Why?
Lang had no idea but every intention of finding out.
CHAPTER FOUR
1
Atlanta
The next day
Lang was waiting at Ansley Galleries when it opened the next morning. The same purple-haired girl was behind the counter with the same bored expression.
"Our copy?" she asked. "Good thing we keep copies of all our appraisals, like I told you. You'd be surprised how many people keep 'em in the house. There's a fire or something and both the art and the appraisal's gone."
"And the Polaroid," Lang asked, "you said you keep an extra of it, too?" She nodded, chewing a wad of gum. "Yeah, the Polaroid, too."
He smiled weakly and shrugged, a man embarrassed by his own ineffectiveness. "Dumb me. Can't remember where I put the envelope with them in it. Be happy to pay for copies." The gum snapped. "No problem."
A minute later she was back. The copy of the photograph,. though not in color, was remarkably clear. He handed her a twenty.
She shook her head. "Happy to help. You lose that, we'll charge for the next set of copies."
Outside, he pretended to search his pockets for car keys while he checked up and down the street. If there were watchers, they were out of sight.
2
Atlanta
An hour later
"High Museum as in art museum?" Sara asked incredulously. "You want me to get the number of the art museum?"
Lang settled behind his desk, speaking through the open door. "What's the big surprise? I go to the museum, theater, ballet, et al, regular culture vulture. You don't remember my getting tickets for you for the opening of the Matisse exhibit?"
Sara shook her head without a gray hair moving out of place. "Lang, that was years ago. And it was one of your clients who got the tickets."
"Just find out who the director is, okay?"
Two hours later, Lang parked in the MARTA lot behind what appeared to be white building blocks dumped into a random pile by a giant child. The contemporary edifice had to be one of the ugliest in a town not known for its architectural treasures. Lang's theory was that Sherman's destruction of the city a century and a half before had given Atlanta an atavistic insensitivity to structural aesthetics. The High Museum was named for the donors of the site, the High family, not for any preeminence in the art world. In fact, the concrete and glass housed a collection surprising only in its modesty when compared to similar institutions in comparable cities.
Lang passed by the circular ramp inside the main hall and took an elevator to the top floor. Exiting, he passed a modern mural on canvas that an alert janitorial crew anywhere else would have recognized as a painter's drop cloth and hauled outside to the Dumpsters. At the end, he found a door marked "Administrative Offices."
Lang had the impression he had stepped through Alice's looking glass. Hair of every color, rings in every visible orifice, clothes from Star Wars. The clerk at Ansley Galleries had been conservative in comparison.
A young woman with half her head shaved and polished, the other covered by Astroturf-green hair, glanced up from the computer terminal on her desk. "May I help you?"
"I'm Langford Reilly. I have an appointment with Mr. Seitz."
The woman jabbed a dagger-length fingernail painted an ominous black. "In there." She picked up a phone. "Mr. Reilly's here to see you."
A man stepped from a doorway. Lang wasn't sure what he had expected but Mr. Seitz wasn't it. Instead, he was normal looking. Well-tailored dark suit, red power tie, shiny black wingtips. He was slender, just under six feet tall Early forties, judging by the dove-wings of gray over his ears. His chiseled face had recently seen the beach. Or the inside of a tanning booth.
A gold Rolex competed in dazzle with jeweled cuff links as he extended a manicured hand. "Jason Seitz, Mr. Reilly."
"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice," Lang said.
"Quite a colorful crew you have here."
His eyes followed Lang's stare. "Art students. We try to 47 hire from the art school," he said as if that explained the costumes. "Won't you step this way?"
They entered an office that was as traditional as the employees outside were weird. Seitz indicated a leather wing chair where Lang could admire the wall of photographs: Seitz shaking hands with or hugging local business leaders, politicians and celebrities. He slipped behind a dining room table-sized desk littered with snapshots of paintings, sculptures and some other objects Lang didn't immediately recognize.
Seitz leaned back, made a steeple of his fingers and said, "I usually don't have the pleasure of meeting with people I don't know, but Ms…"
"Mitford-Sara Mitford, my secretary." Seitz nodded. "Ms. Mitford was quite insistent, said it was urgent. Fortunately, I had a cancellation…"
His gaze had the practiced sincerity of someone used to soliciting money. It fitted nicely with the favor he wanted Lang to know he was doing him.
"I really appreciate your taking the time. I'm sure running this place keeps you busy."
The museum director smiled. Lang would have been astonished had he shown anything but perfect teeth. "Actually; the board of directors runs the museum. I am their humble servant."
"Yeah. Well…" Uncertain how to respond to the ill fitting humility, Lang opened his briefcase and leaned forward to hand the copy of the Polaroid across the expanse of mahogany. "I was wondering if you could tell me about that."
Seitz frowned, squinting at the picture. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Les Bergers d'Arcadie, Nicholas Poussin. Or at least a copy of it."
Seitz nodded. "Mid-seventeenth-century French, if I recall. The original of that picture hangs in the Louvre. What specifically is it you want to know?"
Lang had what he thought was a plausible explanation. ''I'm not sure. That is, I'm a lawyer and I have a case involving…"
The director held up his hands, palms outward. "Whoa, Mr. Reilly! The museum is not in a position to authenticate art for individuals. As an attorney, I'm sure you can understand the liability issues."
Lang shook his head, eager to calm what he recognized as a bad case of legal anxiety syndrome. "I apologize. I didn't make myself clear. All I want is to learn the history of the painting, what it's supposed to depict."
Seitz was only marginally calmed. "I'm afraid I can't be of much help." He whirled his chair around, removing a book from the antique table behind him that served as a credenza. Thumbing through it, he continued. "I can say, I think, that what you have there is a picture of a copy, and not a particularly authentic copy, either. Ah, there… Not quite the same, is it?"
He was pointing to a photo of a similar picture. At first Lang saw no difference. He looked more closely. The background was smoother; there was no upside down profile of Washington.
"Religious art, late Renaissance, not my specialty," Seitz continued, shutting the book with a thump. He brought Lang's copy closer to his face. "Those letters on the structure, they look like Latin."
Lang moved to look over his shoulder. "I think so, yes."
"Obviously, they mean something. For that matter, the whole painting may well be symbolistic. Artists of that era often had messages in their paintings."
"You mean, like a code?"
"Sort of, but less sophisticated. For instance, you've seen a still life, flowers or vegetables with a bug or two, perhaps a wilted blossom?" Lang shrugged noncommittally. It wasn't the sort of art he would remember.
"It was popular about the time Poussin painted. A certain flower or plant-rosemary for memory, for example. A beetle might be reminiscent of an Egyptian scarab, symbolic of death or the afterlife or whatever."
Lang went back and sat down. "So you're saying this painting has a message of some sort." This time it was the director who shrugged. "I'm saying it's possible."