Chapter 10 of Nick's talent.
How this happened I don't know but looking back at my own stories on Nifty I came to the conclusion that I never posted the remaining episodes of Nick's Talent. So in the upcoming week or so I will post the remaining episodes.
Nick's Talent is the continuation of Coach's assistant (Nifty Archive: coachs-assistant) I have written more stories which can be found under Authors and then Tim Tim
In previous chapters I mentioned a website called www.timsfunplace.com at the moment it is not working but it might be back. If you want to contact me do that through noway16@hotmail.com. Love to hear from you.
Damned would he. I looked begging at him but there was no way I could make a scene down here and he knew that.
"But I think it deserved to be shown to a wider audience even is it only for once."
"Have you seen it Nicole, Nick" Rosie asked. "I haven't Alexei didn't let me."
"Yea, it is wonderful" Nicole said.
"Oh, I offered the biggest price I ever paid for any art of it, but Nick doesn't want to sell it."
"Bring it on guys" Rosie said.
I didn't look at it. I knew what was being pushed onto the stage.
Wow was more than one time heard as the painting of Francis was put beside that of David, Kathie, and the Baby.
When it stayed silent for a moment, how Alexei tried to find my gaze, but I ignored him.
"Lost for words" the other Nick asked Rosie when she stayed silent.
"I will get you for that Nicky boy." She responded fast as she realised, she had been quit.
"I see what you mean Alexei. Nick this is incredible. Can you please tell us who the young man on the painting is"?
I took a deep breath. I opened my mouth, but I felt how the words I thought to say got stuck in my throat. I felt how a tear crept up towards my eye and was about ready to roll over my face.
"I can tell that as well. As you can see it is a gymnast as well. It is a particularly good friend of both Nick and David".
"He must be good too, just look at that upper chest" Rosie said. "But how where you able to catch those emotions again Nick. You are incredible you know. I think you have a great future ahead of you if you can put emotions like that on the canvass. It is a shame he is not here as I would have loved to know who his love is."
"Well, that is a bit of a problem" Alexei answered. "He is lost; we are not sure where he is at this moment. One of the reasons I decided to bring it down here was to see if your audience might have seen him somewhere in the last 4 to 6 weeks".
So that is what he was doing and so far, he got away with it as well. I hoped it wouldn't backfire though on either me but especially on Francis. I still was not looking at the direction of the painting when Rosie asked. "So let us know if anyone has seen him yea, I think I want him on my show" Rosie continued with a smile.
She then closed of the show and thanked us for coming over.
"Is it gone" I whispered at Nick when everyone had started to get up.
"You can look again Nick; they are putting it away."
"Good" I said and let out a big sigh.
"Well done you guys" Rosie said.
"I think that was a memorable episode and I mend every worth of what I said. You have both a great future in front of you as artist Nicole and Nick."
"Thanks." I saw that Nicole walked towards Alexei and started talking with him.
"Nick, can you come over here for a moment" Rosie asked when most of the audience had left.
I followed her to the side of the stage. Hardly anyone was there now.
"Is Francis your boyfriend"?
I felt how my face started to burn and got red very fast. "I won't tell anyone "she said. "I just felt that your response, the shaking of your hands, which bye the way was kept out of the picture, gave me an idea there was more to it than just a friend. Also, the intense look of him on the canvass. I think I have only seen that with painters who were in love and loved bye the subject.
"Yea he is my boyfriend."
"He is really lost then" Rosie asked.
"We think so although the police think he just ran away because of the stress. We think something worse has happened."
"Ok, so that was a genuine call for help bye Alexei."
"I think that is what he just did."
"You didn't' know did you."
"No, that was completely a surprise for me."
"I can let it cut out if you want."
"You can do that."
"Yea, the advantage of not doing this life."
"No, if he is seen it might help."
"Ok, we might add a line that they can call us if they have seen him, or any other number you want to go with it."
"Let me think about that. If we do something like that, we will need a lot of phones to answer. I am not sure we can put that up so fast."
When I got back to the dressing room. Alexei was there and also Nick. Nicole had gone to her own dressing room.
"I have got your dad on the phone Nick."
"He knew Alexei."
"Yea, we talked about it. He wants to know how it went. I thought you might want to give him that feedback. We can talk later" he said.
I got the phone from him and then looked away when I started to talk.
"Hi dad."
"Hi, their Nick, how are you."
"I am fine thanks. No thanks to Alexei though. I thought I would get a heart attack on the stage."
"But it all worked out well then."
"Yea, Alexei did most of the talking and there was not a lot more said then I made the painting. So almost no connection between Francis and me."
"So now we have to wait if someone will contact either Alexei or the station then."
"Hmm, well no, Rosie wants to help, and she said that they could put a phone number underneath the programme for people to call if they had seen Francis. It just means though that we need lines and people as you know that probably a lot of sick people will call in."
"Ok, well how long do we have to organise it."
"I think about 5 hours or so. You think that will be enough."
"I don't know but I can try it. Can you ask Rosie or someone from the show to contact me so I can give them the thumbs up with the number"?
"I will thank dad."
"You're welcome I am just happy that at last something is done and that you want something to be done Nick."
"Well, you have to thank Alexei for that."
"I won't worry. See you tomorrow Nick."
"Till tomorrow Dad."
I was not overly optimistic about the result of the phone calls, but it was a try at least. I made sure that Rosie got my dad's phone number. She also told me that she wanted to stay in contact with me and expected to be informed if we heard anything. Not to mention that she really wanted Francis on the show.
When we got back to the hotel it was not easy to get alone and away from Nicole. She was sweet and I knew I could trust her but not yet, this was just too early to trust her with this. I needed to deal with Alexei first.
So, the moment she was gone I turned to Alexei, looked at him. I could see him getting smaller. He knew he had gone far; he was now probably wondering if it had been too far or not.
"I have no idea Alexei if I am mad or happy with you. I know one thing if you ever do such a thing again then I definitely will lose my trust in you and I am not sure if that is worse or better than doing the right thing. So please do never such a thing again without me knowing ok."
"I know Nick but after our talk last weekend I was not sure you would go for it. I also felt like you were afraid to move on to go and search for him. Afraid of what you might find. But is knowing not better then knowing not."
"I don't know Alexei. I don't know but that is irrelevant now. Just never do something again Ok."
"I promise Nick."
"Good, now what about sorting out all the phone calls we are going to get."
"Well, I have been on that already. I have several detective agencies ready to follow up any interesting lead we are going to get out of this. So, it might end up being a bit expensive, but I know it is worth every penny so don't worry about that."
"I know but I am not sure that we will have the manpower to do it though."
"Well let's first see what the response is going to be and act on it then."
We watched the episode from our hotel room. Nick and Alexei had joined us. I tried to call my dad after the program, but he didn't answer the phone when I called him. I guess he was busy with answering the phone number that had shown up on TV at the end of the program.
I didn't sleep that well during that night I must admit. I was happy with how the TV show had gone but anxious to see what the outcome of the program would have been. I knew in my heart that he had not run away if he had there would be numerous sightings of him over the last few weeks. If not, then there would be less, that was at least the theory we had come up with before going to bed. I waited until 6 am and then decided to try calling dad again but still he didn't answer. I got up on time and had a long breakfast together with a newspaper and at the end Nicole. She just made it on time before going to go to the airport. I said goodbye to Nick and Alexei. They said they would be in contact and would try to be over again somewhere around the Christmas period which was about 4 weeks away from now.
When I got to the airport, I was expected to be picked up but no dad or Susan for that matter. They must have been busy, I guess. I waited to see if I could see anyone else but no one else was there that I recognised. I was at the taxi stand when my name was called. I looked over and saw a familiar face, but it took me a moment to remember who it was. Susan I though, the girl that had been part of the management team during the school protest in high school.
"Hi there Susan, what are you doing here."
"Picking you up."
"Oh, why is that."
"Well, it was my turn to rest and they though picking you up was a clever idea. I had been on the phone for most of the last 4 hours or so".
"Oh, you are helping dad out then."
"Yea, me and a bunch of other people."
"Anything useful."
"I don't know I just make notes nothing more. Your dad had a few other people, even police officers around to sort through them."
"SO, a lot of them have been coming in then."
"Yea, especially after the first 2 hours of the programme. We are expecting another hike when the rerun is put on this afternoon. But we should make it back on time for that."
We got in her car and started to make our way through town.
"He where is you going" I said when I noticed that she took another direction then for our house.
"High school, which was the only place where we could get together and also had enough phones to do this."
"AH, how many are there then."
"Oh, I think about 15 or so".
"Wow that many." "Yea, but it was easy to get us all together again and fun."
"Us" I said.
"Hmm, most of the team that led the downfall of the parents-teacher council that time is here again."
"One phone call from your dad to Justin made it all possible again."
"Ah, so you spend the night together all in all then."
"Oh and got back to stories of the good all days."
"So, everyone is still there then."
"Yeb. Oh, and you are now a star yea, a TV star mister artist."
We talked a bit more about what she had been up to and then arrived at the school.
When I got together with my dad the first thing I asked was "And any good clue's about where he is."
"Don't expect too much Nick. Keith told me yesterday evening that it takes a few days to go through all the calls and see which ones are possible valid ones. Then a patron might occur. So, yea we got quite a good number of calls but to be honest not a lot of which you say straight off yes, he has been there. So, I doubt it that he has run away like the police is thinking."
"Good, that is at least something we got out of this."
"Well, that is if they believe us."
"But I thought that the police were helping."
"No, not really. Keith and one or two of his colleagues are here but they made it explicit they are here on their own as person and not as police officers."
"Oh, well it should convince them for sure."
"We will see. Keith had a call from the police back there and they were not happy with the way his possible disappearance was announced on the TV. So, we might need to do some licking up to them. But why are you do not go and talk with the others. We expect the rerun to get another load of calls in so it might be quite late before we can go home."
"Ok, I can answer some calls as well I guess."
"NO, Nick, that is a definite NO. You don't' want to hear what some of them are saying. Just go and talk with the ones that are not on the phone or help Keith and his colleagues to go through the notes to see if any of them makes sense, but no answering phones agreed."
"Yes Dad."
I really hadn't thought about it when I later had read some of the notes there I understood. Hearing it and reading it where two different things.
During the rerun of the show the number of calls got less a bit but that didn't last until about 2 minutes after the number was on the screen. Straight off several phones started to ring.
Keith had walked up to me, and we talked a bit. He said he was impressed by the paintings. He also said that there was not really a lot of good leads in there. Most of them where from people that really had a screw loose. But sometimes a good tip would not come until 2 or 3 days later. They would be fresh ones as well and not ones that were from weeks ago and difficult to prove too. So far, they had handful ones that they had forward to the private eyes to look at.
Bye the end of the afternoon the phone calls started to diminish. It was agreed that the group would be split up in three and do 8 hours shifts. It mends that my dad and me were going home while others would stay around. Just in case something came up one of the colleagues of Keith would always be there.
That evening we talked for about 2 hours about all that had happened. It was the first time I really talked about what I felt, and my dad was glad that I did as he started to get worried about it. But you can talk all the time you want there is no way it got us any closer to a solution at all.
We had more calls over the next few days. I stopped school for some time as I wanted to concentrate on finding Francis. We had a long phone call with the police but that didn't get us any further it seems they had not the manpower to really concentrate on the case. On the fourth day the calls came less frequent, and we got the number redirected to our house. Only though after the promise of my dad that I would not pick it up at all. That evening we met up with a small group, Keith, and a few of the private detectives. We didn't get much further so overall it seems something serious had happened. Otherwise, we should have gotten more clues. In the end it didn't get more certain at all.
After the New York trip the paintings where distributed back to us. I had put it up in the backroom. The painting of David and Kathy was waiting for them to pick up. But the one from Francis was still packed in. I knew that I could try to force a vision but not sure it would work. The first time Francis had been in a strong emotional mood and the second time it was me. So, I got the painting out. I looked at him, concentrating on it but I really didn't get anything happening at that moment. I got increasingly frustrated by the day. With the December festivities coming on it was not the feelings I wanted to have.
I know that I got increasingly silent again and frustrated. My dad tried to talk with me ones or twice, but I just couldn't bother. Two weekends after the TV-show, which bye the way had gotten me a lot more job offers so far, my dad organised a little get together. Or otherwise just everybody showed up. David and Kathy came back home. James and Alexei showed up and Randy came over to stay. So, the gang was back. But not really with the desired results to be honest. I stayed down and even a bit depressed. I still couldn't find a way to get my anger out.
The Saturday afternoon we were all sitting down at the table when the doorbell rang. As I was not concentrated on the food I was up before I even knew it. I walked towards the door, opened it and .....
My mind went blank, it ignored the conclusion it got to. This couldn't be through, no way. I closed my eyes, opened them again, checking to see if the conclusion my brain had come up with was right. I could feel that my legs started to shake, my breathing became flat and before I knew it, or could say anything I went flat to the ground. I could hear her say my name though "Nick!!!!"
I hope you liked this so far and are looking forward to more chapters. If you got any suggestions or just want to write me a note: email me noway16@hotmail.com