The Reluctant Nude - Meg Maguire [75]
“I still don’t really get it.”
Max sat her down on a bench-style tree swing.
“When I called him I said, ‘I have the inspiration for the greatest piece of my life!’ I said, I need more time. I need you to pay for some machinery costs, and labor, and in a few weeks you will be the patron behind the centerpiece of my career.”
“Okay…”
“I said, if any contractors call you, you tell them I have the details. You give me free rein and I will make you my finest masterpiece. I think he thinks this sculpture will be the next David.” Max smirked with satisfaction.
“He doesn’t know you’re dynamiting the hell out of my foster mother’s cliff, does he?”
He shook his head.
“How can he not know?”
“Donald Forrester, he’s rich. He is so rich and so busy, and so uninvested emotionally in his work, one call from a construction company blends into the next, I think. And I have gotten lucky. Luckier than I even hoped.”
“Well, he knows now,” Fallon said. “I called him. I thought it was him, destroying Gloria’s property. Sorry—not destroying. But I thought he was. I still don’t get it,” she admitted. “Are you just trying to piss him off?”
“Oh, no no no. That is just a happy byproduct. This is for you.”
“What is?”
He brushed a hand over her hair, licked a thumb and smoothed it over some smudge on her face. “A statue, behind all that.”
“I saw it. Most of it. Before they dragged me away. Why are you carving a gigantic angel into the cliff? For me?”
“This is your foothold. I did this for you, for attention. We will tear down the scaffolding and everyone will see the monument. Passing cars, then the press. Do you see?”
“Sort of. A media circus?”
“Well, as close to a circus as we can manage. I’m not as famous as I used to be. So that is where you take over,” Max said. “You have to use this time to stall. You have to tell people about this woman, your foster mother, and what she did, and tell the story of why this statue is suddenly here… Or at least tell the local news. You have to fight and get her home turned into a memorial—a protected place. Perhaps others that she helped will join you. You have to fight Forrester and get the state or the town to tell him this place cannot be touched.”
“Oh God, Max. That’s insane.”
“Even if they are not swayed by sentimentality, tourism may prove enticement enough.”
“I’m not a lawyer, Max. I’m just some woman. I haven’t lived here in over ten years.”
“I hope that it will be simple, that Forrester will not have the sac to say he is going to tear this place down. He could claim to be behind this, some play for philanthropic credibility. You and I, we let the press think this too, until he’s too embarrassed to deny it. But if he doesn’t play along, if he still wants to hurt you, you will fight.”
She chewed her lip. “You actually think that could work?”
Max shrugged. “I’ve fought for this. I did many things I said I wouldn’t. I’m inviting attention and sensationalism and trouble. I used machinery, and other people’s hands. And I worked from a photograph. Actually, the dynamiting was fun, I must admit.”
“How did you even know where the house was? Or what she looked like?”
Max smiled. “I’m a very good detective. I can even operate a computer when I have to.”
Fallon’s head swirled with a hundred horrible scenarios. “Forrester could have you arrested. For some kind of massive destruction-of-property thing.”
“No, I do not think so. The builders he let me hire, they have contracts. He gave me permission to do this, in documents that he did not read very carefully. I think he has a crush on me,” Max said with an evil grin. “He was very eager to kiss my ass and sign my forms.”
Fallon fell silent for a minute. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”
Max slid her glasses off and brushed her gritty face with a handkerchief from his pocket. “You do not have to say anything.” He replaced