I don't even know what to worry about first; Pete's handgun or his intriguing painting, I could not see last night. I'll go back to the gallery; that's for sure. I'll pretend I'm a collector or an art dealer and ask to see it; maybe even buy it. It's about the right time now, 7 PM or thereabouts. Let's go!

The place is shut down, dark, no night-lights, three padlocks on its iron gate. I walk around the corner in the back alley; I don't act as if peeing, I just openly test the gallery's emergency side door. Piece of cake, I don't even need a crowbar.

I'm in. Inside, a very faint light, white enough to see a little. I can't figure out what my intentions are. What am I doing? Anyway, let's find the painting. I take a left and there I am, in the right place, the one with Pete's painting. I walk hunched, I don't know why.

Complete silence, I stop. I need a plan, some mental sketch of my ridiculous liabilities.

What if the painting keeps receding away from me again? Or if there is some guard watching. How do I work this out? I decide I must fake an unassuming gait and head directly to the painting. What the hell can happen?

............................................................

Peter al Kousath bin Web is my painter friend's pen name, or brush name, to be precise. I wonder again if something bad has happened to him last night. He and his 38. Not good.

In his better days, he used to import baby body parts from Romania. He was flying the babies alive to Mexico City, zap them there in some favela, pack their tiny eyeballs, livers, kidneys and throbbing hearts and then ship them in refrigerated parcels overnight express to Montreal.

I remember I've asked him once whether he had ever insured those packages. He said it was quite impossible. He complained the international regulations have constantly prevented him to exercise his basic right to such a common sense business procedure. The postal authorities had always maintained that it is illegal to insure any parcel once it is clearly marked: UNCLAIMED HUMANITARIAN AID > FOR ROMANIA < PLEASE RETURN TO SENDER