The Killer in My Eyes Read Free

sparing him a last look and a last nauseating farewell as she went out.
    He was alone again. When he heard the noise of the elevator starting on its way down, he went and lay on his back in the middle of the sheet on the floor. Opening his arms wide, he gazed up at the image of his crucified body in the ceiling mirror.
    He did not have the strength to pull himself together and get back to work. The TV screens continued to transmit their splashes of colour and their cruel, obscene images. The work – he thought of it as a totem – had been commissioned to be displayed in the huge lobby of the New York State Governor’s Residence in Albany. The day it was installed, in the presence of the governor and a distinguished audience, there had been a murmur of anticipation when it was switched on. As the images had succeeded one another, however, the murmur had gradually been replaced by a stony silence.
    The Governor was the first to pull himself together. His stentorian voice had echoed through the vast space.
    ‘Turn that filth off!’
    The totem had been switched off, but that did not put an end to the scandal. Jerry Ko was charged with defamation and obscenity, which had the effect of making him famous overnight. LaFayette Johnson, the gallery owner who was on his way now to supply him with drugs, had started to add noughts to the prices of his works.
    The doorbell rang, and Jerry, without even bothering to put on any clothes, made his way through the chaos of his loft to the door. He was surprised to find it ajar. That idiot Meredith couldn’t have closed it properly on the way out. But if it was LaFayette, why hadn’t he come straight in without ringing?
    When he opened the door wide, he saw a man standing out on the landing, shrouded in shadow. The light must be out of order and he couldn’t quite make out who it was. It certainly wasn’t LaFayette: this man was taller.
    There was a moment’s pause, a sense of time suspended, like the lull before a summer storm. Then:
    ‘Hello, Linus. Aren’t you going to let an old friend in?’
    It was a voice he hadn’t heard for a long time, and yet he recognized it immediately. Like everyone, Jerry Ko had fantasized often, especially under the influence of drugs, about his own death. He had wanted what every artist wants: to be the one to decide how it would happen – to choose, as it were, the colour and material of his own shroud.
    When the man on the landing entered the room, Jerry knew that his fantasies were about to be overtaken by reality. As he looked the man in the eyes, he was barely aware of the gun he was holding. What he saw rather was a hand throwing a bucket of black paint over the questionable artwork he had called his life.

CHAPTER 3
     
    LaFayette Johnson parked his brand new Nissan Murano on the corner of Peck Slip and Water Street, took his keys from the ignition and bent down to pick up a small package hidden in a compartment under the driver’s seat. He got out of the car and locked it with the remote, then stretched and took a deep breath. A warm southerly breeze had risen, bringing with it a slightly brackish air and sweeping away the grey clouds of the past few days. Now, above his head, the sky was incredibly blue. But when you looked up, whether in the middle of the skyscrapers or in narrow streets like this one, all you could see was a small rectangle of it. In New York, the sun and the sky and a decent view were the privilege of the rich.
    And that was what he had finally become. Very rich, thanks to that sleazebag Jerry Ko. Jerry’s call had woken him but not surprised him. When, the previous night, he had seen him leave with a real dog, he knew perfectly well the function she had in Jerry’s twisted mind. He, LaFayette, wouldn’t have fucked a woman like that even with another man’s dick, but he could hardly object if the goose that laid the golden eggs for him needed to mortify his flesh in order to turn out those daubs that LaFayette