54. Walker
Chapter 54
Walker
A forgery in less than ten minutes. She can’t be serious.
I’ve already cut up one of RJ’s white dress shirts he had in the cabinet to make a fake canvas. It’s not a canvas. It’s fucking polyester.
I need to take him shopping.
Pulling on gloves, I cut lengths of blue ethernet with the wire strippers and clippers that RJ had in his onboard toolbox, trying to build this piece in my head.
A crowd photo background.
Blue ethernet cables locking the crowd in.
Red paint splattered across the whole thing.
This is pure madness.
I trim out the drawing I’ve been working on, a crowd scene done in a photo-realistic style. Is it a public use photo with guys from the twenties wearing newsboy caps? Nope. Is it going to be transferred right onto the canvas? For sure not .
I take a moment, changing a few hats to look vaguely like they’re from the 1920s. That’s going to have to be good enough. I rub the margins with my fingerprint eraser, hoping that it’ll smudge any prints on the thing.
RJ pops back into the van right as I hear Clara’s voice in my ear. I don’t answer. I have my task and it’s going to take all my focus to get it done.
RJ sets down a Walgreens bag next to me. Dragging out the wood picture frame RJ got, I pop off the back and slip out the glass. The stapler he bought is not meant for punching through polyester and wood, so thank God the frame is pine. There’s no way I’d be able to stretch the fabric into something approximating a canvas and pound the staples into the rectangle otherwise. Even with the hammer helping me out.
Using freaking super glue— super glue —I paste my drawing to the shirt. Then, using the same tiny glue brush, I layer the blue ethernet cable, holding the image of Gem Black’s piece in my mind. Am I sure I have the right number of cables? Nope. But thirteen both looks right and feels significant, so all I can do is hope that it’s close enough.
Now paint spatter.
I have one chance to do this right. With freaking tempera paint meant for bored five-year-olds on a rainy day.
I pull out the bottles of red, blue, and brown, finding one of the plates RJ has stowed to mix the colors, using a freaking plastic watercolor brush.
This hurts my goddamn soul.
When the color looks appropriately bloody—like my sad-ass soul—I cover the surrounding area with what’s left of RJ’s shirt and the plastic bag .
Pulling up the image in my mind one last time, I do a couple of practice flicks against the plate, set myself up at the right angle, and go at it.
That awfulness complete, I forge Gem Black’s signature in the corner. With a sigh, I look at my work.
It’s…fine.
Clara asked for a shitty forgery.
And that is exactly what she’s going to get.