Free Restoration by John Ed Bradley

they’re both water-soluble, which means they wouldn’t cross-link with the oils he used to make the picture. Either one would’ve given the mural a kind of barrier or skin that’s dissolvable and could be removed later without much trouble.”
    “You think Asmore did that?”
    “I do. And I intend to prove to you that he did it.”
    “Prove to
me
?” I said. “Why prove it to me?”
    She leaned forward against the steering wheel and stared up at the building. When she’d seen enough she looked back at me and held my eyes with hers. “I want to trust you,” she said. “I do. I’m not going to pick up the newspaper tomorrow morning and read about the discovery of a lost masterpiece, am I?” She reached over and gave my leg a poke. “Jack?”
    “What?”
    “Will I read about the mural in the paper tomorrow?”
    “If you do, I won’t have been the source and I certainly won’t have been the writer. Rhys, I have to tell you, you’re starting to make me nervous.”
    “It’s not about what they’re worth,” she said, lowering her voice sothat I had to strain to hear. “It’s about what they are. Will you promise never to forget that, Jack?”
    I didn’t promise, I didn’t say anything. I was only starting to get to know Rhys Goudeau, but already I believed she was too intense for her own good. To begin, she could not distinguish between what she did for a living and what she valued most in life.
    “You think whoever owns this place now—this Wheeler guy—even knows the painting’s there?” I said. “Or that it once was there?”
    “Only one way to find out,” Rhys said, then shouldered her door open and stepped out on the sidewalk.

    We’d timed it just right, without even meaning to. When we entered the building everyone but the janitor had gone for the day.
    The doors opened into a small reception area that in turn led to a hallway that spilled into a much larger room holding rows of beautician’s chairs, each of them covered in pink vinyl lined with black piping and standing on chrome pedestals. The janitor was cleaning the floor with a rag mop, and though he trained his eyes in our direction he didn’t stop working to greet us. Instead he placed a warning cone next to his bucket cautioning to step carefully. Though stooped over, he was still half a foot taller than I was, and nearly twice my weight. Music poured from the headphones of his portable CD player, the tinny whisper of which I could make out from across the room.
    “Hello, there,” Rhys said, as though he were a stray tabby that had crossed our path. But clearly the man was busy: busy mopping, busy listening, busy avoiding having to acknowledge us.
    Photo composites showing former students crowded the walls, each arranged with individual head shots fitted into identical ovals. The same four teachers stared out from the top row of most of the groupings, as did the woman we’d seen outside earlier. Her oval and one other were twice as large as everyone else’s. The name under her picture said Gail Wheeler. The name under the other photo said Jerome Wheeler. It showed an unhandsome man with eyes thatpeered out in different directions, one looking left, the other right. Thirty years ago student enrollment had run about a hundred, but the numbers began to decline sharply beginning a decade ago. Last year, if the composite accurately represented the student population, there were only fourteen people enrolled in the school. The faculty also went from four to two instructors, and Jerome Wheeler’s photograph wasn’t included in the most recent collection of photos.
    “Think they divorced?” I said to Rhys.
    “I don’t know what to think,” she answered. “Maybe he died.”
    The room also came equipped with antiquated vending machines for candy, cigarettes and soft drinks. Yellowing posters from another era said, “Learn to gratify a multicultural clientele” and “Don’t hesitate, dear, for an exciting career awaits.”