“I couldn’t do anything until Robin went across the way to set up for her class,” the man holding open the door said.
“Yeah, her class. She’s a second-rate teacher. I’d do better.” Kane wheeled his hand truck toward the classroom area. The other man closed and locked the front door.
“Whatever.” The man shrugged, bored with listening to the young artist’s complaints. “She said it would be about an hour. So that’s what you have to get that thing set up so it’ll start doing whatever it does after we leave.”
“You mean program the controller so the kiln fires my work overnight,” Kane said in a patronizing tone. The other man barely controlled his impulse to punch the artist in the mouth.
Apparently oblivious to the reaction he was causing, Kane went on. “I called Amanda St. Claire. I’m going to her studio when I’m finished here. I’ve talked to my lawyer and have a figure to give her. She’s going to freak when I tell her how much it’ll cost her to keep me from taking her to court.” He pried the lid off the top bin and unpacked pieces of art glass swathed in bubble-wrap. He carefully removed the plastic and placed the glass on the worktables in the middle of the room.
“She said she thought it would be a good idea for us to get together. I bet she thinks she can talk her way out of this.” The artist grinned at the man he thought was his buddy. “But when I’m finished with her, she’ll be sorry she took advantage of me. And once I’m recognized for what I am — an artist who inspires other artists — I’ll be able to pay you back for the money you loaned me for the lawyer.”
“Nah, that was a gift from another friend. Don’t worry. You deserve what you’re gonna get.”
Eubie rearranged the stacks of glass on the table as he talked. “I owe you a lot more than money. I’ve been struggling for years to be taken seriously. Your ideas have been inspired. First suing Amanda. Then confronting Liz. Now having the staff here awed by a kiln load of my new pieces. Finally, I’m catching a break … ”
Kane droned on and the other man zoned out, lounging on the lowest tier of the stadium seating where students usually watched artist demonstrations. Thank Christ he’d overheard Eubie bitching about artists using his ideas when he was with Robin in the coffee shop. With very little persuasion Eubie began to believe that the St. Claire bitch was one of them. Eubie was so perfect for the plan it was almost scary.
He watched Kane finish unwrapping the last of fifteen pieces of glass with minimal designs on each one. “Whadda you call your work, Eubie?” he asked. “I forget.”
“The old work you saw was weather moods. The new work is seasonal moods.” He held up a stack of fired eight-inch squares. “You can see how different it is.”
The man on the steps couldn’t but what the hell.
“This one is the first of the series.” Eubie spread out a clear glass square with a tan foreground, a square with white hills and a third piece with a faint shadow of a mountain. “It’s called ‘Winter on the Mountain.’ Then I have ‘Fall in the Gorge’ and ‘Summer in the … ’ ”
“Can I do anything to help you get this done?” he interrupted.
“Sure, you can clean the pieces. I have cleaning solution and towels here.”
“Doesn’t Bullseye have something? Why waste your money when we can waste theirs?”
Eubie grinned and retrieved a white towel with thin red stripes and a spray bottle from under a nearby worktable. The man took the supplies and squirted the contents of the spray bottle on a piece of glass, paying more attention to the young artist than to his task.