Madonna of the Apes (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

But why, for an object as old as the watercolor he was holding, were there no other markings to give him an idea of its history? No fond mother had written on its back, “Happy Christmas to Benny, Dec. 25, 1837.” No auctioneer had written a lot number on it in yellow chalk. No signal hinted at the picture’s transition from one set of hands to another, by inheritance, by gift, or by exchange for fourteen pounds sterling, or seventy thousand dollars, or for a barrel of salt horse on a Dordrecht dock.

“God, I’m an ignorant cuss,” Fred said, hanging the picture back where it had been. He gazed around the room to see where his instincts might lead him, and his general sense of ignorance increased. It was like looking at the crowd at dawn in a Calcutta street, in which each human, living or newly dead on the roadside, had a complete or pending invisible story, in addition to the surface appearance that presented itself, and which might or might not be a fair indication of the underlying story.

Tilley had set up something resembling a gallery or shop, but without providing any of the signals of reassurance that a shop uses to keep its clients docile. Nothing informed you, The good stuff is in this corner. Nothing was priced. There’d been that little flap last Sunday night/Monday morning, in which Clay Reed, beating Franklin at his own game, had pretended interest in the painting of the penitent Magdalene (complete with breasts, her own, and presumably someone else’s skull), while Franklin pretended the painting might be by Mantegna, might have belonged to his great grandfather, and—because that’s what he wanted for it—might be worth three million dollars. Or, according to Suzette Shaughnessy, two million. It was, in its own way, not unlike the Great Game in which, not long ago, Fred had been a player in Southeast Asia and points north, south, east, and west. With the exception that in the present game, Fred’s ignorance was almost encyclopedic.

You had to believe a profit motive existed in the equation. Thinking, therefore, solely in terms of the object as commodity, what could the
Magdalene
’s initial value be to Franklin Tilley? One million? Seven hundred dollars? There was nothing to give any guidance at all as to any one of these paintings’ realistic fair market value. If they were houses, they would have to be
somewhere,
and that somewhere would have a lot to do with their value. The same house, same number and quantity of bathrooms, kitchens, et cetera, would be worth seven times as much in San Francisco as it would in Cheyenne. Pictures, though, were portable. Their values, whatever they were, were inherent, and depended a good deal on the knowledge both of the buyer and of the seller, each of whom, by convention, was apparently expected to set out to lie and to outwit the other.

Fred found that he’d crossed the room to look at the purported Mantegna again. All these considerations had nothing to do with whether the painting was any good. Nor even whether it was from the hand of Mantegna. A signature might help, if the boys had been signing their pictures in those days. But a signature, in any case, would be easy to fake. Much easier than a painting.

As far as Fred could feel it, the painting was the product of an honest impulse on the part of its maker. It was the result of weeks, maybe months, of effort, as well as years of training. If the subject was not original, originality was not regarded as a necessity in the time and place where the picture had been made, whoever made it. And the identity of the maker may not have been that big a deal. Or else the maker thought to himself when he was finished, “Only I could have made this. The object itself is proof.”

It wasn’t from humility that a painter such as Leonardo didn’t stick his name in the corner of the
Mona Lisa.
“It wouldn’t hurt Franklin to provide a chair,” Fred grumbled. No, Leonardo knew that his name was all over what he had painted. The whole thing, in his day, blazed his identity. How could he imagine the tide of ignorance that would sweep over the world after his death, so great that somebody had to write his name onto the
Lady with an Ermine
in the Czartoryski Museum, doing his best in Polish,
Leonard Dawinci,
making the whole thing seem a fake if you wanted to start from the authenticity of the purported signature. But then you looked past the signature at the skin of this painting in which the woman held a weasel who looked so much at home in her arms that you could imagine it licking the drops of water from her eyelids after she showered.

Fred made a detour to the bedroom to get a pillow he could sit on while he waited. The bedroom was without pictures. Their absence, next to the over-supply in the front room, was disquieting. How could the man pretend he cared about these things if he wouldn’t sleep with them? Wasn’t everyone supposed to believe they were all his?

Fred pried a pillow from under the Aztec spread as the sound came of the key in the apartment’s door. A rough male voice, “Over there, wiseass,” followed by a scuffle and the sound of a blow.

Fred wandered into the front room holding his pillow. The large man who had entered with Franklin paused, his right fist raised, glaring at Fred as Franklin, who’d been knocked off balance, struggled to convey equanimity and poise.

“Since I was expected,” Fred explained.

“Misunderstanding,” Franklin blurted at the same moment, in the direction of neither of the two men who had invaded his space. The stranger, interrupted, was lowering an arm that had been dressed for warmer weather, instinctively measuring Fred’s size, weight, and possible style. The T-shirt was light blue, the skin burned dark, and in choosing to wear baggy shorts, he had also elected to stand out in Boston as an interloper or tourist. He conveyed an air of brutal confidence.

“Shock troops from Atlanta,” Fred guessed aloud, plumping his pillow.

The man’s attack was sudden, subtle, and supple. But it was based on barroom rules Fred knew too well. The start was the kick to the heel, meant to unbalance him, but Fred, seeing it coming, stepped aside and simultaneously grabbed the striking left arm, twisted it up and behind his opponent, fast, and ran him, not gently, into the wall next to
Shipping, Dordrecht.
The picture shook at the near impact, making the room’s reflection in its glass wobble.

“This wilderness needed more monkeys,” Fred said.

Chapter Twenty-nine

He kept hold of the man’s arm and maintained his position doubled over, head shoved into the wall, a good old-fashioned Boston wall made of lath and plaster. Plasterboard, the man’s head would have kept going unless it lucked out and hit a stud.

“Friend of yours?” Fred asked Franklin.

The man in the shorts heaved and twisted. Fred shoved him tighter against the wall.

“More like an acquaintance,” Franklin said, rubbing his left shoulder and wincing.

“Carl, meet Fred. Fred’s a client. An
important
client.”

The man in Fred’s grasp grumbled something, the tension lapsed, and Fred relaxed his hold, letting the man stand upright, his face red with fury.

“I was early, you weren’t here, I came in,” Fred told Franklin.

Carl’s red face worked. His breath reeked of alcohol. He bunched his fists, heaved his broad shoulders in the tight blue T-shirt. Humiliated, he wouldn’t stop being trouble.

“A lucky break,” Fred said, picking the pillow up again. He’d been obliged to drop it. “Sorry, Carl. I’m nervy. Too fast to pull the trigger sometimes, and I apologize. I should have held off, waited to get acquainted.”

“Important client,” Carl said to Franklin. “Should I care?”

“It’s complicated, Carl. This isn’t like tending bar. Like I told Mitchell…”

“Mitchell,” Fred said. “Another monkey.”

“Mitchell is next,” Carl said. “Franklin, get this. You say it’s complicated? For you, maybe. I go through life, most everything boils down to the bottom line. Life and death, Buddy. Simplify your mind. Stop caring about the suit, the skoozy apartment, the
important
Boston contact. You’ve got a package for me.” His attention was all for Franklin. Fred might as well be the maid, standing there with the pillow.

“Right,” Franklin said. “I’ll get it.”

“I’ll stay behind you while you do,” Carl said. He glared around the room, disregarding Fred. “Skoozy apartment,” he said. “The rug.”

Franklin looked automatically down at the rug and saw he was standing on it, wearing his shoes. He blushed and knelt to unlace them, explaining, “House rules.”

“For chicks I take off my shoes,” Carl said. “If I have time. When I climb into bed with them. If
they
have time.” Everyone looked at Carl’s brown leather Nike high tops, and at the protruding cuffs of the white athletic socks that hugged his ankles, striped with a blue that matched his T-shirt.

“Mitchell says, on this carpet, nobody wears shoes,” Franklin insisted.

“Speaking of Mitchell, where’s Mitchell?” Carl demanded, swinging his head belligerently on a neck whose width was more than sufficient to support it. He jerked the head toward Fred. “The tough guy, your
important
Boston client, has his shoes on, wiseass.”

“Medical condition,” Fred said quickly, before Tilley could make a mistake.

“Like infected feet,” Carl helped. “Ringworm?”

Fred said, “Which, once it gets into the rug, the carpet, it’s there forever. You gentlemen are busy. I’ll come back.”

Carl, with reluctance, and operating in the shadow of the invisible Mitchell, had knelt to unlace his Nikes, which he put next to Franklin’s shoes by the door. In his athletic socks, and keeping within arm’s reach of Tilley, he moved across the breadth of the carpet and toward the bedroom.

“The rest of this, I could give a shit,” Carl told Fred. “The rest of it, the setup, the shoes, the carpet, the rest of it, the suit, I could give a shit. You got that? I get what I came for, I’m out of here.”

“I’ll wait, then,” Fred said. He pitched his pillow against the wall and sat on it, leaning back, as Franklin and Carl went into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. A minute passed. Two. Three. Whatever the men were up to in there, it was quiet. The sound of another blow. Carl opened the bedroom door and stood there holding a small blue gym bag. He said, over his shoulder, “That’s a message. And you can pass it along to Mitchell. If you see him before I do. Wherever he is. You say you don’t know? So I stick around. I’ll find him.” He crossed the enormous carpet in his white sport socks until he stood in front of Fred, studying the situation and looking for an exit line. “You want a medical condition?” he said, after sufficient study. “Next time we meet, I’ll give you a medical condition.” He strode for the door.

“Your shoes,” Fred reminded him, making him stop to pick them up.

“Asshole,” Carl told him. He picked up the shoes and marched out, one hand encumbered by the shoes and the gym bag, the other with the stage business of opening the door. He slammed it after him. He’d have to sit on the top step and put the shoes on. You can’t tie bows in your shoelaces while working to intimidate the man who has already run you into a wall.

In two minutes more Franklin staggered out of the bedroom. His left eye was swelling already, and blood showed on the cheekbone under it. “You’re still here,” he said, staring with disbelief.

Fred said, “Put ice on that.” Tilley probably hadn’t been hit since seventh grade. He made free of the bathroom and the kitchen’s refrigerator and put together a cold pack for Franklin to hold to his face. Then he sat again as he had been.

“Not my business,” Fred said, “but you could use different friends. Unless—maybe Mitchell is a sweetie? Based on what I’ve seen, and not for the first time, and not that I like you in any way—just, as one monkey to another—you might want to watch out for the guys you’re running with.”

Chapter Thirty

“Fuck them,” Franklin said. He was still standing in the center of his private gallery, in his socks. Black socks with a gold toe. He held the cold pack to his face and winced. “Thanks, by the way, for playing the guy along. When there’s a misunderstanding, a gap in communication, they don’t have the sense to send someone with a brain.”

“They,” Fred remarked. “Incidentally, who answered your phone? In Atlanta?”

Franklin narrowed his available eye and sat against a wall perpendicular to the one Fred had chosen, allowing his head to rest under the painting of the gentleman in the red waistcoat. He said, “These guys have a confidence problem. How you got in I don’t know. I don’t care, since I guess it’s a good thing. Sorry about the interruption. Let’s get on with it. You want the money.”

Fred allowed what might be a look of encouraging sympathy to seep into his face. “The money,” he prompted.

“For the chest. According to Suzette…”

“Ah,” Fred said. “You’ve talked with Suzette. Already?”

“We’re working together now. Keep it simple. According to her, you can deliver the chest.”

“No kidding,” Fred said.

“The problem is,” Franklin said, “in terms of the money, you’ll have to…”

“Yes?” Fred prompted.

“Crossed wires. My working capital…It’ll be a couple days more,” Franklin said.

“You mean Friday.” Franklin said nothing. He winced and adjusted his compress. “The day Agnelli gets into town,” Fred went on. A pause extended between them. “What do we say next?” Fred continued. “Small world?”

“You happen to know some of my business,” Franklin said. “That doesn’t make it your business. Your business is the money Reed Gingrich sent you for, if you’re with him. If you’re on your own, fine. Don’t bring the chest here. Better I go to it. You’ll have to trust me, now, like I trusted you, for the money…I’m good for it.”

Fred yawned a lazy yawn. He’d learned how quickly Suzette had passed along the fictitious name Reed Gingrich. But this new bluff was based more on hope than on anything Suzette might have told Franklin. Fred had promised nothing. Why let them imagine they had a prayer of getting Clay’s Leonardo back? When he had put the yawn away again Fred observed, “We spend a lot of time talking philosophy, you and I. Sometimes, before you take that leap of faith, you ought to look where you’re going. Reed Gingrich doesn’t send me, as you put it, anywhere, or to do anything, anytime.”

“But I offered…” Franklin closed his mouth on the rest of the sentence his frustration was causing him to blurt out.

“Talk to me,” Fred invited.

“Suzette’s telling the truth? You’re working together?”

Fred yawned again. “We’ve talked before about asking questions. You are not learning. Unless you have your correspondent physically overpowered already, as soon as you ask the question you reveal your own vulnerability. You ask my connection to Reed Gingrich. But it gives me no advantage to answer you. I just drop into my wallet the fact that you want to know.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Another question. Does it mean, How can I help you?” Fred said. “I don’t think so. Suzette drew a mistaken conclusion. I didn’t come to sell back the chest. I want its provenance, that’s all.”

“My business is confidential. My clients demand that. My clients on both sides of each transaction.”

Fred said, “Clients like Mitchell and the lovely Suzette Shaughnessy. And Carl, of course. Carl is a client?”

“The eye’s closing up,” Franklin said.

“The name Franklin Tilley may already be associated with some funny business,” Fred said. “People who don’t know your face might recognize the name and shy away from the person it goes with. I would. Or the terms of your probation don’t allow you to leave the state of Georgia. Or you are hiding out from Mitchell, and/or from Carl and whoever Carl represents, and now Carl, since he had this much trouble finding you—how did he find you is another of the questions I am not asking—and Carl is pissed off, and…just some random speculations. I don’t care about all that, understand? The money Carl took with him? I don’t care. I just want the object’s provenance.”

“Listen,” Franklin said. The interruption stopped Fred’s flow of thought. He waited while Franklin Tilley wrestled with what he wanted to say. “Listen,” he decided. “Frankly, I’m in a jam.”

Fred asked, “Have you noticed that whenever a politician, for example, uses the word ‘frankly,’ the next thing out of his mouth is always a lie?”

“You can help me,” Franklin said. He shifted the cold pack on his face and groaned. “I said I’ll pay ten grand in cash, but listen, between us, the chest is worth more. Could be.”

“I ask myself, How come it’s worth so much money?” Fred said. “You I don’t ask.” He let the observation rest.

“Shit,” Franklin said, disgustedly. “It’s not even worth what Gingrich paid. It’s just, this other guy wants it.”

“And my mission?”

“Convince Gingrich to sell. For whatever. There’s ten thousand in it for you. The profit you make off Gingrich, that’s up to you.”

“I’m bad with numbers. Didn’t Suzette Shaughnessy say twenty?”

“Twenty then,” Franklin said.

“I mean that she’d pay twenty for it. Commission. On top of the ten.”

“I’m confused,” Franklin said.

“You are,” Fred agreed. He studied the situation a moment before he continued, “The problem with your plan, or
a
problem, as a plan, is,
if
Gingrich still has the chest, which he denies, if a person like me goes to him with an offer like that—twenty thousand, fifty thousand, whatever—it makes him think it’s worth five times as much, whereas
we
know it’s not worth what he paid for it. If he has it. He says he doesn’t.”

“We’ll find out. Suzette Shaughnessy’s tracking him down.”

“What if the chest is already mine?” Fred asked.

“Shit!” Franklin said.

“And what if you have accidentally informed me that it is worth a good deal more than thirty thousand dollars? Serious money. Another question I don’t ask.”

“Shit!” Franklin said. “Listen, we can work this together, can’t we?”

“Here’s one we can both answer,” Fred said. “Is that the doorbell?”