“I heard you… . Who’s the buyer?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Kevin.”
“I’m sorry about that, I truly am. You know me, I’d love to tell you. But the buyer was very specific in wanting to remain anonymous.”
He sounded more like an art dealer than I’d thought possible. Marilyn had created a monster.
“What did you get for it,” I asked, expecting the same answer. Instead he replied with an absolutely staggering number.
“The nuttiest part? That was the first offer they made. I might have asked for more but I thought, ‘No sense in being greedy.’ Still, I made out like a fucking bandit.”
You’d think that, to a man like Hollister, selling a piece of arteven for a big profitwould provide little thrill, especially if you looked at the numbers in comparison to his net worth. What he made on the drawing, while mind-boggling to me, would at most take a decent bite out of his electricity bill. Yet he sounded like a gleeful child; I could almost see him rubbing his hands together. Rich men get rich in the first place because they never lose that lust for the kill.
I asked if he’d delivered the piece yet.
“Monday.”
I thought about asking if I could take one last look at it. But what would I do? Grab it and sprint away? How far could I get: running, with a head injury, carrying a sixty-square-foot canvas made of one hundred individual sheets of disintegrating paper? Besides, I had a clear notion of who the buyer was. Very few people had that kind of money to drop on an essentially unknown artist, and fewer still had the motivation.
Still a little shellshocked, I congratulated him on his sale.
“Thank you,” he said. “Invitation stands if you want to join me.”
I wished him happy skiing and dialed Tony Wexler.
20
W hat can I say? He’s in love with it.”
We had agreed to meet up at a steakhouse in the east thirties. The first part of our conversation consisted of Tony oy-veying about my injuries (Why didn’t you call me? What did the police say? I don’t like this, Ethan. Your father would want to know about this kind of thing. What if something worse happened? What would it take for you to give us a call? Would you have to lose a limb? Would you have to be run over? Because by that time, you won’t be able to call anymore) and me putting him off (Fine, Tony. I’ll call next time, Tony. No, I hope there won’t be another next time, either).
Then, glancing at Isaac, sitting three tables down, he had said, “Where on God’s green earth did you get that ?”
I went on the offensive, accusing him of going behind my back.
He scoffed. “The last time I checked, we live in a free-market society. We wanted something, we had the right price, everyone was in agreement, we bought it. I’m not sure you should be complaining. We significantly raised the profile on your artist.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point, then.”
“That drawing is part of the piece as a whole, and it should be restored.”
“Then why’d you sell it in the first place?”
“It was my mistake.” I turned my clenched teeth into a smile. “Let me
buy it from you. I’ll give youdon’t shake your head, you haven’t heard my offer yet.”
“I seem to recall having this same conversation with you, in reverse.”
“I’ll give you what you paid Hollister, plus an extra hundred grand.”
He looked offended. “Do me a favor. Anyhow it won’t matter: he’s not selling.”
“You haven’t even asked him.”
“I don’t need to. If you’re truly worried about leaving the piece incompleteis that your concern? It’s a matter of principle?”
cc ť
“… yes.”
“Then I have a very elegant solution.”
I looked at him.
“Sell us the rest.”
ce-n ť
Tony.
“Sell us the rest. Then it’ll be complete.” He took a sip of water. “That’s the principle at stake, isn’t it? You want to reunite the drawings. Fine. Sell us the rest of the piece and you can sleep easier at night.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“What’s not to believe?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What am I doing?”
“You know what you’re doing.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re fucking me.”
“There’s no need for that kind of language.”
“I mean, seriously, Tony, what do you expect me to say? ‘Thank you, what a great offer’?”
“Actually, I do. It is a great offer.”
“It’s a shitty offer. I don’t want to sell the pieces to you, I want one piece back. That’s a lot more reasonable than me selling you the rest of the art.”
“As far as I can tell, the result is the same.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You’ll have it, and I won’t.”
“You’re an art dealer, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you do? Sell art to other people?”
“This isn’t about the sale,” I said. “You’ve already tried to buy the pieces from me, and I’ve already said no.”
“Then I believe we’re at what they call an impasse.”
The clatter of forks and knives grew as the tables filled up, and my head began to pound. I turned from Tony and watched Isaac tuck into his porterhouse. I must have looked distressed, because he caught my eye and asked: thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I gave him a thumbs-up and he went back to eating. Under Tony’s watchful, judgmental eye, I swallowed four ibuprofen, these in addition to the four I had taken before lunch.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“Yes.” I rubbed my eyes. “Listen, it’s not just for the sake of getting the piece back together that I want to buy it from you. There’s something else going on.”
He waited.
“It’s too complicated for me to explain.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It is.”
He waited again.
I sighed. “All right, listen.” I explained to him about the murders. As I talked he nodded sagely, taking it all in, and when I got through he said:
“I know.”
“What?”
“I heard all about that already.”
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t that surprised. As I’ve mentioned, Tony knows more about the art world than he lets on. He keeps his ear to the ground, and I had no doubt that he’d done his homework before approaching Hollister. He’d know exactly how much to offer in order to avoid the inconvenience of haggling.
“Then what’d you make me repeat it for?”
“I knew about the rumors. I didn’t know what you needed the drawing
for.” He sat back, pursing his lips. “Let me get this straight. You want to cut a hole in it.”
“A small one, I hope.”
He half-smiled. “What happened to restoring the piece’s integrity.”
“I’ll have it repaired.”
“And you thinkwhat. This is going to slam the coffin on him?”
“I have no clue. It might. It might not.”
“As far as I can see,” he said, “even if you sample the piece, and it turns out to be blood, and that turns out to match, you’re still facing the same problem.”
“Which is?”
“Which is you don’t know where it came from. It could be Victor’s, it could be someone else’s.” The same point Samantha had made. “If he did all that stuff you’re accusing him of, I don’t see why it’s that big a stretch for him to keep an inkpot with blood in it. So getting the drawing won’t help you very much.”
“Well, let me be the judge of that.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “In case you’ve forgotten, the piece belongs
ť
to us.”