KILLER ADDICTION: When Murder Becomes A Habit

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN at night when the knock came at the door of Ryan’s studio. He paused from his latest artwork, stepped away from the large easel, walked over and opened the door.

‘Are we ever going to meet in the daylight?’ asked Gigi as she walked in.

‘No, my dear, we are creatures of the night,’ replied Ryan with a dramatic flair, his voice and body oozing with invitation, playing the charming artiste.

‘Oh, give it a rest Ryan, you know that doesn’t work on me,’ laughed Gigi. ‘We share the same taste in our s****l partners—nothing hanging between the legs, thanks.’

Ryan laughed loudly at the candid response from his art dealer. She was his meal ticket—his source of income. Ryan was erratic and compulsive with a strong s****l appetite that leaned towards the unconventional, but he was smart enough to know when he was on a good thing and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise that.

‘What are you working on now, my dear? Let Gigi have a peek,’ crooned the art dealer.

‘Hold on, let me reveal it to you in the way it deserves,’ responded Ryan. He walked over, reached his fingers up to her eyes and gently closed them, then guided her around to the front of the easel. He stood still for a moment, building the anticipation.

‘Okay, open your eyes,’ said Ryan quietly. Gigi complied and immediately squealed with delight and clapped her hands together as she caught the first glimpse of Ryan’s near-completed work. She loved his dramatic paintings full of colour, passion, and a hint of danger.

‘Oh, Ryan, I love it! It’s another magnificent piece. The galleries will fall over themselves to get their hands on this one,’ she said with a smile, already thinking about the nice juicy commission she would collect from the sale. ‘I know we haven’t been working together for long, but I can definitely see a long future ahead if you keep producing works like this.’

Gigi couldn’t believe her luck, that she had stumbled across Ryan and his talent purely by chance. She had seen him drawing a miniature portrait of a woman on the back of a beer coaster in a club late one night as part of his pickup routine. Gigi was a student of human nature and liked to see the interplay of social interaction. After quickly identifying his talent, she had quietly observed him for more than an hour—he was the life of the party, confident, outgoing and sociable. His charm and talent did their job on his mark for the night and as they stood up to leave, Gigi had approached him, gave him her number and told him she might make a lot of money for him from his art. Ryan had called her from the bar the following night; she had visited his studio and immediately loved his paintings.

As Gigi soaked up Ryan’s latest work, she reflected on its creator. Ryan was a challenging client, but worth it. Like many true creatives, he was unconventional, and he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. To top it off, he was disorganised, incapable of planning, illogical, erratic and volatile. But he was also attractive, charming, fun to be around and had a dangerous bad-boy streak that made her feel like anything could happen—he was unpredictable. Ryan operated strictly on a cash-only basis and was completely off the grid. He had no bank account that she knew of, no phone, no social security number, no driver’s licence, no identification, nothing. He was a ghost, lurking in the shadows, operating only at night; they had never met in the daytime. She complained about it, but secretly liked the subterfuge, the sense of intrigue and danger that he represented. She loved the fact that she was his only conduit to the art world, that she was bringing this shadowy underbelly into the light of high society, displaying Ryan’s dark art on the pristine white walls of galleries, high net worth private collectors and corporations. Gigi had to do some accounting gymnastics to explain the cash payments and a lack of formal paperwork, but her healthy commissions made it worth the effort.

‘So, do we have a deal?’ asked Ryan, already knowing the answer.

‘Yes, definitely. There’s a growing interest and appetite for your work. It’s getting to the stage where I can start pushing the prices higher. I can give you five thousand for this one when it’s finished,’ responded Gigi with a smile, knowing she would more than double that figure selling it to the gallery that was hottest for his art right now.

‘Sweet!’ said Ryan with a smile. ‘With the usual twenty percent advance?’

‘Sure. Here you go. Don’t blow it all at once,’ said Gigi as she pulled out a thick bankroll from her pocket and counted out a wad of 50 twenty- dollar notes.

Ryan gleefully accepted his advance, reached it up to his face and gave the notes a big, loud kiss. ‘Come and have a drink with me, doll. You work too hard,’ said Ryan.

‘Not tonight, buddy. I’ve got a late-night date with a cold bottle of wine and a hot woman who’s probably getting very impatient right now. I’m out of here,’ Gigi replied as she picked up her bag and made her way over to the door of the studio.

‘Pleasure doing business with you as always, Gigi,’ said Ryan and gave her a kiss on the cheek at the door.

‘Ciao, Bello,’ Gigi replied with a smile as she left.

Ryan washed the paint off his hands, grabbed his jacket, stuffed his pockets full of cash and headed out for a one-man pub crawl of his favourite haunts. By bar number five, he’d had a skinful of booze and was feeling particularly fired-up, more in the mood for violence than s*x.

But so far, nobody had really given him any grief. He wasn’t one to pick a fight, but would respond viciously to the slightest provocation, believing that anybody who started something deserved what was coming to them, and then some. Tonight, the unlucky ones were three young men with a pack mentality and a nasty attitude, out late and looking for trouble.

Ryan eyeballed the men as soon as they walked in, recognising their swagger as the challenge it was, silently shouting, ‘Hey, we own this place tonight, so stay out of our way.’ The testosterone hung heavy in the air, like young bull elephants mounting a challenge. The group scanned the bar as they walked in, looking for trouble and spotting it when they saw Ryan staring calmly and coldly at them. With a nudge to his compatriots and a nod in Ryan’s direction, the leader of the pack made his way to the bar, coming to a stop much closer to Ryan than needed.

‘Hey baby, give us three buds,’ said the leader to the barmaid who responded with a barely disguised look of disdain as she delivered the order and accepted the payment. ‘Keep the change, honey,’ said the man, puffing up his chest.

‘Wow, thank you so much!’ she responded sarcastically. ‘A whole fifty cents. Imagine what I could buy with that! You’ve made my night, big spender.’

The man slammed both his hands down on the bar and snarled, ‘You ungrateful b***h! Someone needs to teach you a lesson in manners!’

The barmaid realised she had pushed a hot button way too hard and quickly retreated, suddenly fearful of what this nutcase might do to her.

With both hands pressed on the bar, the man made to launch his way over, but a sudden flash of movement caught his peripheral vision and then he looked down in horror to see a switchblade sticking out of the top of his left hand impaled into the bar! The knife handle oscillated back and forth in front of his eyes.

As the man’s nerve receptors caught up with the visuals, he screamed in pain and snapped his head to the side to look at Ryan, who calmly looked back at him and said, ‘I’ve got a better idea, s**t-for-brains. How about I teach you and your boys some manners instead?’ and promptly smashed his fist adorned with brass knuckledusters right into the man’s cheek. Instantly, the flesh split open and blood erupted from the man’s face. His head recoiled from the blow and bounced off the bar in a sudden impact and his body collapsed to the floor, tearing at the hand still impaled to the bar, leaving it hanging above him like a corpse with a raised hand wanting to ask a question of the teacher.

Dumbfounded, the leader’s two attack dogs looked at their bloodied partner on the floor, then at Ryan and each bellowed a roar, moving into action as one. But they weren’t quick enough. In another blur of motion, Ryan reached behind the bar, having made it his business to know where the bar defence weapon was, and came out with a baseball bat.

Ryan bunted the first guy with a quick jab to the jaw, then spun around and swung a brutal home run right into the other man’s ribcage, accompanied by the sound of ribs cracking at the instant of impact. With a crazy smile on his face, Ryan turned back to his first attacker and quickly jabbed him three times in the face with the end of the bat; bam, bam, bam! The hapless soul looked blankly back at Ryan, with his nose spread over his face, one eye already closing, and his top lip split in two, exposing his buck teeth. With blood splattered all over his face and scrunched eyes, he started sobbing like a baby. ‘In the future, don’t be such an asshole. Here endeth the lesson,’ said Ryan with a smile as he surveyed his handiwork, feeling a powerful sense of satisfaction. It felt so good to educate people about how to act around women, he thought to himself.

He looked over at the barmaid who was shaking her head in disbelief at what had just happened in the blink of an eye. Ryan pulled five twenties out of his pocket and handed them over to the barmaid. ‘Here’s a better tip for your trouble. Thanks for serving me tonight,’ said Ryan. ‘See you next time.’ He handed her the bloodied baseball bat, pulled his switchblade out of the hand on the bar and watched the crimson-tainted arm slide down to the floor to join its owner’s body.

‘Um, thanks,’ mumbled the barmaid, still in shock at the violent firestorm that had flared and died so quickly, and watched Ryan walk out the door with a swagger of his own. A few seconds later, a big motorbike roared into life and took off down the street, fading into the distance.