Kill Me if You Can - James Patterson [83]
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.”
Chapter 99
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.