by Graham Adams
As he sat in the back of his taxi heading for De Gaulle Airport, he just couldn’t help feeling excited. For once there was a chance that someone else could be helping to complete the huge task in front of him, and without a doubt the disposals would be done correctly.
As she breezed through customs he remembered how pretty she was. Although she was about ten years older than he was, her self-assured persona came through loudly and her smile, when she spotted him, filled him with delight. He took the suitcase from her and it was heavy.
She looked at him and asked. ‘I’m not staying just for one night, am I Victor?’
He opened the front door of the building and they entered the panelled hall. She just said ‘Wow’ as they climbed the staircases, and looked at the French tapestry on the walls. Her eyes widened even more as he opened the apartment door.
‘This is impressive Victor, what rent do you pay for this place?’ She asked.
‘Well Leah, I don’t pay anything, and when we have lunched somewhere nice, I’m sure that you will understand why it is free.’
‘How many bedrooms do you have darling?’ Leah asked as she threw her long arms around him. She had taken her shoes off to push her toes into the thick cream carpet.
‘Do you want to freshen up?’ He held the bathroom door open and she surveyed the marble floor and the gold plated fitments.
She rushed in and closed the door after she shouted, ‘just five minutes darling!’
Victor was shocked when she emerged in just a short time, ready to do lunch. He asked her if she wanted a ‘posh nosh’ or his favourite café along the boulevard. She knew it was a weighted question so she did what he suggested, and went for the local café, saying that was good enough for her. After their dinner it was good to relax with no time limits on them. They gently walked back to his apartment and his pretty guest put her arm though his, as if they were an old couple.
‘If you were to accept what I am going to offer you, what would you do about your current, job Leah?’ he inquired
‘I have been at Bonham’s for a long time, and sometimes it feels like I’m a piece of furniture. I think that I need a new challenge, and I hope that this could be just what I’m looking for.’ Leah answered.
Victor tried to outline the sort of people that he was currently working for. There was a particular accent on secrecy, and he had to admit to her that that level of secrecy had recently got to him, and that was one of the reasons why he had requested for her to be involved in the project. He passed her the complete catalogue of the items stored and explained that although he had had very little time, he had been able to describe and value most of them. Before he went for a bath, he asked her to read the list and, where possible, mark the prices with a tick if she agreed, and with the green pen, write the amount if she felt it should be higher and with a red pen if it should be lower.
An hour later he emerged from the bathroom, and she was in the kitchen brewing some coffee. He sat and looked at her assessment. Three quarters of the items had a tick on them, and only two had a red figure. He had a smile on his face as Leah passed him his fresh coffee. ‘Good news darling?’ she asked.
‘Yes, for two reasons. First, it looks as if my figures were pretty ok, and secondly, and more importantly, it means that the real auction price has a good chance to be higher than them.’
‘Why does that matter Victor?’ She asked, as she sat close beside him on the couch.
He explained that the only way that his employer was going to agree to take her on was if they shared the commission that had been arranged. She looked puzzled. He explained that the principals had offered that he could take one percentage of any auction sale value that had exceeded his estimate.
‘Say that Matisse on the list.’ He said, pointing halfway down the first page. ‘I have estimated as you can see, eight million pounds, and you have estimated ten.’
The penny suddenly dropped with Leah, and she could easily calculate that a substantial sum of money could be involved if they did a good job. He gave her a kiss and she put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. ‘Are you interested, Leah, so far?’ he asked.
‘Interested?’ she opened his dressing gown and looked down. ‘Of course I’m interested!’
The next morning early they were waiting for their car. Levka was driving the big Renault and that pleased Victor, and Levka didn’t look too unhappy about it either as Leah gave him a smile that would have brought the sun out. She was wearing a tight pencil skirt with a matching coat over a white open blouse.
‘A treat is in store for the guards as well.’ he said quietly to himself, smiling.
Levka, ever the gentleman ran around the car and opened the door for Leah, the sight of a generous rear walking in front of him towards the warehouse was as good as a fried breakfast for him. Victor smiled to himself as he watched Levka’s face, as he never missed a jiggle.
Just before they reached the side door of the huge building, the four guards appeared. They virtually fought each other to open the door for her, and she made the best of it as she gingerly touched the barrels of their automatic weapons as she walked by. The Russians all stayed in the little office, no doubt taking note of their new visitor, as Victor opened the inner door leading to the cavernous treasure trove. He passed her the list and let her wander down the generous isles, stopping here and there to look closely at some of the items. She looked back at Victor and he quickly joined her. Well, Leah darling what’s your first impression?’
‘Did you sort all this out for them?’ she asked.
‘Well, I got some help with the carrying, but the organisation of it was all mine,’ he answered her smiling. ‘What I want from you, Leah is to tell me how long it would take to shift this lot. Remember the principal doesn’t want us to use London or Paris auction houses.’
This was why Victor had made the right choice in asking Leah to partner him. She was able to make the impossible into the achievable. He left her to look around and indicated to her to take her time, although he had told her that he needed her best estimate that day so he could tell Mikhail.
He left her alone and walked into the office to speak with the guards. He kept his eyes on her as she made her way back, but suddenly stopped just before the office door. She noticed the small amount of objects in a sort of quarantine area. Leah looked down the list that she had, and found them under the heading of ‘UNKNOWN’. She called Victor out of the office and he joined her as she was holding a painting up and looking at it carefully.
‘You can’t identify this?’ she asked him.
‘Maybe I would have, but I had only one week to catalogue and value the rest of them.’ He waved his arm as if he was scanning the whole display.
The young woman could see that he was a little self-conscious about it, so she put her arms around his waist and kissed him fully on the lips. She then looked over his shoulder and saw the guards standing in a row at the window grinning at them In defiance she then squeezed his bottom, which only made them laugh out loud and point. Victor of course heard them and pulled away embarrassed.
‘Erm, sorry Victor, I felt sorry for you my little er.. Big boy, she giggled to herself. Changing the subject, she then asked him how long he would give her to complete her report that day.
‘Take as long as you need, and by the way please don’t do that again in front of the Russians, OK?’
‘Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.’ She said, coyly. ‘I really want to get on with my estimate now Victor, so you go and get some fresh air for an hour and I’ll see you then.’
He looked at his watch it was nearly lunchtime so he decided to ask Levka to get some lunch for all of them and pick up some of his favourite Stella beer. All the guards cheered when they heard about the beer.
‘And what shall I get for the lady, Victor?’ Levka asked.
‘It’s the same for Leah. Here’s two hundred and don’t forget the receipt this time.’
He walked to the centr
e of the cavernous area where she was standing, and quickly told her that a baguette and beer lunch would be ready in half an hour. She looked at him and spoke quietly.
‘The ten items over there, I can tell you are worth next to nothing. A couple of forgeries badly done, a sculptured head in soapstone done by an amateur, and the bronze, well, it’s another rubbish copy of an Art Deco standard. In all, if I were you I would dump them.’
Victor smiled at her and gripped her hand. ‘Now Leah, you are a very clever woman, far cleverer than I by a long way.’ He pulled her close and looked into her eyes. ‘You are a terrible liar darling.’ She looked a bit downtrodden and hurt just for a moment.
‘Victor OK, you guessed right, but what I have to tell you cannot be told here. But before we go in for lunch I want to show you something.’
She picked up one of the pictures, and with her back to the men in the office, she pointed to a small number on the canvas back of it. ‘After lunch I will assess all of the rest of the items, it will be very thorough including how long it will take to shift them, and where the best auction houses are where we can get the best prices for them.’ Then we will talk about these other ten items at the apartment, where there are no prying eyes or ears.’ She smiled meekly, and he looked relieved.
Levka had done them proud for the two hundred Euros he had been given. He even had a pretty paper tablecloth for the desk and some plastic half litre glasses. Victor was so impressed with Levka, he slapped him on the back and even Leah proposed a toast to his ingenuity.
They arrived back at the apartment just after four in the afternoon. A relatively a short day, but Leah had worked flat out to get the task complete, and Victor was proud of her. They sat with a bottle of Lanson Black Label as she read out her findings, which he transferred onto his laptop creating a new file from the original and then adding her finding alongside each entry.
He wanted this report to be a masterpiece for Mikhail’s eyes, so Leah tidied the presentation up for him, making it more eye catching. At seven they had finished, just in time for Victor to ring the special mobile number, and he was pleased to hear Mikhail’s voice after the first ring. Then another stroke of fortune, he said that he wanted to see them both, on the same night at Victor’s local café at ten thirty, promising to buy dinner. Leah was ecstatic, she was now going to get her best ‘glad rags’ on to show off to Victor’s principal.
‘My darling Leah, slow down. Yes the person you are about to meet tonight is a very important man in this city of Paris, but there is a problem. I told you last night that my principal is a very secretive man, and when it comes to meeting us, make that fanatically so. He will arrive in disguise, and would not thank us if we arrived at the café all ‘poshed up’ so to say.’ I mean that we are to be in ‘Street clothes, do you get my drift Leah?’
Victor waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come from her. She pulled him off the couch. ‘Before we meet your mystery man we need to get clean, I suggest together, to save time, are you up for it? ’She asked, dragging him into the bathroom. He looked a little puzzled at first, but then he realised that getting clean could never have been more pleasurable, and he closed the bathroom door to muffle the sound.
Leah chose Victor’s clothes for that night. She wore tight jeans and a sloppy grey jumper: - very Left Bank. He wore his black cords and leather motorbike jacket over a black T shirt: - very right wing.
They were waiting at a far corner table in sight of the café entrance. The only person to arrive was wearing a white baseball cap with ‘I love NYC emblazoned on it. Leah ignored him as she hated baseball caps anyway, so she carried on watching the door. The ‘baseball cap’ walked straight up and, to Leah’s horror sat at their table.
‘Do you know who I am little chick?’‘ The man said in a deep voice.
‘I’m not your chick; so piss off. Can’t you see that we are waiting for someone?’ She shouted straight in his face.
Victor softly squeezed her arm, and she turned around still angry. He then smiled and nodded at Mikhail. Leah put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh no, is it you?’ Mikhail nodded and gave her a grin. ‘I would have never in a million years have guessed.’ Leah gasped again.
Victor thought that was a great start to the evening and he stood up and shook the Russian’s hand. Leah looked totally shocked but leaned over to him and gave him a kiss as an apology.
‘Does she know who I am Victor?’ he asked.
‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’ Victor waved his hand at Leah.
‘Are you a famous actor or something like that? If you are, sorry I still don’t recognise you.’ She said to him. Mikhail touched her hand and said that he was pleased with the outcome of their first meeting, and that his confidence in Victor had also taken a boost.
They had a wonderful meal of pure French cuisine and ate the best of everything, including two bottles of Bollinger. Mikhail paid in cash and gave Victor the receipt. The young man brought out the laptop from his bag and opened up the new file that they had created earlier. Mikhail pulled out a small device and copied the file over to it. ‘How long are you staying over in Paris, Miss Owen?’ he asked.
‘That depends on you sir.’ Leah reverted to a business mode.
‘Levka will bring you my answer in the morning, so I bid you both goodnight.’ They all stood around the table, the men shook hands and Mikhail gave her a soft kiss on the cheek.
As the café door closed Leah looked at Victor. ‘Totally amazing darling, I feel like Pussy Galore.’ Victor spluttered and laughed out loud. ‘I mean in the James Bond film you idiot!’ She screamed at him, and then they both laughed all the way back to the apartment. It had been a stressful day for both of them and even at that late stage, they were not sure if Leah had passed her test. As they lay in bed she had her head on his chest and began to tell Victor her story.
She began with her father, Louis Owen; he had had a very strange upbringing. Her grandmother died giving birth to him, and he was only a teenager when her grandfather left to live in Provence with his new wife. In his early twenties he discovered that he was half Jewish, and that his ancestor was an Alsatian Jew, who disappeared during the Second World War and was last seen in Paris in 1939.
Leah explained the attitude that the Nazi invaders of France had to all Jews. She detailed especially the huge ethnic cleansing, Europe-wide carried out in Hitler’s final solution. True to the Germanic way, everything that they plundered was numbered and recorded somewhere. There was a special bureau in Amsterdam that matched many of the numbers and by the time they were talking, thousands of Jewish owned works of art had been repatriated, however there was still a long way to go.
So many Jews had been murdered and there had been so few survivors. She told Victor that when her great, great grandfather lived in the Jewish quarter in Paris, he owned an antique shop, and of course was a target for the Nazis.
‘If you are saying that the numbers on those items belonged to your relative, why would he collect such rubbish as you call them Leah?’ Victor asked.
‘There was a story handed down though the family, that there could be something hidden in one of those paintings that could blow our socks off, but at this stage we must not breathe a word about it.’ She whispered in his ear. She felt his body stiffen and sensed the fear in his breathing.
The next morning they waited patiently on the pavement outside their apartment building for the appearance of the dependable Levka, their driver. Gazing out of the Renault’s window however was a new face.
‘Where is Levka?’ Victor asked.
‘He is not well today, I come instead’, he answered in broken English. ‘Get inside.’
‘Do you have a letter for me?’ Victor asked him.
‘This, you mean.’ The driver passed him the sealed envelope. The seal was stamped and had the mark ’M’ written on the stamped seal.
‘Please wait a moment; this letter needs to be read before we accompany you.’ Victor regained his authorit
y and ripped open the seal and opened up the letter inside, as Leah looked over his shoulder trying to get a good view.
‘It looks like we are go, Miss Owen.’ Louis smiled as they got into the back seat of the Renault, and he showed her the letter for her to read herself.
‘What is this list of five numbers at the bottom? What do they mean Victor?’ she asked.
‘It means that we are to select five items, allocate each one of them one of these numbers, and get them to auction as soon as we can. Each number has to follow its item wherever it goes.’
Organisation was the key to success, they were both aware of that, and there was nothing more certain. They had to impress the principal with the first consignment, more than anything else. Victor left Leah to choose the first five, whilst he and Boris, the new driver went in search of good bubble wrap and strong labels. When they returned, Leah had chosen her first five; two impressive Chinese ceramics of the Ming period, one Etruscan bust and two heavy gold necklaces thought to come from Arsinoe, the wife of Ptolemy of Egypt around 275 BC. Leah had great hopes for them. She picked Milan for the consignment as she knew the senior partner there and trusted him to look after their interests.
They stuck three separate stickers on each item, then one on the interior wrapping and finally one to the DHL box that it was packaged in. She chose DHL as the preferred carrier as a year ago she had had an affair with the European director, who left her to return to his wife, so she felt that it was a favour that needed to be called in.
Their luck continued, as although the specialist auction was to be held in a week’s time, the auction house had not finalised the printing of the brochure, so they were able to get all five them included. Victor thought that Mikhail was impressed with Leah’s timescale for complete disposal in three months, and the notion that he could be a billion pounds richer in that timescale must have swayed his decision. Victor let Mikhail know the situation with Milan, and not wanting to hold anything up; he sent another fifty bank account numbers the next day.