Restrike (11 page)

Coleman and Dolly settled down on the sofa to enjoy Christmas Eve together. Coleman had rented several videos starring dogs so Dolly would enjoy them, too. They’d microwave popcorn later, and turn in early. Coleman would work at home on Christmas Day. She’d bought turkey meatloaf, wild rice salad, and Brussels sprouts from the takeout counter at Grace’s on Third Avenue for their feast. When Lassie appeared on the screen, they both sighed with contentment.

Dinah and Jonathan were not enjoying their stay at Canyon Ranch. They avoided discussing the gallery, but the subject loomed between them like the proverbial elephant in the room. Jonathan was cold and distant, and Dinah felt guilty about having secretly leased the gallery on Fifty-Seventh Street. They went to church on Christmas morning, but even the beautiful music didn’t soften the atmosphere.

On Christmas morning when Jonathan invited her to lunch at a nearby hotel, Dinah hoped he was calling a Christmas truce, that maybe he had even come to see the gallery her way. They were sipping glasses of pre-lunch champagne when he handed her a Tiffany box. “This is your six-month wedding anniversary present,” he said.

Dinah had forgotten they’d been married six months ago today, but she wasn’t about to say so. She opened the box. It contained a sapphire and diamond bracelet. “Oh, Jonathan, it’s beautiful,” she said, slipping it on her wrist.

“I’ve been thinking about you, and I finally understand you. You’re bored. You don’t have enough to do—that’s why you want a big gallery. I have a better idea: we should have a child. You’ll be so busy with a baby you won’t want a gallery, but if you wanted to keep your hand in, you could see clients by appointment.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. He looked like the cat who’d finally eaten the canary.

Dinah dropped the bracelet on the table. “You must be out of your mind. You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said. I have no intention of having a child any time soon. I’ve signed a lease on a Fifty-Seventh Street gallery, and when we get back to New York, I’m leaving you. You are so unbelievably obtuse, there’s no point in discussing anything with you. I’ve had it.”

She stalked out of the dining room, climbed in the nearest taxi, and headed back to Canyon Ranch. Luckily, their villa had two bedrooms. She’d move into the second room and call the Creedmore Club for a reservation. They wouldn’t let members stay longer than two weeks, but that would give her time to make other arrangements. She’d check on commercial flights, and if they had nothing soon, she’d charter, and charge it to Jonathan. She’d never done anything like that, but this was an emergency.

After January first, New York began to function again. Life would soon be back to normal. Coleman’s spirits soared, but they plunged when Dinah called to say that she’d left Jonathan, and was staying at the Creedmore Club. What could have happened that made Dinah do something so drastic?

Coleman took a cab to the club and the elevator to the fifth floor, where Dinah was unpacking in a pretty little room, all white paint and rose-patterned chintz. She hugged Dinah. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’ve never known anyone who wanted to be married as much as you, or anyone happier than you were on your wedding day.”

Dinah was red-eyed and pale, but her voice was controlled. “I need some peace and quiet. We fight constantly, and Jonathan’s decided we should have a child right away. You know how much I want children, but before we married, we agreed to wait a couple of years to give me a chance to get the gallery going, to prove myself.
He’s
changed his mind.
He
wants a baby right away, and assumes it’s entirely his decision to make. I don’t even have a vote. After I told him I’d signed a lease on the Fifty-Seventh Street gallery, we had a big fight, and he accused me of getting money from Heyward Bain to finance it. We’ve barely spoken since, and I needed to get away from him, at least for a while.

“Whatever you do, I’m on your side,” Coleman said.

Dinah tried to smile. “When I’ve caught up on my sleep and cooled off, how about dinner later this week?”

“Absolutely. You’re going to the Print Museum opening Sunday night, aren’t you?” Coleman asked.

“Of course. Why don’t we meet there? Go out for a bite after?”

“Great!”

Coleman left Dinah putting clothes away. She felt terrible for her cousin, but there was nothing she could do.

Meanwhile, Coleman’s to-do list was growing. New tasks turned up, and a lot of the old items never seemed to get crossed off. Coleman still hadn’t reached the elusive Professor Laramie at MIT. He was back on campus, but not returning her calls.

Coleman finally reached the professor’s assistant, but when Coleman said who she was, and what she wanted, the woman was curt. “None of the people here talk to reporters, so I’m sure Professor Laramie won’t call you back. You’re wasting your time and ours with all these messages,” she said, and hung up.

A young woman in the press office confirmed Laramie’s assistant’s statement. “The young people who come here to study are vulnerable. We have confidentiality agreements with them and their families,” she said.

“Even after all these years?”

“Of course. The individual is free to talk about his experience here. But
we
can’t. That would be an invasion of privacy.”

Hell’s bells. The only window on Bain’s past that Coleman had found was barred. Now what?

Coleman had closed the February issue of
ArtSmart
almost single-handedly while everyone else was at holiday parties. She didn’t mind. She didn’t like cocktail parties, and she enjoyed the February issue. The February cover was always a mischievous-looking Cupid, a
putto
with horns and tail, shooting “Art Darts” at the pretentious, the stuffy, or the vulgar in the previous year. Coleman never lacked for material.

But she had no time to rest, or congratulate herself. Chick was back, restored to health after a severe case of the flu, followed by Christmas in California with David. She’d asked for an update on the La Grange and Print Museum story, but he’d put her off. He said he had a few loose ends he wanted to tie up over the weekend. They set aside two hours Monday morning to talk about it.

Coleman was all but out the door on her way to the Print Museum opening when the telephone rang. She nearly ignored it, but curiosity won out, and she ran back.

“Coleman?” Clancy’s voice sounded odd. “I hate to have to tell you this, but Chick is dead. His body has been found in the Village. It could be murder.”

Coleman clutched the chair by the telephone table, afraid that she would faint. She was nauseated and icy cold. She couldn’t speak.

“Coleman?”

She took a deep breath. “Yes, go ahead.”

“He was beaten to death. The police say it happened Friday night, but his body was behind a dumpster in an alley, and only discovered a little while ago. His partner was away, or Chick would have been missed sooner. The police say Chick was cruising gay bars—they have lots of witnesses—and he was seen talking to two guys who match the description of the thugs they think killed Jimmy. They think he picked them up, and they killed him the way they did Jimmy.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense—the cruising part, I mean,” Coleman said, her voice stronger. “He was in those bars investigating Jimmy’s death. He was on assignment for
ArtSmart.
Oh God, it’s my fault he’s dead.” She gritted her teeth, determined not to cry.

“Calm down, and don’t be silly. Chick was a grown man. He didn’t have to accept the assignment and you didn’t force him into that alley. You’re a pro. This is a story and you should get on it right away. You’re the only one who knows what Chick was doing and why. Incidentally, the police have already told his partner and his family. You don’t have to break the news.”

She took another deep breath. “Thank God for that. I
will
get on the story, but right now I’ve got to go to the Print Museum opening. I’m supposed to meet Dinah there, and if I don’t turn up she’ll worry. There’s no way to reach her. There’ll be a huge crowd, they could never find her, and it’s black-tie. She won’t have her cell phone with her. Thanks, Clancy. I’ll call you later.”

Coleman wrapped her evening cape around her, gave Dolly a second farewell cuddle, and went out into the falling snow.

The opening night of the Print Museum’s Contemporary American Gallery was the most art-star-studded occasion Dinah had ever attended. The gallery was filled with curators, collectors, and artists. Everyone from the print world was here tonight, and lots of people from the general art world.

Jasper Johns was talking to a curator from MoMA, and Robert Kushner was chatting with dealer Matthew Marks. Dinah spoke to David Kiehl, the Whitney print curator, and waved at Alex Katz and his wife and favorite model, Ada, and to the Pace Gallery’s Dick Solomon, chatting with artist Jim Dine.

The space was fully twenty-five thousand square feet, with partitions arranged to allow vistas for viewing the large works. The dull-finished white-tile floors felt almost soft underfoot, promising relief from museum shin-splints. The walls were a soft off-white carpet-like material, illuminated by built-into-the-ceiling lights.

Dinah spotted the colorful Frank Stella
Circuits
series, named after famous auto racetracks, each roughly fifty-one inches by thirty-five—the complete set of sixteen. The two seven-foot-tall Rauschenberg lithographs from his 1969
Stoned Moon
series, commemorating the astronauts’ first landing on the moon and late 1960s culture, were hung side by side at the end of a corridor. Rauschenberg’s bright red and blue
Sky Garden
drew the eye away from his subtle black-and-white
Waves.
The galleries were crammed with treasures, and Dinah longed to spend time with them, but the rooms were so crowded that looking at the prints would be almost impossible. She vowed to return soon and give them the attention they deserved.

She was astonished when Jonathan entered the gallery. She wouldn’t have dreamed he’d have turned up here, given his hatred of Bain. Was he spying on her? She’d ignore him and talk to her friends. She was making her way towards Brooke Alexander, owner of New York’s best known contemporary print gallery, when she heard Coleman speak her name. Dinah turned. Coleman was pale, her eyes sunken. “What in the world’s the matter?” Dinah asked.

Coleman put a finger to her lips. “Shh, I don’t want to spoil the opening. Chick O’Reilly has been found dead. Clancy says the police think Chick was cruising, and beaten to death by people he picked up. But Dinah, they’re wrong—I know they’re wrong.”

Dinah put her arm around Coleman. She’d never known Coleman to faint, but she looked as if she might. Dinah glanced around the room for someone to help her get Coleman through the crowd and into the car, but Brooke had his back to her, and she couldn’t see Bain.

Jonathan was talking to a gorgeous blonde, whose magnificent breasts were barely covered by a strapless red dress. Quick work, the snake: he’d been on the phone last night begging Dinah to come home. Well, he could go to the Devil. She’d manage on her own. She’d done all right for a lot of years before Jonathan Hathaway came along.

They pushed their way through the throng to the outside door. The street was jammed with cars, but Dinah spotted the limo she’d hired, and helped Coleman into its welcome warmth. The snow was falling harder, and the temperature had dropped into the teens. Coleman was still pale, and the hand that Dinah held was ice cold. Coleman opened the car window and let the fresh air blow on her face. When she closed it and turned to Dinah, she looked less ill. “Where are we going?”

“Is P. J. Clarke’s okay? It’s near here, you need food, and something hot to drink.”

“No, I want to search Chick’s desk. He may have left some kind of record of what he was doing Friday afternoon. He keeps good notes.”

Dinah tried to talk her out of it—she didn’t like the thought of going into a dark empty office with killers on the loose and Coleman half-sick—but Coleman was adamant, and Dinah gave the driver
ArtSmart
’s address.

The snow was accumulating on the sidewalks and streets. Traffic had all but vanished, as drivers headed for home before the roads became too hazardous to drive. The car crept through the silent night the few blocks to
Art-Smart
’s offices. The night elevator man took them upstairs, where Coleman unlocked a series of doors, turned on lights, and led Dinah into the conference room. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, and in her stocking feet filled and started the coffee maker. She handed Dinah a pad and pencil before heading down the hall to Chick’s office.

She came back almost immediately, holding a desk diary open at Friday’s page. “These notes must be related to what he was doing Friday, but they’ll have to be deciphered. His writing is totally illegible—he always typed everything. I think there are a couple of phone numbers here, but I can’t read them.”

“Let me try. I’m used to artists’ handwriting.” Dinah frowned over the notes, while Coleman filled two coffee mugs, handed one to Dinah, and sat down at the conference table across from her.

Coleman, holding her mug in two hands for warmth, said, “I haven’t been able to reach David, Chick’s partner. I want to tell him how sorry I am. If I hadn’t insisted, Chick wouldn’t have been investigating La Grange’s death, and this wouldn’t have happened.”

Dinah looked up. “Tell me again everything Clancy said. I can listen and do this at the same time.”

“The cops claim they saw Chick making the rounds at gay bars in Greenwich Village early Friday evening. They insist he was cruising. They say he picked up the gorillas they couldn’t find after Jimmy died, and that he met Jimmy’s fate. I
know
Chick was in the Village trying to discover something about Jimmy’s murder, but Clancy says the police won’t care why he was hanging around gay bars. He was there, and he left with those guys, and they killed him.”

“You’re positive about why Chick was in the Village at those bars? He wasn’t just playing mouse while the cat was away?” Dinah said.

Coleman shook her head. “No way! Chick and David have lived together since college, and they never went out with anyone else, never went to gay bars. I have Chick’s notes from before Christmas, including a list of the bars he planned to visit. He checked some of them out in November, but he got the flu and then he went to California and didn’t cover them all. He must have planned to finish the list Friday.”

Coleman crossed to the coffeemaker again. She raised her eyebrows at Dinah, who shook her head.

Coleman refilled her own mug and sat down. “I insisted that La Grange’s death was connected to the Print Museum story. If I hadn’t been such a know-it-all, Chick would be alive today. Even the
New York Times
gave up on the story. They couldn’t connect his death to the art world, and they have access to sources I don’t. Damn it all, why didn’t I keep
ArtSmart
out of it?”

Dinah knew better than to argue. “I think I’ve figured out Chick’s notes. This says ‘Dürers too perfect, no stamps, why?’ And this one says ‘Rembrandt? Restrike?’ And under that, three names: Strauss, Valentine, and Parker. Chick is questioning why those Dürers were in such pristine condition. Good question. They tend to get a little banged up after five hundred years of handling, and it’s unusual to find sixteenth-century prints without a collector’s mark.”

“I know what ‘Rembrandt restrike’ means—he thinks someone got hold of one of Rembrandt’s etching plates and made a print with it. Is that possible?” Coleman asked.

“There were Rembrandt restrikes in the nineteenth century, but as I recall, they were a mess. Bain’s
Sleeping Kitten
isn’t one of those. According to the press, it’s a superb impression. A lot of Rembrandt’s plates still exist, and maybe you could still make prints from them, if they were accessible. But I think they’re in a museum.”

Coleman ran her fingers through her rumpled hair. “If somebody got the plate, the right paper, and all that, and made an acceptable-looking restrike, how much would it be worth?”

Dinah shook her head. “Not much, if it was
identified
as a contemporary restrike. What makes a print an original work of art—and valuable—is that the artist was involved in making it. If somebody used Rembrandt’s plate to produce impressions hundreds of years after Rembrandt died, they’d have little value, no matter how good they looked.
Sleeping Kitten
fetched a big price. If it’s a restrike, Bain was cheated. Tomorrow I’ll find out if the plate for
Sleeping Kitten
still exists, and where it is.”

“Suppose we learn that the plate for
Sleeping Kitten
does
exist? If there’s been a recent restrike, the plate has to be missing, right? Someone had to remove it from wherever it’s supposed to be to make a print. That means it’s been stolen, and would be evidence of an art crime that can be firmly tied to Jimmy La Grange.”

Dinah shook her head. “Even if the plate is missing, we’d have to prove
Sleeping Kitten
was made recently. That would require analysis of the paper and ink.”

“Okay, but a missing plate would be like finding a trout in the milk. Why do you suppose Chick thought it was a restrike?”

“Maybe because
Sleeping Kitten
is so rare? And it’s odd that it was sold in an unknown auction house in Boston. It fetched nearly a million dollars, but I’m sure it would have sold for more at a major auction house in New York or London,” Dinah said.

“Chick thought selling these rare prints in offbeat locations was strange, too. Let’s go back to the phone numbers. Can you make them out?”

“Yes, I’ll read them to you, and you dial them. Let’s assume they’re 212 area codes. The first number is 744-1600,” Dinah said.

Coleman put the phone on speaker, punched nine for an outside line, and the number. “Carlyle Hotel,” a voice answered.

“Sorry, wrong number,” Coleman said, and terminated the call. “That’s where Simon lives. I
know
he’s involved. What’s the other number?”

“477-3600.”

She punched in the numbers, and a gruff male voice said, “Blackbeard’s.”

“Is this a restaurant?”

“No, girlie, it’s a bar. You got the wrong number.”

Coleman hung up and grabbed the Manhattan telephone directory from the book shelves. “Blackbeard’s is on Christopher Street. I bet it’s one of the bars Chick visited. Maybe it’s where he met his killer. But it’s not on the list of bars he gave me.”

“Maybe he didn’t learn about Blackbeard’s till he was in the Village,” Dinah said.

Coleman shook her head. “No, he knew about it when he left the office, or the number wouldn’t have been on his calendar. How did he hear about it? Maybe from someone on the phone? And what about the names in Chick’s notes? Do they mean anything to you?”

“Strauss is probably the Rembrandt scholar, Walter Strauss. I’ll try to find out who the others are when I can get to my art books tomorrow. ‘Valentine’ isn’t familiar, but if ‘Strauss’ is the person I think he is, the other names probably have something to do with Rembrandt, too,” Dinah said.

Coleman cocked her head and cupped her hand behind her ear. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Dinah looked up. “What?”

Coleman put her finger to her lips. “Shh. The elevator. It stopped on this floor. Nobody should be coming here this time of night.”

“One of the staff? A cleaning crew?”

Coleman shook her head. “On Sunday night? I’ve never seen anyone cleaning here on a Sunday during the day, let alone at night. The guard downstairs knows we’re here. He should have called me to tell me someone was coming up. The switchboard’s off, but security has my cell phone number. Whoever it is must have sneaked past the guard. But why didn’t the elevator man stop him? I don’t want to scare you, but it must be somebody up to no good. I’ll turn off the lights. If it’s a burglar—or worse—I’d rather he not know we’re here. Take your things, and get under the table. I’ll lock the door to the conference room.”