Losing Bess. Oh God. I can’t imagine a life – an every day – without her in it.
Surely it won't come to that. "Could you...find somewhere else?"
"Where?" says Bess. "Commercial rents in this town are incredibly scarce. And even if we do find one, the rent is unlikely to be cheaper than what The Odour wants."
I try again. "What about a different location than the high street? An empty warehouse down at the port?"
"No foot traffic," says Elly. "There's nothing else down there except for boat stuff and ugly industrial sheds, so people would have to go out of their way to find us."
"And," says Lutek. "There's also the cost of setting up a commercial kitchen, even if it could lure people."
"Could you, I don't know, start a collective?” I ask. “Get everyone to chip in to raise enough money to buy him out at a price even his daddy would approve of?"
Bess looks at me sharply, like I've hit on something worth considering.
"It's a nice idea, Ed, but we're artists." Jeanette titters like that explains everything. Which it does.
"Besides, what would a building that size sell for?" asks Elly. "Like, two million? More? It's got the flats above as well."
"And my workshop," adds Lutek.
We descend into silence again. Whatever the amount, it's far too large a sum to contemplate taking on.
Jeanette knots her fingers together and twists them. Little bits of dried clay fall to the floor like dandruff.
Elly collapses into a chair and puts her head in her hands.
Carlos takes a noisy slurp of wine.
"Bess," says Lutek. "What do we do?"
Every head turns to look at her.
Someone lesser might crumple under the pressure of this kind of expectation. The expectation of not only leadership, but heroism. For Bess to be the magical deus ex machina who will rescue the seemingly impossible situation.
What does Bess do? She returns every single one of those looks, person by person like the queen she is. "I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know what the solution is, but I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure we do not lose what we have. I mean it.Whatever it takes."
"Like...murder him'whatever it takes'?" asks Elly.
"I know a man," says Carlos.
"No you don't," says Elly.
"Sleeper agent. Goes by the name of Zoltar. Pay him the appropriate amount and he takes appropriate action."
Elly snorts. "By telling your fortune?"
"Carlos, my love," says Jeanette. "You're thinking of the automaton outside the pharmacy."
Carlos looks at the ceiling for a couple of seconds. "Ah, yes. So I am. Uncanny likeness to a chap I knew in the field. His turban could hide all manner of lethal weaponry. Grenades, the odd bazooka. The bigger the mess, the better, according to Zoltar. I prefer a hat pin to the eyeball myself. Quiet, quick, effective. You could give that a go."
"What's a hat pin?" asks Lutek.
"Carlos," Bess braces her hands on the back of her chair and leans over it. "I am not includingmurder himin 'whatever it takes'. I admit I was very tempted to help him discover his inability to fly from the gallery roof this evening, but that might be going a little too far. Even for me." She straightens. "I will not let him have that power over our community, to effectively gut it due to his financial idiocy."
Jeanette nods furiously. "Not on your watch, sister."
"Indeed. No fucking way on my fucking watch." She pauses. "Somehow." Then downs her drink and fills her mug again, which is no doubt a calling to the muse and which I understand. On occasion, I've found solutions at the bottom of a bottle too. They didn't tend to be very good ones, but it got the party started.
