“A show in New York, whatever legal fees required to circumvent anylegal matters. The show itself would, no question, supersede those matters, but people had to see the art first.
“I’m an artist, but she is a businesswoman, and would know what to do to protect me, who to pay off, and so on.”
“You told her, as you’ve told us, you killed Leesa Culver, Bobby Ren, Janette Whithers, had planned to kill Aaron Pine, and four others.”
“I don’t remember their names, for God’s sake. Why would I?”
“Why would you?” Eve agreed. “But you told your mother you’d killed three people and had planned to kill others.”
“Yes, I told her the method I’d found to lift my work up. She told me not to speak of it. No one would understand, and she’d fix everything so I could live free.”
“And continue your work. Your art.”
“Of course continue. How could I go back now that I know what I need? I took their lives with my hands, and with my hands transferred that life to the portraits. I gave them immortality and created brilliance.
“Now that you understand and appreciate, I want to talk to my mother. I expect the lawyers will work out some sort of deal, and we can all go back to our work.”
“Jonathan, in the beginning of this interview, I explained to you what would happen, and what wouldn’t.”
“But that was before I explained, before I knew you fully appreciated and understood my work.”
“And now that you’ve explained, I can promise you’ll spend the rest of your life in a concrete cage, off-planet. Your mother may, probably will, serve out her life on-planet, but she’ll have a cage, too.”
“You can’t mean that! Look! Look!”
When he pushed at the photos of the paintings, Eve rose. “Yes, I see. I see three people you killed, with your bare hands after you rendered them unconscious, so you could try to copy great art, and all for your own ego,your own sense of importance. Because you think money, money you never earned, makes you better.
“And your art, Jonathan? Is crap. It barely reaches the level of crap. Interview end. Peabody, see that this piece of shit is taken back to his cell.”
“With pleasure.”
“You can’t do this! I want my mother. I want my mother now!”
“Fuck you and your mother,” Eve muttered after she stepped out.
Epilogue
Mira stepped out of Observation, and before Eve saw it coming, took both of Eve’s hands.
“It takes a lot to chill people in our line of work. He managed.” She squeezed Eve’s hands. “Well done. Very, very well done.”
“He wanted someone besides his mother to tell him what a genius he is. That’s all I had to do. Tell me he’s legally sane.”
“I can and will tell you just that. You worked that out of him as well. He knew right from wrong. He considers himself above all that. Ego doesn’t make him legally insane. He’s a malignant egoist who’s been pampered and indulged and given whatever he likes so he believes he’s entitled to take what he likes. Including lives.”
“I’m taking his mother next. I’m taking her now.”
“I’ll stay for that. She created him.”
Eve glanced over as Roarke stepped out. “Reo’s on her ’link with the attorney Phoebe Harper’s just managed to engage. Lieutenant, whilehis work is crap, yours rises to genius. I was here from about halfway through that.”
“He’d have kept killing. She knew that. He couldn’t have stopped, wouldn’t have stopped, and she knew it.”
Mira moved aside so Roarke took Eve’s hands. “She thinks, as he does, her money, her position will buy them both out of this. You’ll prove her wrong.”
Reo came out. “Decent firm, nothing special. Solid enough to understand their clients are in a hell of a fix. They want to talk deal. Ten years for him, in a facility—a nice plush one—for therapy and treatment. Two years of community service for her, and a ten-million-dollar fine.”
“And you said.”
