A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery) Read online

  “Yes, I am,” she said, trying to show nothing, although she felt her lips compress and her jaw muscles harden.

  But showing nothing was not her strong suit, and Chris was startled by the abrupt change. “Hey, did I say something wrong? I was only trying to…I just wanted to say…look, I’m not exactly famous for my diplomatic skills, and as usual I’ve started with my foot in my mouth. Whew.” She paused for a breath. “Okay, let me start again. What I was trying to say was that you have some unusual baggage, yeah, but don’t let that get in your way. You’re in the Wild West now, kiddo, in Seattle, and it’s not the way it is back east. Family names, family history—pooh, they don’t count for much out here. What matters is what you can do, not who your father is or isn’t.” She laughed. “A good thing too, or with my screwed-up family, I’d be walking around this thing with a tray on my shoulder.”

  Alix felt her cheeks flush. “Thank you, Chris, I really appreciate that. I apologize for taking it the wrong way for a minute there. I…I guess I’m a little…”

  “Oh, look,” Chris said, “there’s a free table, in the far corner, there. Let’s snag it before someone else gets it. I’ll run interference, you go straight for it.”

  With Chris’s formidable body getting in the way of others with the same idea, they got there before anyone else. “Cheers,” Chris said, lifting her glass as they settled into their seats.

  “Cheers,” Alix echoed, clinking glasses. But she set the glass down as soon as she’d taken the obligatory sip. “Look, Chris, I’m really sorry I was so—”

  Chris waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, come on, there’s no need to apologize.”

  “I appreciate that, but…it’s weird.” She shook her head. “It’s been almost nine years since Geoff wrecked my life—his too—and I’ve come a long way on my own, and you’d think I could just shrug it off by now. A few people have said I ought to change my name, but that’s something I don’t want to do, you know? I’m kind of attached to it.”

  “Absolutely, and anyway, in the long run I don’t think it would have done you any good, not since you’re staying in the same line of work. We live in a new age, kiddo, and sooner or later you’d be hyperlinked, or field-searched, or whatever, and it would come out. Besides,” she said with a sudden flash of warmth, “you’re not the one who has anything to live down, he is.”

  She paused to elegantly down a cream-cheese-filled peapod, then inelegantly licked cheese off her fingertips. “You know, to be honest, I think I’m a little envious of you, having a father like that. If nothing else, at least he’s interesting. My father was a building contractor.” She jerked her head exasperatedly. “Oh, that’s baloney. Why do I do that? My father was a plasterer, that’s all, and not a very good one either, especially when he was off the wagon, which was ninety percent of the time.” Another roll of the eyes, but not with pleasure. “See, you’re not the only one with a reprobate father in the family closet.”

  Alix smiled. “Well, Geoff’s interesting, all right. I can’t argue with that.”

  “Believe me, I can understand how hard it must have been on you—it was all over the news. You would have had to be living on Mars not to hear about it. I mean, ‘Prominent Metropolitan Museum Expert Accused of—’” She flinched. “Oops, there I go again. See what I mean? Mmff.” She zipped her mouth shut with an imaginary zipper.

  “No, really, it’s okay,” Alix said, laughing, “but on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind changing the subject. How did you find me? Was it my ad in the Gallery Directory?”

  “Uh-uh. One of my patrons—I own this little wine bar—is Christopher Norgren?” It was said in a way that implied Alix was supposed to know the name. Alix shook her head no.

  “The Baroque and Renaissance guy here at the museum?”

  Another shake of the head. “I don’t know him.”

  “Well, he knows you, or at least he knows who you are. He said you were first-rate, that you’d studied for years with Fabrizio Santullo in Rome. Even I know you can’t do any better than Santullo. And when I called him, he gave you a terrific recommendation.”

  “You actually spoke to Fabrizio?”

  “Oh, yes, for a good ten minutes. He couldn’t say enough good things about you. Your natural skills, your knowledge of techniques and media, your understanding of styles and modes—all extraordinary.”

  “Did he really say all those things?” Alix asked, pleased. “He was one pretty demanding taskmaster, not exactly lavish with his praise.”

  “Oh, the man’s a pussycat. He also told me, by the way, in a tone of something like awe, that you have the best connoisseur’s eye he’s ever come across. I have no idea what the hell that means, exactly, but how could I not hire the person with the greatest connoisseur’s eye Fabrizio Santullo ever saw?”

  “Oh, ‘connoisseur’s eye’ is just a term some people use for—”

  “Never mind, explain it to me another time. What do you say we get down to business? First off, I’m delighted you’re going to be working with me, Alix.”

  I am? thought Alix. Does that mean I’m hired? She hoped she was doing a good job covering up the excitement that ballooned in her chest, better than she’d done hiding her reaction at the mention of her father.

  “I’d really like to get going on this as soon as we can,” Chris went on. “Would it be imposing too much on you to ask if you can clear your schedule for a quick trip to Santa Fe this weekend? If not, I suppose we could—”

  Alix almost laughed. What schedule would that be? Well, there was the work she was doing for Katryn, but taking a weekend break from it would probably be a good thing. Still, she pretended to mentally check her calendar a moment, all the while savoring the thought that she’d actually done it—she’d been hired. She was on her way. “No, I believe I can make it,” she said, as if on sober reflection. “This weekend would be fine.”

  “And what are your fees?”

  “My fees,” Alix said and cleared her throat. “Well, my fees…of course, it depends on the, um—”

  Chris saved her. “I’d be taking up two or three entire days of your time, and I realize that’s unusual, so I was thinking…well, would a thousand dollars a day be acceptable? Plus all expenses, of course.”

  Alix had been gearing up her nerve to ask for five hundred dollars a day, which would have been fairly low for the field, but then she was hardly an experienced consultant with a lengthy list of client testimonials at her disposal. “Oh, no, that would be too generous, Chris. I’m just getting started. Five hundred would be fine.”

  “No, a thousand dollars is what I allowed for, and a thousand it’ll be.”

  “Well…say seven-fifty. That’s more than generous.”

  “Absolutely not. Eight-fifty, no less. After all—”

  They both sputtered into laughter at the same time. “I don’t think this is the way they teach you how to bargain in negotiating classes,” Alix said.

  “The hell with it, screw the negotiations. A thousand a day, take it or leave it.”

  Alix surrendered with a smile. “I’ll take it.”

  Chris leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Now that that’s settled, let me fill you in on what’s going on. I have this friend, Liz Coane, who owns an art gallery in Santa Fe. Unlike me, who didn’t know a Picasso from a pizza pie five years ago, Liz has always been into art. Well, we used to work at the same tech company, Sytex, and she was always talking about how, if she ever got enough money together, she was going to open a gallery in Santa Fe or Taos or someplace like that and become a big kahuna in the art scene down there. She also planned to buy herself a string of boy toys to comfort her in her old age. Rent them, I guess I mean,” she said with her wild-goose honk of a laugh.

  “And did she?”

  “Did she ever. When Sytex went public and our options matured, that’s just what we made—a lot of money. I mean, a lot. And three months later Liz opened the Blue Coyote Gallery, right on Canyon Road, which is where all t
he too-too trendy Santa Fe galleries are, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Oh, I know, all right. I’m really looking forward to seeing it for myself.”

  “And she really has become a big kahuna,” Chris said a little wonderingly. “She’s the power behind this New Directions in Art Conference they have in Taos every year now. Draws artists and dealers from all over. Very highly regarded.”

  “Impressive. How about the boy toys?”

  “Oh, yeah, she’s working hard at that too. Every time I see her, she’s got some new young ‘artist’ hanging around her. They’re always the same type, too. They all look like James Dean wannabes—you know, dark, sulky, edgy, a little dangerous…”

  “Not my type,” Alix said, although she had yet to figure out what her type was.

  “Mine neither!” Chris said with conviction. “I like grown-ups. I also prefer them more civilized. Some of the sleazy types Liz hangs out with…But what the heck, live and let live. What do I know about men?”

  She appeared to give this question a few moments’ wry consideration, then gave it up with a shrug and continued. “Anyway, a couple of years ago when I suddenly had all this money, but I had yet to come up with a purpose in life, I opened a little wine bar in Belltown with the idea in mind that it would be a discreet, arty kind of place for grown-ups—you know, one where the music is actually music, and you don’t have to yell to be heard over it, and you can have a nice, quiet conversation over a good glass of wine. It’s called Sangiovese. That’s the name of a—”

  “Red wine variety from Tuscany,” Alix said, and regretted it as soon as it popped out. She didn’t even know why she’d said it; probably only to remind Chris that she was not unworldly, but it had come across, even to her own ears, as boastful and know-it-all.

  If it bothered Chris, she didn’t show it. “Right. Of course. I forgot you spent all that time in Italy. In any case, have you heard of the place?”

  “I think I have,” Alix said. “Wasn’t there an article about it in the Weekly a little while back? One of those places where aspiring artists would kill to get their works on the walls?”

  “Well, I do have rotating exhibits, yes, and I try to put some interesting things up, and I guess that the artists I’ve had up there so far have been pretty pleased with the sales they generated. The customers seem to like them too.”

  “You know, I live in Belltown myself, not that far away, and I keep meaning to stop in, but…” But with the prices she’d heard about, she couldn’t see blowing the cost of a couple of dinners on one glass of wine and some finger food. “Well, you know,” she finished lamely.

  “I’d love to have you come by, Alix. Believe me, I’m not kidding myself that I actually know good art from bad. I’m really looking forward to learning from you.”

  “I’m sure you know more than you think. If you didn’t, your shows wouldn’t be so popular.”

  “Well, I’ve been lucky,” Chris said, “but I do know enough to know that this Cody Mack Burley character, Liz’s latest protégé—for want of a better term—isn’t the kind of painter I want in a show of mine. She talked me into giving him one on the basis of three e-mailed pictures of his work that looked pretty interesting. I said yes—she’s an old buddy, after all, and so I guess the poor guy worked his tail off and did some fifteen pieces, and Liz sent them to me. Well, they weren’t anything like the e-mailed ones, and I just didn’t like them. At all,” she added for emphasis.

  “Not very well done?” Alix asked.

  “Well, no, I don’t really know how well done they were or weren’t, but they were, well, ugly. You know, ugly on purpose—weird, twisted women, sort of turned inside-out, with their insides showing.” She shivered. “Yech.”

  “So you didn’t show them?”

  “No, I packed them right back up—didn’t even look at them all—and sent them back the same day; I didn’t even want them around. Liz didn’t say much about it—after all, what could she say? It was my place we were talking about—but I knew I’d hurt her feelings, and I was looking for some way to make it up to her. And then I remembered that the Blue Coyote sold the occasional Georgia O’Keeffe, and as it happened, I’d been thinking about buying somebody like that to put my collection—I mean my own collection, my private collection—on its feet. So I asked her to keep an eye out for me, and when something came on the market that she thought I’d like, to let me know. And…well, here we are. She called me last week to tell me that one was available, sent me some nice photos, and was I interested?”

  “And of course you were,” Alix said.

  “Well, sure.” For a moment she looked uncertain. “Um…shouldn’t I be?”

  “Absolutely. Your friend Liz might not be seeing this Cody Mack person clearly,” she said, “but she’s certainly not steering you wrong on Georgia O’Keeffe. If it’s American Modernism you’re interested in, almost any work of hers would be a fantastic addition to your collection—to anyone’s collection. You couldn’t get it off the ground with anyone better.”

  “Really.” Chris brightened. Her face smoothed. “See? I’m already glad I hired you.”

  “Do you know where she’s gotten this particular one from? Who the seller is?”

  “No, Liz can’t tell me. It’s some kind of family heirloom—they’ve had it for decades—but now they’ve had some financial problems and they need the money. But they don’t want the word to get around.”

  Alix’s antennae popped up and vibrated. This was but a minor variation on the time-honored theme used by crooked art dealers for at least two centuries: An old Italian family, a noble family whose name you would recognize, has owned this painting for many years. Alas, they have come upon evil times, and with heavy hearts, they must now let it go. Their name, however, must remain secret. The disgrace. You understand.

  Chris detected the change in Alix’s expression. Her brow contracted again. “Is that a problem?”

  “Not necessarily,” Alix said, truthfully enough. She didn’t see any reason to worry Chris now, but she didn’t like the sound of this. O’Keeffe’s works had begotten their share of forgers, and the more that was known—and reasonably verifiable—about this particular painting, the happier Alix was going to be. At the same time, there was certainly nothing necessarily problematic about hiding the name of the seller. It happened fairly often, particularly at auctions. But it was something to keep in mind, especially if other doubts arose. “How much is she asking for it?” she said.

  “Two point nine million. I—” Abruptly, she broke off with a snort, which was probably Chris’s version of a giggle. “I can’t believe I just said that. Did you hear the way I tossed it off?” She mimicked an elegant yawn, tapping her fingertips against her mouth. “Two point nine mil, ho-hum, no big deal.”

  “It is a lot of money,” Alix agreed.

  “You’re telling me. Believe me, I’m having a hell of a time getting used to having that kind of dough to throw around.”

  “Well, everybody’s got problems. I’m sure you’re doing your best.”

  Chris grinned. “You better believe it. Anyway, I talked with the curator of modern here at the museum, and she looked at the photos, and she said that from the looks of it, the price was in the ballpark—on the low side, in fact. So I paid it.”

  “You paid it? You’ve already bought it? Then what good am I—”

  “Well, no, not exactly paid, but I did buy it. I put down a pretty hefty deposit, too. But there’s an escape clause in the contract. I have ten days to come to Santa Fe and look at it. If I then decide I don’t want it, the purchase is canceled.”

  “And when is the ten days up?”

  “Next Wednesday. That’s why I’m kind of in a hurry to get there. Anyway, after I put down the deposit I started thinking, What do I know? I need somebody who knows what she’s doing, an expert. Which is you.”

  “Do you mean your friend Liz doesn’t know I’m coming?”

  “Well, no, how could she? Until
today I didn’t know it myself. But I’ll call her before the weekend. Don’t worry about it; she’ll be expecting you.” Again, that look of uncertainty on Chris’s face. “Did I make a mistake? Am I paying too much? Dammit, I knew I should have checked with you first, but you see, I didn’t know you yet, and I was so excited, and I was afraid somebody else would come along and offer her more, and—did I do something dumb?”

  “Well, it does sound like a pretty good price for an O’Keeffe, but of course it depends on what it looks like in the flesh. But if Liz is an old friend, I can’t see her gouging you on it.”

  “I have the photos,” Chris said, reaching for her bag, but Alix stopped her.

  “No. Don’t want to see them.”

  “You don’t?” Chris’s hand was still in the bag.

  “Nope, the fewer preconceived notions the better. I’ll wait until the real thing.” She smiled. “Part of this ‘connoisseur’s eye’ thing.”

  “Whatever you say. As you can plainly see, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m a little nervous about it all.”

  Alix began to say something reassuring, but Chris perked up on her own. “Now, I don’t know about you,” she said, zipping the bag shut, “but I could use one more chicken satay—well, maybe two—this is turning into dinner, isn’t it? But then it always does. I have no self-discipline whatever—and then let’s go say hello to Tony Whitehead, the museum director over there. And after that I want to introduce you to a few of my fellow babe-in-the-woods collectors that I think would be real interested in meeting you, and vice-versa. Okay?”

  “Okay is the understatement of the year,” Alix said, grinning. “I really appreciate it, Chris.”

  Following Chris through the crowd, Alix wasn’t able to wipe the smile off her face. There was a tremendous, exhilarating sense of a corner having been turned.

  Life was good.

  By the time she got back to the condo, she was hungry again, and after slipping into the baggy, comfortable sweats that she slept in these days, she padded into the kitchen, opened the can of lentil soup, poured some into a mug, and stuck it in the microwave. While it heated, she went to look at the answering machine in the living room and felt a little gray cloud of gloom settle over her at seeing it sitting there unblinking. She frowned, puzzled, her hand on the phone. Why the gloom? From whom had she expected a call? Who did she even know, aside from Chris, whose call she would have welcomed? Who did she even know, period?