James Patterson - Kill Me If You Can

“Hold that pose,” I said. “I’ll get some coffee and a paintbrush.”

“You don’t do portraits,” she said.

“I do nudes,” I said with a smile. “You know where I can find one?”

“I just happen to have one under here,” she said. Then she peeled off the tank top. She scrambled out of her jeans. Lord, she was good at undressing.

“The coffee can wait,” I said.

Morning sex for us was usually fast, urgent — kind of like an asteroid is heading for the planet and we only have a few minutes left fast.

That morning we took the better part of an hour.

“I hate to be practical, especially at a time like this, but we should shower and get dressed,” Katherine finally said.

We were lying in a heap of tangled sheets, skin to skin, soaked in sweat. I was still inside her. More or less.

She put her lips on mine, kissed me gently, and found my tongue with hers. That’s all it took to reboot my libido.

“We need to go, Matthew,” Katherine said. “We have to get up.”

“As you may have noticed, I’m pretty much up,” I said. “Give me two good reasons why we should leave this bed. Ever.”

“Your mother and your father,” she said. “We’re meeting them for brunch at ten o’clock.”

“We’ll be late,” I said. “They’ll understand.”

AN HOUR LATER we were sitting at a sidewalk café, eating duck eggs Benedict and buttery petites brioches, while my mother, giddy on half a mimosa, extolled the joys of Paris. She was like a Colorado schoolgirl on her first holiday. Even my father was smiling some.

It was our au revoir brunch. My folks had spent a week in Paris, and now they were moving on to Rome, Florence, and Venice. They were capping it all off with a two-week Mediterranean cruise. It was outrageously expensive, but it only put a small dent in the seven-figure account I’d opened for them at my Dutch bank.

We drove them to the airport and went back to the apartment, where I painted for six hours straight, breaking only for coffee and a few words of inspiration.

At seven, Katherine and I sat on our tiny terrace, sipping a light white burgundy while watching the steel-gray western sky slowly turn spectacular shades of red, orange, and indigo.

The doorbell rang.

“Poor man,” Katherine said. “I hate to put him through this.”

“It’s good for him,” I said.

We were expecting company, but old habits die hard, so before buzzing our visitor in, I checked the tiny security camera I had installed at the front door.

He tromped noisily up the steps, stopping often to catch his breath or complain.

“My darlings,” Newton gushed as he finally made it to our front door. “You’re coming down in the world.”

“Meaning what?” Katherine said.

“The first time we met, Matthew was a starving artist living on the top floor of a five-story walkup. Today you’re on the fourth floor. I look forward to the day when you are rich and famous, and I can ride the elevator to your penthouse in the sky.”

“You’re full of shit, Newton,” Katherine said. “The day Matthew is rich and famous is the day you’ll go off and find another poor struggling artist with no money and lots of stairs to climb.”

Newton laughed. “She’s right. Now let me see what I came for.”

He stepped in. “Oh, my,” he said as he took in my latest work. “Oh, my, my, my. Genius.”

“Really?” Katherine said. “You think Matthew is a genius?”

“Oh, heavens, no. I’m the genius. I said he’d get better, and he has. The lad has discovered color. And hope. And passion.”

“Keep talking, Newton,” Katherine said. “Every word of praise is going to cost you more money.”

Newton shrugged. It wasn’t his money.

He picked out five paintings.

“Someday these will be worth millions,” he said. “Until then, I’d peg them at ten grand apiece.”

He wrote me a check for fifty thousand dollars. I couldn’t believe it.

“There’s one catch,” he said, waving the check in my face. “You must let me buy you dinner.”

“Shouldn’t I be buying?” I said. “I mean, that check will cover a year’s worth of dinners.”

He laughed. “Not where we’ll be dining, my boy. Have you ever heard of La Tour d’Argent?”

“I have,” Katherine said, gently plucking the check from his hand. “We accept your generous offer.”

“Excellent. I’ll pick you up at eight forty-five.”

As soon as Newton left, Katherine started rummaging through her closet. “I have nothing to wear,” she said. “ Rien. Nothing.”

“You look fabulous in nothing. It’s my favorite look for you.”

“You’re not helping,” she said. “Hurry up and get dressed.”

“One question,” I said. “Why is he taking us to dinner?”

“Because he loves to eat, he has a big fat expense account, and he wants to be seen in public with a handsome artiste Américain and his ugly professor who doesn’t have a thing to wear. Why else would he take us to dinner?”

I didn’t know. And that made me nervous.

La Tour d’Argent has been a Paris institution since the sixteenth century. Perched on the river Seine in the heart of Old Paris, it’s a mecca for people who live to eat. Not exactly the kind of place where you pop in and ask for a table for three.

And not just any table. Ours had a sweeping view of the river and Notre Dame Cathedral.

“How’d you manage to get such a good table at the last minute?” I asked.

“All it takes is charm and money,” Newton said. “I supply the former and my employer has oodles of the latter. Voilà. We’re in.”

The sommelier handed him a wine list.

“This is the manageable version,” Newton said, handing it to me. “They have half a million bottles of wine in their cellar, and the complete wine list is four hundred pages.”

He ordered a bottle of 1990 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut that cost more than my first car.

“A toast,” Newton said once our glasses were filled. “To our blossoming young artist, Matthew Bannon.”

“And to the beautiful woman who made it all possible,” I said, “Katherine Sanborne.”

“And to Matthew’s generous new patron,” Katherine said. She looked innocently at Newton. “What’s his name, anyway?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” Newton said. “He’s a lovely man but rather secretive.” He smiled at me. “I’m sure you understand, don’t you, Matthew? We all have our little secrets.”

“But we’re toasting him,” Katherine said. “He has to have a name.”

Newton grinned. “In that case, feel free to give him one.”

“Copernicus,” Katherine said. “Newton and Copernicus — both drawn to the stars.”

We all drank to Copernicus.

“So, Newton,” I said, “are you as secretive as your boss, or can you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

“Secretive? Moi? Heavens, no. My life is an open book. In fact, I plan to write one someday. I already have the title— Confessions of an Art Whore. ”

“I can’t wait for the book,” Katherine said. “Tell us some of the good parts.”

“Actually, my dear, they were all good parts. When I was twenty years old, I fell in love with Andy Warhol. Some people dismiss him, but he was the bellwether of the art market,” Newton said. “Notice I said art market. Andy was the rare artist who mastered the delicate balance between art and commerce. Are you familiar with one of his early works— Eight Elvises ? It recently sold for a hundred million dollars.”