William Boyd - Stars and bars

He pillowed his head on his arms and waited for the journey to end. What would they do to him, he wondered? What did they want of him? The continued absurdity of his predicament had ceased to give offence. It seemed now, after everything that had gone before, an entirely apt and normal state of affairs.

Eventually, the car stopped. Henderson clambered out under the watchful eye of his captors. Glancing up and down the street he saw wet mean tenements, boarded shops, ribbed and battered garage fronts. He caught a glimpse of the twin thick legs of the World Trade Centre descending from the low haze of the clouds. Above a door in front of him a fractured plastic sign read ‘OK REFRIGERATION’. The rain drenched his hair. The sidewalk gutters were overflowing, flotsam sped by driven by strong currents. The raindrops rebounded six inches when they hit the stone and asphalt. Gint pushed him into the doorway where Sereno fiddled with a clutch of fist-sized padlocks.

“What is this place?” Henderson asked. “Your gallery?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Freeborn said.

Sereno opened the doors and Henderson was pushed through into a dark concrete lobby. A large industrial elevator faced him. The grille doors were slid open and they all got in. They went up two floors. When they emerged Henderson saw they were in a large white room, brilliantly lit and filled with the noise of light industry. In one corner sparks of molten metal flashed prettily around a man welding pipes together to form a knotted intestinal fist. Beside him another man filed down the edges of a sectioned girder, bright chrome, and mounted on a three foot high marble plinth. From the far end came the hectic buzz of a high-powered spray gun as a man rendered a tall canvas dull maroon.

Sereno stood in the middle of the room and clapped his hands for silence.

“OK, boys, take a break. See you tomorrow.”

The men stopped work. Henderson looked around him, astonishment momentarily displacing his fear. Large fresh abstract canvases were stacked in piles against a wall; a rubble of scrap metal filled a corner. Sereno talked to the men as they laid down their tools.

“I like it, Jose,” Gint said to the man with the spray gun. “You’re getting real good.”

“What is this?” Henderson said, looking at the painting. “What’s going on here?”

“We call it colour field painting,” Gint said equably. “Sorta kinda like a big field, you know? Coloured.”

Sereno came over. “Corporate art,” he said. “Know how many offices there are in this country? Know how many big empty lobbies they got? They need plants and they need art. Big good art, not too expensive.”

“Big good art.”

“That’s what you got here.”

A young Hispanic girl in a grubby jersey and a tight short skirt came out of a small office at the far end of the room.

“Hey, Caridad,” Sereno said. “Take the day off. We need to use your office.”

She had a piece of paper in her hand.

“Ben,” she said. “I gotta call. Two Rothko, one Kline—”

“Early or late?”

“Jus’ black an’ white, he say. Big one.”

“Good.”

“An’ one Sam Francis.”

“Who? Do we do Sam Francis? Is it in the catalogue?”

“I got it,” Gint said, emerging from the office with an art book. He held up the illustration.

“Can you do it, Jose?”

“Ow. Is difficult, this one.” Jose scratched his head.

“Try it tomorrow. See you tomorrow, guys.”

The men filed out. Caridad went back into the office for her raincoat. She came back and stood not far from Henderson, one arm sleeved, a small beaded bag between her teeth, as her other arm probed vainly for the empty sleeve. Henderson helped her on with her coat.

“These men are holding me against my will,” he whispered. “Tell the police.”

Caridad, coated, turned and belted him round the head with her beaded handbag, some rasping, spitting Spanish oath following swiftly.

Henderson rubbed his stinging hot ear.

Sereno looked pityingly at him as Caridad walked stiffly out.

“You’re a cool one, Dores, I’ll give you that. Always the ladies’ man, eh?”

Henderson cupped his burning ear, his eyes screwed up, riven with a sudden deep hopelessness. Breakers crashed on a distant beach. He watched Freeborn and Gint shift the furniture — desk, plastic armchair, coat-stand, telephone, small filing cabinet — from the office.

“OK, Dores, let’s take a meeting.”

Gently, Sereno propelled him towards the office. Inside Henderson saw that the one interior window was covered by an iron grille, diamond patterned. The room was completely empty apart from one wooden chair. A small opaque window in the wall overlooked a filthy alleyway. The floor was wooden, heavily scored and badged with old dark stains. Ink, Henderson hoped. He couldn’t hear I any traffic noise and for the first time began to feel genuine alarm. These men, he was sure, acknowledged no civilized restraints to behaviour.

“Now listen,” he began. “I’ve been very patient, but I warn you—”

Freeborn pointed at him and he stopped talking at once. He moved nervously to the window. Nothing out there, Freeborn had a swift whispered consultation with the other two, then he took a few paces towards him.

“OK. Get the clothes off.”

“Now just one minute—”

“We can tear ‘em off, man, if you want.”

Henderson shut his eyes. Slowly he undressed. He laid shirt, jacket, trousers and tie across the wooden chair. He stood in his underpants, socks and shoes.

“Everything off.”

“Look, come on , chaps. Please.”

Gint took out his gun and pointed it at him.

“We want nekkid, Dores,” Freeborn said.

Henderson took off his shoes and socks. The floorboards were surprisingly cold; he worried vaguely about getting splinters in his soft pink soles, the risk of verrucas…The chill rose swiftly up through his body and reached the top of his skull in seconds. Goose pimples covered his body. He stripped off his underpants, threw them on the chair and held his trembling hands modestly in front of him.

“It’s not that cold, is it?” Sereno laughed.

Henderson looked away.

Gint gathered up his clothes and took them out of the office, then came back, snapping a pair of pliers in his hands.

“What’s that for?” Freeborn asked.

“You get a piece of skin in these, it’s like tearing paper.”

Henderson heard the blood leaving his head. He staggered a bit.

“Come on, Peter. Ben said I could go first,” Freeborn complained.

“Aw, here, Ben, you always let me go first.”

“Hold on there,” Freeborn said. “I mean, whose house was he in? Mine.”

“Yeah, but he’s in our office now.”

“But you wouldn’t have got him if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Yeah, but I had to—”

“Boys, boys,” Sereno said. “Relax. You got five minutes, Freeborn. Come on, Peter, give him the gun.”

Sulkily Gint handed over his gun, then he and Sereno left. Henderson heard the noise of the lift.

Freeborn wandered over. He pressed the revolver barrel against Henderson’s forehead.

“I ain’t gonna kill you yet, fuck, but I am gonna shoot your fuckin’ foot off of your leg in ten seconds if you don’t tell me what you’ve done with the paintings.” He pointed the gun at Henderson’s white twitching right foot. He looked down at his toes. The nails could do with a cut. He thought warmly of his foot’s hundreds of tiny fragile bones, its callouses, its one dear persistent corn. Finally he could speak.

“You don’t…You mean, you don’t know that—”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be here, mofo.”

“—that Duane burnt them all.”