Epiphany Jones Read Online Free PDF Page A

not?’
    ‘Because she’s back at work. I dropped her off.’
    ‘Where does she work?’
    ‘The Water Tower Plaza.’
    ‘What store?’
    Fuck. I say, ‘Auntie Anne’s.’
    ‘Auntie Anne’s?’
    ‘She likes pretzels,’ I say.
    And I can tell this isn’t going well, so I take the pity angle. I say, ‘Donald, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so long. It’s been a hard day. Write me up if you want, but please don’t fire me. And please don’t contact my girlfriend. We’re having enough issues as it is, OK?’
    And then the outrage angle. ‘Besides, these HR guys don’t have the right to harass her.’
    That’s when the assassins look at Donald, who looks back at me.
    That’s when he says, ‘These men aren’t from HR. They’re detectives, Jerry.’
    Police detectives?
    Donald says, ‘They’re police detectives, Jerry. The Van Gogh is missing.’ His steel-grey eyes glaring. It’s the first time I notice that his eyes match the walls of our office.
    It takes me a minute to process what Donald has said. The short man folds his arms and keeps his gaze on me. I don’t know what to say. How does a ten-million-dollar painting disappear from one of the most secure museums in the world?
    ‘You think I took it?’
    I sound guiltier than I’d like.
    ‘You were the last one to see it before it disappeared,’ the tall detective says. ‘You told Donald that you had been in Roland’s studio. You told him right before you went to “lunch”.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ I say.
    Donald eyes me sharply.
    ‘I mean, it is true that I said that, but I went to look at it with Roland. When I left he was still in the studio with it. He saw it after me.’
    The detectives glance at each other.
    ‘Look, check the fucking security tapes. We’ve got cameras everywhere.’
    But then they tell me that for two hours this afternoon all the cameras were non-functional. They tell me this was due to the renovations – some electrical work. Then they ask how long I’ve known the cameras would be inoperable today.
    ‘I didn’t! I didn’t know about the cameras, I don’t know who stole the Van Gogh, and I wasn’t the last one to see it.’
    Then I yell, ‘Talk to Roland, he’ll tell you!’
    And the police detective, the short one, he says, ‘We can’t.’
    This is where they tell me how they found Roland in his studio. How he had a broken tripod leg shoved through his eye socket into his skull. They tell me how he’s at Rush Memorial undergoing emergency surgery right now.
    A moment of mute struggle passes through me. How do you react when you learn someone you’ve worked with, someone your fatherworked with before you, has been brutally attacked? I try to think of any movies I’ve seen that may give me some clue.
    And look, I know this sounds horrible, but I don’t feel anything over Roland’s attack. That’s just how it is. It’s just how I am. But these guys, I can tell they’d expect anyone except the attacker to be all broken up about it – especially someone who’s worked with him for years.
    The three of them, they’re waiting for me to react, to show sadness and fear and regret. To show innocence. So I put my face in my hands and soak up the smell of homeless vomit. I flick my tongue between my fingernails and taste the regurgitated-biscotti-stomach-acid mix. My tongue burns. My eyes water.
    Then I pull my hands away, ‘Not Roland. Oh my God, please, not Roland.’
    And I let the vomit tears flow. I shiver. I shudder. I’m great. Donald even pats me on the shoulder.
    ‘There, there,’ he comforts mechanically.
    I’ll take my Oscar now.
    For the next hour the detectives ask me about any bitterness over Roland’s raise. They ask me to repeat my story again and again, looking for inconsistencies; hoping I’ll slip up. At the end I’m so exhausted from answering the same questions over and over, from fake vomit-crying again and again, I can hardly stand. When I do, the tall one puts his hand