On a pedestal under the price card there was a stack of postcards with photographs of other examples of the artist’s work on one side and contact information for Franz von Wilde, the artist, on the reverse. I picked one up.
Standing beside me with his back against the wall in front of the price card, Jean-Paul made a show of studying the sculpture with some interest. After a moment he stepped up close beside me and canted his head toward mine.
“Do you know how price is fixed on an artwork?”
“How?”
“By how much a buyer will pay for it.” He opened his jacket and slipped the price card, which he had taken from the wall, into an inside pocket. “We shall see, then, shall we, how valuable someone thought this heap was?”
“I might simply have asked Clarice Snow what the price was,” I said.
“And she would have told you it was sold and tried to interest you in something else, so you would never know.”
I took his arm. “Remind me to be careful around you.”
We looked at the rest of the gallery’s holdings. There were some nice prints offered at reasonable prices, some new works by up-and-coming artists, and works by more established artists like Millard Sheets. A photo album open on a bookstand showed a large selection of pieces that were not on display but could be seen by appointment. Among them were a spindly sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, a small Monet painting, and several paintings from Picasso’s Blue Period. The prices, like lobster in good restaurants, were not listed; market value was inferred.
Jean-Paul and Miss Snow exchanged cards as we said our good-byes. When she saw his title she looked at him with new interest.
“I noticed you glancing through our exclusive catalogue,” she said. “Anytime you would like a private showing, please call and I will make arrangements.”
As soon as we were in the car, Jean-Paul took the stolen price card out of his pocket and handed it to me.
I carefully peeled off the sticker, gasped, and showed him the numbers on the card. He whistled at the six figures written after the dollar sign.
“I would think that its greatest value would be the bronze it was cast from,” he said. “But then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder-that is what you say, yes? And maybe your Mr. Holloway found something beautiful in the piece that escapes me.”
I did my best to imitate one of his little shrugs, hoping he read, The world is full of mysteries.
He asked, “Could he have paid that much money for it?”
“I don’t know, but I know who to ask.”
“Maggie, that card you picked up.”
“Von Wilde’s postcard?”
“It has the address of his studio, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s drive over and see what’s there.”
He punched the address I read to him off the postcard into the car’s GPS. We headed toward the ocean, west of the freeway, following the instructions given by the GPS.
“You’re becoming quite the spy,” I said. “Shall I call you Tintin?”
“I prefer Bond, James Bond.” He’d make a decent Bond.
“Mr. Bond, James Bond,” I said. “This isn’t about Park Holloway and the bronze bowling pin for you, is it?”
“No.” He took my hand and set it on his knee.
“Something about that gallery, though.”
“Yes, probably nothing to it, but, you know, I hear a little bell going off in my head and it rings just a bit off-key for me. It may be nothing, but I think, why not go see if we can find a bell maker?”
“Can you explain that?”
“You know that as consul, other than keeping my countrymen out of trouble when they come here to visit, my primary mission is promoting French trade and culture to America.”
“Yes,” I said. “That and throwing great parties.”
He laughed softly. “Yes, and that. I’m afraid I feel the way your mother does about good pâté de foie gras, and I need to behave better. Look what’s happening.”
He took my hand from his knee and patted his side with it. There was the tiniest hint of extra flesh over his belt.
“What do you call this?” he asked.
“Love handles,” I said.
“Love handles?” He thought that over for a moment and then smiled. “Oh well then, that’s all right. Maybe I’ll keep them.”
“Don’t change anything on my account,” I said. “So, about promoting French trade and the ringing of your little bell?”
“Promoting French trade also means protecting French products.” He turned onto Quinientos Street. “Every day, I work with U.S. Customs and Interpol to block trafficking in counterfeits. Who would pay four hundred dollars for an Hèrmes scarf if-using the argot of a Customs investigator I worked with-you can buy an African or Mexican or Chinese knockoff for ten bucks at the swap meet?”
The neighborhood outside the car became increasingly industriaclass="underline" small factories, storage yards, car repair shops. We passed a homeless encampment that had sprung up on a vacant lot.
“So, in the gallery, you heard the off-key ringing of a counterfeit what?” I asked. “Clarice Snow’s Dior belt or her paintings?”
“Maybe I should go back and take a closer look at the belt.” He cocked his head and offered me a wry smile before continuing.
“But do it on your own time, sir.”
“No, I am more interested in the art she has in her exclusive catalogue, as she called it. Did you notice the sculpture attributed to Giacometti?”
I admitted that I had.
“Not so long ago a Giacometti sold at auction,” he said. “Can you guess the price?”
“Millions?”
“One hundred and four million,” he said, satisfied when I exhaled a low whistle; who has that kind of money?
“The piece that sold was over four feet tall, and the one in Miss Snow’s album is under one foot,” he said. “But we are comparing big apple to small apple, not apple to orange. Her piece is museum quality. One would expect it to be offered through a major auction house and not a little gallery, not even if the gallery, like Miss Snow’s, is in a very wealthy community.”
“You said ‘attributed’ to Giacometti. Are you thinking forgery?”
He toggled his head: maybe yes, maybe no.
“Perhaps she is a fence for an international gang of art thieves,” he said, using the James Bond accent. “Interpol regularly sends me a list of stolen treasures.”
“And maybe the sculpture belongs to her,” I said, making it up as I went. “Given to her by the wealthy Mr. Weidermeyer or some sheik who wooed her. But now she needs cash so she’s selling it. If she sells it herself she won’t have to pay a commission to an auction house.”
“And the Monet and the early Picassos?” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Works of that caliber have known provenance. A few minutes on the Internet and we may find exactly where they should be and who owns them.”
“Or,” I offered, “the catalogue is bait-and-switch, and she doesn’t have access to those listings at all. If you ask to see something, she can say that it is unavailable, then she’ll try to interest you in something else, as you suggested earlier.”
“Interesting possibility,” he said.
The GPS voice told him to turn right at the next intersection.
“Quarantina Street doesn’t sound very promising,” Jean-Paul said as we drove through a canyon of abandoned warehouses. If there were a contagious disease on the street, it was obsolescence and a longstanding bad economy for whatever commercial endeavors that neighborhood had once undertaken.
Von Wilde’s studio was in a large warehouse midway down a block slated for redevelopment. It was Sunday; there was no one on the street except us. As we got out of the car, a freight train passed on the far side of the studio, rattling the iron-barred windows set high up on the walls. The only other break in the building’s bunker-like façade was a steel roll-up door large enough to drive a truck through.