One Way or Another(77)

*

A few days later, Ahmet was sitting uneasily on his yacht, in the chair he’d chosen for his portrait. The usual opening chitchat had been gotten out of the way and Marco was concentrating on his work, a slight frown between his brows because there was something different about Ahmet today; a tension that crackled around him, stiffened his neck, tightened the gaze he directed not at Marco but into some kind of space inhabited only by himself. There was no penetrating Ahmet’s thoughts and no way Marco could work like this.

Sighing, he put down the knife he had been dragging over the ochre oil paint that was the background of the portrait; he couldn’t even get that right, couldn’t catch any magic anywhere today. Was it him? Or was it Ahmet? He glanced at the black rubber watch he always wore on his right wrist, then at Em, sprawled full length, legs straight out, front and back. She rolled an eye hopefully his way but knew better than to jump up and get excited. First, Marco had to give her the signal. When he did not she gave a noisy sigh and pushed her nose back into her paws.

Time crawled but it was finally five thirty. Marco was to meet Mehitabel at six. “Better wrap it up for today, sir,” he told Ahmet, wondering again why he always fell into calling Ahmet “sir.” It wasn’t that he was showing undue respect; more like he did not want the intimacy of using the man’s first name, and it was too late to be calling him Mr. Ghulbian.

Ahmet got to his feet. He straightened his jacket, came over to take a look at his picture, sketched out first in charcoal, now overlaid with touches of color. Getting the first impressions down, Marco called it. Truthfully, Ahmet did not think much of it. It wasn’t strong enough, did not show him in the purposeful manner he’d expected. “I think perhaps more force,” he said, putting a finger out to touch the still-wet canvas.

“Wait until the next stage, sir,” Marco suggested, hiding his annoyance. He was not used to sitters getting up to offer suggestions on what he might do. “Oils will give more definition.”

Ahmet threw him a disbelieving glance. “Let’s hope so,” he said, making no bones of the fact that he was not satisfied.

Ahmet was already on his phone as Marco left. Time certainly did not wait for Ahmet and neither did it for Marco. He was due to meet Mehitabel in ten minutes.

Em jumped up and down as he grabbed her lead, then led him triumphantly down the street. He stopped at a stall to buy a treat, gave Em half, then walked on. The café was a smart one; “posh” he would have called it, not a place he would normally have frequented, but he guessed for women like Mehitabel it was where they could show off their latest outfits, exchange the latest gossip. The bar was softly lit, the seating sumptuous, the martinis ice cold. He knew because Mehitabel was drinking one and the glass was still frosted white.

“Can I order you one?” she asked, not bothering to say hello how are you?

“Thanks, I’ll have a Diet Coke.” He was there on business, though he did not yet know what that business was, but he certainly wasn’t about to drink with the enemy.

He sank into the softness of the chair, reminded himself to sit alertly upright, and leaned forward again, his hands between his knees, looking at her. She busied herself ordering the Coke, and did not look back at him. Soon, though, he knew she would be forced to, and then she would have to tell him what was so important that they had to meet without Ghulbian around.

With nothing left to fuss over she finally sat quietly, facing him.

“So,” he said, “better let me have it, Mehitabel. What’s so important you needed to see me right away? And alone?”

“It’s about Ahmet.”

“Of course.”

“There are things you don’t know about him.” She put a hand to her throat, fiddling with the pearl choker, under which his observant painter’s eyes noted the red blotches her makeup had failed to completely conceal. There had been violence. Shocked, he sat back, took a sip of his Diet Coke, waited for her to tell him what she obviously needed to tell him.

“Ahmet is a killer.” Her voice was as calm as if she were talking about the weather. “He has killed many times, mostly women. He is a sadist. He does it to please himself.”

She stopped and took a gulp of the chilled martini. Marco’s blood ran cold. The dog’s head rested, as always, on his foot. He felt glad of the reality of that when he listened to Mehitabel talking about Ahmet. He did not know whether she spoke the truth or was simply a woman out for revenge, out to destroy the man who had probably made her, who’d given her everything but himself. Mehitabel would never be Mrs. Ghulbian.

He held up his hand, stopped her. “How do I know this is true? Why are you telling me? What happens between you and Ghulbian is none of my business, I’m simply painting the man’s portrait.”

“Yes, and Martha is decorating his house, and Lucy is helping because he wants Lucy there, in his clutches, Mr. Mahoney.” She used Marco’s full name with vicious emphasis and Lucy’s with such venom, he was shocked. Mehitabel was not simply angry, she intended to have her revenge on whoever got in her way. Meaning whoever came between her and Ahmet.

“I know about the red-haired girl,” she said, surprising him. “The one you sketch continuously. How do I know that?” She reached in her bag, pulled out a sheet of sketch paper folded into quarters, opened it up, showed Marco his own drawing of Angie Morse, one of the many he had done.