An Object of Beauty: A Novel

by STEVE MARTIN

  “Jeez.”

  “But I’ve been making ten thousand a month, or I’m starting to. I figure the added square footage will pay for itself and attract more artists. I’m doing resale, like at Talley’s. Nobody down here is doing secondary market stuff, nobody. It’s like they never think about it.”

  Secondary market is what all the uptown galleries are, what Sotheby’s and Christie’s do—they resell previously owned works. Lacey was right: the contemporary market had little outlet for private sales of this nature.

  “I do it in the back room, on the phone.”

  “Do people want to buy such a recent picture? Don’t they wonder why it’s being sold?”

  “I say divorce, distress, and people love it. Somehow it makes the piece more desirable. And these pictures are going nowhere but up, so no one’s afraid.”

  “But ten thousand a month.”

  “Plus I have to remodel. With a fancy architect. Look, the only money I need is lunch money. I put everything back in. So I’m not strapped. Clothes cost, though. They’re like a car for a Realtor. They’ve got to be all class. Lots of evenings out. And you, what’s new with you?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “I could sit on the floor, I guess.”

  “Remember Tanya Ross?”

  “Lovely girl, nice person,” she said with a tinge of color.

  “I’m dating her. Exclusively.”

  “What happened to what’s-her-name?”

  “Lacey, that was so long ago.”

  “But what happened?”

  “No fireworks.”

  “And there are fireworks with Tanya Ross?”

  “Well, she’s not a fireworks person; she’s a different kind of person.”

  “So, no fireworks.”

  “I’m not looking for fireworks with her. I’m enchanted, maybe in love, with the idea that she’s someone who would always do the right thing. It’s taken a while to get through to her, but I think she’s bending.”

  “Over?”

  “Lacey.”

  “Have you kissed her?”

  “Lacey.”

  “Sorry. She probably wants to punch me. Tell her she can, and invite her down to the gallery. After the new one’s open. I can make peace; I have that in me.”

  55.

  I CONTINUED TO SEE Tanya that winter, twice a week, then three times a week, ending with an all-out-effort dinner at Del Posto, paid for by one paycheck for five reviews from ARTnews. She dressed up for it and so did I, and she looked so beautiful that I thought I didn’t belong with her. But my best behavior makes me look better: I stand up straighter, and I’m more polished, the way I’ve seen other men be.

  She had one glass of wine to my three, but mine were spread out over two and a half hours, so I was never tipsy, just loosened, and she was constant and forthcoming by choice, not alcohol. This night, so memorable, seemed like the last step before unspoken commitment. And when I kissed her good night, it seemed as though little animated larks circled around our heads. She reminded me of a song… what was it? And when she said, smiling broadly, “I think I love you,” she put her hand over her face and smiled into it. I felt as though I were Fred Astaire, my top hat and tails magically appearing, and I sang to her, making up the lyrics, which made her laugh on the dark stoop. Then we paused and looked at each other. She said, “Come up.”

  So I was surprised, three days later, when I called her to confirm a dinner date and she said, “I could see you for lunch.”

  I can’t think of anything that unnerved me so quickly. My response was so shaky, it meant I had been walking on air, not solid ground. I assured myself that nothing, nothing could have happened between our flawless night spent together and this phone call. But Tanya, I knew, does not mislead. So the bliss of the good-night kiss and the frost of our latest exchange were both true. This state of unease could properly be called “disease,” because I felt sick. But at least disease has the courtesy to develop over time; this infection was abrupt and arrived all at once. By the time the receiver was replaced on the hook, I was fully in it. I had an elevator-drop loss of appetite and found it difficult to stand: my legs were shivering like a tuning fork. Had she met someone? Impossible.

  The two events I am about to describe did not happen simultaneously, but I will present them as though they did, because they are so intertwined by cause and effect that they may as well be connected in time.

  I met Tanya for lunch, not at one of our romanticized regular spots, but at the place of one of our first, pre-romantic, all-business lunches. Tanya picked it. On 68th Street, a short distance from Madison Avenue, the restaurant was detached from our previous dating life and empty enough that we could have a conversation without being overheard. I arrived first, my timing sped up by anxiety, and when she arrived, each of her steps toward me was freeze-framed in my mind while I analyzed each inflection of her body language. I perceived nothing, except that she was withholding what I was searching for, intimacy, and that for several minutes there was a faking of normalcy.

  “How’s work?” I said.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “Just going on. We have a beautiful early Picasso coming up; lots of talk about that.”

  “Which one?”

  “Garçon à la Pipe.”

  “Wow, important picture.”

  “It’s going to bring a lot.”

  Then the conversation withered like a dehydrating prune on the science channel. I requested menus, not wanting to start anything with this sudden stranger until we got our first course.

  While Tanya and I diverted into art small talk, two men walked up the seven flights of metal stairs of 525 West 25th Street and spent minutes turning a guide map this way and that before they found Lacey’s gallery. The Chelsea galleries always look closed and unwelcoming, and they swung her door open a few inches to make sure the lights were on and the place was operating. They went into the gallery and stood at its center, and Lacey, having heard the shuffle of feet and low voices, appeared from the office doorway. These men were familiar. It wasn’t so much their faces that jarred her memory as their clothes—plain suits, dark fabric, beige trench coats that were too thin for the cold outside—and the short army hair.

  These were the two men she had seen at Talley’s on her first day in the gallery. They were also the men who had approached her in Boston, covertly handed her an envelope, then faded back into the alleyways.

  “Miss Yeager?”

  “I probably am,” she said.

  “We’re with the FBI.”

  “Show me your stinkin’ badges. Or don’t you need them?”

  The two men looked at each other, confused. “I’m kidding,” she said.

  They tried to smile. “Could we talk with you?”

  “Sure,” she said, and they entered her office, knocking about like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

  The salads arrived, and I finally began to speak with Tanya. I had no appetite. I suppose I ordered food so I would have a plate to look down into, some reason to look away from her if the conversation turned uncomfortable, which it already had.

  “Something’s up,” I said.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “I’m so curious. And a bit worried.”

  “Do you remember the first night we met?”

  “At the opening.”

  “Yes, and do you remember I said you looked familiar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” she said, “I remembered where I saw you. On the video. Do you know we tape all our auctions?”

  Lacey did not sit behind her desk; she sat in a chair across from the two men and deliberately crossed her legs in front of them.

  “I’m Agent Parks and this is Agent Crane.”

  “Yes, with the Isabella Stuart Gardner case.”

  “Well, that case is dead, at least for now. We investigate art issues, and with nothing happening on that front, we had time to take a look at some other unclear activities.”


  Agent Crane then spoke. His eyes kept shifting involuntarily to her crossed legs. “The statute of limitations on fraud is six years, so we asked around the auction houses about questionable events at the furthest end of that time frame and came up with a bothersome issue.”

  Tanya was a bit nervous. “You know Lacey, right?”

  “A long time.”

  “Is she trouble?” asked Tanya.

  “I think some people would call her trouble.”

  “We tape all our auctions, mostly so the auctioneer can check his performance, but also to confirm bids, just for records. About six years ago, there was an American sale. Lacey is standing by a phone desk, holding a folder with some papers, near the auctioneer. Her arms are crossed around it. There are a few people bidding on a Parrish.”

  “And one of them is me,” I said.

  “Yes, one of them is you. That’s unlikely, isn’t it? That you would be bidding on a six-hundred-thousand-dollar Parrish?”

  I looked at her, unable to answer. I felt a surge of adrenaline’s opposite.

  “Anyway, it comes down to you and one other phone bidder. And just before the six-hundred-thousand-dollar bid, the last bid, Lacey unfolds her arms and leans forward. And when she unfolds her arms and leans forward, you stop bidding.”

  Agent Parks rose and walked over to a window. “So we recently reviewed this tape… a tape that was the reason you were dismissed from Sotheby’s, isn’t it?”

  “Unfairly dismissed,” said Lacey. “They never accused me of anything. I could have made a fuss, but I had a place to go. We all parted friends.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that exactly when you leaned forward, a bidder, who you evidently know, stopped bidding?”

  “No. People stop bidding.”

  “We think it’s pretty clear that this was a signal of some kind.”

  “Well, you can amuse yourselves with that thought,” she said.

  “Why would you want someone to stop bidding?” they asked her.

  My heart was racing as Tanya paused. “We checked out the Parrish sale,” she said. “The painting was represented by a lawyer, so we really don’t know who sold it. But I can’t figure why you were bidding. Something’s wrong. Can you explain it?”

  “I was asked to bid for a friend. I didn’t really know it was wrong.”

  “Have you ever owned a painting by Parrish Maxfield?” said Agent Crane.

  “You mean Maxfield Parrish,” said Lacey.

  “Oh yes, Maxfield Parrish.”

  “I own a print. I inherited it from my grandmother and I still have it. It’s on my wall in my apartment if you want to see it.”

  “I might like to see it,” replied Parks. “You can give me your contact information.”

  “We looked at the tape recently,” Tanya said. “It’s a definite move. It’s clear. And it’s clear you’re cooperating. It’s clear, Daniel. It’s clear.” Then she looked down at her plate before I could. Her eyes moistened, and she stayed bowed.

  “I checked your paddle number: 286 was registered to Neal Walker. How did you get a paddle?”

  “The paddle was arranged.”

  “I know how rigorous we are. Arranged how?”

  “Tanya, I thought it wasn’t much. Afterwards, I found out it was worse than I thought.”

  “Tell me.”

  I told her what I knew: “I was told to stop bidding when Lacey leaned forward.”

  This information made her face go slack. She got up and left the restaurant, but unfortunately she wasn’t angry. She was finished with me.

  56.

  AGENT PARKS came to Lacey’s apartment around seven p.m., in the middle of New York’s deep winter darkness. He came alone, without Crane, which was fine with Lacey because she knew this was both an investigation and a date. She guessed he was an all-American boy with a dirty side, and she guessed that an affair with him would put a legal end to this annoying stumble. Someone investigating her seduced her? It certainly could be implied that the seducer would have a conflict of interest, though of course it would be Lacey who would be in charge of the seducing. All this did cross her mind, in fact, but here is the fine point on Lacey’s sexual conduct: She never did it for gain, only for excitement. The promise of sex was what she did for gain.

  She took Agent Parks into the bedroom to show him the Parrish print. She told him the story of its acquisition.

  “How long has it been in the family?” he asked.

  “Eighty, eighty-five years.”

  He looked at it; she could tell he did not know how to look at a print. He might be on the art squad, but he was not an art person. He left the bedroom after glancing around, and Lacey followed him into the living room.

  “Sit?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “So what do you think of all this leaning forward stuff, Miss Yeager?”

  “If you call me by my first name, I’ll call you by your first name.”

  “Bob.”

  “Lacey.” Then she said, “Take a look at that tape. I’ll bet at the same moment there are people coughing, scratching their ears, tapping their chests.”

  “Who’s the guy? Bidder 286. Neal Walker.”

  “I’m supposed to know bidders; it was my job. But I don’t know Neal Walker. Would you like a cocktail?”

  57.

  I WILL TAKE YOU back six years:

  “When I lean forward, you stop bidding.”

  That’s what Lacey told me to do. It seemed like a crime in the negative. It seemed untraceable, not provable. We sat in a restaurant, drinking Kirs, and she was all but hanging out of her dress, which reminded me of when I slept with her. But that was so long ago, and even though I was unattached at the moment, I still maintained to myself that she was an object of human, not sexual, interest.

  “I will be giving out the paddles; you come up to me, tell me your name: Neal Walker. I’ll check the list and give you one. You might not even have to bid at all; there could easily be other bidders. As soon as the action starts, I’ll move to the podiums in front to be a spotter. When I’m standing, you bid. When I lean forward, you stop.”

  “What if I get stuck with the picture?”

  “You won’t.”

  This seemed to me like an art world game, a mystery of sorts, and Lacey was convincing and fun. So I went to the auction and Lacey gave me a paddle. I sat through the auction for about forty-five minutes. Finally, the Parrish came up. And when Lacey leaned forward, I stopped bidding. She had never once looked at me.

  After the sale, there was a phone message waiting: “Call me.” I did. “Come over,” she said. She was jubilant. “Let’s take X.”

  “Not for me, Lacey.”

  “Come over anyway, we’ll celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  I walked up the steps of her 12th Street apartment. “It’s open,” she shouted when I knocked. I came in and she locked the door behind me. She handed me a check for one thousand dollars.

  “What’s this for?” I said.

  “For helping,” she said.

  “Did I break the law?”

  “No, darlin’, you helped an old friend. There’s no law against that.” I kept the check because I needed it.

  Then she opened her fist and revealed two small pills with pentagrams etched in them. “This could be so much fun,” she said.

  “Lacey, I’m spooked by drugs. You take it. I’ll watch the floor show.”

  I didn’t know much about the effects of the drug, its duration, its downside. But Lacey made me promise not to leave without her okay. She opened a bottle of wine, but she took none. She poured me a glass of red, then picked up the tiny pill between her fingers, clinked my glass with it, and swallowed it down. She pulled the sheers closed, darkening the room by half, and threw a towel over the lamp, darkening the room further. Then the winter sun dropped so fast that the room went blue.

  Lacey walked the two steps to the kitchen. “Do you want a sandwich?”

>   “Yes,” I said, and she quickly prepared a deli-worthy pile of ingredients, including tomato and mozzarella, that looked as good as a food section photograph. While she worked, I asked, “So what happened today?”

  She turned to me, exaggerated a shrug, and spoke in the voice of Minnie Mouse: “I dunno, Mickey.” As she put the last slice of brown bread on the stack, she paused and said, “Oh,” her movements slowing down perceptibly. She took a breath and walked the plate over to me, handing it off. Standing in place, she closed her eyes, raising her right arm and moving it through the air as though she were hearing and conducting a Satie étude.

  Then she walked over to her bed and lay down, staring out through the sheers of the window, not saying a word. Sometimes she would sigh deeply, shift, or feel her face. I sat in her only upholstered chair and watched as she drifted through an internal space. I thought of the Warhol movie Sleep, in which he filmed someone sleeping for eight hours. I saw it as a gung ho college student and remembered how the slightest movement of the sleeping man had the same impact as a plot twist in The Maltese Falcon. When Lacey moved, I was fascinated.

  The drug began to affect me, too. It was as though it seeped through Lacey’s skin and emanated into the local ether. I, too, was happy not to move, and eventually I realized that an hour had passed since Lacey had lain down.

  She began to make an occasional noise, like someone reacting to a dream. I could tell she was watching an internal drama, sometimes speaking to the characters, saying, “no,” or, “I didn’t.” Her eyes opened and she looked at the ceiling, blinked once or twice, and then closed them again. She was seeing something or reliving something. Then she turned her head and looked at me.

  “You are such a good friend,” she said.

  “You are, too,” I said. Though I know now that the statement was incorrect, at the moment it seemed like an eternal truth.

  “Come over…” And she made room on the bed for me. The invitation was delivered with a love that was neither romantic nor sisterly, but some other kind of love discovered in the moment, one of the least complicated invocations of caring I had ever witnessed. I walked to the bed and lay down next to her. She snuggled into me, holding my arm the way a child holds a teddy, burying her face between my shoulder and the bed.