“Yes, exactly. It does seem somewhat far-fetched, but I remembered the class hounding me to find a really superb model, ‘like the great masters might have used.’ Christine was always pushing for better looking men to draw,” he added, slightly embarrassed. “I think I had better beg off any more explanation before I implicate someone unfairly.”
“Thank you, David.” Amanda turned back at the door. “I don’t mean to be so meddlesome but now that I know what’s going on, maybe I can help by keeping my eyes and ears open, too.”
“That would be splendid,” the exhausted man said drowsily, his eyes closing. “Perhaps I’ll see you later this aft…” He was asleep.
Marc and Amanda moved quietly into the hospital hallway.
“Has anybody checked out the Village gallery?” Her mind was racing. “That seems to be the finger in the dike. Suspect art students go in, fake Michelangelos come out.”
“Not yet. Once you alert the gallery they’ve been implicated, the door slams shut, so we were hoping we might hit the nail on the head with this model stuff. Who knows what they might destroy in panic.”
He looked at her sharply. “Amanda. What’s going on in that sneaky little head of yours? Don’t do anything foolish.”
She was annoyed at his tone. “What does that mean? I’m incapable of being clever like the big boys?”
He looked hurt. “You know I didn’t mean that.” He also looked worried. “I’ve got a lot to do today. I don’t need to know you’re off getting into trouble.”
She kissed him on the cheek.
She had just gotten a brilliant idea of how to slip through that gallery door before it had a chance to slam shut. Marc wasn’t the only one who could be someone he was not.
“CISSY, I need your help.”
“I amstill upset with you, Amanda Emerson, for making me worry myselfsick about you not returning home last night. If I hadn’t thought to call Christine…”
“Yes, yes, I know. I’m sorry, blah, blah, blah. C’mon Cissy, you’ve got really great clothes and really great taste. I need you to turn me into a stunning, fashionable, wealthy, art dealer.” That wasn’t exactly accurate, but maybe it would tweak her interest.
It did. She was silent. Amanda could almost hear the wheels grinding at the other end of the phone line and see both their wardrobes being scattered about the apartment for appraisal.
“Jimmy said you were taking the day off. Which I canmore than understand after having learned what happened last night fromChristine.” She was waiting to be begged.
“You’ve been talking to Jimmy? My stalwart, young assistant at the office in whom I entrusted my professional corporate career this day?”
Cissy purred. “He called me. He asked me to lunch. I think he wanted to show off a bit. He is a nice man, but…”
“Cissy, he’s a great guy and you know it. You’ve just been fighting it ever since I got you two together when he first came to work for me, that’s all. God knows you’ve given the rest of New York bachelorhood a shot since then. Give Jimmy a chance. You know he’s always thought you were fantastic.” Another pause.
Cissy ruminated. It didn’t take a lot to side-track her.
Amanda hurried on. Cissy could think about her failed relationships later. “I need to convince someone I’ve got more money than sense and I need to do it right away. Challenge? You’ve been wanting to get your hands on me.” That did it.
Two hours later the two young women studied their handiwork.
“You lookscrumptious.” Cissy was delighted with her efforts. “VeryEuropean. Rich European.”
Amanda had to admit, she looked pretty spiffy. “I’d think I had a bundle if I had to deal with me.” The skirt of the pale mauve raw silk suit was a bit short for her tastes, but it made her thighs look great. She didn’t think she had ever had a pair of Ferragamos on her feet and they were startlingly high, but they did do amazing things to her ankles and calves.
Cissy had sculpted her hair into a no-nonsense French twist and dusted her face with a make-up so subtle that it could barely be discerned behind the huge dark glasses, though, to Amanda’s eyes, it changed her features so radically it rendered her practically incognito.
A pale green drape of silk flowing from the murky mocha Garbo hat fluttered past her hemline as an eccentric artistic affectation, and a Mark Cross rip-off briefcase slung over her shoulders stamped her as certainly not of the New York little black suit brigade.
Amanda looked slightly exotic, dripping with accustomed wealth. She had a mind, and taste, of her own. She looked like a million bucks.
Now all she had to do was convince the right person that was the amount she had to spend.
“Here.” Cissy slipped a yellow emerald ring on Amanda’s finger. Amanda gasped.
“Cissy, is this real?”
Her satisfied roommate shrugged. “It’s insured.”
A million and a half.
PINKS WAS an odd little place, located in an old building on a twisting street south of Houston Street. SoHo. She had expected the modern renovation of industrial space to be scoured clean of any character and blasted blindingly white in order the better to show off some obscure and difficult to comprehend artist from whom the gallery owner had probably extracted a dreadful fee to show his or her suspect wares.
Instead, this place was quaint, slightly musty, and looked as if the reproductions of famous paintings in its small showcase window had been gathering dust for years.
She swept in imperiously. A young girl who looked as if she would be more at home behind a computer screen filled with arcane programming notations appeared out of the gloom.
“This is not as I had expected.” Amanda grandly removed the dark glasses from her face and speared them onto the crown of her Garbo hat.
Her voice, she hoped, sounded somewhat foreign, gleaned from the remembered accents of parents and grandparents and newly-arrived cousins back in the Italian-Polish Pittsburgh neighborhood of her childhood.
The young woman looked startled to see her.
Probably the way she always looks.Amanda noticed she had an art book in one hand and a watercolor brush in the other.Ah, a budding copyist, perhaps. Maybe she was on the right track.
“Can I help you? Oh, excuse me…” The young woman hurried toward the back of the cluttered gallery to put her book and brush away. She turned the canvas on which she had been working to the wall.
“I have heard of you, of course.” Amanda strode around the gallery, peering at the paintings. “But I have not had the time when I have been in your country before. Today, I said, I will go see this…Pinks.” She gave a slight shrug at the odd name. Glancing around, she spoke quietly to the girl. “Do you have drawings.”
“Yes. Of course. What period?”
“May I see… anything…” Amanda’s hands flew apart in an expansive gesture. “If I do not find anything of interest, I will ask to see more. Agreed?”
“Sure. I mean, yes. Sure.” The young woman pulled several large portfolios from behind a counter. She cleared a space on a large table. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”
Amanda smiled enigmatically. “I will know when I see. I will know.” She nodded her head mysteriously up and down.
She flipped through the drawings with a look of disdain on her face. “I understood you had more…singular works of art than these feeble attempts. I see I have been misled.” She turned to go.
Would I really know a decent fake if I saw one?
“No, wait. I’ll go get Mr. Pinks. Please. You should talk to him.” The wide-eyed, young woman hurried into a back room.
Amanda peered more closely at one of the contemporary drawings.I could swear that’s one of Nathan’s. He showed me pretentious stuff like this when he first came looking for a job.