The Dark Fantastic

by Stanley Ellin

  So, Milano thought with a certain relish, while this fat, popeyed thief in the unlikely hairpiece yearned in his soul for the burgher way, he was stuck with this mind-numbing exhibition because he had to stick his customers with it. Bring them upstairs here for some personal stroking, and they saw on these walls evidence of the salesman’s own passion for his product.

  Whatever yearnings went on inside however, Rammaert was outwardly at ease, affable, and volubly taken with Doctor Greenwald. Success and youth together? What a happy combination. And now ready to expand horizons, the doctor and his professional colleagues. The collecting of fine art which is, after all, what civilization is about. As well as being the wisest possible investment in this troubled world today, is it not? So now to Raoul Barquin. But first a glass of wine? A good Riesling Cabinet?

  Hy, who so far had been wordlessly practising a studied frown, glanced at Milano. Milano shook his head in smiling refusal so Hy dutifully shook his head. The Madman looked wistful. Rammaert, a man who had to know how nicely a bottle or two of a good Riesling Cabinet can oil the works, pursed his lips regretfully. “Well, later then. Now to the gallery.”

  In the gallery, all lights on, Rammaert hastened to fetch chairs from the office, two of them, the chauffeur allowed the privilege of standing at ease, his shoulders braced against the door. This furniture-moving, Milano saw gratefully, came in handy because under the lights those two raised rectangles on Surface Number Ten seemed magnetically compelling to Hy, and the eyeballing he was giving them could tip Rammaert off before he was properly set up. A threat to the equilibrium of the set-up.

  So he jostled Hy into motion around the room, doing the steering from one Surface to another, foxy Rammaert a step behind and, with the doctor’s foxy mentor plainly in silent charge, wisely keeping his own mouth shut.

  The round completed, Rammaert reverted to type. “Amazing work. Genius? I would say yes. Unquestionably.”

  “Unquestionably,” Milano said. He motioned at the desk, at the receptionist’s chair behind it. “If you don’t mind.”

  Rammaert smiled his appreciation of this thoughtfulness. “Not necessary. I’m comfortable.”

  “If you don’t mind.” Milano winked at him, suggesting God knows what eccentricities in this client had to be catered to.

  Rammaert, catering to them good-naturedly, moved around the desk and seated himself. He watched with interest as Milano removed the envelope from Hy’s tense grip, drew out stapled pages, and laid them on the desk.

  “Before we enter negotiations,” Milano said, “please read this document very carefully.”

  Against all salesman’s wisdom, Rammaert looked annoyed. “My dear sir, any contract that we—”

  “Please read it.”

  Rammaert was good, Milano saw. Really good. He started reading with a sort of amused disdain, he somehow managed to maintain that expression to the bitter end. The only small giveaway was that when he finally raised his head that ruddy complexion was not quite so ruddy. “Fascinating,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Milano.

  “And this signature is yours? John Milano? Representing this Watrous Agency?”

  “Watrous Associates Agency. Yes.”

  “I believe I’ve heard of it.” Rammaert aimed a finger at Hy. “And that young man is not a doctor, of course. Only a very poor imitation of one.”

  “You can say that about a lot of doctors,” Milano pointed out. “And now can we assume that the preliminaries are over and we’re ready for business?”

  “An attempt at blackmail?” Rammaert shrugged. “But, my dear friend, it won’t work, you know. To my knowledge – and I can only judge by these pieces around us – Raoul Barquin is an authentic talent whatever his character. And if he and I have been victimized by some drug dealers, well, that’s something he and I must work out. And I assure you we will. With an absolutely clear conscience.”

  “I see,” said Milano. “Then I gather you don’t know the Miami police have just moved in on Raoul and company. And while he’s disappeared, Adolfo is right there talking as fast as he can. I’ll admit one thing, Rammaert, regarding that absolutely clear conscience. The fact that you didn’t know the joint was raided suggests you really weren’t that close to the boys. Or involved in their real business. Now all you have to do is convince the Miami cops of that if they come knocking at your door.”

  “Really?” said Rammaert with the mildest of interest. But the hand resting on the papers curled into a fist, the hairy knuckles bearing down hard.

  “I’ll go even further,” Milano said. “I don’t even think you picked that Barquin team to do your fancy work. I’d say you were stuck with them by somebody else – probably your Boudin collector – who knew them in a business way. That leads me to offer a small bet that this collector is South American – Bolivian or Colombian probably, but right now settled down in Spain or France for la dolce vita – big in the cocaine trade, with an eye for art, and with all the money in the world to spend on it.” Milano raised his eyebrows in polite inquiry. “Do I collect on that bet?”

  Rammaert shook his head, layers of jowl wobbling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Milano. In any case, I neglected to make an urgent phone call after dinner. If you don’t mind, I’ll attend to it now.” He pointed at the office door. “In private.”

  He pulled himself out of the chair and made his way to the office, eyes straight ahead, mouth set. Hy watched this progress uneasily, and when the door closed he turned to Milano. “He could be calling the cops, couldn’t he?”

  “If you were in his shoes right now,” Milano said, “would you be calling the cops?”

  “I don’t know. But blackmail? Is it blackmail?”

  “No,” said Milano, “it’s the fine-art business. And he’s calling Miami now to confirm the bad news. When he gets back he’ll be a lot tamer. Even shiftier, but a lot tamer.”

  “Blackmail,” Hy said, testing the sound of it. He moved over to Number Ten and studied it. “You sure those are the Boudins?”

  “I’m sure. Not that he didn’t nearly suck me in by having four of these Barquin cheeses hung around the room. Smart investment, four of them. His mistake was in not camouflaging the shape of those Boudins, but I figure that’s because he wanted to know where they were all the time. So you make one little slip and blow the game.”

  “Not yet,” Hy said. “Not as far as I can see.”

  Which, Milano knew, was true in a way. Under ordinary rules it wouldn’t be, but ordinary rules didn’t take Christine Bailey into account. Didn’t add to the usual complications the biggest one of all: that this job must be handled so that Christine Bailey never got a glimmer of it. Would never know who or what or why.

  Or maybe never. That, in the faraway future, remained to be seen.

  You faced a tangle like this, and you almost had to admire Willie for his way of cutting Gordian knots. A couple of pros by flashlight and with straight-edged razor – a straight-edged grand-daddy razor was the instrument for canvas – would slice through this Gordian knot in two minutes flat. You took for granted, of course, that Willie and his pros didn’t have a Christine Bailey addling their brains.

  Love at forty, Milano thought bemused. Who would believe it?

  Come to think of it, maybe Gracie MacFadden.

  Milano realized his back hurt. He seated himself, stretched his legs out and carefully refrained from planning too many moves ahead in the game. Hy nervously prowled the room examining Surfaces. The Madman, leaning against the door, looked ready to fall asleep on his feet.

  It took Rammaert a long time to reappear. With one fist knotting and unknotting, he walked to the desk and dropped heavily into the chair. “Can we speak in private?” he asked Milano.

  “Sorry.”

  Rammaert shrugged this off. “Your proposition?”

  “I think you know it. I get the Boudins as Grassie’s agent. You get the assurance that your dossier is filed and forgotten.”


  Rammaert shrugged this off, too. “Out of the question.”

  Milano drew out the other copies of the dossier from the envelope and held them up, fanned out. “One each for the police of San Francisco, Miami, and New York. One for Interpol. Maybe it would just be entertainment for them, but who knows? One each for the daily papers in San Francisco, Miami, and New York. It should be a real glamour story for them.”

  “If,” Rammaert said heavily, “they can verify it. I think newspapers have had some experiences lately which would make them very careful about publishing libel.”

  “Probably. But anybody wants confirmation of the story, I’ll be right there to do it.”

  “Do you know what you risk that way?”

  “I’m thinking of what I gain. Advertising is difficult in my line of work. Since confidentiality is important, you can’t go around getting testimonials from satisfied clients. But headlines in the New York Post?”

  Rammaert sat back. He fitted his fingertips together. “Now,” he said, “suppose I tell you a little secret. I had no intention of sharing it with anyone, but what other recourse is there? In brief, those works in question are forgeries. Excellent forgeries, but forgeries nevertheless. Can you see what you’re letting yourself in for if you present them to your Mr. Henry Grassie as authentic?”

  “And the original Boudins?” Milano asked.

  “Already in the hands of the purchaser. These two forgeries here – I’ll put it this way – are my attempts to capitalize on the situation. No harm done anyone. Their buyer, I assure you, will be quite happy with them in his ignorance.”

  Milano had a glimpse of Hy’s stricken face. He smiled at Rammaert. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I’ll be quite happy with them too.”

  “You don’t believe me, Mr. Milano? That’s very foolish of you.”

  Peripherally, Hy was pulling that tennis match stuff again, his attention shifting back and forth between the adversaries. It was a distraction Milano felt he could do without. He shifted in his chair to block out the troublesome vision and said to Rammaert, “I can’t even give you credit for a good try. If these Boudins are forgeries, you’d have accepted my terms on the spot. You win, here’s your hat and your paintings, goodbye, Mr. Milano. So let us, as they say, cut the crap and get down to cases. You have my offer. The Boudins in return for a deep silence about your private business. What it comes down to now is yes or no.”

  “Then it’s no. And I warn that you’ll get nowhere charging me with the theft of those paintings.”

  “Of course,” Milano said reasonably. “But I won’t be charging you with theft. I’ll be charging you with possession.”

  Rammaert glowered at him, the heavy-featured face congesting with blood. He leaned forward, hands planted on the desk. “You are a goddam blackmailing son of a bitch, mister. And the answer is still no.”

  Milano slowly counted to ten. “There’s something on your mind besides your opinion of me, Rammaert. What is it? Painted into a corner by your associates?”

  Rammaert seemed to be doing his own silent counting. Then he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Number Ten. He lightly passed a hand over the outline of each rectangle – there was something almost tender in the way he did it – and said to Milano, “Do you know the investment in them? Obtaining them, transporting them, dealing with Barquin?”

  “I’ll let you tell me.”

  “A hundred thousand, Milano. And I am answerable for it.”

  “It’s family money,” Milano said. “The Ost cousins’ club. And stolen art is a speculative item no matter how you look at it.”

  “That may be, but in this case the speculation is entirely the client’s. He is not a man I’d want charging me with a swindle.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s not merely a case of your obtaining the Boudins. It becomes a case of your robbing me of a hundred thousand dollars. And however unpleasant the alternative you propose, I prefer it to being robbed of any such amount.”

  “I doubt that,” Milano said.

  “Take my word for it. And consider that whatever story you may publicize I have ray own to add to it. For example, your criminal effort to become a partner to this affair by threatening to expose it.”

  “I see. But can I assume you’d be willing to write off this speculation if I cover that hundred thousand?”

  “In cash,” said Rammaert.

  “No problem,” said Milano. “But consider that you didn’t lay out any hundred thousand for this job. By my estimate, it wouldn’t be more than half that. And understand that I don’t want to buy your Barquin. All I want to do is rent it.”

  “Rent it?”

  “For an hour. It doesn’t even leave the premises here. So putting everything together, I’d say fifty thousand is the right price.”

  Rammaert hesitated. “No,” he said.

  Milano stood up, suddenly feeling every one of those three-on-three twinges, and took the attaché case from the Madman. He set the case on the desk and flipped open its lid. “As you see,” he said. “Cash.”

  Rammaert took in the view, then shook his head. “You’ll have to do better than fifty.”

  Milano examined the Rammaert footwear. Not Swiss. The Swiss had developed a more graceful touch with leather. Belgian most likely. And Teuton Antwerp rather than half-Frenchy Brussels. With enough time measured off, Milano raised his head. “I’ll make one final offer. Absolutely final. Sixty thousand.”

  “Sixty,” Rammaert said, getting the feel of it.

  Milano poised a hand over the lid of the attaché case. “It looks like we’re back to yes or no, friend. Which is it?”

  “It means a heavy loss. Immense difficulties. But yes, I suppose sixty would be acceptable.”

  Which, though Milano, made it just a little too readily acceptable for comfort. It was a relief when Rammaert, playing according to form, revealed why. He looked at his watch and seemed dismayed by what he saw there. “So late? Well then, early tomorrow morning – let us say at seven – we can meet here again and settle matters. Is seven o’clock convenient?”

  “If it is for you,” Milano said. “Of course, my associates will be staying right here overnight just to make sure no fanatic Barquinlover tries to get away with one of these Neo-Cubist Constructionist gems before we do settle matters. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

  Rammaert, it turned out, had a wry sense of humor under all that blubber. Eyelids drooping, he studied Milano’s sympathetic face at his leisure. Then he said with intense concern, “Of course, we wouldn’t want that to happen. So rather than inconvenience your associates it might be better to settle matters at once.” He motioned with his chin at the attaché case. “Would I be wrong in assuming there is exactly sixty thousand dollars there?”

  “No,” Milano said, “You’d be exactly right.”

  “How foresighted of you, Mr. Milano.”

  “Diamond cut diamond,” Milano acknowledged graciously.

  It was the Madman who singlehanded lifted down the dead weight of Number Ten from the wall and laid it on the floor. And then, as deftly as a dentist extracting loose molars, used a borrowed pliers to extract staples until the canvas could be pulled free and the Boudins removed from their mounting. Each Boudin panel was in an improvised frame of inch-wide boxwood stripping, and with a steady pressure of the thumbs the Madman worked the panels loose. Then he fitted the empty frames into their original places under the canvas and set about on a restapling job.

  Milano stood the panels side by side against the attaché case on the desk, and as Rammaert and Hy joined him in silent appreciation he had that charge of gut feeling, thanks to Eugene Louis Boudin, which signalled that all was a lot better with the world than anyone really suspected. The one small irritant was that Hy seemed to be increasingly puzzled by what he was looking at, cocking his head this way and that as he studied it like one of your aficionados of the trendy who lived only to worship the gravy stains on the artist’s
plate. The education of the emeritus Doctor Greenwald, Milano told himself, would definitely be a high priority item in the near future.

  On the other hand, Rammaert knew damn well what he was looking at. “Marvelous,” he breathed. He turned to Milano. “You know his work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I have always found his larger paintings boring. He’s one of those where the smaller the painting, the more restricted its dimensions, the greater its intensity. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes,” said Milano, and had the feeling that if you didn’t watch out you could find yourself liking this slob. “He’s like Rubens in that regard.”

  With Number Ten back on the wall, with the payoff on the desk in neat little stacks and the panels tucked into the attaché case, it was back to Willie’s office where the panels were locked away in the safe and the Madman assigned the all-night duty of keeping them company until Willie showed up and took possession. After which Milano said to Hy, “I’m heading downtown. Want a lift somewhere?”

  “No. I’m a little shook up right now. I think I’ll walk it off.”

  “It wasn’t really that bad for you, was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Hy said. “I don’t have any perspective on it yet. I’m not sure I know how I feel about it yet. Look, would you mind telling me something? When you and Rammaert were laying it on each other, how much of what you told him was the truth?”

  “Just enough,” said Milano

  A little before midnight, and the Village was alive. Including, as Milano saw from the sidewalk, that third-floor apartment whose windows were lit up. Maybe a little too alive, because when he made it up to the apartment he heard from within a heated rise and fall of voices.

  He knocked on the door and Chris, barefoot in pajamas, opened it, giving him a momentary view of what had to be her pair of co-tenants having it out. Then she stepped into the hallway closing the door behind her and moved into that familiar tight body to body pressure against him to engage him in an obscene and lingering kiss.