I hate to wait.
He is a potential client and by the looks of this office alone a very wealthy one; so I wait.
Where is this buffoon, even snooping is getting boring now.
What the?
Please not an eccentric artsy-fartsy billionaire, but billionaire only would be nice.
Lost in thought while staring at this odd photograph to have right next to beautiful scenics and I think it has to be expensive, surely.
"I took that photo myself; yesterday and had them rush the framing for me," the man announces proudly.
Nonchalantly as I can I turn to him and say "What makes it pretty I wonder?"
"I would hope the frame does." He smiles and gestures for me to sit.
"It is a pretty frame," I say absent-mindedly.
Shifting my attention to him, I can't help but notice that he does not seem to belong in this office, even the only item I know belongs to him is misplaced.
"That one also." He says abruptly and points to another golden frame leaning against the side cabinet, then he goes and brings it to me.
It is the same picture as the one on the wall but cropped portrait, I would describe it simply as the same but with more "shitty" visible.
"It is the same picture but just in portrait, that is the beauty of photography you know." He places the picture down against the desk and goes to sit down, then faces me beaming before his smile fades away eerily.
"I have called you here today to find out why no one wants to buy my pictures, I am willing to pay any amount to undo this obvious conspiracy."
Is he really serious now? I wonder as I stare back at him stone-faced, eccentric it is then; any amount is a very big number so that might just cover eccentric.
"You do know I am a private investigator and this is not really," I pause for a bit and continue, "...in my experience conspiracies take a long time to undo."
He leans forward, his brow furrowed and eyes fixed darkly which is making me think that maybe "any amount" is not as big a number as I thought it was.
"Do you not agree that this, this art I created is worth millions?"
I can sense that my answer will need to appease him. I make a show of going to have a closer look before I say: "It is a pretty shitty picture indeed."
"Yes!" He says jumping up and slapping me on the back, " You agree then."
Backing away from him, I start to make my way to the door slowly but something catches my eye.
"The door is locked," he says knowing I plan to leave; I think he also knows what I saw.
"That one did not agree with me, he was part of the conspiracy," he grins.
I go over to the body in the corner, a blank check has been impaled onto his right hand and his throat is cut.
I hear his approach and jump back. Hitting his legs with my back he falls over.
Getting up I move to grab the letter opener from the desk and slash the pictures then I take the chair and hit him as he rises; mad...
This is my entry (shocked gasps) for the 31 Sentence Contest by @tristancarax , you can read the contest post here | Not sure whether I need to say or do anything else so fuckit this is the end of the post...
Oh, little tip if you want to enter, read the whole post until you get to the number sequence or it won't make sense at all.
The sequence for this post was:
4, 20, 10, 2, 12, 25, 18, 16, 6, 8, 31, 3, 22, 27, 17, 23, 29, 5, 26, 30, 13, 11, 21, 1, 14, 19, 15, 24, 7, 9, 28
The image used in this post is also from @tristancarax and served as the prompt.