Devil May Care Attitude
Matt had been having an interesting few weeks. He had managed to convince Vanessa to put the art show as late as she was willing to, which was a surprisingly short amount of time, only a month away. But Vanessa had quite a few favors at different galleries, plenty of money from Fisk, and a good deal of enthusiasm for Matt’s work to be seen by the world even if he couldn’t see himself. So, Matt had to quickly create some art pieces. Matt had asked Karen to come with him to the art store because she would ask less questions than Foggy.
Karen had given him a weird look. They had gotten random paints, markers, and canvases from the bargain bin because Matt really didn’t want to spend too much money on this. For some reason Karen had been rather insistent that he get glitter, but he had acquiesced on the condition that she picked the colors of all the paints.
When Matt had finally gotten the chance to make the art most of it had culminated in angry scribbles or throwing the different colors at the canvas frustratedly or stabbing the canvas with the pencils, leaving them there, then throwing the glitter and glue at it. Honestly, Matt hadn’t expected making art to be this therapeutic. It was especially helpful on the days that he had gotten injured on patrol and was still angry but going to Fogwell’s was inadvisable because of the visibility.
Soon, Matt, or rather Mike Justice, had eleven artworks that he could present to Vanessa. The fake name was part of the deal when Matt had agreed to the art show. After all, if people really did like the art that much, they might try to contact Nelson and Murdock and since this was a hobby he really needed all of his focus at work to be on his cases. At least this was the lie he told Vanessa, but that was only part of the reason. Matt knew that his rage messes would never be famous, there was simply no way, but he never wanted Foggy to ever hear about this because that would raise too many questions.
It was the opening night party, so Matt was hanging around with Vanessa while the people that she had invited were talking about his art and other things. Matt could hear their business things and it was definitely shady business that was associated with Fisk and Matt couldn’t do anything because most of what these people were talking about was white collar crimes. Matt really needed a way to get these people arrested because he was pretty sure they would lead to Fisk.
On the news about his art, it was going surprisingly well. He had gotten quite a few offers for them. Matt was letting Vanessa and the gallery deal with the monetary side of it because he really didn’t know how. But he knew that Nelson and Murdock was going to have a nice safety cushion if all of his rage messes did sell. For some reason, the most popular pieces were “Battlin’ Jack” and “TKO”. That was one where Matt had already splashed the canvas with paint and glitter, then he had gotten angry and punched it. When he realized that probably not going to look great, he had originally wanted to go pick out a new canvas and throw more paint on it, but he was running out of time, so he had grabbed his structure kit and sewed up the hole as best he could and left it at that.
Vanessa approached Matt at the end of the night, “Matthew that went so much better than I thought it would! Most of your pieces are going to have to have an auction because so many people want them. However the payment will be in cash. I assume that’s alright?”
Matt nodded, at the beginning of the night when he had heard all the crimes that these people had done or were talking about he decided to just take the money and run with it, “Yeah, that’s just fine.”
God Matt really needed to find a way to arrest these people for money laundering and embezzlement. It would be really hard to find evidence against them when it was probably all on the computer. Matt didn’t think he could find that quickly unless they had accessibility features turned on their computers. Then Matt was struck with a good idea.
“Vanessa,” Matt asked hesitantly, “Is there going to be a closing night party?”
Vanessa smiled, “Of course! That is where everyone will receive their pieces that they have bought. Most of the people here tonight will be there to collect later.”
Matt nodded that meant he had the entire length of the art show to convince the person he needed to arrest these people.