game. Human life is just a spectator sport—something you can go home and gossip about with your friends.”
“I don’t share your cynical view of human life. Didn’t they teach that to you in the Underworld School For Bad Boys?”
Josh’s eyes widened. Three deep forehead creases appeared. He tilted in a subtle bow. “Very good, little one. I like the fire and spirit in you. So then, tell me your name.”
“Claire.”
“Nice. I like it. I think you can keep it, for now.”
“How did you find me?” Claire curtly asked, ignoring his implication.
“Hard to miss the big yellow taxi with the only redheaded cabbie I know.”
This annoyed her. She felt vulnerable being so easily spotted by this dark angel. “What do you want?” Claire knew it was impossible to mask her fear. She didn’t think he could read her mind, but knew he felt her fear.
“You.” He smiled. His eyes became translucent and she could see traces of red light coming through again. Claire looked down to avoid his eyes, unsure of his powers. Josh reached across the little table and raised her chin with his thumb and forefinger, causing a warmth that blotched the skin at her chest. “Now, now. I’m not here to hurt you. There’ll not be a scene. I’m curious about you.” He smiled and released her.
Claire wasn’t used to the mixture of emotions. Her pulse quickened. No doubt he observed this. Her frustration was tinged with a bit of anger that she worked to stuff down. She could see how Josh had manipulated Daniel so skillfully. Appearing as friend when he actually was the enemy.
Feeling unprotected being alone with him, she was grateful for the surrounding crowd. After considering all her choices, she thought it best to let him deliver his communication, anticipating it would be some kind of threat. Then he might leave her alone.
“May I?” Josh pointed to the hot chocolate. “I mean, I know you girls don’t drink or eat.” His knowledge of angels both impressed and frightened her. Her insides were scrambled.
“Help yourself.” She barely got the words out. But at least her voice didn’t waver.
He leaned back in his chair, inhaling through his teeth in a kind of reverse whistle. “Don’t ever tell me that, Love, if you know what’s good for you.” He smiled, and shaking his head, he leaned forward for the warm mug of chocolate. He sucked in the whipped cream off the top loudly, leaving a white moustache on his dark and handsome face.
Claire wanted to look away, but something held her gaze as she watched him remove the whipped cream from his upper lip with his tongue. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and waved his eyebrows up and down, playing with her.
“I saw you thinking about tasting it. You’re not supposed to, but you want to drink and taste, don’t you?” He looked with that tilt of the head again that would seem so innocent on someone not so devious.
I should have known better, been more careful. Why couldn’t I sense him before?
“Do you think He would mind if you just had one little taste?” He pointed to the heavens and shrugged. “I don’t think so.” He held out the mug. It was still steaming, and the rich chocolate fragrance filled her head.
Claire steeled herself. She would need to overcome her emotions. Time to show him what she was made of. She’d resist, even if he liked it. Sounding more determined than she felt, she said, “I have no interest in what you think. I don’t care anything about you. I want you to leave me alone.”
“Ah, yes. Well there is that, too,” he said as he raised his eyebrows and smirked at the subtle rebuke. Holding the mug to his lips, he paused. “I admit. I am an acquired taste.” His face jerked back after taking a sip. “Ow, too hot, even for me.” He blew over the top of the drink with enough force to push back the hairs at the sides of her face.
The effect of his breath on Claire’s face startled her. Her eyelids became heavy and she released her composure, relaxing into the fear. She became dizzy and aglow with sensuality, as though drugged. For a brief second, looking into the dark eyes across from her, she could feel a pull towards him. She wondered in a flash what it would feel like to kiss those smiling lips and feel their power on her body.
It wore off just as fast as it came on. Josh toasted her with the mug.
“That was a beautiful thing to watch,” he said as he winked. He didn’t mask his arousal.
Claire was losing the battle and needed escape to safety. She was not used to being outmatched, so she leaned forward on one elbow, chin perched on her upturned hand. Under the table she rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers, filling her other palm with dust. She motioned with forefinger for him to bring his face closer to hers.
Eagerly, he leaned into her, elbows matching and almost touching hers, chin resting on his fingers. Josh’s face was only a foot away from hers. He spread that affable Cheshire cat smile. He smelled of cinnamon and cardamom, and she heard deep organ music.
She inhaled deeply, and in one long movement, brought her other hand up to her chin, then slowly opened her palm full of dust and blew it in his face. His eyes widened initially as he appeared temporarily immobilized. Fear brushed across his face for one brief second. At last, he recovered with a sigh. Then he sat up straight.
“You’re very good,” he said at last.
“You’re very bad.” She gave a tight smile in return. She was hoping her shaking didn’t show. No sense to stay to do battle all day. So she stood. “I’m leaving.”
“Yes, you are.” He rose slowly to his feet, appearing enchanted. “It has been a pleasure, Claire.” He made a hint of a bow in her direction.
“I’m not going to play this game with you. We aren’t friends and we have nothing in common.”
“Is that a challenge I hear?”
“This is not happening,” she replied, putting on her jacket.
“Oh, but it already has begun, my dear.”
“Well, perhaps in your mind. It’s something else entirely to me.” She turned to leave. He grasped her forearm over the jacket sleeve firmly, showing his need to touch her, pulling her toward his chest as he inhaled her scent.
“Tell me what it is for you,” he murmured.
She saw a flash of something in his eyes—need? Emptiness? Something had shifted. She didn’t know what, but she’d seen something Josh wanted to remain hidden.
Claire held her breath to ward off the effects of his power at this close distance, and then blurted out, “You’ll never know.” She yanked her arm from his grip. Knowing he expected his seductiveness to work on her, she added, “I can say this: I saw a lot of wet, slimy frogs and snakes. I saw mushrooms and rotting leaves. I was chilled to the bone. You do have that effect on me.”
It was a complete lie, of course. Her heart was racing. Her eyes felt like they were going to burst into the tears she stubbornly would not give him the satisfaction of seeing. She wanted to run, but turned and walked out into the street.
Claire didn’t look back at him as she walked away, feeling the warm sun on her face. This was the best she could muster today. She needed help. Now she understood how dangerous Josh was and how he’d gotten his hooks into Daniel. Claire was worried, for both of them. Josh made it clear he’d shifted his sights to her. She needed someone else’s advice, immediately.
If I’m not careful, Josh will have a twofer.
Chapter 7
Daniel burst through the front door as his phone rang. He dropped his portfolio bag and ran across the broken glass left over from his last night’s indulgences.
“Shit.” He gripped the cordless phone, then heard something squawk as it fell from his fingers. He could hear “Hello? Hello? What the fuck?” from the handset.
He bent over, grabbed the phone off the floor, then brought it to his ear. “This is Daniel.”
“What just happened? You o
kay, man?” Beau Bradley’s speech was slurred. Daniel assumed the slur came from Beau’s steady diet of Quaaludes and Southern Comfort.
“Sorry, Beau. Dropped the phone.”
“Okay. Woulda hurt, if I could still hear.” Beau chuckled, bringing on a rheumy wheeze. He coughed, clearing his throat. “You haven’t answered my phone calls. Okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk to me about your shit—sorry—your paintings.”
“I’ll be down next day or two. Gotta borrow a truck.”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
Daniel heard a door close as Beau whispered into the phone, his voice muffled as if he were buried in a cave.
“Two IRS agents are here and they are asking questions about your stuff, you know, like when was the last time one sold, if any were waiting for pickup, that sort of thing.”
“IRS? I don’t get it. I’ve not gotten any notices, and my taxes are current.”
“They’re talking like you had some big windfall, some large sale you didn’t report and they’re looking to take ‘em.”
“The paintings?”
“No, my toilet seats. Of course I’m talking about the fucking paintings!” Beau coughed into the phone. “Be glad it was me here today. Audray would have told them to take ‘em all.”
Sweat rolled down Daniel’s back, soaking his shirt. He threw off his jacket, swearing under his breath, then undid the top button and pulled his shirttails out of his slacks. The last several months, he’d been plagued with banking overdrafts, declines on his credit cards, and now this.
What’s going on?
“But fuck me, Daniel, trouble with the I Fucking R S is not something I need right now. Catch my drift?” Beau said.
Daniel understood Beau’s aversion to any form of law enforcement. “Yes, I understand.”
“And, I’m fucking bursting at the seams here. She’s got this new photographer she wants to display, and I got no fuckin room.”
“Photographer?”
“He’s a doctor, really. Not much of a photographer, just my opinion. But I like having nude pictures of Audray adorn my walls, if you know what I mean.”
Daniel did. He could imagine she liked it too.
“I haven’t got a clue, Beau. They taking the paintings now?” Over the cell phone, Daniel heard a creaking door and then the sound of it closing.
“Can’t tell yet, but they’re writing down shit in little notebooks, you know, like cops.”
“I’ll come down there and talk to them. Don’t worry. It must be some kind of mistake. They’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”
“You know, Daniel, I’m not so sure you should come unless you bring an attorney. These guys look like major bruisers. They don’t smile. They grumble.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Are you sure, cause…”
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll give Josh a call, maybe he can come on down with me. I need his Hummer anyway.”
Beau sighed. “I gotta ask, why do you pay Josh anything? The guy is worthless.”
“He found you, didn’t he?”
“He found Audray. Josh doesn’t fuck men.”
That made Daniel smile. “He’s a good friend, and he cares about the artists he represents.”
“Then how come they all wind up dead? No, Daniel, the only one he cares about is himself.” Beau mumbled curses. “I coulda told you not to get involved with her, though. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Your lower brain sort of thing. Been there myself a time or two,” Beau continued.
How many times?
The crash Daniel heard sounded like something in the gallery had shattered to the floor. Beau swore. “These guys are gorillas. That cost me about five Gs.”
Daniel’s finances were precarious, and his pride was buried under debt. He had enough to replace the paint he’d squandered last night, but not much else. That would mean not making his house payment this month, which would mean month number three. A foreclosure notice would be coming any day then. He had equity too. He’d be flushing that down the toilet if he didn’t come up with some cash in a hurry.
He heard a banging sound on Beau’s end of the phone, along with a muffled yet booming voice that said, “Sir, you want to step out of the closet, please?”
“Shit! Daniel, gotta go now,” Beau whispered.
“Tell them I’ll be right down,” Daniel said.
“Your funeral.” Beau hung up.
Beau’s statement worried Daniel. Did Josh like to represent suicidal artists for some particular reason? Tortured souls?
This morning he’d met with an old friend from art school in the San Fran—the author of a couple of popular children’s books—and was supposed to start some sketches for him. Thank God he hadn’t forgotten to get up. There wasn’t any money in it up front, but a possible book tour and percentage of sales if it did go to print. It was a chance at some kind of future. He was finally starting to get it together. What had he been thinking last night, wanting to end it all? Today, he was seeing possibilities.
But first he had to take care of the IRS. What am I missing? He shook his head and dialed Josh’s phone.
“How are you feeling today, my friend?” Josh asked.
“Seems like I just get done with one crisis and another pops up. Beau called me and two IRS agents are at the gallery, acting like they’re going to take my paintings. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“You think I caused this?” Anger laced Josh’s words.
“No. But I’ve received no notices, my bank account is all screwed up, and now this. They think I sold a ton of stuff and didn’t report it, or so they told Beau.”
“Makes no sense.”
“I need to take the paintings back. Can I borrow your Hummer?”
“Yeah, I’m downtown now. Meet you there or pick you up?”
“Meet me there.”
Daniel hung up. The pit of his stomach felt like it had a hole in it.
On Daniel’s way to the gallery, Beau’s comments dislodged something that bothered him about his agent and Josh’s fondness for dark and dangerous things. Everyone Josh introduced him to had some sort of huge flaw. Even he had one now: he needed money. And he needed to stop getting hard at every turn. When he was fourteen, he’d found the potential amazing. Now, however, a perpetual hard dick got in the way. He remembered a time when his cock acted like that of a normal man—hard when required. But ever since Audray, he’d been a walking Viagra commercial.
Shit, I’d rather have acne.
He needed to find a way to get release. He was going to get carpal tunnel from biffing himself so much. Time for some serious dating.
He was also flawed in that no one even looked at his paintings anymore. But even concerns about his lack of talent took a back seat to his financial precariousness. Once Audray had signed him on at the gallery and his work had garnered the attention of the art crowd, he’d set aside his other commercial work, which paid very little, but had in the past gotten him by. The big splashy canvases displayed at Craven Image, initially selling for thousands of dollars, were his real meal ticket. At the gallery parties—almost orgies, really—the rich and famous had loved his work and had stroked his ego. He’d raked in the dough then, hand over fist.
But then all of a sudden, the attention had dried up. Just like his affair with Audray. It was like one minute he was a member of this exclusive club and the next he was being barred at the door by a really big bouncer.
He knew sleeping with the gallery manager had been a mistake, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. Audray had come along just at the right time, right when his career was beginning to take off. And, as fast as he made the money, she made sure he spent it—on her. He could see the slight nod of acknowledgment by other men as he walked with her on his arm.
He thought further about those stares now—were they looks of admiration
as he’d always assumed? Or were those men wondering why he didn’t see the danger there?
He shook himself.
Stop it.
He arrived at the little gallery on the Square in Healdsburg and found a slip of a parking spot just big enough for his old two-seater Mercedes he’d bought with the proceeds of his first big sale. What a day that had been. Before the interest in his art had crashed.
Josh’s black Hummer was conspicuously taking up two spaces people would soon kill for, come noon. The gallery doors were open. A sandwich sign out front advertised his paintings for half price. He cursed a string in Portuguese.
Josh was already in dialogue with two men in dark grey suits. Beau had been right, both were beefy, not the typical IRS pencil-pusher types Daniel expected. He figured they were the ones that scared everyone into paying up. Looked to him more like Russian mobsters. But this didn’t matter. He had no money and he was certain he owed nothing.
“Ah, gentlemen, this is Daniel DePalma, the artist,” Josh said, touching the elbow of the beefstick closest to him as he rolled his eyes. Daniel looked to the two, making sure they didn’t pick up on the disrespect. He stuck out his hand.
“I believe we have some sort of misunderstanding,” he said as he pumped the fist of the first man, then followed with the second. The bones of his hand were crushed by the vice-like grip each had placed on him with their handshakes. He made sure his face didn’t show the pain.
So much for a civil outcome.
“This is Agent Fisk, I’m Agent Rossetti. We’ve been asked to take an inventory of the paintings.” Rosetti’s puffy cheeks were pock-marked, and his beady hazel eyes darted from side to side.
“Inventory?
“Mr. DePalma,” Agent Fisk said, pulling out a folded paper from his vest pocket. “Were you aware of the fact that you owe the IRS over one hundred thousand dollars?” He placed the folded sheaf on Daniel’s palm.
Anger flooded his chest. Hot blood flowed through his veins, down his arms and to his fingers. The document almost burned him. He unfolded the paper and examined the notice for an IRS levy. “I’ve never seen this letter before.”
