The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  When they were done we all stood back to admire our handiwork.

  “What is that?” Offenbach asked. He approached the canvas. “It’s like a star.”

  “I believe it is a star,” I said.

  “Hm,” he said. “Is that a reference?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think,” Offenbach began, and then said, “I think it looks marvelous. And that’s what’s important.”

  THE RISE OF THE ART FAIR over the last three decades has drastically changed the contemporary market. A lot of business now takes place over a few frenetic weeks: the Armory Show in New York, the sprawling campuses of Tefaf Maastricht and Art Basel. I made a third of my sales at fairs; less trafficked galleries can do as much as fifty or sixty percent of their yearly totals.

  For collectors, fairs provide motivation. If you had to traipse to every last gallery in Chelsea, who could blame you for tiring out and giving up within an hour or two? But when every dealer has his best twenty pieces out, hundreds of them lined up under one neat, climate-controlled tent—and when you can stop at the espresso counter for muffins or duck confit—then you really have no excuse not to get out and see the damned art.

  The Miami fair to which I boarded a plane that Tuesday afternoon was an offshoot of a European fair, and over the last few years, as prices went through the roof, it had undergone an incredible transformation, from a regional outpost to a circus entirely its own: red carpets and stretch Hummers; blinged-out hip-hop moguls in floor-length ermine; crusty Brits and unctuous Swedes and Japanese in Day-Glo eyeglasses; fashionistas, heiresses, events and parties and after-parties, hobnobbing and flashbulbing and the electric crackle of a lot of people about to have sex. Hair got dressed.

  And then there was the art. So much of it, and so much of it bad. There was a Persian rug woven with images from Abu Ghraib. There were some photos of cups and saucers being shattered by bullets. There were sober paintings of Britney Spears and, courtesy of Damien Hirst, panels of laminated houseflies. In the center of the main tent was an installation by rory z called Jizz? or Salon Secrets Volumizing Conditioner with Hibiscus Extracts?, whose title pretty much says it all: a row of hinge-top cases, the lids of which showed a color photo of an object—a pencil, say, or a Tickle Me Elmo—spotted with nacreous liquid from either a bottle of the aforementioned product or rory z’s own reproductive glands. Viewers could study the photo and muster a best guess before opening the case to discover the truth inscribed on a little gold placard.

  Another piece I took the time to look at was a video installation by Sergio Antonelli, who had filmed himself walking into a midtown Starbucks, ordering a triple-shot espresso, drinking it, getting back in line, ordering another, drinking it, getting back in line, and so forth. (He never seemed to have to pee, although I suppose that could have been edited out.) Eventually, he consumed enough caffeine that he had—or appeared to have—a myocardial infarction. It’s hard to overstate the comedy of him thrashing through the mid-morning crowd. One man actually stepped over him en route to the cream-and-sugar station. The final shot showed Antonelli in the emergency room, being revived by a doctor wearing a green apron. The piece was called Deathbucks.

  But most of the time I wasn’t looking at art. For someone like me, part of the fun was that I got to catch up with colleagues I hadn’t seen since the last fair. Marilyn had been cranking the rumor mill, and our booth received a steady stream of gawkers who put their noses right up to the drawings, asking was it true, had he really. Word of the Hollister sale had gotten around— no doubt I had Marilyn to thank for that as well—and by week’s end I sold everything. Ruby began referring to our booth as the Cracke House and to us as the Cracke Whores. Guilty or not, Victor was a gold mine.

  Nat calculated that were I to turn the whole collection around at the prices I’d been getting, I’d net close to $300 million. That would never happen, of course; I could ask as much as I did because most of the drawing still sat unassembled, in boxes. Since closing the show, I had moved the remaining material to a secure warehouse in the east twenties, and made plans to start assembling some new canvases—just a few, enough to moisten the market without flooding it.

  Cracke’s success rubbed off on the rest of my artists, too. I sold some Ardath Kaplans, some Alyson Alvarezes, the remaining Jocko Steinberger; I had a request for first pick of the new Oshimas when they came in. I even got rid of an old piece by Kristjana, one that I’d begun to think of as a white elephant. I tried to let her know the good news, but she wouldn’t take my call.

  I ARRIVED BACK IN NEW YORK exhausted and in desperate need of dry cleaning. I left the gallery closed for a day and lay around my apartment, letting my head clear. Then I called McGrath to see if anything had come up since our last meeting.

  He didn’t answer, not then nor on the subsequent two days. By the time somebody picked up, on Wednesday afternoon, I’d begun to worry.

  The voice that answered was a woman’s, unfamiliar.

  “Who’s calling.”

  “Ethan Muller.”

  A hand muffled the receiver. I heard talking. The woman came back on. “Hold on.” A moment later another female voice came on, cracked and dry to the point that at first I didn’t recognize it as Samantha’s.

  “He’s dead,” she said.

  I told her I’d get in a taxi.

  “Wait. Wait. Don’t come, please. The house—everything is crazy right now.” Someone said her name in the background. “One second,” she said. Then she said, “The funeral’s on Friday. I can’t talk right now, I’m sorry.”

  “What happened?” I asked, but she had hung up.

  • 11 •

  In retrospect, I’m glad she didn’t hear my question, which I asked reflexively and which needed no answer. I didn’t need her to tell me what happened; I knew what had happened. I had been watching it happen for the last month and a half.

  Since she hadn’t told me where the service would take place, I spent the rest of my day making awkward cold calls, inquiring after the McGrath funeral party. I found the right place, a church in Maspeth, and hired a car for Friday.

  I’d always heard about police funerals being large, ceremonious affairs, but perhaps that’s true only when an officer goes down in the line of duty. At McGrath’s service there were a fair number of blue uniforms, but nobody that stood out as top brass, and definitely no representative from the mayor’s office.

  Mass began. Prayers were offered, hymns sung. Not knowing what to do—the Mullers are not a pious bunch—I stood at the rear of the sanctuary with my hands knotted behind my back, trying to see all the way to the front, where Samantha rested her head on the shoulder of a woman I assumed was her mother.

  The Word of the Lord

  Thanks be to God

  McGrath’s brother delivered a eulogy, as did Samantha’s older sister, whose name I could not remember. Had McGrath told it to me? I didn’t know. Our time together had been spent under strangely intimate circumstances, but almost everything about him remained a mystery to me. I told myself I had an idea of who he was—a wry sense of humor, a lust for justice—but how much could I possibly know? I looked out at the sea of heads, trying to put names on people: his old partner? The famous Richard Soto? I did spot Annie Lundley, and, glad to find a familiar face, I almost waved.

  “I doubt that anybody here can think of him as anything other than a police officer. And that’s what he was, that’s what he always was, and he was great at what he did. I remember when I was a little girl, and he would take me out for a drive. He’d switch on the sirens, just for a couple of seconds, and people would look at us as we passed. And I remembering thinking, That’s my dad. They’re looking at my dad.’ I was so proud of him. Daddy, I’m so proud of you. We all are, and we know how much you put into your life, how much you cared about the people you helped. You never stopped being the man I was proud of.”

  The Eucharist; the wine, the wafer.

  Into your hands, Father
of mercies, we commend our brother Leland Thomas McGrath.

  Six brawny men shouldering the casket.

  The processional was brief, five blocks. I walked along alone, keeping pace with the somber train of SUVs and Town Cars. The day was brisk, the light harsh, as though the sun had turned on its own headlamps in sympathy.

  During the burial I kept my eye on Samantha. She stood apart, no longer leaning on her mother, who instead took the arm of a man with a walrus-like moustache. He wore a light blue blazer that stuck out against the predominant black, and I got very clear dislike vibes from Samantha regarding him. Her sister didn’t seem to bear him as much animosity, and at one point clasped his hand.

  In my mind, I tested out several explanations, rejecting all but the most obvious: the man was the wife’s second husband. Evidently, the collapse of McGrath’s marriage had fallen harder on Samantha than on her sister. Maybe the sister had been out of the house already, leaving Samantha to watch her parents’ relationship in its dying throes.

  Lord hear our prayer

  The service concluded, and people broke off in twos and threes. I approached Samantha to offer my condolences but turned away when I saw her arguing quietly with her mother, their heads cocked forward and their hands fluttering. Mother and daughter shared the same slightly insolent mouth, the same jutting hips. The former Mrs. McGrath had an unhealthy tan, the work of someone who spends too much time on a UV bed; by comparison, Samantha’s pallor looked like the work of someone trying desperately not to look like her mother.

  “Do you want to split a cab?”

  Behind me stood Annie.

  “There’s a reception at the house,” she said.

  I told her I had hired a car. “No charge.”

  “I hope not,” she said.

  On the ride out I pumped her for information about the McGrath family dynamics. Many of the conclusions I’d drawn were correct: the tanned woman was in fact McGrath’s ex-wife, and the man with the walrus face her second husband. There was another wrinkle, though: walrus face was also McGrath’s former partner.

  I poked around in my memory for the name on the transcript. “Gordan?” “I think his name is Jerry,” she said.

  “That’s right. J. Gordan. Jerry.”

  “If you say so,” she said.

  “That must be a little tense.”

  “You think?”

  “Here I thought I was the odd man out.”

  “Not by a long shot.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t think it’s very complicated. McGrath’s a workaholic. His wife is lonely. Roll credits. Although she really went for the jugular, didn’t she?”

  I thought of Samantha’s sister’s speech. I doubt that anybody here can think of him as anything other than a police officer. Originally I’d interpreted that comment as a compliment. Now it sounded like more an indictment. That Samantha had decided to go into law enforcement seemed to me a way of siding with her father. Then why had she not spoken her farewells, made her defense?

  I said to Annie, “You’re close.”

  “Very.” They met, she told me, at a forensics conference, during a training session for cops and ADAs.

  “We hit it off right away,” said Annie. “Like sisters.”

  “Her sister—remind me of her name?”

  “Juliette. She lives in North Carolina.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, thank you for the inside scoop.”

  “You’re interested,” said Annie.

  “Interested?”

  “In her.”

  I laughed. “I have a girlfriend.”

  “That’s too bad, she could use somebody like you.”

  “Like me how.”

  “Rich,” she said and started laughing.

  “What makes you think I’m rich?”

  “Your shoes.”

  “My shoes?”

  Still laughing, she shrugged.

  I said, “Anyway, I thought she had a boyfriend.”

  Annie gave me a strange look.

  “They broke up?”

  She said, “He was a firefighter.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  And like that we ran out of words. Both of us remembered where we had come from and where we were headed. Annie shifted around to stare out the window. I did the same. The ride took longer than I remembered.

  TRAYS OF CUT FRUIT and soggy sandwiches had replaced the pill bottles on the dining-room table. Samantha was nowhere to be seen; nor could I find her sister or mother. Most people congregated around the liquor, and after Annie and I drifted off in different directions, I found myself in conversation with a thickset man with a tangle of gray curls. He shook my hand and introduced himself as Richard Soto. “You’re Lee’s guy,” he said when I told him my name.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “I owe you a drink,” he said, guiding me to a sidetable stocked with bottles.

  “What for.”

  “For getting that bastard off my back. He used to call me up every five damn minutes until you came along. Jameson,” he said, and handed me a cup, which I held politely. “You really did him a world of good. You’re a good man. Bottoms up.”

  As he threw back his shot, I quickly spilled mine into the carpet. Then I raised the cup and pretended to wince.

  “The next one’ll be easier,” he said, taking my cup and unscrewing the bottle.

  “What’s going to happen now?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “With the case. Thank you.” Again he drank and I poured out.

  “Good stuff.”

  “Are you going to take it over?”

  Soto looked at me blankly. “What.”

  “The case.”

  “What about it.”

  “Are you going to take it over? There’s a lot left to do. I told Annie I’d get her a list of people who had been in the apartment, but I’m having trouble getting in touch with the superintendent of the building, who seems to be on vacation. I was planning to go over there myself this week. She and I also have to go over to the storage locker, because once the lab results come back—”

  As I talked, I saw Soto’s gaze slide away from me and over my shoulder, toward a group of detectives joking loudly and making toasts. He got a mean look in his eye and said, “Would you excuse me.”

  I followed him over and joined the group. Jerry Gordan had the floor. Through his moustache I noticed the impetus for growing a moustache to begin with, a large mole on his upper lip. He was ruddy and sweating and talking about old times with his buddy Lee McGrath. The other cops exchanged smirks.

  “Hey Jerry, you and Lee were pretty close, huh?”

  “The closest.”

  “All for one and one for all, eh Jerry?”

  That prompted snickering. Gordan didn’t seem to notice.

  “He was a good fuckin man,” he slurred.

  “Hey Jerry,” said Soto. “Was he honest?”

  “Oh you know it.”

  “Let me hear you say it: Lee McGrath was an honest man.”

  “The honestest man in Queens county, Lee McGrath.”

  “You swear?”

  “I sweardagod.”

  “Honest enough for the both of you, isn’t that right, Jerry.”

  “Sure was.”

  “You bet he was. And giving, too, huh? A generous man, huh?”

  Gordan laughed insensibly.

  “That’s right, Jerry. He gave his all. Share and share alike, right Jerry?”

  More snickering.

  I didn’t like the tenor of the conversation, so I detached myself and paddled through the crowd. I intended to look at the file, to make sure it was still there and to give myself a reason for being in McGrath’s home.

  The door to the back room was locked. I didn’t knock, but my rattling the knob brought a red-eyed Samantha to answer.

  “Oh,” she said, wiping her face. “I didn’t know you were here.” Her body blocked the doorway, but over her I saw her siste
r in the La-Z-Boy, a wet towel across her forehead.

  “I came with Annie,” I said. I meant it by way of explanation; she, however, heard a request for her to come out of hiding.

  “That’s so sweet. It’s very sweet of you both. I’ll be out in a little bit.”

  “You don’t have to come out.”

  “I want to. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave until I come out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay. I’ll be out soon,” she said, and closed the door.

  I waited in the corner, gnawing on celery and nodding at strangers. All I intended to do was give Samantha my best and head home, but after forty minutes she still hadn’t emerged, and I wandered past the group of cops, all of them by now pink and talkative. They hadn’t noticed my absence, addressing me as though I had been standing with them all along, pulling me into their circle and handing me shot glasses that I would discreetly dump into a nearby floor plant. When I had all but guaranteed its death from poisoning, I slipped away and went into the kitchen, where I found an army of women in dish gloves trying to cope with the stampede of dirty glasses.

  I gave up. I left the house and walked down to the beach.

  Samantha was standing barefoot by the 9/11 memorial. Her pumps lay on their sides where the concrete boardwalk met the sand. I kept my distance, watching the wind turn her hair into streamers, resisting the urge to come up behind her and hold her. Slumping to one side, her hand on her hip, she looked frail, like McGrath had been toward the end, and I had an odd fear that she was dying, too. The wind bit down hard; she shivered.

  As I turned to go she noticed me and gave a little wave. I made as though to take off my shoes and she nodded. I stood beside her and together we looked at the memorial.

  “I’m sorry I snuck out,” she said. “I meant to say hello, I really did.”