by Morris West
‘Thereabouts, yes.’
‘Do you ever think of her now, Max?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘How?’
‘Very tenderly.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘It’s odd…One day during the last bad times, she said: “You know, Max, I couldn’t have been more trouble to you if I’d been your wife!” We laughed about it but she was right. Those were the times when we were closest – nearest, I guess, to a marriage.’
‘You’re a strange man, Max.’
‘I can get stranger.’
‘For instance?’
‘Tomorrow, with luck, Danny Danziger will be out on bail. I’m going to bring her to the opening of the gallery.’
She gaped at him in utter disbelief. ‘You can’t!’
‘I can. I will.’
‘Max, for God’s sake! It’s my gallery. It’s Bayard’s building. We’re exhibiting his dead wife’s pictures – and you propose to waltz in with the woman who’s accused of killing her? What are you trying to do to me?’
‘Make your show a sell-out instead of a freeze-out. I intend to blow it up into the most scandalous success of the decade. There’ll be queues around the block and wall-to-wall coverage in the media. Question is, whether you’ve got the nerve to carry it off?’
‘You know me – little Orphan Annie. I always front up. But what about Ed Bayard?’
‘Same question. Can he handle himself, or can you handle him?’
It was a long time before she spoke; then it was not to answer but to ask her own sombre question.
‘Why is it, Max, that we’re such good friends and yet you’re suddenly so threatening to me?’
The arraignment of Leonie Danziger was strictly a non-event. The press left it to the regular court reporters who, on the principle that the arrest had been covered and the fireworks would come later, gave it minimal notice. The only members of the public in court were Harmon Seldes, Max Mather, a plain plumpish girl in a track-suit who introduced herself as Carol and half a dozen early morning gawkers who came inside for the warmth.
The prosecutor read the charge. George Munsel pleaded his client not guilty, promised a most vigorous defence, then asked that the accused be released on bail into his custody. He pointed out that she had an unblemished record, was gainfully employed by a distinguished magazine, owned her own residence in Manhattan and had never applied for a passport. The prosecution raised no objection. Bail was set at five thousand dollars. The case was set down for hearing in three months’ time.
Leonie Danziger seemed dazed. She embraced Max Mather, thanked Munsel and Seldes, then surrendered herself to the girl in the track-suit like a convalescent to her nurse. As they filed out of the building, George Munsel issued a series of curt directions.
‘Carol, you answer the phone. Danny is not, repeat not, available to any of the media. I want Max and Danny in my office at ten sharp tomorrow morning. Allow two hours at least for discussions. Max, I want you to bring the documents we were discussing yesterday and I need a complete minute of all your conversations in Amsterdam. That’s all.’
He strode off – a tall, flailing figure towering above the local pygmies. Carol announced in firm, no-nonsense fashion. ‘I’m taking Danny home now.’
She whistled a passing taxi, hustled Danny Danziger into it and was gone without a backward wave.
‘Mother hen with her new chick,’ commented Harmon Seldes. ‘Our Danny was rather subdued, I thought?’
‘She’s in shock, for God’s sake…and two nights in the cells is no fun.’
‘Danny’s tougher than she looks.’ Seldes laughed. ‘So are you for that matter, Max. I underrated you.’
‘You wanted to talk about the Raphaels?’
‘Indeed, yes.’
‘How much has Berchmans told you?’
‘That you have traced two Raphael copies to Brazil and that you are now the accredited agent of the Palombini for negotiating the recovery of the originals. I don’t, of course, know any details.’
‘Well, the appointment was the result of a coincidence. Palombini was in St Moritz at the same time I was. He made the suggestion then. I wasn’t too keen; I’m busy on my own affairs. But he pressed the point and made a good offer. I accepted…simple as that.’
‘But the copies in Brazil: copies of what?’
‘The two portraits. The cartoons are not yet in question.’
As he retold the now familiar tale, Mather spun it out with endless details and anecdotes intended to divert Seldes from the fundamental question: how could the copies be classified as such without comparing them with the originals? But Harmon Seldes was too bright for such childish ruses. Inevitable as death, the question came again. Mather answered with deliberate care.
‘Niccoló Tolentino was the key. He was a young man then, of course. He was commissioned by Luca to copy the two portraits. He handed the originals and the copies to Luca. He believes that the copies were taken to Brazil. It seems natural that Luca would want to hang on to the originals. But Tolentino has an infallible method of identifying his own work – a personal cipher built into the picture itself.’
‘And do you know what that cipher is, Max?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘How could you, if you’ve never seen copy or original?’
‘Oh, ye of little faith!’ Mather mocked him. ‘This is the man who copied the damned things. Weeks and months of work. He sketched them for me from memory, showed me exactly how to identify the cipher and where to find it.’
‘Could you show me?’
‘I’ll show both you and Berchmans when the pictures arrive from Brazil…But aren’t you missing the point, Harmon? We’re both scholars. We both committed ourselves to print on this subject; so far our theories are proving out beautifully.’
‘What I’d hate to see,’ Seldes was less than happy, ‘is we two scholars proving our hypotheses and Henri Berchmans strolling off with the rewards.’
‘I can’t speak for Berchmans, but I fail to see that I’m any sort of a threat to you. I’m paid directly by the family only if and when the pieces are recovered by the family. I don’t know the details of your arrangements with Berchmans, but it seems to me they have to be on a dealer or auction level. In which case, I don’t see that there’s any conflict of interest between you and me.’
‘Only this, Max: fine art, Renaissance art, is my discipline. It’s been my whole life. I’m better at it than you can ever be. It was my name which lent authority to your piece in Belvedere. I was the one who opened the pages to you anyway. I introduced you to Berchmans. I accepted your piece on Madeleine Bayard – and I have no part in that action at all.’
‘No quarrel with any of that.’ Mather was mildness itself. ‘But make your point, please. Are you asking me for a percentage of what the Palombini pay me – if they ever do? Are you asking for some reward or bonus or whatever on the Madeleine Bayard situation? That’s out of my hands, as you know. But you’re clearly unhappy. What can I do to make you feel better?’
‘In a word, Max, for a man of modest accomplishments you’re riding too high. You’re an upstart!’
‘I’m sorry if it appears that way.’
‘It does, believe me. I’ve dealt with Berchmans all my life. I’ve spent millions with him from the galleries. Now it’s you he calls and not me. You make a big fuss of a copyist at the Pitti. God, I’ve known and bought and sold the biggest names of our time…I’d have thought it would have been the smallest of courtesies to bring my name forward to the Palombini.’
‘Now cool down, Harmon. Shut up and relax before you say the unsayable. You’re a great Renaissance scholar. Admitted. No question. I’m a much humbler animal, a not-bad palaeographer. But one of the things I’m very good at is method…you can’t follow my trade without it. There would have been no point at all in my mentioning your name or Berchmans’ or those of your Swiss colleagues with whom I’ve become very friendly. What do any
of you represent to Palombini at this stage? Nothing except very expensive names – future commission takers! He’s a merchant, for Christ’s sake! He lives and breathes profit and loss. Me, he understands – I’m an old family retainer, old family legend. He knows where I fit, what I do, how I deal. In short he trusts me. He will also trust me when, or if – knowing where the Raphaels are, how they can be procured and sold into the market – I tell him it’s time to bring in the experts like you and Berchmans and perhaps Hürliman in Zurich. But it isn’t that time yet, Harmon. I haven’t even told him about Eberhardt and Dandolo or the pictures in Brazil. And there’s good reason for that, too, but I don’t feel free to disclose it at this moment. That’s all, Harmon, except to repeat that I know Palombini and he knows me and I believe this is the best way to deal with him. If that makes me an upstart, I’m sorry.’
‘Please, the expressions were intemperate. But I’m sure you understand my anxieties?’
‘Of course. Now let’s forget the squabbles and talk about a follow-up piece on the Raphaels.’
‘This time,’ said Seldes, ‘I’ll do the piece. That will leave me free to speculate in a way that you, representing the family, may not care to do.’
‘You’re the editor, you hand out the assignments. Do you want to see my notes on the other subject: “Art and Criminality”?’
‘Of course. Let me know when you have them ready and we’ll talk. I must be getting back to the office. Split a cab with me?’
‘No thanks, I’ll stroll a while longer. You’ve given me a lot to think about.’
And what loomed largest and darkest in his mind was the thought that Harmon Seldes, with his affronted scholarship, his bruised vanity and his transparent greed, could make life very complicated for Max Mather. It took very little imagination to see that once Seldes began to meddle with the delicate mechanisms of information and negotiation which he had set in motion, the whole machine would disintegrate.
Max worried over the thought for half an hour; then he drank two cups of coffee, ate one soggy doughnut and headed uptown to his apartment to call Gisela Mundt and Alois Liepert.
FIFTEEN
‘Have you got it all, Alois?’
‘Every single word.’ Liepert was beginning to sound frayed. The call had been going on for twenty minutes.
‘Read it back to me once more, please.’
‘Item one: in order to guard against any possible move to seize or distrain the art works, the portraits and the cartoons are to be placed in three separate deposits.
‘Item two: the cartoons go to Gisevius in Basle to authenticate and then accept temporary museum custody and care at our expense. We will be responsible for insurance. Which at this moment we can’t afford.
‘Item three: if Gisevius accepts custody, then you keep one of the portraits in your own safe-deposit. We accept custody of the other.
‘Item four: I will call Claudio Palombini and tell him we think we’re on the track of the works. We ask him to hold himself ready to respond to your call for a conference either in the United States, London or Europe.
‘Item five: I inform Palombini that you will provide authentication for the works and conduct negotiations with the present possessors. You will also be conducting exploratory discussions with Berchmans in New York, with Hürliman in Zurich, with Christies in London and such other persons as you think may be suitable, to bring them into market once they are returned. You will at the appropriate moment introduce Palombini into these discussions, but only when a satisfactory negotiating position has been defined.
‘Item six: I report to you urgently on progress or problems. I draw down funds for expenses and fees.’
‘That last one is an interpolation, Alois.’
‘But I know you’d want me to eat, my dear Max.’
‘I do, but never to excess.’
‘Now perhaps you will tell me why you are complicating your own life and ours.’
‘Because if we come under any sort of threat – by default, by delinquency under the contract – we’re holding insurance. We deal with one object at a time.’
‘Why are you suddenly so anxious?’
‘Probably because I’m back in New York. This is a very litigious town. The atmosphere gets to you very quickly.’
It was half the reason, but when he put down the phone the other half presented itself and it was not pretty to contemplate. The greed was getting to him now. He was as prickly and sensitive as a hungry hound, fearful that someone might snatch away his food-bowl. He needed the few minutes of love talk with Gisela to make him human again: her rush of emotion, her half-laughing, half-crying confession.
‘I couldn’t believe it, Max. The minute you left there was this big, black hole in my life.’
‘There’s not a hole in mine. There’s just this room with me in it and a mirror I don’t like looking at and a lot of people I hope won’t come, but who keep crowding in. I wish you were here with me.’
‘I can’t be. So you have to come to me. Tell me what’s happening.’
He told her, but the narrative lacked reality because he was suddenly aware of the insecurity of the telephone lines, the danger of casual intrusion upon his valuable secrets.
Gisela seemed to understand that and cautioned him, ‘Max, I’m afraid for you. We’ve talked about this before. You’re very impatient. You think every action by someone else requires a new answer from you. That makes you terribly vulnerable. Sit quietly, contain yourself, wait.…’
‘I’ll try.’
‘I think you’re doing the right thing to split the works and hold them with separate custodians. If necessary I can deal with one lot myself – and if you need a courier?’
‘You’ll be first on my list. I love you, Gisela mia.’
‘I love you, Max. Call me again soon.’
‘I promise.’
The rest of the day stretched before him, barren of comfort but full of busy, greedy demands. Calling George Munsel, he caught him just as he was going out to lunch. He told him of his evening’s session with Anne-Marie Loredon. Then he made a suggestion.
‘First, can you check whether any American insurance company or reinsurer has refused or deferred payment on euthanasia deaths in Holland? Second, Anne-Marie says there’s a trust set up by her father about twelve months ago and administered by Lutz & Hengst. It occurred to me you might make a lawyer-to-lawyer inquiry about the consequences of any evidence I might give on the euthanasia issue, then find out who settled that trust and where the funds came from. Knowing Hugh Loredon’s high-stepping style, I doubt he ever had two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at any one time in all his life.’
‘You have some offbeat ideas, Mr Mather.’ Munsel seemed amused. ‘But I’ll check it out. I’m glad you called. After our discussion tomorrow morning, we have a meeting with the two investigating officers on the case. I have their names here – Hartog and Bechstein. We should be through by one. After that, I thought you’d like to buy me lunch.’
‘I’d be delighted.’
‘Good. I also have a summary of the evidence in the Danziger case from the DA’s office. In the light of what I’ve got, your record of the talks in Amsterdam and your interpretation of the diaries become vitally important.’
‘I’ll be ready with the notes on the talks. The diaries will entail a lot of slow, careful work.’
‘You’ll have time for it. The trial is three months away. See you at ten, Mr Mather.’
After that it was time to stroll round to Gino’s for a gossip at the bar and a one-dish lunch and afterwards to plunge into Bloomingdales to buy himself some casual clothes, for the summer heat was still three months away. For the first time since he could remember, he was without a woman and ashamed to go chasing one. He remembered one long twilight evening, sitting on the porch with his father, and the young-old shrunken man telling him:
‘You’re alone coming in, son. You’re alone going out. All your life you’re trying to escape the lon
eliness. You never do until you accept it. One day you sit down by yourself in a quiet place and start whistling a little tune or humming to yourself, or maybe just reciting nursery rhymes to cheer yourself up. Then, lo and behold, you’re not by yourself any more. There are people just as alone as you listening to the small music, joining in, picking up the beat. You walk away…they follow you. It doesn’t help too much because their heads are still buzzing, like yours, with their own business. But you’re not alone any more. You may be lonely, but you’re not alone. Am I making sense?’
Well, maybe he wasn’t making sense at the time…but now? It would have been pleasant to buy him a drink and a plate of pasta at Gino’s.
Back in his apartment, he telephoned the galleries of Berchmans et Cie. It took him ten minutes to establish that yes, Mr Berchmans had arrived; that yes, Mr Berchmans was expecting his call and yes, yes, yes, Mr Berchmans would certainly get his message as soon as he returned from lunch. Pending which Max Mather took out his note-pad and began, line by line, to reconstruct his dialogues in Amsterdam with the late Hugh Loredon.
At four in the afternoon Henri Berchmans called. He would be at his gallery until six. If Mr Mather would care to pass by he would be happy to receive him and show him beautiful things…which had to mean that the pictures had arrived from Camoens in Rio and Berchmans was feeling very good about them. Mather set down the last page of his Amsterdam dialogues, spruced himself up in grey slacks, blue blazer and club tie, then strolled uptown along Madison, window-shopping as he went to calm himself and damp down his jangling nerves.
This meeting would be the crucial one: his first encounter with the great white shark, when all his strength would be tested to the limit and all his weaknesses exploited without mercy. He passed a small store selling expensive optical ware. On an impulse he went in and bought himself a loupe. A block further on, he turned into a novelty store and bought a miniature pocket-knife which he hung on his key-chain. Then, as a salute to simple sentiment, he went into a flower shop and ordered an expensive arrangement to be sent to Gisela in Zurich and a small indoor plant as a welcome home to Leonie Danziger. As a final gesture of defiance, he bought a red rose for his own buttonhole; then, with a jauntiness he did not feel, he walked up the steps to Berchmans’ gallery, a greystone mansion on Seventy-third between Madison and Fifth.