Tips for Living(89)

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.

“Yes, I had a plan.”

He sniffed the rag and his eyes grew small again. He was probably reacting to the chemical fumes. The rag must reek of them. Hugh’s dirty rags were releasing toxic chemicals, and Abbas was overly sensitive to them. He sneezed violently and threw the rag down. My pulse raced.

Toxic chemicals from the cans on the shelf.

“You weren’t going to talk to the publicist, were you?” I said. Slowly, carefully, I angled my body so I could move my right arm behind me unnoticed while Abbas wiped his eyes. “You were buying time.”

Buy time.

“You drove out here that Saturday night,” I continued, blindly exploring the shelf with my trembling hand.

Don’t knock anything over.

“You came here to the house unannounced and told Hugh you were very upset, you needed to talk, right? You knew he’d let you in. Very smart, Abbas.”

“I gave him one more chance. Only one. No pleading.”

“And when he answered?”

Abbas sniffed and used the gun in his hand to jab at an imaginary Hugh. “I made him go back to bed.”

“Did you make them pose before you . . .” I shuddered. “And then you slashed the painting to make certain the police would think about me. Oh God.”

“I thought they would arrest you sooner,” he said, scowling. His eyes were beginning to swell. “What will I do with you now?”

All his phony concern. I’d been nothing but a “thing” for him to use in his scheme.

I saw him glaze over and focus inward for a few seconds. I could almost hear him calculating. Then he began rubbing his eyes again with his coat sleeve. I took a small step to my left and continued frantically searching until my fingers found a tall, round can. Bless Hugh’s messy work habits: the cap was off. Abbas finally brought his arm down and looked at me again. Red light.

“Walk over there, back toward the door. Away from the art,” he ordered.

If I obeyed, I’d lose my only chance to get out alive. I stayed put, terrified.

“What are you going to do? You can’t get away with another murder,” I said.

“No?”

Think. Think.

I challenged him, desperate. “How will you explain killing me?”

He paused again, the plan still forming in his mind.