Brilliant

by Kellogg, Marne Davis

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  He grinned at me. “You know what, Kick?”

  “No, sir. What?”

  “You are pretty goddamned cool.”

  Something fizzy buzzed up my spine—like the tingle from the first sip of champagne.

  The next morning tailors from Gieves & Hawkes arrived at eight sharp. Within days, Owen and the rest of the staff were in dark pin-stripes, starched, white, Egyptian cotton shirts, and banker’s ties and shoes.

  A more fitting, new era had begun. More fitting-looking, at any rate. I delayed submitting my resignation indefinitely—Provence would always be there—but Owen seemed so sincere, so diligent in his efforts, I began to feel an obligation to help him get the company stabilized.

  S E V E N

  two months later

  “Kick,” Owen called through his open office door. “Come in here.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” I pretended not to hear.

  “Come in here . . . please.”

  Better.

  Benjamin Ballantine had been in the ground for ten weeks and basically, except for the dress code, all three hundred years of propriety had exited the executive offices. We were now under the command of a more modern regime, a cadre of Brace International’s youthful staffers, who, if they’d had any inkling that Mr. Brace’s entire empire was on the verge of toppling, falling right off the cliff, might not have been so cavalier.

  “Kick,” Owen called again. “What are you doing?”

  I picked up my book. “On my way, sir.” Just as I stood up, the top of Tina’s peroxided head crested the staircase. Then the whole kit ’n’ caboodle of Owen’s child bride roared into view. She was moving fast on long slim legs that shot out from her full-length lynx coat like hurdler pistons and pounded up the stairs two at a time. The coat that matched her hair flew open to reveal her running bra, bike shorts, and sneakers. White-rimmed dark glasses covered her big brown eyes, which had lashes like Bambi’s. One hand held her omnipresent bottle of Evian water—what on earth she needed all that water for, I’ll never understand. Security, I suppose. Just the same as she “needed” the 250,000-dollar coat. Her other hand wielded a large manila envelope rolled up and borne aloft like an Olympic torch. Because I’d arranged for its delivery, I knew the envelope contained divorce papers.

  Owen realized that if he was going to save the business, and turn himself into a respectable gentleman, he had to stop living his life on the front page of the tabloids, which meant Tina had to go. As far as I could tell, the decision hadn’t appeared to cause him any particular brain damage—he’d handled it with the same offhand attitude as ordering up his barber. But I guess when you’re on your third or fourth marriage and divorce, it all takes on a rhythm of its own.

  “Get David on the phone, please,” he’d said. “I’ve got to get a divorce.”

  The separation had been carefully and efficiently orchestrated by my office and David de Menuil, Owen’s on-call round-the-clock attorney who seemed to have no life but Owen, and implemented around Tina’s schedule of publicity appearances for her new movie.

  “Theoretically, this timing should make it easier on Tina,” David explained. “Sort of a good news–bad news approach. Bad news: Your husband’s divorcing you. Good news—your public needs you— you’re the star. She’ll get over it in a hurry.”

  I’d had Owen’s new Savile Row wardrobe, papers, and important works of art—all items Tina probably had never noticed since they were neither cell phones nor mirrored—removed from the town house and installed in a residential suite at the Dukes Hotel down the street from the office. The items in his residential safes, mostly U.S. dollars, gold bullion, jewelry, and handguns, all of which spoke volumes about Owen’s murky roots, were transferred to the wall safe in his office. The only personal items left behind at his former home were his former wardrobe and the gifts Tina had given him, the majority of which were either sexual or sparkling.

  “Good morning, Miss Romero,” I began.

  “I know.” She flew toward and then past me. “He’s ‘in conference,’ he’s ‘not available at the moment.’ Well, for once he’s ‘in’ for me. He can’t do this to me. You should call the police right now, because I’m going to kill the fucking son of a bitch.”

  “Should I call your agent, as well?” I asked. “And your publicist?”

  “Sure.” Then she threw open the door to Owen’s office so hard, the frame cracked, and I watched her virtually launch herself across the desk at his throat. They both crashed to the floor.

  The invective was impressive—an unlikely, but effective, assemblage of dockhand language in English and Spanish.

  “Should I call security, sir?” I asked. By then he had Tina on her knees, her arm wrapped up behind her back and was on the verge of breaking her wrist. He had a quartet of mean-looking gashes on his cheek from her fingernails.

  “No. Just close the door.”

  Moments later, she evidently broke out of his hold, because for quite a while, the sounds of screaming and things breaking reverberated throughout the executive office reception area. We were used to it. None of the executives even bothered to stick their heads out of their offices. I heard the set of ceremonial Wedgwood plates, made to celebrate and record King Edward’s coronation, whistle across the room like Frisbees until they met up, head-on, with the antique burled walnut paneling.

  Then, the sobbing started. Then, silence. Then caterwauling exclamations of ecstasy that went on until we were all exhausted, nervous wrecks. Finally, the door opened and Tina emerged. Her face was splotchy from crying. “I’m sorry I cut your face. I promise I’ll never do it again. Just don’t do this to me. I’ll do anything if you’ll keep me. Please. Anything.”

  Owen stood in the door, a handkerchief pressed to his cheek. He had his suit coat off. His fitted white shirt was as crisp as a cracker, and he had on a red-and-navy regimental tie, something I imagine he’d often made fun of in the past as the sort of tie only a fuddy-duddy would wear. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been making wild passionate love. “Believe me, Tina. I’m only doing this for you. For your sake. You can’t have your career always living under my shadow.”

  She began to cry again. “But what will I do without you? You’re my whole world.”

  I admit I felt sorry for her as she passed my desk. She was just a child, a dejected and rejected and totally misguided child. “Is there anything I can get you, Miss Romero?” I asked.

  She shook her downcast head. I told her I was sorry.

  “To hell with you,” she said. “This is all your fault. Owen was never snooty until you showed up.”

  I reached out to touch her arm, but by then she’d put on her dark glasses and started down the stairs. Each step seemed to straighten her spine and by the time she reached the front door, her famous red-lipped Latina smile was back in place, and she was ready for her permanent entourage of bodyguards and paparazzi.

  I went into Owen’s office. “Oh, dear,” I said.

  Two lamps were smashed to bits, as was a glass tabletop.

  “Goddamn crazy fucking bitch,” he swore.

  “Are you all right, sir? Would you like me to look at that?”

  He pulled the linen square away and examined it. “No, thanks. I think it’s stopped bleeding. Well,” he said as he crossed back to his desk and righted his computer screen, “that’s over.”

  “Do you think she’ll be all right?” I asked. “I mean, she won’t do anything crazy will she?”

  “What are you talking about? All she does are crazy things. Who cares what she does. She’s no longer my problem.”

  “She sure can scream,” I said. “We’re talking Academy Award winners.”

  “Actresses,” he said. “All sizzle, no steak. They’re all complete idiots. If you don’t write out their scripts, they’re totally lost. What time is the Carstairs meeting?”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “What time is it now?”


  “Nine-fifty-five.”

  “Is Bertram ready?”

  “I think so, but I’ll double-check.”

  “I want him in the car by the time I get there. We’ll leave in five minutes. Did you look at the figures from Panther?” He studied the latest sales projections on the monitor.

  “I did.”

  “Talk about another goddamn mess—I’m up to my nuts in them today. Did you know this corporation’s had six different owners in the last eighteen years?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve decided owning Panther is like being married to Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor. First year’s the honeymoon. Second year: daily sessions with a shrink: Can we make this marriage work? Knowing deep down that you don’t really think it can. And third year: How do I get the hell out of this mess with some of my assets still intact?”

  “It’s definitely a mess.”

  Owen shook his head and tapped his finger on the glowing red numbers. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you certain?”

  “Yeah. It’s the classic conundrum: As long as the cars are manufactured in England, by hand, it’s unworkable. But . . . that’s part of the car’s magic, its attraction. It’s what keeps the waiting list ten years long.”

  “They’re so beautiful.”

  “Not to mention it’s the sweetest car on the road to drive. It’s a real heartbreaker. And I’m just as much of a sucker as the owners before me and whoever owns the company after me. Frankly, for me, the prestige of corporate proprietorship has diminished with each quarterly report—sort of like living with Tina and her implants. The thrill is gone. Get Gil on the phone. Please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gil Garrett, Owen’s best friend, if a yard dog can have a best friend, was president of the Panther Automobile Company. The two men had been in a number of deals together, and they’d both known going in that Panther’s future was on the line since day one. They sometimes spoke hourly. The deal was now in day #475: heavy relationship counseling.

  “And close the door.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I returned to my desk and unwrapped a marshmallow caramel and sank my teeth into it. As the sugar dissolved on my tongue, I couldn’t help but wonder what all he’d done that had gotten her calmed down so quickly. My imagination ran so wild, I think I was blushing. I popped the rest of the chewy little morsel into my mouth and got my papers, purse, and gloves together in preparation for our imminent departure for Carstairs Manor, Lady Melody Carstairs’s Richmond estate.

  E I G H T

  “Give me the latest, Bertram,” Owen said as the company’s gleaming new $265,000 dollar Bentley limousine pulled away from the curb in front of our St. James headquarters.

  We left right on schedule. I sat on the backseat with Owen. Bertram Taylor, our ballyhooed new president, sat sideways on one of the jump seats, a sheaf of papers on his lap.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Michael? Close the goddamn window,” Owen shouted at his driver/bodyguard, a muscle-bound thug who’d driven for him for several years, and who looked completely out-of-place in his formal black livery. I’m fairly positive he’d been called Mickey until Owen bought Ballantine & Company and upgraded him, too.

  Michael gave me the creeps. Bertram and I looked quickly at each other and then away. Owen’s rudeness was embarrassing and unnecessary.

  “Sorry, boss,” Michael mumbled.

  The privacy screen rose silently as we turned onto Piccadilly and sped through misty drizzle past the Ritz Hotel and along Green Park.

  “I’ve worked the numbers down as far as I can, possibly farther than I should, and I think we can make a very competitive offer,” Bertram answered.

  Bertram Taylor was one of the, if not the, world’s top antique furniture experts and auctioneers. His smoothly parted grayish hair and bright blue eyes lent him a jovial, boyish, dashing air, especially when he went to work on the podium, and his hair would flop in his face and his eyes would flash with challenge and derring-do. He was fluent in six languages and had “the touch” when it came to working a room of high rollers—he could squeeze the proverbial blood from a turnip, raising the competitive temperature in the saleroom to dizzying heights and putting buyers on the edges of their seats. He could take the sins of envy, greed, and covetousness and transform them into irresistible, even desirable, virtues.

  Bertram’s family background—he was an Eton and Oxford man— and body of knowledge provided him with uncrackable confidence and unprecedented carte blanche access to potential clients. His deference to his new chief, Owen, more resembled respectful camaraderie than subordination. He could do more for Brace than Brace could do for him, and they both knew it. Adding Bertram’s name to the letterhead as president and chief auctioneer was not only Brace’s first significant management acquisition and public declaration that he meant business, but also provided blue-ribbon credibility to the leadership team.

  Owen lured him away from Christie’s by offering a doubled salary and a larger cut of the action. People were stunned when Bertram jumped the monolithic mother ship and signed on with the buccaneer. But, like me, he was drawn by Brace’s proven success in other fields, not to mention his prowess. Owen was fearless, he ate risk for breakfast. Everyone in the business, loyalists and skeptics alike, was curious to see if he could pull it off—resuscitate Ballantine’s and move it into the big leagues—and if he could, how he would do it. In the auction world, it was the insider’s opportunity of a lifetime. If you had the guts.

  He and Bertram started slashing sellers’ commissions, which threw the other houses into even greater uproar. The risk was unprecedented, foolhardy, and the possibility that his strategy would work was pooh-poohed.

  “It’s a great way to go broke,” an unnamed official was quoted in the paper. “We wish Mr. Brace all the success he so richly deserves.”

  Another article questioned Owen’s integrity. It didn’t faze him a bit.

  “That’s their problem,” he responded. “They wouldn’t know integrity if it sat on their heads. My responsibilities are Brace International’s bank account and happy shareholders. In that order.”

  What an incredibly gritty and cold-blooded attitude, I thought. Especially when his bank account was in the red and the hapless shareholders were in the dark! It was like working for the devil!

  The trick required to turn around Ballantine & Company was not only to make sure goods were auctioned for exorbitant prices—for which we needed exorbitant, sought-after estates—but also to jimmy around the buyers’ and sellers’ commissions—shaving a little here, adding a little there—which was where the house made its money.

  Auction house commissions are based on a fairly complicated, sliding-scale formula, but a good rule of thumb is that the seller’s commission, that which is paid to the house as a fee for selling one’s estate, is 10 percent; while the buyer’s commission, that which is paid to the house by the person buying the goods, is 17 percent. Therefore, if the house has sold your aunt Mary’s sterling silver tea set for one hundred dollars, you will receive ninety dollars: one hundred dollars less 10 percent. And if you’re the one who bought Aunt Mary’s tea set at auction for one hundred dollars, you’ll pay one hundred seventeen dollars: One hundred dollars plus 17 percent. So, from the hundred-dollar sale, the house made twenty-seven dollars. A respectable markup of 27 percent.

  “Carstairs Manor is a gold mine,” Bertram continued. “Here’s another batch of photos.” He pulled a thick packet out of his briefcase. “They’re not the best, there’s so little light in most of the house—but look at the marquetry and veneer on this seventeenth-century sideboard. I’ve seldom seen such intricate craftsmanship, and it’s in perfect condition.”

  Owen studied the top photo carefully through his glasses and whistled under his breath. “Sweet.” He drew the word out as though he were admiring a girl on a street corner.

  “That p
iece alone could bring over 8 million,” Bertram told him. “The place is packed with goods similar to and even better than this. We’ve had such inadequate time to assess it all. The Christie’s and Sotheby’s people were there for over a month—we’ve only gotten to the paintings and furniture. Nothing’s been done on the jewelry, porcelains, or real estate. But, on balance, I have the advantage of knowing how those firms put together their proposals. I think we can guarantee over 400 million dollars for the lot at auction.” He had Owen’s full attention.

  “Break it down.”

  Bertram spoke quickly and succinctly. “If you cut the seller’s commission to seven and a half percent—the other two houses won’t go lower than eight, if even that, I’ve never heard of either one of them going below eight and a half—I’m confident we can get the account. Lady Melody is notoriously tight. That percentage point equals four million in her pocket—she’ll like it.”

  “That’s 30 million in seller’s fees.” Owen smiled. “And if we increase the buyer’s commissions two and a half points to nineteen and a half percent, that’s almost another 80 million—over 110 million to the house for the sale. What will we net out of that?”

  “I would say between 90 and 95 million.” Bertram handed him a sheet of paper. “Here are the options.”

  “Do you think the buyers would pay nineteen and a half?”

  “I think they’d pay twenty-five percent just to own something of Lady Melody’s. She’s bigger than Jackie Onassis. The only estate bigger than this would be Princess Arianna’s.”

  “Well, then, let’s put it at twenty-five.”

  Bertram shook his head. “You could get away with twenty, but twenty-five looks greedy. I think the public would resent it. I recommend nineteen and a half.”

  “Done.”

  Bertram had every quality I valued in a man. He was bright and funny, with a generous spirit, and when he looked at me, he saw me, our eyes met, we connected. But it was a professional connection— mutual respect but no affection. He was married, of course. Weren’t they all?