Noir

Chapter Three – Dirty Monet

A piano in the distance. The tinkle of ivories, glasses. The trickle of wine, fine conversation. I was on an alien planet, trying not to suffocate in this strange atmosphere.

“You like my work?”
French, exotic, a voice so full of culture and taste I could punch it.
“I prefer sculpture,” I reply, emptying my half-full glass, studying the colours as the liquid wended its way into the dark pits of my body. I turn. Renfield smiled back at me.

“I see you are not one for the fine arts, Mr Turpentine. You may be surprised to hear that many people will pay millions, if not more, for works of this calibre.”
“What kind of people?”
“Movie stars. Businessmen. Politicians. Anyone with an appreciation for the finer things in life. More wine?” He held the bottle out, dark red, like blood pouring onto the streets of the city, splashing as it hit the sides of my glass. The best things in life are free.

“Take a look at this painting for example. You know the Senator?” He motioned down the corridor at the corpulent crook laughing it up with a couple of dames in the foyer. “He recently bought this work for one million dollars. Tell me, Detective, what do you think of it?”
“What are those blocks on it?” I craned closer. “Are those…”
“Peggle.” He smiled, standing back to take in my reaction, like a proud father, those big, punchable features gleaming. “A statement of our modern times, the pervasiveness of new trends in society, even amongst these historic halls.”

I looked closer. The score figure at the top seemed to swim, as if the waves had come alive to devour the hapless sailors, and drag me with them. I turned to the artist, falling back against the wall in surprise.

“Is everything all right, detective? Perhaps we have had too much wine.” A dark phantasm stared back at me. A scream, surrounded in coloured blocks. I struggled to my feet, staggering. The room began to pulse. The wine. My body shrieked at me, and my brain was wailing on my skull like a jackhammer.
“Excuse me,” the horror show was saying to a black-shirted guard, “I believe Mr Turpentine is feeling a little unwell. Would you please escort him outside? I have some business to attend to.”

Outside, the rain hammered down on me as time melted space. My own dream-world. All for the price of betrayal. A single lit window, in the alley at the back, a round silhouette, complete with beret. A phone in one hand, cigarette in the other. Words and smoke spilling out into the night air.
A back door pulsed below him, inviting. I felt my head clear momentarily as I rammed it open, staggering into the dark, musty air inside.

As I struggled up the maze of stairs in the sleeping service stairwell, the drug twisting steps this way and that, the voice moved closer, its Gallic yammer ringing off the cold plasterboard.
“Tut, we may have to bring the deal forwards. I’m getting some unwanted guests, and I think the hamster at the labs may have squealed.” He paused for the cat on the other end. “Yes – yes, pass it on to the boss by all means. But for now – your circus, tomorrow night? Yes, good. I shall see you there. À bientot, mon amis.”
I stopped at the sound of a receiver slamming into the hook, stepping momentarily into the shadows as the sound of footsteps passed by and disappeared into the light and noise and expensive suits with gaping holes in the pockets, dirty money running through them like the overflowing gutters in the dank alleyway outside.

I stepped into the cold rain, my head still ringing like all the bells in the city were going off at once inside it. Something made me stop and look up. A peeling fly-poster, smiling down at me with its fading colours, still fuzzy from the trick wine. Kat Tut’s Circus.

Guess who’s going to roll up, roll up tomorrow night.