Dangerous by Default

20. The show

Picket signs and mega phones greeted Janus and Ami at the entrance to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Janus had no patience for protestors and promptly flipped her badge open over the edge of her coat pocket, waving down a uniformed officer to guide them through the crowd. She sensed Ami chafing at her ostentatious display of authority. "I'm not working, just getting us through the doors," she whispered reassuringly into Ami's ear while she squeezed her hand. Her mind was pivoting in a thousand directions that Ami could not know about. She knew that the angry shouting by the protestors were not just empty threats. The briefing she received that afternoon by her station chief had made it clear.

As the elevator doors finally pulled open to the fourth floor galleries, Janus felt herself unintentionally gasp. It was amazing. Amazingly bad, but still, a sight to behold. What passes for art these days. They wandered with the crowds into the high-ceilinged galleries, not sure what was art and what was just, something happening. On the floor, tucked away in a narrow passageway, lay a mattress covered with rusty syringes. Ami stopped to read the artist's statement.

Janus couldn't help but think that had this so-called art object been laid on the sidewalk, not a single person here would stop to look. Her eyes went elsewhere until something pricked her attention. There was something strange about the air, heavily scented, as if a child was practicing wearing their mother's perfume and had way overdone it. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she discovered its source. This was not another art stunt, but in fact a man, one whose name appeared on the walls nearly as much as Caine Blue, and someone to whom Janus was inextricably connected. She resisted a primal urge to push the man onto the bed of needles.

His muscular physique gave him a rugged look in spite of his tailored three piece suit and thick silver hair slicked back in perfectly parallel lines. To her complete astonishment, after manically spraying a handkerchief ten, maybe eleven times with a bottle of pink perfume, he buried his face into the fabric, rubbing his nose into the lace as if he were a bloodhound searching for mushrooms. Something about his movements seemed incredibly uncomfortable, the agitated jerks of uncontrollable tick. Just above the neckline of his pressed collar, the edge of a dark tattoo was just visible on his leathery tanned skin. He lowered the handkerchief and, realizing he was being watched, glanced back over his shoulder towards Janus. His eyes fixed on her.

Did he recognize me? she wondered. She hoped not. She didn't want to even think about how describe him to Ami if he approached them. As she stared him down, she could feel her teeth grinding in her mouth. Then her worst fear came true. His face broke into a wide-eyed smile.

"Do you like what you see?" He asked before burying his nose in his handkerchief for another whiff.

"Sorry, you've got the wrong idea" she replied curtly, turning her focus back to Ami.

"You misunderstand." he replied loudly, laughing and pointing to the mattress, "Are you not familiar with his work?"

"Hardly, besides what I've seen on the web."

"I guess he's been making your life difficult this week, what with all the shootings I've been reading about" the man replied.

Ami turned in astonishment. "Who is this asshole? Why is he obsessed with perfume and how do you know him?" she asked Janus discreetly under her breath. The man began to walk towards them.

"Floorboards" the man said in reply to Ami's question, the tone of his voice intentionally cryptic.

"Why is he talking to us?" Ami asked Janus again. The man continued his one-sided conversation.

"Floorboards! It's a word. In fact, the only artifact in my collection with the famous detective's own hand." His muscular physique squeezed through the crowded space to draw nearer.