The Capitalist

by Peter Steiner

  “And you have a collection of paintings you want to sell? Tell me a bit about your collection.”

  “Well, I have several first-rate Picassos, some Cézannes, some Matisses.”

  Hamilton Jones was silent for a long time. “I fancy myself a Cézanne expert, Mr. Morgon. I know where most of his paintings are.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you know where they all are, then. But you are in the business of advising collectors on sales, aren’t you?

  “Yes, I am in that business.”

  “I know it’s very short notice, but I’m only here in New York briefly. I’m flying home to France tomorrow, and I wonder whether you might have time to see me today.”

  Hamilton Jones paused again. Finally he said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Morgon, but I have some pressing business I have to attend to.”

  “Well, why don’t you let me buy you dinner this evening, Mr. Jones? I can tell you about my collection and what I would like to accomplish. I think you’ll find it worth your while. You pick the place.”

  * * *

  Louis arrived at Le Vigneron a few minutes before eight. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. Most of the tables were occupied by men in suits and women in dresses. Louis was wearing what he usually wore—rumpled slacks, an open shirt, and battered walking shoes. It was on the shoes that the headwaiter’s eyes came to rest, as though he had just seen a cockroach scuttling across the floor.

  “Monsieur?” he said. He fussed with the seating ledger in front of him so as not to have to meet Louis’s eyes.

  “Mr. Hamilton Jones’s table,” said Louis.

  The headwaiter searched the reservations, hoping Jones’s name was not among them. But it was. “This way, sir.” Seating Louis immediately was better than having him hanging around the front of the restaurant.

  The table was in a corner and apart from the other tables. Louis was handed an enormous menu covered in red leatherette with a thin golden rope around it and a tassel that promptly found its way into his water glass. He squeezed the water from the tassel while the headwaiter looked on in horror.

  “An aperitif, monsieur?”

  “I’ll wait for Mr. Jones.”

  Louis was studying the wine list when Jones arrived. “They have a very nice Burgundy,” Jones said, “at a not too outrageous price.”

  The Burgundy was sixty dollars. “I like the Chinon—the Médard. Does that suit you?”

  “It’s your nickel,” said Jones. “Hamilton Jones,” he said, and stuck out his hand.

  Louis took it. “Louis Morgon. Thank you for coming. What do you recommend for dinner?”

  “They do everything pretty well, but I’m told the calves’ liver is very good, if you like that sort of thing. I prefer the filet mignon. The chef is Cuban, but he understands rare when you say rare. And they have an excellent crème caramel, so save room for that.” Hamilton Jones was in his fifties. He had dark hair, a handsome square jaw, and a gap between his front teeth. He wore round glasses that he kept putting off and on, letting them dangle from a cord around his neck. He wore a blue blazer and a striped tie. A pocket square spilled from his jacket pocket.

  The waiter came and Louis ordered the liver, medium rare. Hamilton Jones ordered the filet mignon, rare. The Chinon came. They raised their glasses and drank. “It’s good,” said Jones.

  “I live near Chinon,” said Louis.

  “With your collection.”

  “With my collection. My rather large and excellent collection, if I say so.”

  “Tell me how it is excellent,” said Jones.

  “Well, as I said, I have some first-rate Matisse paintings, some Picassos, Cézanne, also Derain, Bonnard, Renoir, a Mondrian, Ensor, others. And some prints and drawings by most of them.”

  “Louis Morgon. And why haven’t I heard of you?”

  “Because I keep my collection to myself. I acquired it from private parties, many of whom had the paintings from the artists themselves. I bought a couple of Picassos out of his studio. I never lent paintings; I never bought at auction. I just collect and enjoy them myself. Or rather collected, past tense. I’ve finished collecting. Now I want to get rid of it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m finished with it. I’m alone now. Collecting belonged to a part of my life that’s over.”

  “I see.” Hamilton Jones sipped his wine and regarded Louis over the rim of the glass.

  “I want to sell most of them, and I don’t want to do anything foolish. I need the help of a professional.”

  “I would think so. Well.” Hamilton Jones set down his glass. “Here’s how I work. I have a rather extensive list of collectors who are looking for various works by various artists. I match buyers and sellers. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. When I find a buyer for something you want to get rid of or a seller for something someone else is looking for, I take a commission of five percent from the buyer and five percent from the seller once the deal has been completed. For works that go for over a million, the fee slides downward to a minimum of three percent. You’ll find that others have different fee arrangements than I do. But I’ve found it makes sense to structure things so that they suit me, and this arrangement suits me. And it seems to suit my clients.”

  “I presume,” said Louis, “you will want proof of provenance, that sort of thing, before you take on a work to sell.”

  “Of course a clean provenance adds value to the work.”

  “And yet,” said Louis, “even the greatest collections have their share of forgeries, stolen and plundered art, don’t they?”

  “Do they?” said Jones.

  “Look at the Met,” said Louis. “If you eliminated all the art of questionable provenance, you’d have a mostly empty building, wouldn’t you?”

  Jones smiled. “A clean and complete provenance is a wonderful thing, as I was saying. A desirable thing. But, alas, as you point out, it can also be a … difficult thing. We in the business always have to accommodate ourselves to the realities of the world.”

  “The realities of the world.”

  “Let’s say no more about it for the moment,” said Jones. “I’m sure every piece in your collection is of impeccable provenance. All in good time.” He took off his glasses and let them dangle from their string. At that moment their food arrived.

  * * *

  Back in his hotel room, the telephone was blinking. There was a message from Peter Sanchez with a number to call. Louis dialed the number.

  “Hello, Louis.” Peter tried to sound casual and relaxed, but there was apprehension in his voice. “I was … surprised to get your message after so much time. What brings you to the US?”

  “Hello, Peter. Do you know who St. John Larrimer is?”

  “Larrimer, Ltd.”

  “That’s him,” said Louis.

  “Did you lose money to him?” Louis thought he heard a hint of delight in Peter’s voice.

  “I did lose a little, as a matter of fact,” said Louis.

  “I heard that claims are being taken at the SEC.”

  “Are they?”

  Peter remained silent for a moment. “So, you’re not—”

  “I’m not expecting much good to come from the SEC, are you? I’m doing some investigating on my own.”

  This time Peter’s silence lasted longer. “Investigating,” Peter said finally. “Aha. And what is it you want from me?”

  “Actually, I’ve got something for you. I visited Larrimer’s secretary the other day, and she’d had a visit from a Russian mobster—”

  “You know he’s a mobster?”

  “I’m guessing. She had a visit and then the same guy turned up following me around Manhattan. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Who is he?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping you’ll give me in exchange for this information. You can find him on the security camera at 1012 Fifth Avenue, five-fifteen yesterday. That’s November fifteenth, 2008.”

&
nbsp; “I know what day yesterday was.”

  “I find that very reassuring,” said Louis.

  XXVI

  THE RAIN RATTLED on the roof. Rain on slate was the sweetest sound Louis knew; he was happy to be home. Pauline had come down from Paris. She had slept late. Louis carried breakfast to the bedroom. Soft-boiled eggs, croissants, grapefruit juice for him, orange juice for her.

  “Breakfast in bed?” she said.

  “I’m glad to be home.” He eased himself into the chair by the bed.

  Pauline studied him for a moment. “This Jones person you talked about.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s he like?” Pauline dipped a point of her croissant into the egg yolk.

  “I don’t know,” said Louis. “He could be difficult; he could be useful.”

  “Then you have a plan.”

  “Not exactly,” said Louis.

  “But the beginnings of one?”

  “Not even.”

  “Then why did you go to New York? Why the visit to Larrimer’s secretary and the art auctions and Hamilton Jones? Have I left anyone out?”

  “No. That’s everyone.” Louis had not told her about the Russian. Peter Sanchez had called the night before: “Dimitri Arkady Adropov. He’s from Chelyabinsk. It’s just east of the Urals, an industrial town, a city actually, just north of Kazakhstan on the border between Europe and Asia, known mostly for its nuclear arms factories.” Peter was happy to know something Louis didn’t. “Adropov is a businessman—oil, gas, and arms manufacturing. But he’s also a thug. He’s been charged in the US with racketeering, bank fraud, and murder. There was a 2001 arrest that ended in a mistrial. He left the US, showed up again five weeks ago, left again this morning.”

  “This morning?”

  “You must have scared him.”

  Louis allowed him his little joke. “Will you tell me if he shows up again?”

  “You tell me,” Peter had said.

  “Well,” Louis said to Pauline, “I went to New York because I need to assemble a cast of characters.”

  “You talk as though you’re writing a play, not pursuing a criminal.”

  “In a way I’m doing the same thing a playwright does. I’m assembling a cast of characters, an Othello and a Iago, and hoping—depending on it, in fact—that they’ll collide and get things going, whatever that turns out to be, hoping something leads to St. John Larrimer and his money.”

  “Are you the Iago or the Othello character?” Pauline said.

  “I’m the Shakespeare character … I know, I know.” He raised his hands before she could say anything. Of course he was being presumptuous. More than presumptuous. Not too long ago, he would have taken no note of it, or found the idea amusing. But lately there was a discordant note sounding in his head, a faint but distinct alarm warning, not of mortal danger, but of moral danger, hubris and arrogance.

  Pauline had finished her egg. She was grateful that he had let her sleep and then made breakfast. Nonetheless she cast a skeptical look in his direction. Louis lifted himself from the chair with some difficulty—it was old (and so was he) and had collapsed in on itself so that the seat sagged only a few inches over the floor. He stepped to the window and looked out. The rain was coming down harder. The bare linden branches nodded and shuddered under the barrage. The last petals of the roses fell off.

  “Hamilton Jones,” said Louis. “I don’t think Hamilton Jones is his real name, by the way. I think he invented it to lend himself credibility with art collectors and museum and auction directors, to facilitate his movement in that pretentious world. And I’m pretty sure his English accent is phony too. But he certainly seems knowledgeable about art and the art world, particularly its deceptions and illusions. He all but confessed to me that he would be willing to move art that is not what it seems to be. Meaning stolen or forged art. Forgery means nothing, he said. What matters, he said, is not whether it’s a forgery or not, but whether it’s a good painting. In fact he said that making a good painting in someone else’s style is a sign of a certain kind of mastery.”

  “You liked hearing that, didn’t you? I’m guessing you agree,” said Pauline.

  Louis laughed. “Maybe. He mentioned a Vermeer in the Frick. I went and looked at it, and I think he’s right that it’s not a Vermeer. In fact, it doesn’t even look like a Vermeer—the color is wrong, the brushwork too. But it’s an interesting and lively painting and so probably deserves to hang where it can be seen, in this case, in the Frick.”

  “You like him. Jones.”

  “I rather agree with his thinking. And, yes, I like him.”

  “You’re about to forge some paintings, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve always thought Picasso was overrated, especially his late stuff. That nine-million-dollar painting in Sotheby’s was done by rote. There’s energy but no passion. At least that’s my reading of it. Anyway, what better way to learn whether I’m right or not than to try to make a late Picasso? It would be an interesting exercise.” Louis gave Pauline a smile that was meant to be reassuring.

  “An exercise that is against the law,” said Pauline.

  “Making one isn’t against the law; passing it off as Picasso’s—that would be against the law.”

  “I received a box of Jean-Baptiste’s personal papers while you were gone. I knew it was coming, but still it was a bit of a shock.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Letters, notes, that sort of thing. Seeing his handwriting is eerie now that he isn’t here. It’s like he’s still … somewhere, or part of him is, like he’s still writing things. The papers had all been gone through of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what to do with them. Maybe just destroy them.”

  “Are there any business papers? Correspondence, that sort of thing?”

  “No. I’m sure that stuff remained behind as evidence. Except for this.” She handed Louis a slip of paper.

  “A wire transfer.”

  “That’s Jean-Baptiste’s Paris bank wiring money to Larrimer, Ltd. It was stuck to another envelope. It must have been sent by accident.”

  Louis studied the piece of paper. “PariBanque. That’s my bank.”

  “Is it useful to you?”

  “I don’t know. It might be. It’s got account numbers—Jean-Baptiste’s and Larrimer’s. Larrimer’s will be closed out. But what would happen, I wonder, if I tried to wire money—say a hundred euros—to the Larrimer account number?”

  “Why would you do that?” said Pauline.

  “Well, they’d either return it to me as undeliverable or…”

  “Or they’d forward it. Wouldn’t they have to forward it if they could? You’re trying to make the bank into your accomplice, aren’t you?”

  The next afternoon Louis sat in the small PariBanque office in Saint-Léon across the desk from Didier Lespagnole, the branch manager, and raised the same question he had raised with Pauline. What happens if you send money to an account that has been closed?

  “Have you done that?” Didier asked. The banking system was an orderly one, and even the suggestion of a small and innocent malfunction was disquieting to Didier. He pursed his lips, sat up straighter, and fixed Louis with a glare.

  “It’s a theoretical question for now,” said Louis.

  “Ah. Theoretical,” said Didier and relaxed, as though that changed everything. “Well,” he said. He opened the center desk drawer and withdrew a wire transfer slip. He held it facing Louis with one hand, and pointed with the other. “This is like the slip you would receive if you did such a thing. This number”—he pointed—“would be your transaction number, which includes your account number as well as the number of the bank where the transaction originated—these first four numbers here. This number is the routing number, which shows the steps of your transaction. And this space”—he pointed to the other end of the slip—“would contain the receiving bank’s number, again the first four numbers, and the recipient’s account
number or, more likely, a reference number.”

  “Ah, a reference number. And what happens if the receiving account has been closed?”

  “During the first sixty days after an account has been closed, money is automatically wired forward. Unless some irregularity such as a bank closing or criminal activity is involved, in which case the account is frozen and no transactions can be completed.”

  “Do you know who St. John Larrimer is?”

  “Please, Monsieur Morgon. I’m a banker. Of course I know who he is.”

  “What would happen if I were to wire money to an old account of his?”

  “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

  “Theoretically,” said Louis.

  “Ah. Well. I think you could expect to hear from the authorities.”

  “The authorities?”

  “The American SEC, Interpol. You would be inviting trouble.”

  “And would I get a slip indicating where the money had gone?”

  Didier gave him a long look. “You would. Theoretically.”

  XXVII

  FROM THE JFK AEROFLOT FIRST-CLASS lounge, Dimitri Adropov contacted an FBI man he knew. They had a business arrangement. Dimitri gave up occasional gangsters in exchange for tips and information.

  “Your Louis Morgon is connected to the CIA,” said the FBI man.

  “CIA? I thought there was something about him. How he is connected?”

  “I don’t know exactly; the record is unavailable.”

  “Unavailable?”

  “Sealed. The record is sealed. But he’s still on their roster. And here’s something interesting: He’s got an FBI file too.”

  “Stop with mystery. Why he has file?” Dimitri’s Russian accent tended to get stronger when he was excited.

  “When he was with the CIA, he got in trouble somehow. And later he was linked with a terrorist plot.”

  “This guy is terrorist?”

  “There was a connection, but I don’t know what the connection was. It looks like he was charged with something serious and then the charges were dropped.”

  “He is still in CIA?”

  “Maybe. I can’t tell.”