Now the list read:
1. Why didn’t Maitland contribute to support of mother and sister?
2. Why didn’t Victor Maitland, knowing he was dying, change his life style or make special plans?
3. Why were no paintings found in Mott Street studio?
4. Why did Victor Maitland and Saul Geltman arrange Nyack visits so Martha Beasely wouldn’t see them?
5. Where’s the big money coming from that Dora and Emily Maitland are counting on?
6. What’s in the Maitland’s barn?
Boone straightened up. He put his hands on his hips, bent backward until his spine cracked, stretched, took a deep breath.
“Chief,” he said, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I sure am,” Delaney said, trying not to sound excited. “I’ve got to make some phone calls … You sit down. Or make yourself another sandwich. Or open another—no, wait. There’s a job you’ve got to do while I phone.”
He went to his bookcase, got the oversize art volume of the works of Victor Maitland, the book Boone had loaned him. He showed the sergeant the section listing the artist’s oeuvre.
“This book was published six months ago,” Delaney said, “and probably written at least six months before that. So the list won’t be right up to the minute. But it should tell us if we’re thinking straight.”
“What you want is the number of known paintings Maitland did every year—right?” Boone asked.
“Right!” Delaney said. He wanted to clap the sergeant on the shoulder, but didn’t. “The list starts twenty years ago, when he began to sell. You get on the numbers, and I’ll call Jake Dukker.”
He had no trouble getting Dukker’s studio, but the receptionist told him the artist was busy in a shooting session and couldn’t come to the phone.
“What’s he doing—photographing pornographic confirmation cards?” Delaney said. “You tell Jake baby this is Chief Edward X. Delaney, New York Police Department, and if he doesn’t get his tuchas to the phone, there’ll be a man in blue up there in—Oh hello, Mr. Dukker. Forgive me for bothering you, but I know how anxious you are to cooperate. Just one short question this time: How long did it take Victor Maitland to do a painting?”
Abner Boone raised his head from his counting to listen to Delaney’s conversation.
“I know, I know … Look, you told us he as a fast worker, Belle Sarazen told us he was a fast worker, Saul Geltman told us he was a fast worker. All right—how fast? … Uh-huh … I understand … And if he was pushing it? … Yes … I get it … But on average, what would you say? … Yes … So that could be at least fifty a year? … Yes … No, I’m not going to make you swear to it; it’s just for my own information … And you’re faster?” Delaney winked at the listening Abner Boone. “I understand completely, Mr. Dukker. Thank you very much for your kind cooperation.”
He hung up and made some quick notes on his pad while talking to the sergeant.
“Says it depends on the artist,” he said rapidly. “Some can spend a year on a single canvas. Maitland worked fast, like everyone told us. Twenty or thirty a year. Easily. One a week if he pushed it. Maybe even more, Dukker says. Didn’t even let the layers of paint dry properly. Jake baby says Maitland could do a painting overnight on a bet, but let’s figure an average of one a week to be on the conservative side. How you doing?”
“Give me a couple of more minutes,” Boone said. “It looks good.”
Delaney waited patiently while the sergeant counted the number of known paintings Maitland produced each year. Finally, Boone pushed the book away and studied his list.
“All right,” he said, “here’s how it stands: Beginning when the list starts, he did about twenty a year, then thirty, then more, and more, until he’s doing like fifty paintings a year. This is on the average. Then, five years ago—”
“When he learns he’s dying,” Delaney put in.
“Right. About five years ago, suddenly it goes to twelve, ten, fourteen, eleven paintings a year. His annual production fell way off.”
“The hell it did,” the Chief said. “If anything, he began working harder and faster. If he turned out fifty paintings a year, say, for the past five years, and you subtract the number of known paintings listed in that book, how many paintings are unaccounted for?”
“About two hundred,” Boone said, staring at his list. “Jesus, two hundred missing paintings!”
“Missing, my ass,” Delaney said. “They’re in the Maitlands’ barn. That explains the air conditioner, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll buy that,” Boone nodded. “Now give me the why.”
Delaney grabbed for his Manhattan telephone directory.
“I’m going to call the Internal Revenue Service information,” he told the sergeant. “You get on the phone in the hallway and listen in. I don’t want to have to repeat the conversation; it’ll probably be a long one.”
Boone took his second sandwich and what was left of his bottle of tonic into the hallway. Delaney dialed IRS information and was answered by a recorded message telling him all the information lines were busy, and would he please wait. He hung up, dialed again, and got the same message. Went through it again, and on the third try decided to wait. He held the phone almost five minutes, and then a growly voice came on, saying, “Information. Can I help you?”
“I’d like some information on gift taxes,” the Chief said.
“What do you want to know?” the voice growled.
“How much can I give to relatives—or to anyone—without paying taxes on it?”
“An individual can give three thousand a year to as many donees as he wants.”
“And the donor doesn’t have to pay any tax on that, and the donee receiving the gift doesn’t?”
“Right,” the growler said.
“Look,” Delaney said, “that’s for money. Cash. What about things—like, oh say sterling silver, antiques, stamps, coins, paintings—stuff like that?”
“The same holds true. The value of the annual gifts cannot exceed three thousand if they’re to be tax-free.”
Delaney was getting interested. Like most cops, he was intrigued by how the system could be fiddled.
“Suppose I sell something to a relative or friend,” he suggested, “for, say, a hundred dollars, and it’s really worth five thousand. Then what?”
“Then you’re in the soup,” the voice growled. “If we find out about it. Gifts of anything—antiques, stamps, coins, paintings, whatever—are evaluated at current market value at the time of the gift. We hire expert appraisers. If the sale price is obviously out of line, then the person who fakes the purchase has to pay tax on the value over three thousand.”
“If you find out about it,” Delaney reminded him.
“If we find out—right,” the growler said. “You want to take a chance of being racked up on tax fraud, go right ahead; be my guest.”
“Let me ask you another question,” Delaney said. “All right?”
“Sure. This is more interesting than most of the stuff I get.”
“Let me give you a for-instance. Suppose I own ten acres of land. Now the value of that land is three thousand dollars, and I sign the land over to my son, say. That’s okay, right?”
“If the value of the land is legitimate, it’s okay. It would mean that surrounding land, similar acres, are going for that price. Then, sure, that would be a legal gift, tax-free.”
“All right, let’s say it’s legal. I’ve got proof those ten acres are worth three thousand. They’re a gift I make to my son. Tax-free. But then, about ten years later, or fifteen, or twenty, oil is discovered on that land, and suddenly those acres are worth a million dollars. What then? Was it still a legal gift?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then:
“That’s a good one. First time I’ve had that thrown at me. Look, I got to admit the tax laws about gifts are murky. We know a lot of people get away with murder, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Mostly
because we never hear about it, never learn about it. But to get back to your question … you give land to your son legitimately worth three thousand. Right?”
“Right.”
“Then, years later, oil is discovered on that land, and it greatly appreciates in value. Have I got it correct?”
“Yes, correct.”
“Then it’s your son’s good luck. That’s the way I interpret the regulations. I may be wrong, but I don’t think I am. When you gave that land to your son, you didn’t know there was oil on it, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“No hanky-panky? There were no acres around it or near it producing oil?”
“No. None.”
“Then, like I said, it’s your son’s good luck. The gift is legitimate. We’ll take our cut from the sale of the oil.”
“Thank you very much,” Chief Delaney said.
“Thank you,” the voice growled. “A welcome relief from old dames wanting to know if they can deduct the cost of dog food for their poodles.”
Delaney hung up. Abner Boone came walking in from the hallway. He was frowning.
“It’s tax fraud, isn’t it?” he asked.
“That’s how I see it,” Delaney nodded. “Sit down. Relax. Let me give you a scenario. A lot of it’s smoke, but I think it makes sense.”
Delaney leaned back in his swivel chair. He lighted a cigar, put his hands behind his head, stared at the ceiling. Boone slumped in the cracked club chair, cigarettes and matches in his lap.
“All right,” the Chief said, “let’s go … Interrupt me any time you think I’m flying too high, or you have something to add.”
“Let’s start about six years ago. Victor Maitland’s stuff is beginning to bring really high prices, and he’s turning out like fifty paintings a year. Now this is supposition, but maybe Geltman’s getting a little itchy. Sure, he’s making a lot of money off Maitland, but maybe the dealer’s worried that the artist is doing too many paintings too fast. Remember what Geltman said about scarcity being a factor in the price of art? But let’s skip that for the moment. Six years ago, everything’s coming up roses for Victor Maitland.
“Then, suddenly, Doc Horowitz tells him he’s dying. He’s got maybe three years. Wham, bang, and pow! Maitland laughed, according to Horowitz, but don’t tell me news like that wouldn’t shake a man. Maitland’s first reaction is that now he’s got to work harder and faster in the days he’s got left. Because he really is an obsessed creative artist, and he wants to know it all, own it all, and prove it on canvas. But then he starts thinking—working harder and faster for whom? The IRS? He’s already paying heavy income taxes, and if he works more and sells more, he pays more. Save up his paintings to leave to his heirs? Then the IRS and New York take an enormous inheritance tax.”
“Lieutenant Wolfe told us how Maitland felt about that,” Boone observed.
“Correct. So Maitland goes to Geltman and tells him his problem, and Geltman takes him to see J. Julian Simon. I figure it’s got to be a lawyer who figured out this whole cockamamie scheme. It’s got shyst written all over it. After all, they’re going to risk tax fraud, a Federal rap. But Simon figures out ways to reduce the risk to practically nil.”
“Who benefits?” the sergeant asked.
“Cui bono?” the Chief smiled. “I asked myself that a long time ago, and didn’t have the answer. Maitland wanted his mother and sister to benefit. Maybe he hadn’t been giving them anything. Maybe he’d been tossing them nickels. But he knows they’re just getting by, and that the old Maitland homestead in Nyack is going to rack and ruin. Now that he’s dying, he gets an attack of the guilts. He wants his mother and sister to benefit, and screw the IRS; they’re taking plenty on his income taxes. That’s how I think Maitland would figure it.”
“What about his wife and son?”
“Fuck ’em. That’s what Maitland would think, and probably said to Geltman: Fuck ’em. The wife has twenty grand a year of her own, doesn’t she? She’s not going to starve. And Victor figures he’ll leave enough cash and legitimate paintings in the Geltman Galleries to give his son a start. The kid gets about half the estate after taxes, remember. No, Maitland wants his mother and sister to be the big winners.”
“Then Dora and Emily were in on it?”
“Had to be; it was their barn being used for storage. I guess they felt sorry about Victor dying and all—maybe that’s why Dora’s on the sauce—but they were consoled by all those beautiful paintings piling up in the barn. Their inheritance. This is how I figure they worked it.
“Say Maitland did a minimum of fifty paintings a year after he learned he was dying. Ten or fifteen of those would go to the Geltman Galleries to be sold normally. An artificial scarcity, so the price of Maitlands kept climbing. The other twenty-five or more paintings were put in the barn. Brought up there by Maitland or Geltman when Martha Beasely wasn’t around to see them unload the station wagon.”
“And when Dora and Emily came down for lunch or dinner,” Boone said, “they took paintings back with them. In the Mercedes.”
“Right,” Delaney nodded. “And if the IRS ever found them, Dora and Emily and Saul Geltman would claim those paintings had been done twenty years ago, when Maitlands were selling for a hundred bucks. Listen, the guy’s style never changed that anyone could notice. And you heard what the IRS man said on the phone. At a hundred bucks, a fair market value twenty years ago, Maitland could give thirty paintings to his mother and thirty to his sister every year, and still keep within the legal gift limit. How could the Feds prove the paintings had been done in 1978, when Maitlands were selling for a hundred G’s and more?”
“They’d have to keep a record,” Boone said slowly. “Some kind of a ledger like the one Geltman showed us for the legitimate sales.”
Delaney pointed a finger at him.
“That’s it,” he said. “You’ve got it. Double-entry bookkeeping. The art dealer’s got an illustrated record book proving the painting was done in 1958 and given to Dora or Emily as a gift. All as phony as a three-dollar bill, of course, but the IRS would have a hell of a time fighting it.”
“Why didn’t Victor let Dora and Emily sell off some of the paintings while he was alive? They’d have to pay taxes on their profit, but they could get started on renovating that old place.”
“Because Geltman convinced them that the prices of Maitland paintings were going up, up, up, and the longer they held on, the more they’d eventually make. And when Maitland conked, the price of his paintings would go through the roof. Just the way it happened. Listen, J. Julian Simon and Saul Geltman worked this out very carefully. And, for their reward, I suppose Geltman had an arrangement with Dora and Emily. When Victor Maitland died, the stored paintings would be sold off slowly, ten or twenty a year, to keep the price up. Geltman would handle the sales, perfectly legitimately, and take like fifty percent.”
“From which he’d pay J. Julian Simon his share for setting up the scam.”
“That’s the way I figure it,” Delaney nodded.
“That’s it,” Boone said. “That’s got to be it.”
“Sure,” Edward X. Delaney said. “Except for one thing. Who slammed Victor Maitland?”
16
JASON T. JASON FELT like a detective, even if he didn’t have the rank. Like most young men and women who join the cops, wherever, this was what he thought police work was all about: prowling around in plainclothes, asking questions, solving homicides. Three years’ duty on uniformed patrol had dimmed the vision, but never quite obliterated it. And now it was coming true.
At the suggestion of Sergeant Abner Boone, and with the aid of his wife, Jason Two dressed like your normal denizen of the lower depths for his role as detective. He wore a fuzzy maroon fedora with a brim four inches wide, pinned up on one side with a rhinestone as big as the Ritz and a long feathered plume waving in the air.
His jacket was fringed buckskin over a ruffled purple shirt open to the waist. Around his neck hun
g an enormous silver medallion on a beaded necklace. His skintight jeans were some kind of black, shiny stuff, like leather, and his yellow boots had platform soles and three-inch heels.
His wife said this costume made Jason T. Jason look like the biggest, raunchiest pimp in New York, and she made him wear a raincoat over it when he got into and out of their car in front of their Hicksville, Long Island, home. His two young sons thought their father’s outfit was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and he had to crack them a few times before they’d stop yelling, “Hey, Ma, superstud is home!”
Jason T. Jason enjoyed every minute of his assignment. He liked people, and found it easy to gossip with them and relate to their problems. He wasn’t self-conscious about his enormous size, and discovered that, perhaps because of it, there were many who liked to be seen talking to him or drinking with him. It made them proud, as if they were in the company of a celebrity.
He found he was putting in a twelve-hour day on the new job, sometimes more, but he talked it over with Juanita, his wife, and they decided he’d push it. The opportunity was one most patrol officers would give their left nut for, and if he helped break the case, he’d get a commendation at least, and an on-the-spot promotion to dick three wasn’t unheard of.
He had had the usual basic training at the Academy, and had learned more in the three years on patrol, of course, but nothing in his background had prepared him for this job. He told Juanita he probably would be making a mess of it if it weren’t for the counsel and assistance of Abner Boone. The sergeant taught him the tricks of the trade.
For instance, Boone told him, suppose you’re tailing a guy for some reason, and you want to find out his name. You see him go up and talk to another guy for a few minutes, then move off. So you go up to this other guy, but you don’t flash your tin and demand, “What was the name of the man you were just talking to?” Do that, and the chances are the guy will stiff you, or lie. But if you come up smiling and say, “Hey, man, was that Billy Smith you were just talking to?” then the chances were pretty good the guy might say, “Billy Smith? Hell, no, that was Jack Jones.”
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