Standing before the mirror like that, he let himself do the schizophrenia bit, a hopeful, heated seventeen-year-old Milano looking at his mirrored forty-year-old face. He pulled out of it fast. Fascinating all right, but heading straight for the macabre.
Cool it, man. You’re an Earthling, Chris Bailey is a Venusian, and you have no idea what kind of circuit those Venusians operate on. So cool it.
Easier said than done.
When he entered the gallery it was evident that the public was not breaking down the doors to get a look at Raoul Barquin’s works. Three youthful floaters solemnly pondered the works. The bulky Rammaert, russet hairpiece aglow, was holding a low-voiced conversation with a prosperous-looking middle-aged couple. Chris was at her desk. When Milano strolled over to she gave him the quick professional smile and a little extra.
Milano leaned over the desk. “Lunch at twelve?” he whispered.
She offered a barely perceptible negative shake of the head and whispered back, “Sandwich and coffee for me in the office. Rammaert wants me on the floor so he can come and go. It has to be after five.”
Milano raised his voice. “Thank you. I’ll look around.”
He helped himself to a brochure from the desk and moved away to dutifully read it. Raoul Barquin. Cuban refugee, now residing in Florida. Having fled oppression in his homeland, he found that in his art he could and so on and so on. Represented in distinguished private collections in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Rio de Janiero. Four major works exhibited here: Surface Number Eight, Surface Number Ten, Surface Number Eleven, Surface Number Twelve.
It was, reflected Milano, a neat little Baked Alaska of a brochure. Spoon it up and get a mouthful of foam. Distinguished private collections without their distinguished private collectors being identified. And major works in whose judgment? Well, the artist’s for sure. Maybe his doting mother’s.
A close look at the works, however, suggested that they were certainly major in one regard: physical heft. Two on each display wall of the front room, facing each other. Tondos, all of them, cartwheel shape and size. Viewed from the side, they were nearly as thick as cartwheels too, solid wood all the way. Their Neo-Cubist Constructivist faces were canvas over wood. The canvas was untreated and just drawn tight over various solid geometric forms – cubes, cones, cylinders – and, as Milano observed when he looked still closer, it had been stapled around the base of each form to anchor it firmly. Seen from a distance, the color and texture of the canvas gave these productions the unlikely effect of bas reliefs made of wet sand.
And if that wasn’t what the artist intended, it sure as hell would be as soon as some hyperventilating art critic put him wise to it.
As Milano started a slow, meditative stock-taking of the merchandise he saw that Rammaert was taking surreptitious stock of him. No big deal, this indication that here was a somehow familiar face which couldn’t be placed. Milano soberly nodded a greeting, Rammaert returned the nod and gave his attention again to the couple addressing him. A good eye for faces all right. They had had a split second encounter almost two weeks before, but it had registered.
And, apparently, at least as good an eye for the muttonhead market. Low down near the rim of Surface Number Ten, one of those telltale red stars was stuck to the canvas. Sold. Or, since the show had opened just an hour ago, pre-sold. Or – the thought was inescapable when it came to such as Mister Hairpiece – this item was as unsold as the others but had been picked to shill for them. Of course, this had to be done with the connivance of the artist, and, come to think of it, where was the artist on this, the opening day of his exhibition?
But Milano had the feeling that it wasn’t the red star or the absence of the artist which troubled him as he made the circuit of the other Surfaces. It was something about Number Ten. Now why was that when it offered no more or less than its companion pieces? A stirring of déja vu? No. Had Raoul Barquin come up with something mysteriously potent in this one case? No chance.
From midway in the room Milano took in the collective show.
The jolt hit him flush in the diaphragm.
Rectangles.
Every tondo displayed an assortment of cubes, cones, cylinders in canvas-covered bas relief. So did Surface Number Ten. But it also presented something all its own, something not visible on the others. Rectangles. Identical rectangular forms. Two of them, one southwest about waist high, the other northeast about shoulder high.
Eugene Louis Boudin. La Plage, panel fourteen by seven inches. La Plage, Trouville, panel, fourteen by seven inches.
Here? Arrived at last?
Only if each of that pair of rectangles measured at least fourteen by seven inches. Or maybe a shade more, allowing for some kind of sheath protecting them. In that case, it would explain why Number Ten wore its red star. It meant that nobody, but nobody, could lay claim to it except its consignee.
With the observant Rammaert only a few steps away Milano realized he was concentrating too hard on Number Ten. He shifted his attention to another number, eyed it blankly while meshing his mental gears.
What it came down to, if these were the Boudins, was that Win Rammaert, fat face, tacky hairpiece and all, rated top scores in planning the transport of stolen art to foreign shores. Package it inside some clunker that rated as a work of art itself, and then how does anyone get at it without damaging the container? Without desecrating a great big masterpiece by artist Raoul Barquin?
Beautiful.
Because without evidence of a felony there wasn’t any customs inspector or law man privileged to slice up this masterpiece to see what was nesting within. Try to X-ray it? A courtroom comedy. Unless its owner agreed, no X-raying would get judicial approval without that evidence to justify it. And where’s the evidence unless you do X-ray it? Let the good guys figure that one out.
So much for the good guys.
Willie Watrous, on the other hand, with the sweet scent of Pacifica’s near quarter of a million payoff in his hairy nostrils, would not be concerned with judicial process. Definitely not, as he once put it succinctly, when it came to making a crook eat a plate of his own turd. So an easy breaking and entering by Willie’s midnight associates, two minutes’ work on Surface Number Ten with a razor blade, and all Wim Rammaert could do on discovering his loss would be to eat the turd and cook up an outraged and weepy story for the media about art-hating vandals.
Right now, however, the magic numbers were fourteen and seven.
The couple talking to Rammaert finally ran out of conversation and departed. Milano moved into their spot. “You’d be the proprietor.”
“Yes. Wim Rammaert. I thought I recognized you. You were at the Archbold showing, weren’t you?” The Teutonic-flavored basso was a tuneful growl.
“I was there. I’m sorry, I didn’t find it too impressive. This work, however—” Milano made a gesture that took in the collective Surfaces. “Will the artist be here?”
“Barquin? Unfortunately, no. Too ill to travel. A sad business for him, missing the occasion.”
“I’m sure. But you’d be his agent, I believe?”
“Yes.” Rammaert was warming up now, the puffy eyelids starting to droop a little over the bulging eyes.
“In a way,” said Milano disarmingly, “I’m something of an agent myself.” He lowered his voice. “Representing several novice collectors. Substantial people interested in enlarging their cultural horizons. With a special concern for market appreciability. Comparatively short term appreciability. I think you know what I mean.”
Rammaert’s expression might be veiled as he weighed this, but he damn well knew what was meant. And that was the approach you used on a Rammaert. Go into raptures over Barquin’s wall-coverings, and he might wonder about you. Get right down to business – your clients are out to beat inflation by buying fad art cheap today and selling dear tomorrow, or by donating it to some helpless museum after bribing its curator to appraise it for tax purposes at a wildly unrealistic figure – and this, Rammaert would
understand. And even cherish.
Even so, he took his time coming out with it. “My first sale for Barquin indicates he will be highly marketable. And as to the rate of appreciation—” He cast his eyes upward, awed by the possibilities.
“What’s his price?”
“For each of those three remaining works the same price. Naturally, it must meet the price fixed by the initial sale.”
“Naturally. How much?”
“Sixty thousand dollars. Each.”
Milano smiled. “I said my clients were novice collectors. Obviously they are not the Guggenheim and the Whitney.”
“Of course. But—” Rammaert let the eyelids droop almost shut. He seemed to be absent-mindedly addressing someone over Milano’s shoulder. “– if this concerns your acquisition of all three available works, I would say that anyone so helpful to an artist is certainly entitled to some personal reward for it. Some token of the gallery’s esteem.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Milano.
“Ah. In that case, if there is a deposit paid—”
“Not yet. I have some hardheaded people to deal with. A little consortium of medical doctors. I’ll start with a few phone calls right now. I’m sure you’ll be seeing me around.”
“I look forward to it.”
Foxy grandpa, thought Milano as he walked to the door, deliberately not even glancing in Chris’s direction. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ravenously hungry as only a proper art dealer or casino operator can be.
Near the subway entrance on Sixth Avenue was a newsstand, and there Milano picked up a New York Post. The world in tabloid. In Lamston’s variety store a block away, he located a stationery department offering a selection of rulers. He paid for an eighteen-incher, waited patiently while the girl at the register tediously found a bag for it, bagged it, stapled the sales receipt to the bag to seal it, and handed the finished job to him, then, while the girl looked uncertain as to whether this was criminal activity or not, he pulled open the bag, extracted the ruler and measured the Post, length and width. Fourteen and a half inches long – obviously sent from heaven – but about twelve and a half wide. Using the ruler, he measured off a seven-inch width at the top of the cover page and folded the entire paper to that width. He dropped ruler and bag into a trash barrel at the store’s entrance and headed back to the gallery with the fourteen by seven inches of New York Post displayed under his arm.
When he entered the gallery it was with his memo pad pressed hard against the folded newspaper and with pen in hand. Rammaert, engaged in talk with a newcomer, took notice of him, Milano displayed pad and pencil, and Rammaert, the friend co-conspirator, nodded wisely. Note-taking time. Some hard-sell description of the oeuvre for the clientele.
Buddies already. It was enough to make Milano wonder how much of a kickback foxy grandpa had in mind for him, if those three Surfaces were picked up in one load.
It was also a problem to maintain a tight control at this moment and not aim straight for Number Ten. It was a case of studiously making the rounds of the others, giving Rammaert a view of him jotting down something now and then. And finally, drymouthed and with a churning in the gut, of delaying momentarily in front of Number Ten, just long enough, with body concealing the motion as much as possible, to pass the folded newspaper over that southwest rectangle before moving on. Legerdemain. That one pass did it. No need to try another on the northeast rectangle; it was obviously a twin in measurement.
A shade over fourteen by seven.
Jesus, talk about your bargains. A pair of Boudins sealed inside this cruddy construction would add almost a million dollars to its twenty dollars worth of lumber and canvas.
And as the records had it, Milano reflected sourly, when down-and-out Monsieur Boudin finished a beach scene he would wander along the sand trying to find a cash customer for it among all those dull-eyed slobs sunning themselves there. And, put in today’s American money, how much did Monsieur Boudin ask for his little painting? Two dollars.
But this was no time to get all heated up about those slobs or about that vast company of them who today had learned to make an international crap game out of authentic art. Now was the time to concentrate on Rammaert. A gifted hustler, yes, but how gifted? Enough so that those two rectangles might be red herrings? In that case, making your moves as if they were the real thing could mean all kinds of disaster.
And the possibility was there.
Milano found Rammaert at his shoulder. “A phone call was made?” Rammaert inquired casually. “Some difficulties ensued?”
Milano slipped pad and pencil into his pocket, released the newspaper into its natural fold. “As expected. Who is this artist? Where is he? What’s his reputation so far? What makes the work unique? The usual thing.”
“Familiar music.” Rammaert shrugged understandingly. “Just give assurance that the artist is a victim of Fidel Castro – a tribute to him right there. And that he’s a resident of Miami Beach, which offers cachet of respectability and solvency. Something of a recluse, natural for one so passionately devoted to his art. As for the rest—”
“A modern master,” said Milano unblushingly. “The works are powerfully immediate but enduring. Would they be shown by the Rammaert Gallery if they weren’t?”
“Would they indeed?” said Rammaert, just as unblushing. “The gallery is closed tomorrow, but my personal phone number is in the book.” He gave Milano a friendly clap on the arm and moved off.
Very, very shrewd, Milano thought, watching him go. No pressure. No suggestion of hard sell. Of any sell. Not even to the point of asking for the name, much less any credentials. A case of one fox instantly recognizing another and making a pact with him in foxy talk.
Chris at the desk looked up, face a mask of polite inquiry, as Milano helped himself to a few more brochures and said to her, sotto voce, “You know Richoux a block over on Sixth?”
“Yes. But what was—?”
“I’ll be waiting there at five. In the back room. Afterwards it’s Gracie MacFadden time.”
Leaving her to digest this, he walked out to the street at an easy pace and, since everybody in town seemed to be gathered on boulevard-wide Fifty-seventh Street this pleasant Saturday afternoon, he had to work his way against the crowds at an angle to get to the row of public phones at the corner. Obviously, this was his lucky day on all counts, because the first phone he picked up was a winner. Not vandalized, all parts working. Charging it to the company credit card, he got the Miami area information lady, then, through her, the necessary number.
Sullie’s number. Sullivan had been on the force with Willie, had retired at the same time, and, in fact, had been an inside man for newborn Watrous Associates for a few months until he finally had all he could take of Willie and went down to the Sun Belt to open his own one-man agency. A small-timer, but competent and comparatively honest. And he knew the Miami territory like the back of his hand. The highest tribute that could be paid him was that Willie referred to him as a fucking Boy Scout and almost trusted him.
When you run a one-man agency you’re usually there to take a call, and Sullie was there.
“What it comes down to,” Milano told him, “is a quick profile. No surveillance. Just get together with the guy somehow, size him up, report back what you make of him. An artist. Miami Beach. Raoul Barquin. You know how to spell that name?”
“By now,” said Sullie, “I can spell every goddam Spanish name in the deck. This is Havana North, John, or didn’t you hear?”
“Whatever. The joker is that I want word by tonight, I don’t care how late. I’ll be home waiting.”
“If I locate him by then. And meet up with him. But it’s five hundred, John, whether I can or I can’t.”
“Double or nothing. A thousand if you can, forget it if you can’t.”
“Well now. You sure Willie’ll okay that?”
“He’ll okay it. And for cozying up to this Barquin, you just tell him a rich, no-name friend of yours saw his a
rt show in New York and wants to know if he’s got other works for sale besides the ones in the show. That’s all. Simple?”
“Maybe. I’ll call you tonight, one way or the other. And,” said Sullie in farewell,” don’t bother to give my love to Willie.”
It was well after five when Chris showed up at Richoux – British soul food, cozy corners, and not likely to be one of Rammaert’s haunts – and Milano, watching the reactions of the clientele as she made her way toward him, observed with mixed pride and irritation that she was, indeed, a real head-turner and eye-opener. But something was cooking. Her face was clouded, and when she seated herself you could feel those minor-key vibrations in the air.
His expression must have told her he was getting those vibrations. She grimaced at him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Something happened at the shop.”
“At home. Made a duty call to Mama closing time and caught a real earful.”
“Baby sister?”
“A baby all right, whatever she thinks. Seems like she woke up Mama in the middle of the night, throwing up all over the bed. Half an hour after that, same thing in the toilet. Then even with nothing left in her, it kept happening. In between she was having some kind of hysterics.”
“Pills,” Milano said with assurance.
“No pills. What happened then, about six a.m. Odell borrowed a car from the folks upstairs and he and Mama practically dragged that kid to the emergency room over at Kings County. All cleaned out by then and still heaving up. She couldn’t hold down any sedative to stop it either. The doctor there finally stopped it by shoving a rectal suppository into her with the sedative in it. And he said it wasn’t pills or such, it wasn’t junk food, forget it. Reverse peristalsis. Allergy maybe.”
“How about a bad case of nerves?” Milano said. “I’ve been thinking that whatever the kid is doing for her money she doesn’t like it. Where is she now?”
The Dark Fantastic Page 20
