by Lind, Hailey
“Anyway, enough about me. Getting back to you. Annette thinks you’re using Josh.”
“What?” I asked, twisting in my seat for a better view. Had Billy Mudd just walked by with Cindy’s thesis adviser?
“To avoid getting involved with your landlord.”
Must have been my imagination. How would those two even know each other?
I turned back to Bryan. “Let me get this straight. Annette won’t talk to me, but she’s happy to discuss my love life with you?”
Bryan shrugged, his dark, espresso-colored eyes radiating innocence. “She hasn’t exactly met him, but from what she’s heard, she’s not so sure about this Josh person.”
“Bryan, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go,” I said, leaping up. “We’ll finish this discussion later.”
Chapter 11
The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.
—Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), American painter
The public history of modern artists is the story of mostly conventional people attempting to be unconventional. —Georges LeFleur
The moment I stepped into the street I was swallowed up by the surging crowd. I hopped up and down and stood on tiptoe, and at one point thought I spied Billy’s platinum-blond head, but by the time I had pushed through the throng and climbed onto a bench for a better view he was nowhere to be seen.
“Annie!” Bryan caught up with me. “I had no idea you were so sensitive, baby doll. Not another word about Josh, I promise.”
“It’s not that. I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Everything okay, sugar?”
“Yeah. I think so. Everything’s fine, but I’ve really got to go.”
I left Bryan chatting up a family from Dubuque as they waited in the queue at the turn-of-the-century carousel on Pier Thirty-nine. My enthusiasm for the tourist’s San Francisco did not include blaring calliope music, and besides, I had a masterpiece to track down.
First, though, I decided to drop in on an old acquaintance. I got the number from Directory Assistance, and his receptionist assured me he would be in the office until four o’clock. Firing up the truck, I headed to the office of Dr. Sebastian Pitts, art authenticator to the stars.
Years ago Pitts had unwittingly certified as genuine several of my teenage forgeries, and for this service earned my grandfather’s eternal scorn. Georges besmirched Pitts’ career at London’s Remington Museum by writing an article documenting Pitts’ numerous professional errors, and Pitts returned the favor a few years later by engineering my dismissal from an internship at the Brock Museum, derailing my bid to become a legitimate art restorer. Since then he and I had butted heads on more than a few occasions, and we both walked away with headaches.
I braked at the corner of Taylor and Washington and waited for a packed cable car to clear the intersection. Passengers hung from the sides of the car, snapping photographs and shouting the Rice-A-Roni jingle. It was corny, but it made me laugh. Maybe Bryan was on to something with his tourist’s view of San Francisco. Maybe I should have joined him on the carousel instead of dropping in on someone who had caused me so much grief.
Sebastian Pitts had left the Brock Museum’s employ to open his own art authentication business on Geary, off Union Square. Fortunately for the supercilious British sycophant, art was a wide-open business in which the “experts” incurred little or no penalty for giving bad advice. It was legal to sell some sucker a three-dollar, garage sale painting as a four-hundred-thousand-dollar Paul Klee as long as the expert could reasonably claim to have believed it to be genuine.As Frank DeBenton once told me, when it came to purchasing a van Gogh on eBay—or anywhere else—the law of the land was caveat emptor.
I left my truck at the Ellis-O’Farrell Garage, walked three blocks to Pitts’ office building, and took the stairs to the fourth floor, hoping to mitigate the effects of yesterday’s samosas and today’s sourdough extravanganza. Panting, I paused at the landing to admire the hallway’s travertine marble floor and barrel-vaulted ceiling and the French plaster finish in a sublime shade of bisque. I had used the technique on half a dozen living rooms in chichi homes in the Berkeley hills and had charged through the nose for each one, in part because the process was so time-consuming to apply, but also because my grandfather had taught me long ago that rich people don’t value anything unless it costs them dearly.
The rents in this building must be astronomical, I thought. Pitts was moving up in the world.
Just beyond the men’s room I spied WINDSOR ART AP-PRAISALS—DR. SEBASTIAN PITTS, PHD, ESQUIRE stenciled in gold on the frosted glass of a closed office door. A woman in her twenties rested her pen on her cherry-wood desk and smiled at me as I entered.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” she said, her blinding white teeth framed by ruby-red lips. Her straight brown hair was parted on the side and swept her shoulders in a fashionable flip. She must have emptied an entire can of hair spray on it this morning because not a single hair was out of place, and when she moved her head the flip swung in a coordinated fashion. I watched, fascinated. Those of us with naturally curly hair found stick-straight hair intriguing. “How may I help you?”
“I’m Annie Kincaid. I’m here to see Sebastian Pitts, if he’s free.”
“Certainly, ma’am.” She picked up the phone. “Dr. Pitts, an Annie Kincaid is here to see you.” She turned away from me, ducked her head, and lowered her voice. “No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I’m positive. She said ‘Annie Kincaid.’ ”
The receptionist set the phone down and gave me a curious look. “Dr. Pitts will be right with you, ma’am. May I get you something? Tea? Gingersnaps?”
“No, thank you.”
“I just brewed a pot of excellent Earl Grey. It’s wonderful with fresh organic milk.”
Yuck. “I’m fine, thanks.”
I settled into a soft ecru leather sofa, picked up a copy of Burke’s Peerage from a side table, and skimmed lists of the Queen of England’s third cousins twice removed. What’s the deal with the anglophilia? I wondered. San Franciscans, like other Americans, were not immune to the appeal of a British accent, but in general we were rabid antimonarchists.
The receptionist’s telephone buzzed. “Dr. Pitts will see you now, ma’am. It’s down the hall and to the right.”
Feeling as if I were about to have blood drawn, I shuffled along a Persian wool floor runner to a closed office door. When I touched the brass handle I received a small shock. It seemed a fitting metaphor.
“Why, Annie Kincaid,” Sebastian Pitts oozed as he rose from his oversized leather desk chair. Five feet six inches tall, Pitts was round and pasty, with muddy brown hair, shaggy eyebrows, and crooked yellow teeth. He was dressed in an exquisitely tailored three-piece gray suit, but he still reminded me of the snake-oil salesmen of yore. “I could scarcely credit it when my girl told me you were waiting.”
“Nice digs you’ve got here, Sebastian. I see you’re doing well.”
“Indeed. Indeed, I am. Please, won’t you have a seat?”
Pitts’ affability tweaked my antenna. Our interactions had never been even remotely civil. What was he up to?
I took a seat in a wingback chair and faced Pitts across the broad expanse of his antique walnut partners desk.
“I don’t understand the name, though. Why Windsor Art Appraisals?”
Pitts smiled. “An old family name.”
Not his family name, I thought, but it beat Pitts’ Art Appraisals, hands down.
“I was surprised to learn you’d left the Brock Museum,” I said.
“It was not an easy decision, no, not easy at all, but one must follow one’s destiny, mustn’t one? I approached Mrs. Brock late last year with the idea of striking out on my own. She was most encouraging, of course. Such a dear, dear woman. I am proud to count her among my closest friends and supporters. She agreed that what this city needs is a really top-flight art expert, someone to encourage the developm
ent of private art collections in the homes of our finest citizens.”
“Can’t argue with you there.” Too bad the city doesn’t have one yet.
“As I was saying to the governor just the other day, the chief obstacle to the creation of a respectable amateur art collection by private citizens such as yourself, my dear, is a dearth of knowledge on rarified topics,” he continued with what I suspected was his scripted sales pitch. If the name-dropping fool thought to sell me something, he was plumb out of luck. Even if I had money to invest in art, why would I? If I wanted to hang a masterpiece in my apartment, I would just forge one.
“As I said to my close, personal friend the mayor, we in Northern California are blessed with an abundance of natural and man-made wealth,” he droned on, “and we owe it to ourselves—indeed, we owe it to future generations—to grow it.”
“Grow what?”
“The wealth.”
“What about art?”
“That, too.”
“Sebastian—you don’t mind if I call you Sebastian, do you?—I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”
Pitts leaned back in his chair and smiled like the Cheshire cat. “I am simply saying, Annie, that in my new venture I perform a public service by assisting clients in cultivating a love of beauty. And despite what you and your grandfather may think, I do have a trained artistic eye. Oh, perhaps I am not as gifted as others—never let it be said that Dr. Sebastian Pitts, Esquire, is not a modest man—but I like to think I’ve learned a little something over the years. Not the least through my various run-ins with those of your ilk.”
“I have an ilk?”
Pitts winked and I repressed a shudder.
“You know of whom I speak, Annie. Your grandfather is an amazing man.”
“We agree at last.”
His smile faltered for a moment; then, having decided I was joking, he chortled. “Ah. Aha! Still the same old Annie. Quick with the quips.”
“My ilk’s like that. We’re the quicker quipper uppers.”
“Just so,” he said, looking confused. He leaned forward.
“May I confess something, Annie?”
“Sure, why not? My good friend the archbishop says confession’s good for the soul.”
“Over the years we’ve had our little, er, ‘professional disagreements, ’ shall we say? But because of you, I’ll never look at Old Master drawings the same way. ‘Credit where credit is due’ has always been my motto.”
Dr. Sebastian Pitts, once my sworn enemy, was acknowledgingnot only my talent but my grandfather’s as well? Was this some sort of trap? Was Pitts wearing a wire?
Calm down, Annie, I scolded myself. No FBI agent in his right mind would recruit Pitts. Maybe he had mellowed. Maybe, in his new line of work, he’d realized I was no threat to him. Maybe he’d contracted a brain-eating virus. I decided to accept his olive branch, but to keep my eyes open.
“I, uh, thank you, Sebastian. That’s very kind of you to say.”
“You’re welcome. So. Annie Kincaid. What brings you here today?”
“Do you recall assessing a painting for Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes a few years ago?”
He nodded. “I did it as a favor to Mrs. Brock. She asked me to help out a friend of hers, the wealthy philanthropist Aaron Garner.”
As world-famous cities went, San Francisco was not large, so I was not surprised that Aaron Garner ran in the same circles as Agnes Brock. After all, Frank DeBenton knew the same people through his business ventures and charity balls and such. Still, it was disconcerting to realize that so many of my patrons—and enemies—were connected. It reminded me that I might have to change my name and relocate one day.
“Do you remember your findings?” I asked.
“It was what it claimed to be—a copy of La Fornarina by a minor English painter. Can’t remember the name right off.”
“Crispin Engels.”
“That’s it. I saw immediately the painting was a charming, albeit maladroit effort.” He fixed me with a piercing stare. “Please don’t tell me your grandfather painted it.”
“Certainly not,” I sniffed. “Did you conduct a fiber or paint flake analysis?”
He shook his head.
“X-ray diffraction, or fluorescence, maybe?”
“They weren’t necessary. It was clearly labeled a copy, and the provenance was in order. The only mystery was why the columbarium bothered having it assessed in the first place. I had the sense the old woman pushed for it.”
“You mean Mrs. Brock?”
Now he looked offended. “Don’t be absurd. I am referring to some secretary at the columbarium. Why Roy Cogswell listened to her is beyond me. She was a pushy old broad.”
So much for Pitts’ mellowing.
“Not like the lovely Helena . . .” He trailed off, a faraway look in his eyes.
“Helena the cemetery docent? You know her?”
“We met that day, and our paths have since crossed from time to time. A magnificent woman. Tortured, alas. She lost her only child in an automobile accident, you know. Tragic. Simply tragic. I wonder, have you heard if she ever got her house with a view of her son’s grave and the bay?”
“I have no idea.”
“Money wasn’t a problem, that’s for sure. Mr. Garner could afford the best.”
“Why would Aaron Garner buy Helena a house?”
He looked surprised. “It is customary for a husband to provide a home for his wife.”
“But she’s married to Dick Somebody. He’s a doctor.”
“She remarried after she and Garner split. You didn’t know? Helena was Garner’s first wife. It was their son who died. I was able to mitigate her maternal grief somewhat by acquiring for her the rarest of treasures, an original Tim O’Neill landscape of cottages nestled in a verdant valley. Perhaps you’ve seen it? Helena hung it in the cemetery offices. How typical of her to wish to share such beauty with others.”
“You bought her the O’Neill?”
“Oh-ho! I’m afraid my pockets are not that deep. Aaron Garner paid for it, but I arranged for the extremely rare purchase of an original. O’Neill is a close, personal acquaintance of mine.”
“But, Sebastian, Tim O’Neill mass-produces posters that he calls paintings,” I protested.
“He’s one of our most successful modern artists,” Pitts pointed out. “Let’s please refrain from the old debate about what is art and what is illustration. Why, even the great Norman Rockwell—”
“But O’Neill signs his work with ink mixed with drops of his blood! He hires artists to dab ‘highlights’ on posters and charges thousands of dollars! He—”
Noting the disapproving look in Pitts’ eyes, I caught myself. “But as you say, they sure are pretty,” I added lamely.
A grandfather clock chimed. I needed a drink.
“Allow me to take you out for a cocktail, my dear,” Pitts gushed as he stood up and came around the desk, and I wondered if Pitts and I were on the same wavelength. Had the earth tilted on its axis? “We’ll toast our new friendship and let bygones be bygones. Have you ever considered going into the business of art authentication? Why, with your unique, er, talents and my client list, we could do very well. Very well indeed.”
“I don’t know, Sebastian,” I said, rising from my chair. “I usually talk people out of buying things.”
“There’s a good deal more money to be made in selling art than in rejecting art, Annie. Why don’t you think about it? Come, let’s talk over spirits.”
Looping his pudgy arm through mine, Sebastian Pitts escorted me downstairs and over two blocks to Wolfgang Puck’s Postrio Restaurant. There we enjoyed a drink called an Agnes Road made of ice-cold vodka, lime juice, and cranberry juice, shaken like a martini. By the time we were on our third, I was considering taking Pitts up on his business offer. As my grandfather always said, Work smart, not hard, chérie.
Georges said this as part of hi
s campaign to convince me to follow in his felonious forging footsteps. All things considered, I preferred an occupation that didn’t include the risk of spending one’s golden years as a guest of the state.
Chapter 12
This painting, this work that you mourn for, is the cause of many griefs and troubles.
—Berthe Morissot (1841-1895), French painter
Art is but a soap opera rendered in pigment.
—Georges LeFleur
“When’s the last time you spent a sunny Sunday in Golden Gate Park?” Bryan demanded over the phone too early the next morning.
I groaned, snuggled deeper under the covers, and regretted not turning the damned contraption off last night.
“None of that, now,” Bryan chastised. “Up and at ’em!”
“Bite me.”
“Aren’t we Miss Grumpy Pants in the morning? Rise and shine!”
“I need my beauty sleep.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you that a dose of fresh air won’t cure, baby doll. Besides . . .” Bryan paused dramatically. “Annette will be there. It’s the perfect chance for you two to make up.”
I opened my eyes. “It’s against my principles to sell out to the Man,” I grumbled.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Okay, it’s against my principles to sell out to the Woman.”
Bryan snorted. “You know you want to, sweet cheeks. Don’t even try to tell me you haven’t missed her. You and I both know you need all the friends you can get in law enforcement.”
I hesitated, tempted.
“C’mon, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!” Bryan sang. “We’ll picnic on the grass and frolic in the sunshine.”
“Annette agreed to picnic and frolic?” Annette struck me more as the champagne-brunch-at-Chez-Panisse type.
“Get your carcass out of bed, missy, and meet us at the concession stand at Stow Lake. Elevenish. I’ve packed the food and wine, so you don’t need to worry about a thing.”
I sighed. “All right. But if Annette is mean to me, I’ll make you pay.”