An Object of Beauty: A Novel

by STEVE MARTIN

  “So it was you,” Lacey whispered.

  “With what it had seen, I couldn’t let it get away.” Then they made love.

  Afterward, Lacey put on a robe that swathed her like meringue, and Patrice ordered dessert, which was wheeled into the living room while Lacey waited hidden in the bedroom. When the door shut, Lacey emerged and they sat again by the window.

  “And now… ,” said Patrice as he picked up the phone. “Auction results.”

  “Oh, yay,” said Lacey.

  Patrice dialed someone. “How’d the auction do?… You’re kidding… Oh, really?” He covered the phone and mouthed to Lacey, “The Warhol Marilyn brought seventeen million dollars.”

  Patrice continued on, asking other prices, but Lacey was stunned. She knew not only that the price was phenomenal, news-making, but that there would be a sympathetic rise in all of Warhol’s works and that her small flower painting had at least doubled in value while she had been in the bedroom with Patrice.

  Patrice hung up the phone. “So,” he said, “there’s been a revolution.”

  Lacey looked at him.

  “Warhol has brought more money than an equal Picasso. The baby boomers are starting to buy their own.” What Patrice was saying was true. The vague rumors of strength in the contemporary market had been made manifest, and contemporary art, over the next ten years, was about to inflate like the Hindenburg.

  Lacey spent the night and left early to change clothes at her apartment. She said good-bye to Patrice with a kiss. He was flying out before lunch for Paris and had already made arrangements for flowers to be delivered to her at Talley’s, with a note that read, “I am missing you right now.” When Lacey got to her apartment, she paused in front of the Warhol. The feeling that swept over her was a bit like that of a gambler who gets lucky the first time out and leaves the table thinking, This is easy.

  At work, Lacey bounced up the stairs and stiff-armed one hand on Talley’s doorway. His eyes rose, and as she fluffed her hair with the other she said to him, “You owe me a commission on the Matisse.” Then she turned and strolled down the hall, dragging her jacket by one finger before letting it fall to the floor as she turned the corner into her office.

  37.

  TALLEY PACKED A BAG and flew to Los Angeles, and Lacey went to the shipping room to get an X-Acto knife. She was going to perform surgery on the unknown carton in the bins, just as she had done on the envelope from Boston. The cardboard of the box had already been reused several times, so it wasn’t likely that her tinkering would show. Donna never left her post downstairs, and Lacey was her overlord anyway, so she proceeded fearlessly, if secretly.

  She turned the box upside down and sliced through the tape, then opened a flap that she bent back, revealing the framed painting inside. She pulled it a few inches from its sleeve, and even though it was now upside down, she could make out the distinct shapes of the now very familiar picture. She pulled it halfway out and bent her body sideways to make the view as upright as possible, and yes, there it was, The Concert by Johannes Vermeer. She slid the picture back in its case, retaped the bottom, turned the whole thing right side up, and seated it exactly where it had been. The whole enterprise had taken only a minute.

  She walked back to her office and sat at her desk. She did not believe that Barton Talley had stolen a dozen pictures and tied up four night guards at gunpoint. She did believe, however, that Talley was involved in negotiations to get the pictures returned, but whether he was Jesse James or Marshal Dillon she did not know. What she did know was that she did not want to be a detective anymore. Her pulse was not handling it well, and she now, whatever the caper was, had her fingerprints all over it, literally.

  Lacey went to the restaurant Sofia and sat upstairs, where she was nominally outdoors, and ordered a truffle-oil pizza. She never looked up while her mind rotated the facts, trying to see them from all sides, trying to piece them together into theory. All she could think was that she was flunking an IQ test.

  38.

  THE NEXT DAY was Sunday, and Lacey half-walked and half-rode her new bicycle over to the West Side bike path. The path, which ran from the George Washington Bridge all the way to Battery Park, was the great hope for bikers who were tired of dodging car doors that opened incautiously into the street. Even so, she noticed the occasional memorial to riders who were killed in action, a bicycle frame that had been painted ghostly white, including the tires, and bearing flowers that were usually desiccated and drooping. She also noticed that if she didn’t wear a helmet and let her hair fly, male riders would tag alongside her for a hundred yards, as though it were all coincidence, hoping for an exchange of glances that Lacey never offered.

  The bike path was her sacred time of contemplation, today especially, as she tried to sort out whether she would go to jail for a hundred years or be a heroine who selflessly and cleverly returned a Vermeer to the nation. If she returned a Vermeer to the United States of America, it would be very good for her career. If she was implicated in grand theft, even though she would undoubtedly be cleared, it might be bad for her career. But while Lacey biked farther along, she began to imagine what she would wear on the witness stand, her handkerchief in hand to catch a sudden flood of tears, and the dinner parties she would be invited to. She pictured all the ears listening attentively as she told her story, and decided that either outcome would be okay.

  She pulled off the route at 22nd Street, locked her bike to a tree, and strolled through gallery-rich Chelsea, looking in windows, seeing names that instilled in her a spore of initiative: Andrea Rosen, Mary Boone, Angela Westwater, all women who had opened their own galleries and succeeded. She then went to the Empire Diner—the busy café that served irresistible grits at any time of day and had a dozen unattainable tables on the sidewalk—sat at a back table, and ordered lunch. She took out a piece of stationery and carefully penned this letter:

  To Whom It May Concern:

  On May 10, 1998, I was sent to Boston by Barton Talley to attend a party celebrating funds raised by the ICA. On the way out, I was approached by two men who asked my name and confirmed that I worked for Mr. Talley…

  Lacey went on to describe the entire misadventure, including her steaming open of the envelope, the discovery of the Vermeer, and her intent to confront Barton Talley. She expressed concern that if she exposed the presence of the picture without consulting him, she might ruin some plans to get the other pictures back, and that this letter was a dated testimony to her righteous intent in case there were developments before she could ascertain what to do by interrogating Talley. She then sealed the letter in an envelope and addressed it to herself. The idea was that if there was ever a trial, she would produce the unopened letter, with the postmark verifying when it was sent, to be opened in front of a judge, who would immediately send her home. She finished her meal, went outside, and dropped it in a mailbox. When she heard the letter hit the bottom, she realized its futility. Any crook could write himself a letter of righteous intent after a crime, but it wouldn’t make him innocent.

  39.

  BARTON TALLEY’S SHOES were impeccable. He traveled with them in a separate suitcase, each shoe in its own velour slipcover and polished to a hard enamel shine. The Beverly Hills Hotel had expertise in the old world craft of shoe pampering, but Talley’s care and maintenance was so self-contained and ritualized that he rarely used their service. Also, the hotel had recently changed hands and it was unknown if the degree of seemingly telepathic attention would remain constant, slide, or rise.

  If cities could be given an EKG, New York’s readout would be Andean and Los Angeles’s would be a sandy beach. Talley already felt himself rocking to the slower rhythm. He dined Saturday night at the Ivy, a restaurant that years ago had ushered in the era of Cajun spices and had been in business so long that it had seen its initial clientele of young celebrities grow old, die, and be replaced by new ones. He ate with Stephen Bravo, a dealer with galleries on both coasts who had clout almost as thunder
ing as Gagosian’s. Talley showed him the Pilot Mouse transparencies, and Bravo bought four paintings essentially sight unseen. He wondered how Bravo could even see them as he held the five-by-six-inch transparencies up to the dim lamplight of the Ivy. But Talley understood. Contemporary paintings usually posed no condition problems or questions of authorship, they were valuable only by fiat, and there was rarely anything to research. Back at the hotel, he woke Lacey with a phone call to let her know of the sale and, unprompted, gave her her first small taste of profit participation.

  His lunch the next day was taken alone at the Polo Lounge, the tourist-destination restaurant at the hotel. Agents and movie stars still patronized the place because its tables recalled Hollywood’s most glamorous era. Out-of-towners who dared approach a celebrity table were nearly tackled by waiters or intercepted with a harsh arm signal of “foul” by the attentive maître d’. Talley ate a deceptive salad that had enough goodies in it to raise the calorie count to over a thousand and waved good-bye across the room to Bravo, who was off to catch a plane to somewhere kept secret from other art dealers.

  There is art in Los Angeles that rivals New York’s, but to see all of it you would need General Eisenhower to plan the attack. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is miles from the Getty, which is miles from the Hammer, which is miles from the Norton Simon, which is miles from the Museum of Contemporary Art, and if the dots were connected on a map, you would see a giant circle running around the periphery of Los Angeles with no convenient route connecting them. The viewer of this map would realize that the best way of commuting among these five significant art museums would be by Swiss gondola or light aircraft.

  But Talley was not there for the art museums. His main concern was dinner that night with Eduardo Flores. Flores was capable of expenditures the size of movie budgets, and to prove it he had just finished remodeling a house in Los Angeles that was the architectural perfection of 1961, before anyone thought of 1961 as a year of exceptional style. This was sixties modern, distinct from the kitsch California architecture of the same period marked by electrons swishing around nuclei on top of bowling alleys. But there was a high style floating around then, though no one knew it yet. It was the furniture of Knoll, Nakashima, and the Eameses. Flores’s house had been redone to satiny perfection, and the effect was spectacular. When you entered the house for the first time, it felt as though you had just stepped into the pages of a Life magazine layout of the modern home.

  The house was walking distance from the Beverly Hills Hotel, but Talley wasn’t about to risk it. Even a taxi or limo drive threatened to burr his shoeshine, and a walk would have to be done so carefully that he might look silly. So when he ran into Gayle Smiley, who was the highest-ranking representative of the Stephen Bravo gallery and who was also attending the dinner, he angled for a ride, as a front seat was safer for shoes than the backseat. But Stephen Bravo was Eduardo’s number one dealer, and Gayle protected the franchise like a mother bear would a cub, claws and all. She did not want to arrive with Talley next to her, especially since she was morbidly unhappy that he had been invited in the first place. Gayle mumbled, stumbled, took a phone call, and withdrew.

  In the end, Talley settled for a taxi. Though he was expecting to be berated by the driver for such a short hop, the turban-wearing cabbie said a cheerful good night and gave him his card in case he needed a ride back.

  The houses in Beverly Hills were either low-slung or high-slung, and Flores’s was as low as a sixties modern would allow. Yet the house had a view not only of its own sculpture garden, but of the city of Los Angeles. This mysterious effect belonged to many houses in Beverly Hills that appeared to be in the flatlands but were actually on an imperceptible uphill slope that positioned the house for a view to the sea. These views that skimmed just over the top of the city gave sunsets an extra redness and positively affirmed that Los Angeles could be beautiful.

  Talley stood in the entry of the house, which he had been in before, and realized something was up. The art on the walls—formerly the modern masters that Talley sold—was now shifting toward contemporary, and because of it the house had been infused with energy. A Robert Gober sculpture, an interpretation of a porcelain sink that had been unfolded like a Chinese take-out box, hung on the wall in the dining room, and a Damien Hirst mirrored pharmaceutical shelf the size of a plate-glass window hung over the fireplace. The livelier environment felt good even to Talley. He was grateful to Lacey for delivering unto him some contemporary art that made him feel much more up-to-date. His normal world of modern masters made him feel snug and comfortable, but these new objects, hanging with such bewildering cheer, made him feel as if he’d already had one drink. One drink was not enough for any of this group, though, and they gathered in the living room, where the hard stuff was being served.

  Three Parts of an X, Robert Gober, 1985

  81 × 81.5 × 25 in.

  The host had not made his entrance yet, but Gayle Smiley had, and she made it clear that it was she who had sold most of these contemporary works to Eduardo. “Isn’t the Gober fabulous?” She was already pumping the bellows for the art she was promoting. The party was livening with the arrivals of actor Stirling Quince and his enduring girlfriend, Blanca. Stirling had been a solid TV star for five years, and despite escalating annual salary bumps, he was still only wealthy.

  Talley looked over at Gayle’s purse, which she had put on a small divan. Sticking out from it was the very envelope containing the transparencies of the four Pilot Mouse paintings he had sold Bravo the day before. It was apparent to Talley that she was going to offer them to Flores. This made Talley slightly sick, as he knew he had the remaining transparencies at his hotel and hadn’t brought them because, one, it was tacky, and two, he didn’t know Flores had shifted gears. He also knew he had an advantage because he could beat Bravo’s price, since he knew what he had paid for them. It wasn’t that Talley wanted to make fifty thousand dollars; he simply wanted to sell Flores a contemporary painting right under Smiley’s nose.

  “Oh my,” said Talley. “I left my inhaler back at the hotel.”

  Talley didn’t really know much about inhalers, but he knew it sounded much better than saying “transparencies.” He walked out the door, and because the hotel was downhill from the house, he made it in less than five minutes. This run was done with a strangely high-stepping gait, as each shoe had to come down squarely on its sole. At the hotel, he put the transparencies in his coat pocket and gave Lacey a quick call, waking her up for the second time in two days. “Give me the run-down on Robert Gober,” he said to her.

  “Sculptor, expensive, conceptual, very respected,” she said. “Mention sinks, drains, and ‘the playpen.’ ”

  “Thanks, Lacey,” he said.

  When he walked back in, the party had grown to a total of ten, minus the host, who still had not appeared. One of the new additions was a stray young man whose name sounded like Fortunato, but Talley couldn’t be certain and he was afraid to call him by name until it was verified. What worse blunder was there than calling someone Fortunato if that was not his name? The young man wore tight leather pants and a tight black T-shirt and would occasionally sally down the hallway, indicating he was a houseguest or perhaps more.

  After one of these hallway dashes, Fortunato—yes, the name had been confirmed—appeared with Eduardo Flores on one arm. It was hard to tell whether he was escorting him in affectionately or propping him up, as Eduardo looked glassy-eyed.

  Gayle, with rabbit quickness, bounded across the room to greet him. “Eduardo! The new Warhol looks incredible there. You were right!”

  Eduardo said little as he was taken around the room and introduced to guests. Possibly he was uncomfortable with English, possibly he was just uncomfortable. But his discomfort was certainly social and not pharmaceutical, as he had the happy grin of a patient on morphine.

  Talley looked into Eduardo’s face and knew that neither he nor Gayle was likely to get his attention to look at trans
parencies. He would call Eduardo’s curator tomorrow and make the pitch. The curator in Eduardo’s case was a smart coordinator only, as Eduardo made all the final decisions with an uncharacteristically sober acuity. The group was then led around for a tour of the house, which was a showcase and had been meticulously detailed. Even the light switches were period and flawlessly installed; it was as though a heavenly contractor had floated in, waved a wand, and perfected every corner. In the bedroom, a surprising and satisfying art reference library was arranged alphabetically in a splendid Nakashima bookcase. Nakashima, who elevated the craft of driftwood furniture from beachside tourist shops to high art, was now being rediscovered after a lengthy fallow period, with Flores leading the way. Over the bed hung a Wilfredo Lam, the Cuban painter who was a Picasso acolyte but distinguished himself with a unique, surrealistic diversion from Cubism.

  “Cubanism,” joked Flores, indicating he was not as potted as he looked.

  “Where the hell do you find one of those?” said Stirling, asking the question aloud that was on Talley’s mind.

  “Where’d we get that?” said Eduardo, looking around.

  The other question that was on Talley’s mind was one that only Stirling could answer: “What can it be like to sleep with Blanca?” Talley stood behind her and stared at her bare neck when he was supposed to be looking at the Lam.

  The narrow hallway forced them to line up, Gayle shoulder to shoulder with Eduardo, squeezing Talley to the rear, making him leave the room last. But he could still hear her remark to Eduardo: “You know what would look good in the guest bedroom? Pilot Mouse! I have some transparencies I was going to show to Dean Valentine, but I’ll show them to you first.” This remark was intended to get Flores’s blood flowing, as Dean Valentine made every other contemporary collector a pretender. Hinton Alberg’s collection of seven hundred paintings seemed paltry compared with Valentine’s twelve hundred. His sweet-science combination of a keen eye for new work and a vacuum cleaner mentality meant he got everywhere first. He once sneaked into a Manhattan art fair a day before it opened by disguising himself as a janitor in order to get first crack at the best in the show. But Talley thought Gayle had misjudged her man. Flores never thought of himself as a competitor; he just liked art.