Chasing Clay (The DeWitt Agency Files Book 3)

by Lance Charnes

  Savannah’s voice breaks me out of my head. I take another long look at the Nam Ton pieces. They’re still amazing even if they aren’t as unique as I’d thought. Then I look up—I want to see their reactions when I ask this question. “Do these come on the market? Can I buy any?”

  Savannah stifles a smile and glances at Bandineau.

  He purses his lips for a moment like he’s thinking. “Well, I don’t see why not.”

  Chapter 7

  The rest of Wednesday and the first half of Thursday are about studying. I brought two suitcases with me: one with clothes, the other with books (it weighs a ton).

  I’ve studied in way worse places than a suite in the Westin St. Francis next to Union Square. (I know… Hoskins would stay on Nob Hill. All the galleries are down here, though.) For one thing, it’s bigger and way nicer than the ex-pool house I live in. It’s called a City View Suite because of the primo view from the 28th floor of the tower’s northeast corner. When I look up from my laptop or the books on the suite’s round, polished wood table, I see the postcard shot of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill with the bay behind it.

  I read what I can find about the places and things Savannah mentioned, especially at the museum. But whenever I concentrate enough to remember her words, I start thinking about her. Not in a she’s-so-hot-I-want-her way. More along the lines of, what’s her connection to this?

  Savannah’s clearly very friendly with both Lorena and Bandineau. That’s not suspicious all by itself; I was friendly with half a dozen advisors who brought clients to Heibrück Pacific, the gallery where I worked. It’s not unknown for museum curators to work as consultants on the commercial side or be resources for people who do.

  The real question is, could she represent a client who claims to have seen (read: participated in) shady doings without her knowing about them? Anything’s possible. It would help to know exactly what kinds of mischief the client was involved in; all I have are non-specific references to trafficking and tax fraud. I guess he didn’t trust Allyson enough to confess his sins to her. Smart man.

  What would Savannah get out of being part of whatever scheme this is? Kickbacks? She’ll get those anyway, only they’re called “commissions,” and they’re legal. If anything goes south, her name would be on the indictment next to Lorena’s and Bandineau’s. Based on what I know—which isn’t much—I don’t see the upside for her.

  That pings around in my head while I stare out the east-facing window at the forest of glass boxes crowding the Financial District a dozen blocks away. I’m not ready yet to call Savannah an unindicted co-conspirator. I’ll keep it as an option in case I get smarter on all this. I don’t need to trust her completely, either.

  Our visits to King and Achara and the museum convinced me of one thing, though: I can’t possibly absorb enough from these books to hold my own with specialists. The history’s different, the languages are alien (written Thai looks like Martian runes), the medium’s the polar opposite of canvas and paint. If somebody wants to make me into a mark, I’ll be the perfect one—I won’t know enough to keep myself out of trouble.

  I hate that.

  Something I hate more than that? Savannah’s the only thing standing between me and the sharks. Even though I can’t trust her, even though my original plan was to cut her loose after our first meeting with Bandineau, I can’t get rid of her now even if I want to. I have to hope that her duty to her client (me, not Our Client) will beat out her relationships with the two maybe-villains we know about.

  And that’s a really stupid thing to hope for.

  I check in by phone with Len, my PO, on Wednesday afternoon, the first time during this project. I’d had to get his permission to take a supposed new freelance job with a San Francisco architecture studio and to travel here. Len’s cool, but I’m reminded why I want to get off my leash for good.

  Olivia emails late afternoon Thursday. It’s a forward of an email she sent to Allyson with my questions.

  1. Does the art advisor know 179’s real identity, or does she believe he is really Mr. Hoskins? She has been told he is Hoskins. (Good. That’s easier.)

  2. Does the client know 179’s name? No. I negotiated directly with ICE for his early termination agreement. (Whew. One less person who knows who I am.)

  3. Did the client or the government set the sixty-day limit for the investigation? ICE did. They need a swift conclusion. (But why? Never mind.)

  4. What is the client’s name? 179 should know better than to ask.

  Three out of four. Not bad. Except that the one she didn’t answer is the most important.

  At least she didn’t get blisters from all the typing.

  I’m eating a luscious swordfish steak at Farallon, a restaurant across Post Street from the St. Francis that looks like the inside of Captain Nemo’s submarine on acid. It’s my reward for spending all afternoon at the big Asian art museum in the Civic Center. It was very pretty, but other than teaching me more about Buddhism and Hinduism than I strictly needed to know, it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. The book selection was pathetic.

  Another benefit of being Hoskins is that I can eat well enough and often enough to gain back the weight I lose between projects. And there are tablecloths.

  As I disappear the steak, I try to figure out how to drive this project forward in a way that won’t set off alarm bells. In real life, building a trusting relationship with Lorena or Bandineau might take months. I don’t have months. But pushing too hard might make them bolt. Any way I look at this, I lose.

  I wish I had somebody to hash this out with. I really miss Carson right now.

  My phone vibrates. It’s Savannah. “Hi! Oh… did I catch you at dinner?”

  She must’ve noticed the background noise. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry. “Where are you?”

  I’m about to say none of your business, but then decide a little bonding might be useful if she’s supposed to keep me from becoming shark bait. “Farallon. The seared-scallop appetizer and the swordfish steak.”

  “Ohhhhhhh. I’m so jealous. I love that place. Those big jellyfish things hanging over the oyster bar are wild. Uh… the reason I called is, Lorena wants to invite you to lunch tomorrow if you’re available.”

  Huh. And here I was wondering how to keep things moving. Still, I need to play at least a little hard-to-get. “Why lunch?”

  “Well, she doesn’t tell me everything. I think this is about getting to know you, and she thinks it might be more relaxing over lunch than in the gallery. Can you make it?”

  “Will you be there?”

  “Of course. I won’t let you go in there alone. I have interests to look after.”

  Sure. “I have a meeting in the Financial District at one-thirty.”

  “That’s perfect. Eleven-thirty, then? She’d like to meet at Zero Zero on Folsom between Fourth and Fifth. Should I tell her yes?”

  “Tell her yes.” I have more research to do on Lorena Montford.

  Lorena’s fifty-eight—a friend of hers posted a picture from her fifty-fifth birthday party on Facebook three years ago—apparently single, and doesn’t get into trouble. Which is disappointing.

  She’s had a fairly normal career path for somebody in her position: art degree, junior curator at an obscure museum, gallery assistant, bigger-gallery assistant, gallery manager, owner. Achara’s been open for fifteen years, a long time for a single gallery in a small market niche.

  I’m about to tell myself move along, nothing to see here, when I stumble across another Achara, this one in Chelsea in Manhattan. Born 2005, died 2009. In between, it became the only East Coast gallery caught up in the Ban Chiang scandal.

  Ban Chiang artifacts—not just pottery, but bronzes and other cultural heritage bits—started pouring into the U.S. from east-central Thailand in the ‘80s. Some knuckleheads from Southern California smuggled in container loads of the stuff and pushed it into museums and priv
ate collections. The whole bunch of them got busted in 2008 after looting ten thousand pieces from what’s still a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

  The Chelsea Achara had to send sixteen pots and three bronzes back to Thailand and pay the government $46,000 in fines. The gallery closed a few months later.

  “Achara” means “beautiful angel” in Thai. It’s not an uncommon name. It takes me almost an hour to find a smoking gun. A post on a New York City art-watcher’s blog talking about the galleries killed by the 2008 crash says:

  Achara Asian Art, the West 26th St. branch of a San Francisco gallery (who thought THAT would work???), in February 2009.

  Aha.

  It probably made sense at the time. The economy was booming, Asian buyers were starting their stampede into the art market, and rich people always need new décor ideas. But it costs a lot to open a gallery in Manhattan. It’s a tough audience. How much did Lorena sink into that? How much did she lose? Did the crash kill it, or getting caught with hot pots?

  And, why do it again? She should be older and wiser now. Unless… maybe, like me, she owes so much money from her past sins that she can’t pay it off honestly.

  However it went down, I know now that Lorena isn’t a saint. She might have debts. She might have a useful amount of ethical flexibility. Maybe—for the promise of enough money—she might get sloppy again.

  Chapter 8

  56 DAYS LEFT

  Zero Zero is a two-story space on Folsom Street under, next to and across from newish-looking apartment complexes. This is the “new SoMa” Savannah talked about on Wednesday. The restaurant’s a tangle of one-way streets away from Achara. I wonder why we’re here until I realize the Norris Museum’s a block west.

  Savannah’s waiting for me beside the seater’s podium inside the front door. She’s in a Michael Kors knee-length white sheath with a thick black X across her midriff. She wears it well.

  She gives me a big smile and a lingering handshake. “I’m glad you could come. We’re upstairs.”

  I follow her up the stairs (nice view). The legs of the X wrap around the waist of her dress like twin black belts.

  The mezzanine is all warm woods, burgundy upholstery and flame light pendants. The place’s buzzing even though it’s just past eleven-thirty. I see more grown-ups than I have anywhere else in this city except at Farallon last night. Not a hoodie anywhere.

  Savannah leads me to a round banquette in the back corner under a mural of… Pinocchio? Lorena’s there, wearing an eggplant silk áo dài. Bandineau’s next to her, looking all business-semicasual in a black blazer and open-collar, pale-blue dress shirt. Once again I’m overdressed, this time in the gray Canali suit. My afternoon meeting, you know.

  Bandineau pops off his seat. “Rick! Good to see you again.”

  We shake. “Jim. Can’t say I’m surprised you’re here. Having lunch next door to the museum kinda gives the game away.”

  He gives me a you-got-me smile. “I suppose so. Unlike the ladies, I have office hours.”

  I lean a hand across the table. “Lorena, thank you for the invite. That’s a lovely color on you, by the way.”

  Again with the pink bloom on her pale cheeks. “You’re so kind, Mr. Hoskins.”

  I slide into the banquette next to Lorena; Savannah settles in next to me. Her hip and thigh press gently against mine. It’s tight; luckily, Lorena doesn’t take up much room.

  We make the usual what’s-good-here chat while we scope out the menus. It’s not until our waiter brings our drinks that I say, “So, other than sharing lunch, what’s this all about?”

  Bandineau says, “Straight to business, is it? I appreciate that.”

  Lorena folds her arms across her stomach and gives me a smile that’s a few degrees cooler than the last one. “This is a way for us to get to know you better, and for you to learn about us. We’d also like to tell you what we’re doing and see what part you might have in it.”

  That sounds promising.

  There’s a pause while Lorena waits for me to say something. I don’t. She shifts in her seat. “When Savannah told me that she was bringing you to see me, I naturally tried to find information about you. I like to know something about my clients.” I’m impressed that she can keep her kindergarten-teacher voice going while she asks whether I’m a figment. “I wasn’t very successful. Why is that, Mr. Hoskins?”

  Because Hoskins doesn’t exist? Let’s not go there yet. “Have you seen anything good come from being an internet celebrity?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have.”

  “Me neither. I spend a lot of effort making sure I have as little online presence as I can.”

  Savannah says, “No Facebook, no Twitter.”

  “Exactly. You know how I recognized you Tuesday morning? When you were looking for me on Union Square? Your website picture.”

  “You found it? Oh, good. There’s a few Savannah Endicotts out there, no K. It can be embarrassing sometimes—one of them’s a real kook.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is, I didn’t know you, but I looked at your website and your Facebook profile. You should do something with your privacy controls. I know what you look like, what you do, where you go, what you like to eat, and roughly where you live. Explain why it’s a good idea to hand strangers all that detail.”

  She concentrates on her Negroni more than she needs to. When she finally puts it down, she says, “I’m my product. I mean, if we’re talking about brands and marketing, I sell me. I have to be out there.”

  “Yes, you do. But frankly, unless we’re dating, do I really need to know about your thing for mocha ice cream?”

  If the lighting was just a skosh dimmer, I wouldn’t notice the flush in her cheeks. Savannah sits for a moment staring into her glass, her lips doing complicated things. “I mention that a lot, don’t I?”

  “You do.” I squeeze the hand she’s resting on the table. If she can touch, so can I. “It’s okay. I’ve been known to eat mocha ice cream too.”

  She squeezes back. “You see? Now I know you’re a good person.” She twists toward me and rests her arm on the banquette’s back. “I’m surprised you’re not on LinkedIn.”

  “I was, for a while.” I turn toward Lorena and Bandineau. “I took down my profile when I made my first hundred million.” Now’s when I uncap the egomaniac rich guy lurking inside Hoskins. “When you get to the place I’m at, online buys you nothing. My company gets opportunities from firms that already know what it’s done in real life.”

  Savannah says, “That explains your company website. One page, a phone number and a contact form? That’s old school.”

  “What more does it need?”

  She shrugs. “Pretty pictures of all the things you’ve built?”

  “The people who bring us work already know about that. If they don’t, we have a very nice package that one of my project managers takes to their office when he goes to talk to them about what they want. In real life.”

  I got into this discussion with one of our clients at the gallery. I asked him roughly the same question Lorena asked me. I’m giving her the answer he gave me, cleaned up a lot. We tried to not look too far into our clients’ backgrounds—we’d run a credit check, and as long as they had the money, we didn’t care where it came from. I’d thought that would be the deal here. I didn’t expect an interrogation.

  Lorena says, “I find it interesting that the only picture I can find of you is the one attached to your Wikipedia page. It’s an awful picture.”

  Bandineau waves his wine glass at me. “Is it accurate? Your Wiki page?”

  “More or less.” I wrote it. The picture’s a doctored dark-and-slightly-blurry still from Woman in Gold of Ryan Reynolds in a suit. Not that he looks so much like me, but he doesn’t look so much unlike me that people won’t buy it when they see me in person. I give Bandineau and Lorena my best serious stare. “The rules change when you hit nine figures. That’s when you
go from being wealthy to being rich. I can afford to buy something very precious—anonymity. That’s why you won’t find much about me online. I like it that way.” I notice the waiter approaching. “Here come the appetizers. Just in time.” Subject closed.

  Zero Zero is set up for family-style eating. We share the avocado bruschetta and the fried chicken thighs, which are both very good. So’s the margherita di bufala pizza. Lorena nibbles on her arugula salad with a very serious expression, like something I said gave her indigestion.

  Back to business. “Lorena, you said something about telling me what you and Jim are doing. What is that?”

  She throws a look to Bandineau. He nods, wipes his mouth on a white linen napkin. “We’ve both noticed that you’re interested in the Nam Ton wares. As I said in the exhibit the other day, I completely understand why—it’s some of my favorite work, too.” His hand gestures look confident and purposeful. Planned? “The challenge we face is that the museum community is pushing back against including Nam Ton in their collections. There’s just not enough scholarship around it yet. They don’t feel comfortable spending limited acquisition funds to bring it onboard.”

  He’s given this speech before. Either that, or he naturally thinks in complete sentences.

  Bandineau takes a sip of water. “What we’re trying to do is find a few serious collectors who are interested in being pioneers in bringing on and donating Nam Ton wares. To—”

  “When you say ‘we,’ who’s ‘we’?”

  He nods once. “Myself, of course. A few curators in a small number of museums that have the… vision, let’s call it, to invest early. Gallerists like Lorena who are committed to growing the market without sacrificing its integrity. Rick, I’ll assume you’re aware of the state of the antiquities market these days. Forgeries, looted artifacts, restrictive cultural heritage laws, restitutions. Museums are becoming gun-shy about taking anything. But we can’t let our collections stagnate, and when something new and extraordinary appears—like Nam Ton wares—we have to move quickly before it all disappears into private collections. So we have two choices.” He holds up an index finger. “We can read the tea leaves and buy what we believe to be legal pieces that we think will be important in the future. This isn’t always popular with our trustees.” He adds the middle finger. “Or, we can work with collectors like you, guide your purchases so you get the best pieces with good, clean provenance, and maintain an ongoing relationship to earn your donations and your bequests.”