pricey galleries.
We went into the first one we came to, the Catharine Chaffrey Gallery, and while Mary strode around ostentatiously checking out the paintings and rolling her eyes, I asked the curator about Anton and Harlan. Catherine Chaffrey, a woman in her fifties who looked as if she’d just been goosed by an electrical current, knew Anton only by reputation. Her voice, dripping with acid, conveyed precisely what that reputation was. When it came to Harlan Coombs, Chaffrey repeated much the same gossip as Albert Mason had: Harlan played the stock market, got into debt, and disappeared with artwork that did not belong to him, although she, at least, did not blame Harlan’s misdeeds on a mythical woman. But the local art scene had clearly been stunned by the betrayal, and we shared a moment of sadness that a system so dependent upon professional ethics had broken down.
The moment ended when Chaffrey started dishing about the murder at the Brock. Apparently the gossip grapevine worked even faster than I thought, because she speculated that Ernst had been having an affair with Stan Dupont’s wife, who was some sort of minor European aristocrat, and that they had eloped with the money derived from selling the original Caravaggio. I speculated that her scenario was about as likely as Jasper Johns learning how to paint. By her reaction, I gathered she was a Jasper Johns fan.
We were interrupted by Mary, who had begun wondering loudly what kind of moron would buy this kind of crap. Hustling her out the door, I led the way to the next gallery, where folks claimed, improbably, not to have heard of either Anton or Harlan but were dying to talk about Ernst Pettigrew and the Brock. The next few galleries yielded the now-familiar responses: outrage at Harlan, wariness about Anton, and titillation over the murder. No new information was forthcoming, but it was evident that the respectable art-dealing world agreed on two things: Anton was a scoundrel and Harlan was a crook.
Oh, and Ernst Pettigrew had killed Stan Dupont in a fight over a deposed Bavarian princess’ love child.
It was now well past six o’clock and my stomach was growling like the MGM lion. Since we were so close to Chinatown, Mary and I popped into a favorite family-run restaurant, made our way through the cacophonous kitchen, clattered up the rickety metal staircase, took a seat at a tiny table cheek by jowl with the other customers, and ordered an inexpensive meal of hot-and-sour soup, steamed eggrolls, and shrimp with pea pods in garlic sauce, only to end up, twenty minutes later, eating wonton soup, chicken lo mein, and beef with broccoli.
There may have been a language problem. When it came to things like dining in Chinatown, it was good to be flexible.
Chapter 4
Who are these “experts” who spew such vitriol? Have they labored to give birth to a work so magnificent as to make grown men weep? Have they placed paint upon canvas in such a way as to make believers of atheists, romantics of those of hardened heart, or visionaries of the hopeless? Let them hold their tongues until, godlike, they have created beauty where once there was none.
—Georges LeFleur, “Experts & Other Lower Life Forms,” unfinished manuscript, Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger
The problem with running a business is that it never runs itself. A corporate employee could take a personal day every now and then without everything going to hell in a handbasket. Not so a small-business owner. If I didn’t do the work, it didn’t get done. Worse, I didn’t get paid.
The rejuvenating powers of Chinese food caused me to flirt with the idea of setting off after Anton again. But as I pulled out my wallet to pay the check, I reconsidered. I owed some faux finish samples to several clients, and I had to teach Mary how to apply gold gilt so that she could practice for a big job that was scheduled for next month. And if that weren’t enough, I had a
We went into the first one we came to, the Catharine Chaffrey Gallery, and while Mary strode around ostentatiously checking out the paintings and rolling her eyes, I asked the curator about Anton and Harlan. Catherine Chaffrey, a woman in her fifties who looked as if she’d just been goosed by an electrical current, knew Anton only by reputation. Her voice, dripping with acid, conveyed precisely what that reputation was. When it came to Harlan Coombs, Chaffrey repeated much the same gossip as Albert Mason had: Harlan played the stock market, got into debt, and disappeared with artwork that did not belong to him, although she, at least, did not blame Harlan’s misdeeds on a mythical woman. But the local art scene had clearly been stunned by the betrayal, and we shared a moment of sadness that a system so dependent upon professional ethics had broken down.
The moment ended when Chaffrey started dishing about the murder at the Brock. Apparently the gossip grapevine worked even faster than I thought, because she speculated that Ernst had been having an affair with Stan Dupont’s wife, who was some sort of minor European aristocrat, and that they had eloped with the money derived from selling the original Caravaggio. I speculated that her scenario was about as likely as Jasper Johns learning how to paint. By her reaction, I gathered she was a Jasper Johns fan.
We were interrupted by Mary, who had begun wondering loudly what kind of moron would buy this kind of crap. Hustling her out the door, I led the way to the next gallery, where folks claimed, improbably, not to have heard of either Anton or Harlan but were dying to talk about Ernst Pettigrew and the Brock. The next few galleries yielded the now-familiar responses: outrage at Harlan, wariness about Anton, and titillation over the murder. No new information was forthcoming, but it was evident that the respectable art-dealing world agreed on two things: Anton was a scoundrel and Harlan was a crook.
Oh, and Ernst Pettigrew had killed Stan Dupont in a fight over a deposed Bavarian princess’ love child.
It was now well past six o’clock and my stomach was growling like the MGM lion. Since we were so close to Chinatown, Mary and I popped into a favorite family-run restaurant, made our way through the cacophonous kitchen, clattered up the rickety metal staircase, took a seat at a tiny table cheek by jowl with the other customers, and ordered an inexpensive meal of hot-and-sour soup, steamed eggrolls, and shrimp with pea pods in garlic sauce, only to end up, twenty minutes later, eating wonton soup, chicken lo mein, and beef with broccoli.
There may have been a language problem. When it came to things like dining in Chinatown, it was good to be flexible.
Chapter 4
Who are these “experts” who spew such vitriol? Have they labored to give birth to a work so magnificent as to make grown men weep? Have they placed paint upon canvas in such a way as to make believers of atheists, romantics of those of hardened heart, or visionaries of the hopeless? Let them hold their tongues until, godlike, they have created beauty where once there was none.
—Georges LeFleur, “Experts & Other Lower Life Forms,” unfinished manuscript, Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger
The problem with running a business is that it never runs itself. A corporate employee could take a personal day every now and then without everything going to hell in a handbasket. Not so a small-business owner. If I didn’t do the work, it didn’t get done. Worse, I didn’t get paid.
The rejuvenating powers of Chinese food caused me to flirt with the idea of setting off after Anton again. But as I pulled out my wallet to pay the check, I reconsidered. I owed some faux finish samples to several clients, and I had to teach Mary how to apply gold gilt so that she could practice for a big job that was scheduled for next month. And if that weren’t enough, I had a
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