The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  “You had no problem breaking it up before.”

  “Fair enough. But having had some time to think it over, I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Out of curiosity, how much are you offering me?”

  I quoted purchase price plus ten percent. “That’s not a bad return for one month.”

  “I’ve had plenty of better months than that,” he said.

  “Fifteen, then.”

  “You seem like you’re on a mission,” he said. “And while I’d love to see where this goes, unfortunately for you, I’m a man of my word. The piece is spoken for.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I sold it.”

  I was dumbstruck.

  “Hello?” he said. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.… Who’s the buyer?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Kevin.”

  “I’m sorry about that, I truly am. You know me, I’d love to tell you. But the buyer was very specific in wanting to remain anonymous.”

  He sounded more like an art dealer than I’d thought possible. Marilyn had created a monster.

  “What did you get for it,” I asked, expecting the same answer. Instead he replied with an absolutely staggering number.

  “The nuttiest part? That was the first offer they made. I might have asked for more but I thought, ‘No sense in being greedy.’ Still, I made out like a fucking bandit.”

  You’d think that, to a man like Hollister, selling a piece of art—even for a big profit—would provide little thrill, especially if you looked at the numbers in comparison to his net worth. What he made on the drawing, while mind-boggling to me, would at most take a decent bite out of his electricity bill. Yet he sounded like a gleeful child; I could almost see him rubbing his hands together. Rich men get rich in the first place because they never lose that lust for the kill.

  I asked if he’d delivered the piece yet.

  “Monday.”

  I thought about asking if I could take one last look at it. But what would I do? Grab it and sprint away? How far could I get: running, with a head injury, carrying a sixty-square-foot canvas made of one hundred individual sheets of disintegrating paper? Besides, I had a clear notion of who the buyer was. Very few people had that kind of money to drop on an essentially unknown artist, and fewer still had the motivation.

  Still a little shellshocked, I congratulated him on his sale.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Invitation stands if you want to join me.”

  I wished him happy skiing and dialed Tony Wexler.

  • 16 •

  What can I say? He’s in love with it.”

  We had agreed to meet up at a steakhouse in the east thirties. The first part of our conversation consisted of Tony oy-veying about my injuries (Why didn’t you call me? What did the police say? I don’t like this, Ethan. Your father would want to know about this kind of thing. What if something worse happened? What would it take for you to give us a call? Would you have to lose a limb? Would you have to be run over? Because by that time, you won’t be able to call anymore) and me putting him off (Fine, Tony. I’ll call next time, Tony. No, I hope there won’t be another next time, either).

  Then, glancing at Isaac, sitting three tables down, he had said, “Where on God’s green earth did you get that?”

  I went on the offensive, accusing him of going behind my back.

  He scoffed. “The last time I checked, we live in a free-market society. We wanted something, we had the right price, everyone was in agreement, we bought it. I’m not sure you should be complaining. We significantly raised the profile on your artist.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point, then.”

  “That drawing is part of the piece as a whole, and it should be restored.”

  “Then why’d you sell it in the first place?”

  “It was my mistake.” I turned my clenched teeth into a smile. “Let me buy it from you. I’ll give you—don’t shake your head, you haven’t heard my offer yet.”

  “I seem to recall having this same conversation with you, in reverse.”

  “I’ll give you what you paid Hollister, plus an extra hundred grand.”

  He looked offended. “Do me a favor. Anyhow it won’t matter: he’s not selling.”

  “You haven’t even asked him.”

  “I don’t need to. If you’re truly worried about leaving the piece incomplete—is that your concern? It’s a matter of principle?”

  “…yes.”

  “Then I have a very elegant solution.”

  I looked at him.

  “Sell us the rest.”

  “Tony.”

  “Sell us the rest. Then it’ll be complete.” He took a sip of water. “That’s the principle at stake, isn’t it? You want to reunite the drawings. Fine. Sell us the rest of the piece and you can sleep easier at night.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “What’s not to believe?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You know what you’re doing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’re fucking me.”

  “There’s no need for that kind of language.”

  “I mean, seriously, Tony, what do you expect me to say? ‘Thank you, what a great offer’?”

  “Actually, I do. It is a great offer.”

  “It’s a shitty offer. I don’t want to sell the pieces to you, I want one piece back. That’s a lot more reasonable than me selling you the rest of the art.”

  “As far as I can tell, the result is the same.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “You’ll have it, and I won’t.”

  “You’re an art dealer, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you do? Sell art to other people?”

  “This isn’t about the sale,” I said. “You’ve already tried to buy the pieces from me, and I’ve already said no.”

  “Then I believe we’re at what they call an impasse.”

  The clatter of forks and knives grew as the tables filled up, and my head began to pound. I turned from Tony and watched Isaac tuck into his porterhouse. I must have looked distressed, because he caught my eye and asked: thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I gave him a thumbs-up and he went back to eating. Under Tony’s watchful, judgmental eye, I swallowed four ibuprofen, these in addition to the four I had taken before lunch.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I rubbed my eyes. “Listen, it’s not just for the sake of getting the piece back together that I want to buy it from you. There’s something else going on.”

  He waited.

  “It’s too complicated for me to explain.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “It is.”

  He waited again.

  I sighed. “All right, listen.” I explained to him about the murders. As I talked he nodded sagely, taking it all in, and when I got through he said:

  “I know.”

  “What?”

  “I heard all about that already.”

  To tell you the truth, I wasn’t that surprised. As I’ve mentioned, Tony knows more about the art world than he lets on. He keeps his ear to the ground, and I had no doubt that he’d done his homework before approaching Hollister. He’d know exactly how much to offer in order to avoid the inconvenience of haggling.

  “Then what’d you make me repeat it for?”

  “I knew about the rumors. I didn’t know what you needed the drawing for.” He sat back, pursing his lips. “Let me get this straight. You want to cut a hole in it.”

  “A small one, I hope.”

  He half-smiled. “What happened to restoring the piece’s integrity.” “I’ll have it repaired.”

  “And you think—what. This is going to slam the coffin on him?”

  “I have no
clue. It might. It might not.”

  “As far as I can see,” he said, “even if you sample the piece, and it turns out to be blood, and that turns out to match, you’re still facing the same problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is you don’t know where it came from. It could be Victor’s, it could be someone else’s.” The same point Samantha had made. “If he did all that stuff you’re accusing him of, I don’t see why it’s that big a stretch for him to keep an inkpot with blood in it. So getting the drawing won’t help you very much.”

  “Well, let me be the judge of that.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “In case you’ve forgotten, the piece belongs to us.”

  “Can we not make this an issue of territory?”

  “Listen to you. You’re the one making the demands here. You’re the one crying droit moral. And you’re telling me not to be territorial? That’s some chutzpah you’re putting out on display there.”

  “Why shouldn’t I have the droit moral? I discovered him.”

  He smiled. “Is that so. Because the way I remember it, I had to beg you to—”

  “Once I saw them—”

  “That’s right. Once you saw them. If anybody’s got a claim, it’s your father. The land belongs to him, the contents of the apartment were his. We did you a favor.”

  I said, “I’m not going to argue about this with you.”

  “What is there to argue?”

  “You’re right. Okay, Tony? You’re right. I don’t care about that. I want to make a deal. Let’s make one. I’ll pay you double what you paid Hollister.”

  He shook his head. “You’re missing the—”

  “Triple.” That was far too much money for me, but I didn’t care.

  “Forget it,” Tony said. Perhaps he knew I couldn’t afford to pay him.

  “How much do you want, then? Name it.”

  “It’s not the money. You have your principles. We have ours. We’re not going to sell you art so you can destroy it.”

  “Will you give me a fucking break.”

  “If you keep talking like that, I’m not going to pay for dessert.”

  “I’m not destroying the art, Tony.”

  “Really. What do you call it.”

  “They sample canvases all the time,” I said. “For research.”

  “Not from the dead center. Not on a piece of contemporary art. It’s not the Shroud of Turin, for crying out loud. And why the hell do you care, anyway?”

  “Because this is important, Tony. It’s more important than a drawing.”

  “Listen to you,” he said. He took out his wallet and put two hundred dollars down on the table. “You sound like a different person, you know that?”

  “Wait a second.”

  “That’s for lunch.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not even going to ask him?”

  “I don’t need to,” he said, standing up. “I know his priorities.”

  I CALLED SAMANTHA.

  “It’s a delicate situation,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “There must be another panel with blood on it.”

  “Can’t you, I don’t know. Subpoena him.”

  “I’m not sure that anybody’s going to believe we have compelling reason to seize the drawing from your father. What he said to you is essentially correct: the blood might not be blood, it might not be the right blood, it might not tell us anything. If we start asking for permission to slice up a multimillion-dollar piece of artwork—”

  “It’s not worth that much.”

  “In your opinion.”

  “I’m telling you, he overpaid. He’d never get that much on the open market.”

  “Well, I’m reasonably sure your father can find another expert who’ll testify it’s worth more. And I’m sure he has some pretty good lawyers with a lot of free time. All I’m saying, if you can find me another drawing, that’d make both our lives easier.”

  “The last time I got a box out of the warehouse I got assaulted.”

  “I hope you’re more careful, then.” She paused. “Sorry. That was a little harsh.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Look, we’ll go through the drawings together. How does that sound.”

  “Fine.”

  A silence. When she spoke again, she sounded much milder: “How’s your head?”

  “Better every day. It’d be a lot better if I had some idea who did this to me.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but you’d be better off forgetting about that.”

  I lightly fingered the bandages on my face. “Is it really that bleak?”

  “Without a witness or a description? It really is.”

  I found this enormously depressing.

  “Let’s meet up in a few days,” she said. “We’ll start by reviewing the evidence that you and my dad had.”

  I suggested dinner.

  “I was thinking more like you come to my office. Did you send back that swab?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll call and find out what’s going on with the rest of the samples.”

  “All right.”

  “And Ethan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t ask me to dinner anymore.”

  • 17 •

  The Queens District Attorney’s office comprises several bureaus, scattered throughout various buildings in and around the criminal court-house in Kew Gardens. The Investigations Division occupies several stories of a shiny sublet across Queens Boulevard, set toward the street at a rakish angle. Young men and women in suits bustled up the sidewalk, carrying salads, congealing pizza, take-away noodles. Traffic roared along the Union Turnpike and the Van Wyck, both of them edged with black frost. Stepping out of the car, Isaac and I were nearly bowled over by a blast of wind.

  That’s not exactly true. I was almost bowled over. Isaac seemed to feel nothing. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt underneath a denim jacket that could have yielded enough pairs of jeans to outfit a dude ranch. He attracted the attention of the cops sitting in front of the building, who halted their shit-shooting to jab gloved thumbs at the giant coming up the steps.

  We made our way into the lobby, where Samantha was waiting. She saw Isaac and blinked in wonderment. “Uh, hi.”

  “Hi,” Isaac said. Then he chucked me on the arm, more like a good hard punch by most people’s standards. “Zit okay if I wait in the car? Police make me nervous.”

  I told him I’d call when I was ready. Samantha watched him lumber out.

  “Wow,” she said.

  The elevator required a keycard and a code. On the fifth floor we walked into the midst of a raucous lunch break, three young men and two young women whose conversational leitmotifs appeared to be fuck, fuck you, and fuck you you fucking fuckface. Samantha introduced me as a friend, which I thought was generous.

  “Hey,” they said, variously.

  “What’s going on?” Samantha asked one of the girls.

  “Mantell’s car got broken into.”

  “Right in front of the fucking building,” said one of the men. He had black hair and wore a heavy gold watch.

  “They took his GPS.”

  “You bet they did. It’s ten o’clock in the fucking morning. There’s fucking cops everywhere. There’s fucking Mr. Wong’s across the street, with a picture fucking window. And nobody saw anything?” He shook his head in disgust. “What the fuck. The cop I talked to goes, ‘Do you know anyone who might have anything against you?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, only about three hundred people I’ve put in prison. How’s that narrow it down for you.’”

  Everyone laughed.

  “The apocalypse is nigh.”

  “The apocalypse, my friend, is old news.”

  “Did they take your badge?”

  “Why would they take my badge? If I were them, I wouldn’t want to impersonate us. We can’t stop a break-in—in broad daylight—in the fucking epicenter of borough law enforcement. So, n
o. They did not take my fucking badge. You know what Shana said, though. I couldn’t fucking believe this. You know what she said?”

  “What.”

  “I told her what happened, and she was like, ‘Who did it?’ ”

  There was a pause. Then everyone broke up laughing.

  “No…”

  “She said that?”

  “Sweardagod.”

  “Who says that?”

  “She does.”

  “She’s a fucking moron.”

  “Hey Shana.”

  “Yeah,” came a voice from a distant cubicle.

  “You’re a fucking moron.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Samantha escorted me across the floor. For the most part, it looked like any other office, with fuzzy gray partitions, desks crammed into corners, a copy machine loose at the hinges, bulletin boards, file cabinets shingled with magnets, family photos pinned up wherever room could be found. Any other office, except for the anti-domestic violence campaign posters; or the state trooper with the shaved head and large gun, chickenpecking on an old-fashioned word processor; or the significant chunk of a compact car—hood, two doors, and a tire—lying in the hallway (“Evidence,” Samantha explained). She greeted and was greeted by all.

  “Why is everyone so young?” I asked.

  “Dick Wolf does the hiring,” she said.

  Her office had a glass door that she shut to drown out the curses and laughter.

  “Did he really get his car broken into outside the building?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “That’s Queens.” She rummaged around on her desk, shuffling forms and e-mail printouts and files and unopened envelopes. Atop the windowsill were three mugs: a DA seal, Fordham, NYU law. A matted teddy bear dressed as a fireman. A photo of her father, and another of her and her sister in bathing suits on the beach. A brass Gordian knot, dangling on a string tacked to a shelf holding legal books. The screen saver on her computer faded in and out hypnotically, rotating images of a green countryside.

  “Ireland,” she said, noticing my stare.

  “Is that where your family’s from?”

  “County Kerry. My dad’s side. My mom’s Italian. I’ve never been to either place, but if I start saving up what’s left of my salary at the end of every month I should be able to afford a trip when I’m seventy-five.”