Madonna of the Apes Read online

  “Without which,” Fred said evenly, “you would be ignorant of the forces that are moving. Without my interference you wouldn’t know that Franklin Tilley regrets making the sale. You wouldn’t know he keeps a gun. You wouldn’t know about this new player, Suzette Shaughnessy, or her principal…”

  “You didn’t…” Clayton started.

  “I told her nothing.”

  “And now you want…”

  “You thought you were home free. Now we know about two parties who are looking for what you bought.”

  “What do you want from me?” Clay demanded, smoothing his lapels with trembling hands.

  “I can make allowances. You are worried. But understand this,” Fred said, slowly, and with measured force. “You don’t know me, but you’ve had a chance to take my measure. Do you really want to suggest that I will either betray or blackmail you, just because I could do both, so easily?”

  He let the question hang. Clayton sat again, poised behind his desk, his eyes wary. The words from the large man in his office, with the square farmer’s hands, and the face as craggy and alarming as the deliberation that had given force to the spoken words, had offered no threat. But threat hung in the air.

  “Living in Boston so long,” Clay said, “perhaps I forget my manners. I do apologize. I am overwrought. Give me a moment to collect myself.” He began to pace nervously in a small area between his worktable and a bookcase against which three paintings leaned, unframed, their faces turned away. “In fairness, and in fellowship, I must accept your word,” he said finally. “However, you say you want nothing, and that is impossible. Therefore I am confused. And with me, confusion and suspicion are indistinguishable.”

  “Moving on,” Fred said. “Help me understand this new player, Suzette Shaughnessy. Let me ask you, do you know Tony—Anthony, I guess—Agnelli? Is he a known quantity? The Agnelli Collection.”

  “You mention heavy objects,” Clayton said. “Agnelli is, to adopt your term of art, a truly heavy object. Agnelli is the only man living who can, and will, successfully challenge the Getty Museum.” Clay perched nervously on the edge of the table and settled the satin robe over his knees. “The Agnelli money’s plumbing. Three generations of plumbing that, under Anthony Agnelli’s guidance, went from drains and faucets to encompass an empire of everything hydraulic. Hydroelectric dams throughout the world; the digging of new canals; the plans underway to restore the Saharan aquifer, and to save Venice both from the sea and from its own pollution. He’s a major force in the world, a Bechtel or Halliburton in his own right, since he won’t go public.

  “Ten years or so ago he began to buy art. He buys only the work of Italians, or works done in Italy. He owns six of Corot’s Italian landscapes. When he started buying, a person like myself might compete for a lesser name—a Baldovenetti, a Cosimo Rosselli—among the Florentine painters of the Renaissance, for example—the Renaissance is where he started. But because of his competition nothing slips by. As for the big names—I happen to know that he bought the Brierstone Bronzino at Christie’s London sale last October. He arranged to bid not only against the Getty, but also, in order to ensure that the price might rise to a level the National Gallery of London could not match, by public subscription, to keep the work in England as a National Treasure—he arranged for a shill to bid against him.”

  “Bid against himself,” Fred said.

  “And brought the Brierstone Bronzino, the Sebastian Transfixed, back to Toledo. There was nothing for the United Kingdom to do but watch and wring its hands.” Clay looked up sharply at Fred and paused, waiting.

  “You’ve lost me,” Fred said.

  “The subject is life-sized. The martyr Sebastian pierced by arrows. Lord Brierstone had brought the painting to England, probably in 1730, following a tour of the continent. Then, four generations later, when the family and its fortune were both falling into disrepute…”

  “No, the other thing,” Fred interrupted. “The bidding and so on.” He took the other coffee from the desk and began on it while Clay changed horses.

  “The United Kingdom, England, like many countries in the Old World, has passed laws designed to keep within her borders all works of art that a committee of interested parties determines to be National Treasures.”

  “Go on.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “The British spirit of fair play does not allow its citizens to lose their financial interests in their properties. Suppose the work is placed at auction. Let us extend the hypothesis to suggest that Lord Brierstone’s descendants owned the Venus de Milo’s more presentable younger sister, Diana, who also has her arms. The smooth and pomaded elderly gentlemen from Christie’s, accompanied by the ravishing titled young woman whom misfortune has forced into trade, also from Christie’s, persuade the family to place the piece at a suitable London sale, and they so notify the world. The competition is strong and relatively unimpaired by collusion, and we’ll assume that the Getty places the highest bid. Since you are indulging my hypothesis, let us say that the Getty’s successful bid is for two hundred fifty million pounds, hammer price, which means that in addition they must pay a commission at whatever rate they have previously and privately negotiated with the auction house. At those figures nobody pays the published rates.

  “At this juncture a great noise and commotion is heard in the land. The committee, egged on by the press, declares the Diana to be a National Treasure, meaning that the United Kingdom would suffer a severe loss if the Diana left its borders. That’s all very well, but now Christie’s, and the Getty, and the under bidders, have all demonstrated that the Diana is worth two hundred fifty million to its owners. The crown may not simply confiscate the property. They’re going to get their share anyway, when the taxes are collected. The Brierstone family, as long as they get their money (two hundred fifty million less taxes and the commission they have previously negotiated with Christie’s, which will be less than what you read on the printed page), agree to allow the Diana to be set up in a public place, such as the National Gallery, and the crown begins to organize a subscription to collect a fund to match the Getty’s bid. School children are invited to contribute their lunch money. Lord this and Lady that, the fellow who owns Harrods (who’s hoping one day to be knighted), and the rest of them, are importuned to make their tax-deductible contributions. And if the Getty’s price is matched within a specified time—I forget what that time is, it doesn’t matter—if, as I say, the bid is matched, the Brierstones get their money from the fund, the government takes back its share in taxes as expected (unless the government forgoes its taxes? After all, it is getting the work in question), Christie’s, I presume, collects its commission as expected, the Diana remains in the National Gallery, and the Getty’s people slink back to California emptyhanded.”

  “Ah,” Fred said. He toyed with his cup. “The Brierstone heirs would be unusual, especially if their fortunes have fallen into disrepute, if they welcomed this worldwide attention to the sale of a family jewel.”

  “Indeed,” Clayton said.

  “Not to mention, the loving attention of the crown would ensure that they lose between a third and half her value in taxes, yes?”

  “Indeed,” Clay repeated. “Roughly speaking. Forty percent, I believe. On a sale of two hundred fifty million, the government would pocket a hundred million.”

  “Then what I’d suggest,” Fred started.

  “If you were unscrupulous,” Clay said. “If I see where this is going…”

  “Yes. Is put this Diana de Milo in a cast, let’s say a fiberglass cast, make her look like a sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle, one of those bulbous she-women painted up like a circus tent, then sell her. She’s too big to be smuggled out in a suitcase. Sell her as a modern work that is imitating Saint Phalle, for whatever it costs—fifteen hundred pounds?—to a confederate, pay the tax on the fifteen hundred pounds, the confederate ships the thing to the U. S., for example, and then strips off the fiberglass cast, and sells
the Diana quietly.”

  “Right,” Clay agreed. “It’s done all the time with paintings and antiquities. Since Egypt, a bit late in the game, has decided it doesn’t want its ancient papyri to leave the country, the smugglers face them with modern tourist copies and they travel disguised as souvenir junk. Once arrived at their point of destination, the false front is removed and the originals are quietly placed on the clandestine market.”

  “Another thing you could do,” Fred said. “Say, as a hypothetical, you had an important painting that happened to be on a wood panel. Why not arrange to have that painting seen not as a painting at all, but, for example, as the top of a kid’s toy chest?”

  “Indeed,” Clay said. His response registered no surprise.

  “Next question,” Fred pushed on. “Were we smart, or were we lucky?”

  “We?” Clay asked. The single syllable stretched languorously over a considerable space of time, and Clay twined his long fingers, unraveled them, and wove them together during the course of the question.

  “This may not be news to you,” Fred said. “This brilliant original idea of mine.”

  “Such a procedure demands trust between the confederates,” Clay said. “The trust that is elsewhere called Honor among thieves.”

  “In the case of the Brierstone Diana,” Fred continued, “if the heir wants more than the sixty percent he’d get on the open market, it would pay both him and the buyer to arrange a quiet sale, say for two hundred million. The buyer saves fifty million. The seller gives a commission of maybe ten million (let’s be generous. It’s only money) to the confederate brokers, the heir takes in a hundred ninety instead of one fifty. There’s a profit of forty million for the heir. Everyone’s happy.”

  “With the exception of the government,” Clay pointed out. “Which had also expected to pocket its fifteen percent VAT, or sales tax. Unless the buyer can claim an exemption.”

  “And within all this,” Fred said, “The Diana has become just another commodity, like a crate of bananas.”

  Clay nodded.

  The remainder of the chest, from which they had removed the top, was still sitting on the floor in front of Clayton Reed’s worktable where Fred had left it, a body without a head. The interior dark with age, its painted sides were luxurious with pink and grass green angels, accentuated by vivid swirls of gold and ultramarine. The sides were as nicked and scratched as any such object might be if it had been used for many years.

  “What do you make of the box?” Fred asked.

  “It worries me.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “The angels, the lilies, the arches, the curlicues,” Clay said, “all of it worries me. It looks convincing for the fifteenth century, though earlier than my Leonardo. You can see that it is almost primitive. Although there is shading in the angels’ draperies, nonetheless they are not presented with any illusion of volume. The arches are not architectural, but formulaic. Listen to me, I speak of it as if it were a painting, rather than a decorated object. I’ve sat on the floor and studied it. Whether as painting or as decorated object, I am troubled, albeit I know nothing about wooden furniture or joinery. It simply doesn’t fit.”

  “We already knew the chest and its top didn’t go together,” Fred pointed out. “I look at it here, even without its top. What do I know? For what it is, it looks pretty good to me. Maybe the original top was damaged? Someone did their ironing on it or something.”

  “Horrible thought. But less so if the box is a fake,” Clay said. “As I fear. If this is true, how recent a fake concerns me. I do not wish to think about it. But nevertheless, it is here. It is a part of the story, like it or not. If it is late nineteenth century, as I surmise, it raises the specter of a whole school of master forgers who worked out of Siena. They were skillful enough either to hoodwink, or to collaborate with, such expert aesthetes as Berenson. Among them, they filled American collections with frauds.”

  “We don’t care about the chest,” Fred said. “Do we? Why should we?”

  “When the Star of India turns up in a plastic setting,” Clay worried, “something is amiss.”

  “We already know something’s wrong. Even if your Leonardo’s a fake, you didn’t pay enough for it.”

  Clay said blandly, “My practice is to separate issues of monetary value from aesthetic considerations.”

  “When you buy an egg for a penny,” Fred said, “don’t cry when it stinks in the pan.”

  “I am not doubting the egg. The painting. It will stand up to any scrutiny, though the only scrutiny it will enjoy is mine. No one…”

  “The couple who were leaving when I got here,” Fred interrupted.

  “Have been with me for years. They clean. They are honest, reliable, and thorough. They do not notice or, God forbid, dust, the collection.”

  “And you won’t have the straps of the hinges removed from the face of the painting?” Fred pressed. “Or when you do, you’ll blindfold the conservator?”

  “Since it appears that, contrary to my better judgment, I open my mind to you, here is one cause of my misgiving. You surprise it from me because of the violence of my emotions. Indeed, I can scarcely speak,” Clay said. He paused, allowing room for Fred to cause an interruption that would let him off the hook; but Fred sat quiet.

  “The cut edges,” Clay said. “Not only are they the explanation for the fact that the wreath of laurel, on the marbled side, is now off center. More, I perceive through my horror, the cuts are recent. Must be. I can’t believe they are more than twenty years old. When I examined them under a lens…”

  “Should we go up and look?” Fred suggested.

  “I have made the examination,” Clay said mournfully. “It grieves my heart. The cut edges have been darkened with oiled pigment, so that they match the color of the other, older edges that have not been tampered with. Worse, before that, the villain abraded them, with fine sandpaper or something finer, perhaps an edge of broken glass, until they could pass for being worn enough to match their apparent age.”

  “The wood’s not old?” Fred protested.

  “Of course it’s old. Five hundred years and then some. Only the wood exposed by the new cuts had never been subject to the deleterious effects of oxygen, and of pollution. Therefore they were not dark. Not aged. Until the forger tainted them.”

  “Forger,” Fred said.

  “A similar trick is used by many dealers. Suppose they must stretch an old canvas on a new wooden chassis? Often the new wood is stained so that it will not embarrass the painting it carries by its palpable youth. It is unnecessary, of course. Only the impossibly naïve are fooled, unnecessary as that is. Still, it is a kind of forgery. And the honest age of the wood of my Leonardo, on these two violated edges, has been forged to look, to the careless eye, as if the cut is as old as the painting is. If there was ever any doubt that such a work should be in such a place, and in such hands, that doubt has vanished. I have liberated a hostage.”

  Clay stood slowly. “Time is passing,” he said. “I have enjoyed our visit. Our visits I should say, using the plural form of the noun.”

  Fred suggested, “Carry the rest of the chest to the Museum of Fine Arts, if it bothers you. Get someone in Furniture to look at the wood, the paint, the gilding, the joinery, what’s left of the hinges. You kept the pins?”

  “And ten minutes later anyone in the world who wants to, knows my business,” Clay said. “They are all in league. No one in any museum is able to keep a secret. Or wishes to. If they are to be interesting to their friends, they must do commerce in other people’s business. They have none of their own.”

  “Then it’s a problem,” Fred said. “Thanks for the coffee.” He stood, grabbed his windbreaker and made for the door. On his way out of the room he hesitated, turned, and asked, “May I use the phone? Local call.”

  Clay, taken aback, gestured toward the telephone on his desk. Fred pushed three numbers and asked the noise on the other end, “Atlanta, Georgia. Franklin T
illey.” He waited, listened, and affirmed, “Yes, Pearl Street,” and jotted the number down. He looked a further question at Clay, who nodded and answered, “Why not?”

  Fred punched the number and waited until it had rung long enough without a response. “No useful answer,” he told Clay. “And no answering machine.”

  “That is to be applauded,” Clay said. “When you have such a device, they are able to spy on you.”

  Fred tried the number again. After a dozen rings a male voice answered, “Yes?”

  “Franklin Tilley?” Fred asked, and the phone went dead.

  “I’ve pushed myself into your business, and I won’t waste your time apologizing,” Fred said. “I don’t explain because, well, I can’t, beyond I helped you get into something that feels wrong, and that might turn dangerous. I feel some responsibility. Also, I’m interested, and it’s been a while…” He let that thought lapse.

  “I am somewhat concerned about the meeting with Mr. Tilley this afternoon,” Clay said. “I must know the Leonardo’s provenance. As you pointed out so brutally, and as my own better angels advise me in tranquility, if the painting was not Tilley’s to sell, it cannot be properly mine.”

  “My thought was, I’ll go,” Fred said. “If the conversation leads in that direction, I’ll let him believe the chest now belongs to me. He’ll figure that, knowing he was interested, I took advantage of you. In order to cheat you, I bought the chest off you for less than the ten thousand he offers. Why not? So I’ll be the owner now. If you continue as the owner of record, you are a sitting duck. Let’s shift the field away from you. It gives me more freedom to work.”

  “To work,” Clayton echoed.

  “So I shift their attention to me, find out what I can, and then disappear. I can do that, you can’t. You’re better off. The love nest, so called, is a temporary setup. Whatever their business is, these people will do it and go. They’ve got to. The Commonwealth’s revenue officers won’t take forever. Franklin Tilley, and somebody else he mentioned, named Mitchell. Does that name ring a bell?