Heavenly Lover (7 page)

Chapter 7

Daniel burst through the front door as his phone rang. He dropped his portfolio bag and ran across the broken glass left over from his last night’s indulgences.

“Shit.” He gripped the cordless phone, then heard something squawk as it fell from his fingers. He could hear “Hello? Hello? What the fuck?” from the handset.

He bent over, grabbed the phone off the floor, then brought it to his ear. “This is Daniel.”

“What just happened? You okay, man?” Beau Bradley’s speech was slurred. Daniel assumed the slur came from Beau’s steady diet of Quaaludes and Southern Comfort.

“Sorry, Beau. Dropped the phone.”

“Okay. Woulda hurt, if I could still hear.” Beau chuckled, bringing on a rheumy wheeze. He coughed, clearing his throat. “You haven’t answered my phone calls. Okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk to me about your shit—sorry—your paintings.”

“I’ll be down next day or two. Gotta borrow a truck.”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

Daniel heard a door close as Beau whispered into the phone, his voice muffled as if he were buried in a cave.

“Two IRS agents are here and they are asking questions about your stuff, you know, like when was the last time one sold, if any were waiting for pickup, that sort of thing.”

“IRS? I don’t get it. I’ve not gotten any notices, and my taxes are current.”

“They’re talking like you had some big windfall, some large sale you didn’t report and they’re looking to take ‘em.”

“The paintings?”

“No, my toilet seats. Of course I’m talking about the fucking paintings!” Beau coughed into the phone. “Be glad it was me here today. Audray would have told them to take ‘em all.”

Sweat rolled down Daniel’s back, soaking his shirt. He threw off his jacket, swearing under his breath, then undid the top button and pulled his shirttails out of his slacks. The last several months, he’d been plagued with banking overdrafts, declines on his credit cards, and now this.

What’s going on?

“But fuck me, Daniel, trouble with the I Fucking R S is not something I need right now. Catch my drift?” Beau said.

Daniel understood Beau’s aversion to any form of law enforcement. “Yes, I understand.”

“And, I’m fucking bursting at the seams here. She’s got this new photographer she wants to display, and I got no fuckin room.”

“Photographer?”

“He’s a doctor, really. Not much of a photographer, just my opinion. But I like having nude pictures of Audray adorn my walls, if you know what I mean.”

Daniel did. He could imagine she liked it too.

“I haven’t got a clue, Beau. They taking the paintings now?” Over the cell phone, Daniel heard a creaking door and then the sound of it closing.

“Can’t tell yet, but they’re writing down shit in little notebooks, you know, like cops.”

“I’ll come down there and talk to them. Don’t worry. It must be some kind of mistake. They’ve got me mixed up with someone else.”

“You know, Daniel, I’m not so sure you should come unless you bring an attorney. These guys look like major bruisers. They don’t smile. They grumble.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“Are you sure, cause…”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll give Josh a call, maybe he can come on down with me. I need his Hummer anyway.”

Beau sighed. “I gotta ask, why do you pay Josh anything? The guy is worthless.”

“He found you, didn’t he?”

“He found Audray. Josh doesn’t fuck men.”

That made Daniel smile. “He’s a good friend, and he cares about the artists he represents.”

“Then how come they all wind up dead? No, Daniel, the only one he cares about is himself.” Beau mumbled curses. “I coulda told you not to get involved with her, though. What
were
you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Your lower brain sort of thing. Been there myself a time or two,” Beau continued.

How many times?

The crash Daniel heard sounded like something in the gallery had shattered to the floor. Beau swore. “These guys are gorillas. That cost me about five Gs.”

Daniel’s finances were precarious, and his pride was buried under debt. He had enough to replace the paint he’d squandered last night, but not much else. That would mean not making his house payment this month, which would mean month number three. A foreclosure notice would be coming any day then. He had equity too. He’d be flushing that down the toilet if he didn’t come up with some cash in a hurry.

He heard a banging sound on Beau’s end of the phone, along with a muffled yet booming voice that said, “Sir, you want to step out of the closet, please?”

“Shit! Daniel, gotta go now,” Beau whispered.

“Tell them I’ll be right down,” Daniel said.

“Your funeral.” Beau hung up.

Beau’s statement worried Daniel. Did Josh like to represent suicidal artists for some particular reason? Tortured souls?

This morning he’d met with an old friend from art school in the San Fran—the author of a couple of popular children’s books—and was supposed to start some sketches for him. Thank God he hadn’t forgotten to get up. There wasn’t any money in it up front, but a possible book tour and percentage of sales if it did go to print. It was a chance at some kind of future. He was finally starting to get it together. What had he been thinking last night, wanting to end it all? Today, he was seeing possibilities.

But first he had to take care of the IRS.
What am I missing?
He shook his head and dialed Josh’s phone.

“How are you feeling today, my friend?” Josh asked.

“Seems like I just get done with one crisis and another pops up. Beau called me and two IRS agents are at the gallery, acting like they’re going to take my paintings. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“You think I caused this?” Anger laced Josh’s words.

“No. But I’ve received no notices, my bank account is all screwed up, and now this. They think I sold a ton of stuff and didn’t report it, or so they told Beau.”

“Makes no sense.”

“I need to take the paintings back. Can I borrow your Hummer?”

“Yeah, I’m downtown now. Meet you there or pick you up?”

“Meet me there.”

Daniel hung up. The pit of his stomach felt like it had a hole in it.

On Daniel’s way to the gallery, Beau’s comments dislodged something that bothered him about his agent and Josh’s fondness for dark and dangerous things. Everyone Josh introduced him to had some sort of huge flaw. Even he had one now: he needed money. And he needed to stop getting hard at every turn. When he was fourteen, he’d found the potential amazing. Now, however, a perpetual hard dick got in the way. He remembered a time when his cock acted like that of a normal man—hard when required. But ever since Audray, he’d been a walking Viagra commercial.

Shit, I’d rather have acne.

He needed to find a way to get release. He was going to get carpal tunnel from biffing himself so much. Time for some serious dating.

He was also flawed in that no one even looked at his paintings anymore. But even concerns about his lack of talent took a back seat to his financial precariousness. Once Audray had signed him on at the gallery and his work had garnered the attention of the art crowd, he’d set aside his other commercial work, which paid very little, but had in the past gotten him by. The big splashy canvases displayed at Craven Image, initially selling for thousands of dollars, were his real meal ticket. At the gallery parties—almost orgies, really—the rich and famous had loved his work and had stroked his ego. He’d raked in the dough then, hand over fist.

But then all of a sudden, the attention had dried up. Just like his affair with Audray. It was like one minute he was a member of this exclusive club and the next he was being barred at the door by a really big bouncer.

He knew sleeping with the gallery manager had been a mistake, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. Audray had come along just at the right time, right when his career was beginning to take off. And, as fast as he made the money, she made sure he spent it—on her. He could see the slight nod of acknowledgment by other men as he walked with her on his arm.

He thought further about those stares now—were they looks of admiration as he’d always assumed? Or were those men wondering why he didn’t see the danger there?

He shook himself.

Stop it.

He arrived at the little gallery on the Square in Healdsburg and found a slip of a parking spot just big enough for his old two-seater Mercedes he’d bought with the proceeds of his first big sale. What a day that had been. Before the interest in his art had crashed.

Josh’s black Hummer was conspicuously taking up two spaces people would soon kill for, come noon. The gallery doors were open. A sandwich sign out front advertised his paintings for half price. He cursed a string in Portuguese.

Josh was already in dialogue with two men in dark grey suits. Beau had been right, both were beefy, not the typical IRS pencil-pusher types Daniel expected. He figured they were the ones that scared everyone into paying up. Looked to him more like Russian mobsters. But this didn’t matter. He had no money and he was certain he owed nothing.

“Ah, gentlemen, this is Daniel DePalma, the artist,” Josh said, touching the elbow of the beefstick closest to him as he rolled his eyes. Daniel looked to the two, making sure they didn’t pick up on the disrespect. He stuck out his hand.

“I believe we have some sort of misunderstanding,” he said as he pumped the fist of the first man, then followed with the second. The bones of his hand were crushed by the vice-like grip each had placed on him with their handshakes. He made sure his face didn’t show the pain.

So much for a civil outcome.

“This is Agent Fisk, I’m Agent Rossetti. We’ve been asked to take an inventory of the paintings.” Rosetti’s puffy cheeks were pock-marked, and his beady hazel eyes darted from side to side.

“Inventory?

“Mr. DePalma,” Agent Fisk said, pulling out a folded paper from his vest pocket. “Were you aware of the fact that you owe the IRS over one hundred thousand dollars?” He placed the folded sheaf on Daniel’s palm.

Anger flooded his chest. Hot blood flowed through his veins, down his arms and to his fingers. The document almost burned him. He unfolded the paper and examined the notice for an IRS levy. “I’ve never seen this letter before.”

He crumpled the paper like it was a sandwich wrapping and held the notice above his head. “This is bullshit. I haven’t
made
that much money this year. How could I owe this in
tax!”
He glared at the two agents. “You fucking assholes. What kind of a game are you playing?”

Josh stepped between Daniel and the agents, but part of Daniel’s anger was aimed at his friend as well. “Daniel, look,” Josh said. “I think we can settle this. You need to calm down, man.”

“Calm down?” Daniel reached around Josh to punch Agent Rossetti, but only landed a glancing blow on man’s shoulder, which hardly moved. Rossetti grinned.

“Do that again, and we get to take you in.” His little teeth were stained yellow and crooked. He wasn’t used to grinning, for good reason.

The two agents were hungry for more, Daniel saw.

“Whoa, there!” Beau shrieked in panic. “If you’re going to get into fists and all, take it outside, man. I got glass and breakables in here.” He opened the door and gestured for them to leave. The two agents stood their ground, not even considering him.

Josh kept Daniel and the glowering men separated and turned to them. Although Josh was their height, they outweighed him by at least double. “Gents. There has to be a mistake. I’m this artist’s agent. I can vouch for the fact that he hasn’t sold a painting in over six months. The owner, here, wants him to remove all this, making room for something that will sell. Believe me,” Josh said with conviction, “If he sold something, I would know about it.”

“Yeah, where did you get your information?” Beau said with unusual bravado, taking one step closer, adding his sneer to the mix.

Daniel watched the four men jockey for position and banter among themselves
.
All because of him. He glared at Agent Fisk, whose red, bloated face made him look like he had a Helium hose secured to his ass.

Behind the IRS agent, the long, unsmiling stares of the big cats peered through jungle foliage and remained passive witnesses. Daniel scanned all of them, one by one. Their eyes followed him as he backed up and out of the cluster of controversy, as if to ask, “What will become of us?” Orphaned children in a divorce proceeding. Did they know their beautiful sibling had met a fiery grave?

Daniel sat on a park bench in the town square and felt as poor as the guy dumpster diving in the pretty little square. How could his life have fallen so far apart? Josh had worked his magic on the agents, who, for now, agreed to leave the paintings in place. Josh promised them sales receipts for the past twelve months and convinced them it was in everyone’s best interests to get the paintings sold, even if it was at half price.

Half price. Is that what my life is worth now? I’m a sale item.

He couldn’t shrug off the loneliness, the pain of his uncertain future. He was hoping this was all a bad dream he’d wake up and find didn’t really happen. What a strange time, a series of unfortunate events all coming together in a great cluster fuck of a convergence.

Perfect storm.

It
had
to get better. It
just
had to. Couldn’t be worse.

He got out his sketchbook and began penciling some images of children walking past. He looked up to see a young woman with short scruffy blond hair standing outside the gallery, interested in the sandwich sign. She went in.

Daniel’s pulse shot up. Was she interested in his painting, or the sale? Dressed in blue jeans and an oversized man’s white V-neck tee shirt, she didn’t look like the typical tourist, but rather a local. Maybe he had a fan.

He put away his pencils and tablet and crossed the street, then shadowed the doorway, hesitating to go in. Through the glass door he could see Beau pointing to one of his paintings. The woman tilted her chin, then nodded her head.