“You killed them, didn’t you? In cold blood,” I rasped, the fear stealing my voice. “You murdered Hugh and Helene.”
Abbas frowned. “And why would I kill them, Nora? Why would I kill my good friend and his wife? A man I adored and represented for years. He was like my own child. There’s no reason in the world.”
“Because Hugh was going to leave you. You knew he was leaving. And that meant you’d be ruined.”
Abbas flapped his hand dismissively. “Who told you this nonsense?”
“You drove out here and shot them in bed. You posed them and stabbed the painting. You’re trying to blame me for it. All the evidence is in the book,” I said, glancing at the utility table.
No! Why did you tell him about the book?
“What book?”
He followed where my gaze had led him. He saw the ninjas.
“That book?” He took another step forward.
“I said stop!”
I jabbed the air with the knife and tried to look menacing. What to do? I had at least thirty years on Abbas. Could I grab the book, do an end run around him and make it out the door? Almost before I finished the thought, his hand went into his coat pocket and emerged with a small, silver gun. He aimed it at my chest.
“Drop the knife and move over there,” he said, waving me away from the table toward the shelves.
I thought my heart would pop; it was beating so hard. Obeying, I backed up. I heard the beautiful Japanese screen crack as Abbas walked across it to get at the ninja book.
“You are a real problem, Nora,” he said, keeping the silver muzzle pointed and steady as he perused the pages of the sketchbook.
I looked around frantically, my heartbeat thrashing in my ears. I can’t die here, I thought. Not here on the floor of Hugh’s studio, lorded over by his goat erection. Incredibly, that’s the first thing that came into my mind. Next—advice from some random crime-show psychologist. Best chance to stay alive. Make eye contact. Show empathy. He has to see a human being.
“What happened, Abbas? What went wrong between you two?”
Abbas looked up. I made contact with orbs hard as marble.
“Damien Hirst.”
“What does Damien Hirst have to do with it?” I asked, confused.
The artist Damien Hirst had rocked the art world decades ago by placing a rotting cow’s head in a large container made of glass and steel. Along with the head came maggots that turned into flies, which fried in a nearby fly zapper. Later on, he displayed a bisected shark under glass. His bold and edgy work shocked, and it made him about as rich and famous as an artist could get.
Abbas gestured with his free hand at the display of paintings in the studio.
“We planned a big show for Hugh at the gallery next spring. A show to run six months and change each month—old work, new work, work-in-progress. A big idea. No one has done this before for a gallery retrospective. We would announce to the press at the Art Basel market in December.”
Abbas stepped away from the utility table. Closer to me. I leaned back instinctively.
“But last Saturday morning, Hugh brings Callie to her aunt in the city for the weekend. I think he does this because he is fighting with Helene—they need time alone out here. He comes to the gallery after. ‘Abbas, I’ve been thinking,’ he says. ‘Remember how Damien Hirst let Sotheby’s auction his work in ’08? He didn’t use his dealer.’ He tells me Sotheby’s gave Hirst a show much bigger than the one I offer. That they brought in collectors from all over the world, and Hirst sold over two hundred million. ‘He broke Picasso’s sales record. It worked for Hirst—the free-agent thing.’ Hugh says he wants to do what Hirst did. ‘I’m thinking I’d like to go solo, Abbas.’ Those were his words. ‘I’m thinking I’d like to go solo.’”
Abbas stepped back, still aiming his gun at me. My heart thundered while he examined the book again in silence. Then he suddenly snapped his fingers. I flinched.
“Just like this,” he said. “I am one of Hirst’s dead flies.”
I blinked, absorbing this. “After all you’d done for him, he dropped you,” I said. “What a bastard he was.”
Abbas didn’t seem to have heard me; he’d reached the final drawing. I flinched again as he let out a loud, guttural sound and swept the book to the floor.
“This is how he would paint me?” he snarled. “Like a weak, submissive animal at his feet? And he calls it Abbas Knowing?”
He spat on the book. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted.
“Abbas knows this: when no one wanted Hugh Walker, I gave him a show at my gallery. When he didn’t have money, I paid his rent. When he was lonely, I took him into my home to sit with friends at my table. I believed in him. I made his career. And he dismisses me like I am a boy who does yard work.” Abbas paused and began rubbing his right temple again.
I tried to stay focused on connecting with him, but my head was swimming.
“He betrayed you. I know how that feels.”
“You don’t know betrayal.” He let out a quick, disgusted snort.
“When a man acts like a man, when he wants to taste other flavors, a woman calls it betrayal.”
This tack wasn’t working with him. I had to stay cool and think. Think what to do. But it was impossible with Abbas glowering at me.
“During the war in Beirut, men had to betray to stay alive. Betrayal meant food. It meant water. It meant wood and oil for heat in the winter. The difference between being able to buy medicine on the black market and dying of dysentery.” He kept kneading the flesh over his eye. “You became an artist of betrayal. You betrayed the ones who trusted you, and they never suspected. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your dog.”
His dog?
“Did you ever taste dog?”
Cringing, I shook my head. All these years and I’d never imagined he was capable of such things. I had to get away from him. How?
“After I arrived in this country, I worked hard to forget the ways of war. I became human again. I behaved with honor and loyalty. But if it means survival, I use the old methods.”
Grimacing, he mashed the heel of his palm into his brow as I scanned the room. No other exit. Had he developed a brain tumor? Was that how he got so crazy? Or maybe he was about to have a stroke or an aneurysm? My only hope was to stall, then use the element of surprise and run.
“Did you talk to Hugh? Did you at least try to convince him to stay?”
Abbas snorted. “I am not a beggar. I only asked him for time. Until I worked out my strategy for damage control. Not to go to Sotheby’s, not to talk to anyone until I spoke with my publicist. ‘You owe me this at least,’ I told him. ‘Let me keep the respect I deserve.’”
“But you had another plan, didn’t you?”
Abbas’s eyes had begun to water. They narrowed into slits and his face contorted. His mouth opened wide. He looked like one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes as he started a bout of uncontrollable sneezing.
“Hachooo! Hachoo! Hachooo! Hachoo!”
Now! This is your chance. Do it! Charge him and run.
The fit ended abruptly. It was too late. Abbas grabbed a rag off the utility table.