The Law of Nines

Without delay he started counting off hundred-dollar bills. Alex was a bit dumbfounded and just stood there as the man counted out the money. When finished, the gallery owner took a deep breath. He seemed to be glad to be rid of the money. Alex straightened the thick stack of hundred-dollar bills before returning them to the envelope. He folded it in half and stuffed it all in the front pocket of his jeans.

Alex couldn’t understand why the man seemed so nervous. Mr. Martin often sold paintings for a great deal more than Alex’s work. One of R. C. Dillion’s paintings would have gone for well over what Alex had just earned for six. Maybe it was just that it had all been in cash.

“What then?” Alex asked, his suspicion growing. “Did the man say anything else?”

“There’s a little more to the story.” Mr. Martin straightened the orange knot at his throat. “After he had paid—in cash, the same cash I just gave you—he said, ‘These are mine, now, right?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’

“He then picked up one of his paintings, pulled a fat black marker out of his pocket—you know, the indelible kind—and started writing all over the painting. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. When he had finished, he did the same to each in turn. Wrote all over them.”

Mr. Martin clenched his hands together. “I’ve never had such an experience. I asked the man what he thought he was doing. He said that they were his paintings and he could do any damn thing he wanted to with them.”

Mr. Martin leaned closer. “Alex, I would have stopped him, I swear I would have, but, well, they were his, and he was very . . . insistent about what he was doing. By his change in attitude I was beginning to fear what would happen if I were to interfere. So I didn’t. I had the money, after all—cash at that.”

Alex stood with his jaw hanging. He was overjoyed to have the money from the sale but at the same time he was incensed to hear that his work had been defaced.

“So he finished marking all over my work and then just took his ruined paintings and left?”

Mr. Martin scratched his jaw, his gaze turning aside. “No. He set them down and said that he wanted me to give them back to you. He said, ‘Give them back to Alexander Rahl. My treat.’ ”

Alex heaved a sigh. “Let me see them.”

Mr. Martin gestured to the paintings sitting against the wall in the corner of the office area. They were placed face-to-face, and no longer in frames.

When Alex lifted the first one and held it out in both hands he was struck speechless. In fat black letters sprawled diagonally across the painting it said FUCK YOU ASSHOLE.

The painting was covered with every other hateful, vile, vulgar name there was.

“Alex, I want them out of here.”

Alex stood, hands trembling, staring at his beautiful painting covered with ugly words.

“Do you hear me, Alex? I can’t have these in here. What if a customer should happen to see them? You have to take them with you. Right now. Get them out. I want them out of here. I want to forget all about this.”

Through his fury Alex could only nod. He knew that Mr. Martin didn’t fear a customer seeing them. Many of Mr. Martin’s artists routinely spoke like this in front of customers. The customers took the artist’s “colorful” speech as an indication of social sensitivity and artistic introspection. The more times an artist could drop the F bomb in a sentence the more visionary he became to them.

No, Mr. Martin was not offended by the words—he was used to hearing them in the gallery—he was frightened by the man who had written them, and by the context of those words: raw hatred.

Mr. Martin cleared his throat. “I’ve been giving the matter a great deal of thought, and I think it best if for now we don’t display any of your work.”

Alex looked up. “What?”

Mr. Martin gestured to the painting. “Well, look at it. This kind of man could get violent. He looked like he was ready to break my neck if I dared lift a finger to stop him.”

Alex’s first thought was that it was Bethany’s doing, but he dismissed the idea. He was pretty sure she didn’t have that kind of money to spend on a grudge.

“What did this guy look like? Describe him.”

“Well,” Mr. Martin said, taken aback a little by the heat in Alex’s tone, “he was tall, and good size—about like you. He was dressed casually but not expensively. Tan slacks, some kind of bland shirt, not tucked in. It was beige with a vertical blue stripe of some sort down the left side.”

Alex didn’t recognize the description.

He felt sick with anger. He ripped the canvas off the stretcher, then did the same with the other five. He only briefly saw the insults and obscene words desecrating the scenes of beauty. The range of profanity turned his stomach, not so much because of the words themselves, but because of the naked hate they conveyed.