Cheyney Fox (36 page)
Authors: Roberta Latow
Cheyney’s role had been simplicity itself. The only risk she ran was of not being convincing with her husband and Semanan.
An hour before Kurt was to embark with Helmut and Semanan on their cruise up the Nile, Cheyney persuaded Kurt to change places with her. He would take her place on a three-day camel safari in the vicinity of Luxor, with Taggart and four chums who were at that very moment on their way in from Cairo. That had been the easy part. The look on Semanan’s face when she and her luggage appeared on the launch and Kurt explained the change of plan was black but controlled. Then Kurt announced that he and Cheyney would change places in Luxor, and she would ride back down the other side of the Nile and home with the boys, while he would complete the trip with Semanan and Helmut to Abu
Simbel. A modicum of Semanan’s anger subsided at this. Kurt seemed unaware of the tension the change had caused. Not so Cheyney.
Her blood chilled when he said, in his most charming but decidedly cold manner, “Charmed as I am by this change, I wish you had consulted me on it. I am loath to change plans already established. You both know that. It always puts me on guard, makes me suspicious, upsets my plans. This once, but please, never again.”
Cheyney thought her knees were going to buckle. His words made her anxious. The suspicious look in his eye, his moist fleshy lips on her fingers when he kissed her hand and raised his head and gazed at her. It was easy to read vengeance into that look.
They proceeded up the Nile. Always keeping in the center of the river and flanked by two open speedboats, six armed men in each, patrolling between the cruiser and the shore. The fast motor launch was a sleek white beauty with six double master suites of rooms. A thoroughbred that brought out the villagers along the river to admire and cheer them on. Women robed and draped in black, the occasional sparkle of silver jewelry in the sun, and men in their shabby robes and turbans, and children, dancing and playing and bathing. Semanan was an excellent host and they were traversing the river at a relaxed speed. It was a chance to savor the flora and fauna and both banks.
That evening they dressed for dinner and dined on sumptuous fare: caviar, and tiny songbirds roasted in honey, and lobster, and fresh salmon. They drank cold champagne, Roederer Cristal, and listened to
Lohengrin
. And at every moment Cheyney thought the fear in her heart was going to break cover and all would be lost. He would discover her treacherous soul. He saw her to her room. She closed the door behind her, locked it, leaned against it, and actually sobbed with relief. Only then did she allow herself to whisper in the darkness, “So far so good.”
The snatch went like a typical Israeli operation. Perfectly. Except for one thing: they didn’t get their man. Semanan cheated them out of a great show trial and a noose.
On the second evening out on the river, Cheyney, Helmut,
and Semanan went on shore to visit by moonlight a small, relatively unknown temple. Cheyney’s request. It seemed all to be working too easily. She got him at the right time to the right place, and with only two bodyguards. He seemed particularly charmed by the place, and it was he who asked Helmut and the two men to return to the Cosima for champagne, glasses, and a butler, and to hurry back.
Helmut and the men had hardly disappeared from the shore when Semanan said, “They often say that love and hate are twins. I can only assume we are alone here together, Cheyney, because your hate is changing.”
There was a rustling in the tall grass between them and the Nile as it lazily lapped the shore. He stood up. They heard the sound again from another direction. The moon was not full, but extremely bright. Each could see perfectly the other’s face. Cheyney was terrified inside but outwardly controlled. Again the sound from yet another direction. She watched the change in his face. More pompous and evil than ever she had seen it.
“It would seem that I am mistaken.” With that he slapped Cheyney hard across the face. He caught her before she went down and held her by an iron grip around her throat. His last words to her were, “Answer me, madam.”
She saw the two men behind him. The cold black steel of a magnum shoved into the back of his neck. She could hear the other men, shadows in the dark.
She rasped out, “You would have killed us.”
He snatched the three-thousand-year-old gold necklace that she had bought from Mahmud from her neck. There was neither fear nor remorse in his eyes. He exuded a stench of hatred and evil when he raised his arm attempting the Nazi salute, the gold necklace dangling from his clenched fist. A hand from his captor with the magnum yanked at it to twist it behind Semanan’s back. A short, violent shudder, eyes still glaring at Cheyney, and he keeled over. A cyanide capsule under a capped tooth.
The next four years were almost ominously happy in Kurt Walbrook’s life. He had everything he ever wanted. He and Helmut inherited the entire Semanan estate. A son and heir
whom he adored and who loved and looked up to him. The wife he had so extendedly wooed, with whom he was still besotted, and who still contrived to stir and satisfy his complex sexual needs. For the first time in his life, his “magnificent obsession” (as Cheyney thought of his passion for rare works of art) came second to them. Every year with the help of Irving Kirshner, to whom he was introduced by Roberto, he returned to the world missing art treasures, but only after their provenance was substantiated. Three museums were being designed to contain the remainder of the Semanan collection.
He never learned the true circumstances of Semanan’s death. He was never to know Cheyney’s involvement with Irving Kirshner. Their young Japanese friend, Takashi Ishiguro, became an even more intimate part of their family life, variously a companion to all three of them. The Walbrook Collections kept expanding, and Kurt remained loyal to the very friends Cheyney detested. He would never at any time allow Semanan’s name to be discredited by Cheyney or anyone else. Semanan and that part of his life remained as always something formidable and to be respected by him.
Cheyney and Taggart were in Venice, for the annual meeting of the Walbrook curators. All business completed, all house guests gone (except for two of Taggart’s school friends from Austria, who were staying with them). Kurt declared it was strictly fun time. He took the boys off to explore Venice. They returned in the motor launch for Cheyney and they set off to Torcello for lunch. After a splendid meal and an extra treat — allowing the boys to drink wine — they walked over the island picking armfuls of wildflowers from the fields. They placed them in makeshift vases in the ruins of the basilica. Teased by Taggart and the other two boys, who thought it incredible that Taggart’s mother and father had been married in an ancient ruin, Cheyney and Kurt reenacted their wedding ceremony with the boys as guests. But only after the boys undid her hair and made wreaths of flowers for a headdress. Kurt and Cheyney stood exactly where they had done so nearly thirteen years before and ad-libbed a ceremony and their vows for the romantic, tipsy twelve-year-olds. But the ones most affected by their wedding were Kurt and Cheyney. Walking down the path alongside the canal to the boat that waited to whisk them back
to Venice, Kurt whispered, “We must do it again in another thirteen years.”
A dinner that evening for a few Venetian friends confirmed to Cheyney how happy Kurt seemed to be. She reveled in his happiness. In bed that night he was fiercely passionate in his lovemaking with Cheyney. His sexual ardor seemed to burn brighter than ever for her. No matter how many orgasms she had, he induced more and more from her. It was as if he sought to drown in their orgasms.
They were still under the spell of Eros long after dawn rose over the domes, towers, and rooftops of Venice. Though exhausted, there seemed to be no sleep for Kurt and Cheyney. Instead they lay quietly in each other’s arms, in one of the most splendid and luxurious bedrooms in the world, just absorbing the power and beauty of Botticelli paintings and drawings, seventeenth-century silks and damasks, furniture and mirrors, and tapestries so fine as to look like worn paintings, romantic enough to soften the hardest heart.
At seven o’clock, they recognized Taggart’s knock at the door. They smiled at each other. Cheyney rose from the bed and slipped into her dressing gown. She unlocked the door to the three pubescent youths in pajamas.
“Mom, can we have breakfast here in your room with you and Pa?”
Before she could reply, Kurt called out, “Yes,” and she opened the door and waved them in. Breakfast was strawberries, raspberries, fresh peaches, yellow melon, Parma ham, and a stack of sausage patties and scrambled eggs, hot bread and honey, and black coffee served with hot milk. The lapis lazuli table was set in front of the windows. They made their plans for the day. Taggart’s two friends disappeared to bathe and dress, and Kurt surprised them by going back to bed.
Cheyney and Taggart slipped into bed on either side of him and made a fuss of Kurt, plumping cushions. Taggart smoothed back his father’s hair with his fingers. The sun streaming in the room seemed to cast a special light on the Botticelli painting confronting them from across the room. Kurt seemed unusually quiet, very still.
“It’s your favorite painting of them all, isn’t it, Pa?”
“Yes, it’s the one that I covet the most, my favorite. But
not the one I am most proud of owning.” He placed an arm around Cheyney’s shoulders and said, “I think the proudest moment in all my art life was when we were at the opening of my gallery for Acton Pace paintings. And as I get older, it’s those paintings, the abstract expressions of oblivion, that excite me the most. Maybe one day I might get to love them more than my Botticelli. And that, Taggart, is all thanks to your mother.”
He kissed Cheyney on the shoulder of her silk dressing gown and asked Taggart to fetch him another cup of coffee. Still with his arm around Cheyney, he leaned back against the pillows. Before he closed his eyes, Cheyney saw him look up at the Botticelli and smile, then at Taggart, graceful as a painting, who was carefully carrying the cup and saucer to his father. Their eyes met, and Taggart smiled back at him and quickened his step.
Slowly he closed his eyes, in that way that still made Cheyney’s heart flutter. Taggart crawled onto the bed and snuggled next to his father, still balancing the cup and saucer. Kurt Walbrook placed his other arm around his son, then lay his head back against the pillows, a faint smile upon his lips. Taggart sipped from his father’s cup before handing it to him. There was no response. Kurt’s long, thick lashes were moist with his tears. A tear lodged at the corner of his eye slowly trickled down his cheek. Cheyney felt her heart would break.
“Mom,” an alarmed Taggart called out just barely above a whisper.
Cheyney took the trembling cup and saucer from the boy’s hands. Tears filled Taggart’s eyes; his face turned ashen. “Papa, I don’t know why you’re crying,” said the boy. He bent over his father and kissed Kurt’s tear-stained cheek. And Kurt slumped over dead against his son.
T
he restaurant was New York chic. Up-to-the-minute decoration, fashionable food, finest wine, promptest service. The location was right, and the right people were on display there.
Before the three sat down at their table they met at the bar. Archy Head had been the first to arrive. He made his entrance the way that wealthy, celebrated people feel they must. The slap on the back to the maître d’, the friendly chat about their respective families, how business was, how happy they were to see one another. The maître d’ would tell the chef Mr. Head was there, Mr. Head told the maître d’ about his latest cache of rare wine, until finally the maître d’ dematerialized to renew his act with the next celebrity.
Archy Head was sipping his martini when Nelson Quirlan, the tall, elegant museum director, came up to him at the bar.
“Really, Archy, whoever heard of meeting for lunch at eleven forty-five.”
“Cheyney Fox, that’s who, and she’s late. It was this time or no time. She has to make the afternoon Concorde to London. Lunch, brunch, call it what you will, so long as I feed you and we have this meeting.”
“She’ll be hard-pressed to make it, even with a helicopter from here.”
“No problem, she’ll make it. And she always has her Washington senator’s name to drop. They’ll hold the Concorde for her without blinking an eye. What will you drink, Nelson?”
“A dry martini with a twist of lemon.”
“Alfredo, make that two of the same.”
“How are you, Archy? It’s a pleasure to have a meal with you and Cheyney today. It must be six months since the last time we three dined together. How is the lovely Liz?”
“Let’s just dispense with all the right things to say, Nelson, and get down to the nitty-shitty of this meeting.”
“Meeting? I wasn’t aware that we were having a meeting. I thought this was a social event. Well, Archy, why are we having this meeting today, instead of the special-occasion lunch party I thought we were having?”
“Cut the bullshit, Nelson. You know damn well what this meeting is all about. You and Cheyney Fox are in trouble, and I stand to be the big loser and to look a fool. I won’t have that. You’re a cool one. Playing coy, the sophisticated smooth museum director, about to go down the drain for backing Mike Cooli and Neo-Abstract Pop Art.
“I stuck all this motherfuckin’ art on my walls on your expert say-so and Cheyney Fox’s knowledge of the market. And what do I find? I have been gently frog-marched down the garden path. That it’s all a fraud, a fucking fraud. That there is a chance that the twelve million dollars I have invested might be worth chicken shit.
“I promise you, you clever closet-queen, that if Mike Cooli and the goddamn Neo-Abstract Pop Art movement and its ranking in the international art market collapse, so’s I can’t off-load my collection on the museums at a substantial tax benefit, you go down with me. I will sue you personally, the museum, and that sleazy con woman, Cheyney Fox.”
Before Nelson could take in Archy’s tirade, he saw Cheyney Fox come in and walk over to stand between the two men. Archy began to bristle at the very sight of her. Everything about her was an offense: the subtly regal sweep across the room under admiring eyes, the undeniable chic of her red, biased-cut skirt of slipper silk, and the black, long-sleeved cashmere, military jacket like a second skin to her much too sexy body. She looked too good, too sexy, too damned intelligent. He begrudged everything, but most of all her sleek legs. He was even offended by the way she had dressed her hair — pulled back off her face with combs, its long, loose tresses shining like black silk down her back to her waist — such a
contrast of femininity to the jacket that fitted so tightly and finished there above her hips.
“Hello, Nelson, Archy. You’re cavorting like the common Brooklyn thug people take you for, Archy. I thought you’d lost that when you turned patron of the arts. I suggest you lower the pitch and cut the crassness. That is, if you’d care for me to join you for what looks set to be a distasteful but necessary meal.”
She then turned to Nelson. “Nelson, you look as pale as a Marin watercolor. Why don’t you finish that drink and have another? And, as for you, Archy, do you think you can handle another, and this meal, without becoming otiose?”
Archy began to look otiose before he had decided what it meant. To the barman Cheyney said, “Alfredo, please send to our table two of the same for the gentlemen, and a Dubonnet for me.”
So three prominent New York City art-world figures sipped their drinks in silence, eyeing each other in turn and occasionally a peach-colored rose in the center of the table. Archy Head had recovered himself sufficiently to order for his guests. Anger still lingered in his eyes.
The eyes of Nelson Quirlan were limp with hurt. Those of Cheyney Fox were clear and cold.
Nelson broke the silence. He had his piece to present to the other two about the position he intended to take vis-à-vis Mike Cooli as artist and his historical standing in American art.
“Archy, you are not the only collector to panic over the state of the American art market. But you are the only collector who has threatened me. I wouldn’t like you to do that again. No, please, don’t interrupt me. I owe you no explanation for anything that I do in my life. But I want to state my position to you now, once and for all.
“As a museum director the only obligation I have is to my museum and my board of directors. If ever the time comes when I am not doing my job, no doubt I will be fired. Not something I anticipate right now. Our museum is packed out each day. It’s doing better than it has in its entire history.
“I have supported Mike Cooli and Neo-Abstract Pop Art since it became a movement. It took off. It has proved itself as the art of our time. We are a modern museum dealing with
just that, the art of our time. The point is that Mike Cooli paints a culture, a set of tribal tastes and customs which imply what life is. Just as Andy Warhol did in the sixties and seventies. And any number of artists before him. A museum’s job is a cultural one.
“Do I make my point? Oh, one thing further — we’ve never bought on the say-so of just one man. Always the acquisitions board. If the board ever thinks they have too many Mike Coolis, they will auction them off at the best price they can. I am governed by the board.
“Archy, your cheap threats are up against art history. Mike Cooli is part of it. That alone will save my job. It will also prove that museums are not into art just for investment. Yes, I know why you are upset. You have made millions of dollars by donating to museums all over the country. And the Internal Revenue Service can be a real bother. Not to mention that your gravy train might be stopped if Neo-Abstract Pop Art goes out of fashion.”
He turned to Cheyney. Undermining Archy had raised his spirits. “I suppose he behaved as badly, screaming fraud and suits on you, Cheyney, when you surfaced three years ago to put the Pop Art world into a spin with your revelations about your role in Pop Art and Andy Warhol. Although, I wonder, did he get to call you a closet-dyke?” An eyebrow raised, a slight smile twisting his lip.
Archy Head reached across the table to grab him. Nelson Quirlan immediately jumped up. Cheyney took a firm grip on Archy’s arm, stopping him, but not his mouth. It loosed a spray of tired obscenities that soared as far as “cocksucker” before drying up. Archy’s low-volume, controlled voice gave it a venom worse than if he had shouted it. His angry eyes were distended with tiny pink veins.
The waiter brought a pale golden soufflé to the table. That gave Nelson his moment. He placed his napkin on the table and, looking at the other two, said, “Excuse me, I am sorry, but luncheon, as you can see, is impossible.” He walked away.
Archy Head turned to the waiter and instructed:
“Arthur, Mr. Quirlan finds that he is unable to lunch with us. Remove his place setting before you serve the soufflé.”
After the two remaining dinners were served and the steward
poured an excellent, perfectly chilled Chablis, both of them remained silent, withdrawn into private thoughts while they ate.
Cheyney’s thoughts were understandably still focused on her nomination and her meeting with David Rosewarne. Would he, wouldn’t he represent her? Should she, shouldn’t she go for the position offered her by the president? Taggart. How would this job affect her son, if at all? And not least, how proud Kurt would have been of what she had accomplished since his death.
Coffee was served, and a glass of Calvados put before each of them. Cheyney pushed hers aside. Archy chose a cigar, prepared it with great care, and lit it. Both sat back and appeared relaxed before broaching the business at hand: what to do about the Archy Head collection.
“Cheyney, I hope you have some very clever plan, some good answers. At least as good as the ones you had that made me invest my money and my name in the works of that cocksucker con man you called a great painter. We both know that what I do with my collection of Cooli paintings will make or break me, you, and the whole Neo-Abstract Pop Art movement. We made a fortune manipulating his paintings. We want to keep that fortune, even if it is on paper. Or canvas. Whether we like it or not, we are in this together. That little speech of Quirlan’s only shows how fast we gotta work. If he is now taking that position, then so will the other museum directors.”
Cheyney Fox remained silent. She plucked one of the full-blown peach-colored roses from the silver bowl in the center of the table. She placed it in the palm of her hand for a moment, marveling at its fragile beauty. With her finger she stroked the velvet of several of its petals and then raised it close to her face, where she gathered its exquisite scent into herself. She looked over the rose into Archy’s eyes, and then very carefully replaced the rose in the bowl. Then she spoke:
“How long is it, Archy, that we’ve known one another? Two, three years? Certainly long enough for you to know that I have never pretended to be anything other than an art dealer. The job of an art dealer is to sell works of art. I have been an excellent dealer for you. You were getting more than just works of art. You were getting another life-style. One of the dealers
borrowed one of your paintings for a museum exhibition. You saw your name in catalogs. And then the accountants were brought in. Donations to museums as a tax dodge became a secret, lucrative business. More fun than manufacturing men’s string vests. The more you invested and donated, the more the value of your paintings appreciated. One day you wake up and find you are a great patron of the arts. You sound more important than the artist, or the dealer. The dealer suddenly becomes nothing but a salesman. Then the value of your collection is questioned, and your dealer-turned-salesman is a con man.
En plus
, he is a partner in the crime of overvaluing your collection. Forgotten is a profit of many millions of dollars in tax deductions.”
“Prove it, Cheyney.”
“The only thing I intend to prove, Archy, is what the world knows: that I own extraordinary art galleries that are respected the world over.
“Now, as you are one of my best clients, I will of course keep you well-advised of our exhibitions and any important paintings that come up for sale. As to what
I
am going to do about Mike Cooli, Archy? Nothing, not one thing, old chum. I don’t have to. I don’t own any. The gallery doesn’t own any. We sold our entire stock at top prices in London, Geneva, Rome, and San Francisco eleven months ago. I am very interested in several new painters, and we are committing ourselves heavily to them. You see, Archy, that’s the difference between an art dealer and a salesman.”
She rose from her chair and raising her chin just a little bit higher and tilting her head at a slight angle, a gesture of hers that positively infuriated Archy whenever she did it, Cheyney said, “You never listen, Archy. I could never figure out whether it is your ego or your greed that blocks your ears. So I repeat what I have told you on innumerable occasions, ‘Always buy a painting because you like it, it adds something to your life. No other reason for buying a work of art counts. And, if it turns out to be an excellent investment, you win twice.’ ”
Cheyney picked up her handbag and turned from the table to walk away. Archy rose from his seat, flung his napkin down,
and grabbing her roughly by the wrist, said in a whisper filled with rage, “I’ll ruin you, you bitch.”
“You can try, Archy. But you won’t succeed. Now please let go of my wrist.”
There was something in her eyes as hard as steel. It took him off guard, shocked him even. He saw in the hardness of Cheyney Fox that she was right: he would not succeed. He removed his hand and declared to himself, But I will damn well give it one helluva try.
Cheyney’s plum-colored Rolls Royce was waiting at the curb when she stepped out of the East Fifty-seventh Street restaurant. Her driver, Gibson, sprang immediately from behind the wheel on seeing her. He opened the rear door, and she slipped into the seat next to Kathy Spreckles, her assistant, there to hand over tickets, passport, and a chic, slim shoulder bag containing a change of clothes. The car swung into Fifth Avenue and they headed for the Heliport and the helicopter, blades twirling, revving up to take her to Kennedy Airport and the mysteriously delayed Concorde flight to London.