*CLUNK*
—–
She paced behind me, asking me a question I couldn’t answer. “What did you do with the picture?”
“What picture?” I ask.
“THE picture. Of *me*.. o-or, at least from the thighs down.”
“Well… who *are* you?” I ask back.
“You know who I am.”
I pause, gathering the energy to say what’s next on my mind. “I *thought* you were someone I met back in Valentine. But apparently you’re not.” Must be the illness making me hallucinate, I think here.
“Am I not?”
No, I wanted to say. You’re most likely just a common hooker. Not a noble person like Mrs. Downes. She could have made it big in this world with her heart, her determination. Instead he made her into, well, *this*. I deserve what I got. Death row for Arthur “Orient” Morgan, a man with a Far East history that would do him in.
(Red Row too, if Arthur (Morgan) equals Arthur (Kill), as I, the author (Arthur?), believe it might. We’ll see… but let’s not end there.)
“I want that picture you stole from the gallery,” she continued without an answer, emphasizing her purpose in all this. “The one from the wrong side of St. Dennis, the *Southern* part.”
“The underbelly, yeah,” I admitted.
“Right, you give me that and you can go. You can seek out the real Ms. Downes if you wish. You can pay for sex with her, you can just pay her without the sex, I don’t care. I just need… that picture.”
Dutch saw this coming, I think. He said it would be worth a lot one day and to hide it in a safe place, which I did. Turns out he’s right. Knowing my own well-being didn’t matter at this point, I thought of as much money as I would need to make Ms. Downes comfortable in her older age, put her back on the right track and potentially allow her to thrive. “10,000 dollars,” I say aloud after determining the amount I’d been formulating in my head for a while, maybe since May. “10,000 or you won’t be able to find it. Kill me if you wish. I’m a dead man walking anyway.”
She ended her pacing, went to a nearby door, peered in. “How about… a trade? Thighs up instead of thighs down. And a man instead of a woman. Aand, clothed to the hilt, military style. An opposite painting. North for South. But just as valuable, probably even moreso.”
“Well I need to have a look at what you’re talking about first, lady,” I say while turning toward her as best I could given my roped circumstance.
“Yeah, ogle while you can old lady,” she speaks more to herself than me it appears, still staring through the window of the door. “The King will be taken from you soon if I have my desire.” She turns toward me with this. “Wheeler,” she says. “You call me Wheeler.” TBC
Sunklands 
