Page 36 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“I’ll be so fast,” he called back.
“You’re the most disorganised man I’ve ever met!” Joe yelled after him.
Percy soon rounded the church for the second time that day. He took his key out again and entered. He walked swiftly into the main atrium where James sat, exactly where he had been before, but now with terrified eyes on Percy.
Percy sent him a smile and walked to the sarcophagus. It was much harder to push the lid now, with his bruised andaching arms, the adrenaline leaving his system and leaving him increasingly exhausted in the process.
“James, come open this.”
Warily, James made his way up the aisle.
“It’s stone,” Percy said. “I need you to help me push.”
With a few nervous glances, James placed his weathered and knotted fingers on the cold stone and pushed as directed. It came away more easily this time.
Percy turned to face him, still smiling pleasantly, and asked softly, “Do you really believe you can change the habit of a lifetime?”
James lifted his head earnestly. “I believe I can try.”
“That’s not much of a guarantee, is it? Would you try if your life wasn’t on the line?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t,” Percy dropped acidly.
James stared a few long and tense seconds into Percy’s steely eyes, not smiling, like his lips still were, then started, “That priest?—”
“That priest is my boyfriend,” Percy said. “That’s why I know he has a good heart. Much too good for the likes of you.”
James sensed the heat in Percy’s body, the ice in his lips and jaw, the complete absence of humanity one experiences when one person sees the other as nothing more than meat and bones. “That priest said you can’t kill me.”
Percy held his gaze. “What’s my name?”
“I don’t know your name.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t. I promise.”
“Then you can tell your God…” The tip of Percy’s dagger moved deftly through the man’s chin, up and up, impaling his tongue, passing through the soft palate, pausing just before his brain. “Tell them Percy Ashdown sent you.” He gave the blade one final shove, breaking through the cartilage and into the brain, where he twisted the dagger, before removing the knife and letting the warm, shuddering corpse fall to the floor.
He washed the blood from his dagger and his hands once again in the baptismal font, then left and locked the door and the death behind him. Then, of course, he gave a short laugh at his own stupidity. He entered the church again, took the painting from the sarcophagus, then locked the door and jogged around the corner to a bored and lightly irritated Joe.
“He’s quite a character, your Nazi,” Percy dropped casually.
Joe grimaced. “He’s notmyNazi.”
“He still swears he doesn’t know my name, but just between you and me, I’m pretty sure he does. But look.” Percy held the rolled portrait to his eye, looking clean through at Joe on the other end. “You see all the cracks in there? And look.” He pulled from his pocket the small chip of paint that had set the day’s events in motion. “Look what they did to her.” While Joe nodded his sympathetic understanding, Percy was surprised at how anxious he suddenly felt, now that he was back in Joe’s calm and trusting presence after what he had done to Joe’s Nazi. “Come on.” He picked up a bag. “It’s just up here.”
They made small talk in the way people do when there isn’t time yet to have the necessary big talk, Percy checking all the while to see whether they were being followed or watched, and satisfied they were alone, moments later they found themselves back inside Percy’s safe house. The money went straight under the floorboards, this time with the painting, too.
Percy clapped his hands together. “Cocktails?”
“Right now?” Joe replied, looking about the empty apartment. “We’re just going to dump the money and run?”
“Yes, I believe that’s generally how heists work.”
“That was a heist?”
