“Part of your job, isn’t it? Going to these shows? What’s so special about this one?”
“Because it’s John Leland Ransome. And it’s the event of the year. You’re invited.”
“I see that. ‘Guest.’ Real personal. I’m overwhelmed. Let’s play.” He took out his cell phone. “After I run a plate.”
Echo wasn’t paying attention to him. She had taken the invitation back and was staring at it as if she were afraid the ink might disappear.
Stefan Konine’s reaction was predictable when Echo showed him the invitation. He pouted.
“Not to disparage your good fortune but, yes, why you? If I wasn’t aware of your high moral standards—”
Echo said serenely, “Don’t say it, Stefan.”
Stefan began to look over a contract that one of his assistants had silently slipped onto his desk. He picked up his pen.
“I confess that it took me literally weeks to finagle my way onto the guest list. And I’m not just anyone’s old hand job in this town.”
“I thought you didn’t like Ransome. Something about art on a sailor’s—”
Stefan slashed through an entire paragraph on the contract and looked up at Echo.
“I don’t worship the man, but I adore the event. Don’t you have work to do?”
“I’m not strong on the pre-Raphaelites, but I called around. There’s a definite lack of viability in today’s market.”
“Call it what it is, an Arctic chill. Tell the appraiser for the Chandler estate that he might do better on one of those auction-junkie internet sites.” Stefan performed strong-arm surgery on another page of the contract. ‘You will want to appear in something singularly ravishing for the Ransome do. All of us at Gilbard’s can only benefit from your reflected glory.”
“May I put the gown on my expense account?”
“Of course not.”
Echo winced slightly.
“But perhaps,” Stefan said, twiddling his gold pen, “we can do something about that raise you’ve been whining about for weeks.”
FOUR
Cyrus Mellichamp’s personal quarters took up the fourth floor of his gallery on East 58th Street. They were an example of what wealth and unerring taste could accomplish. So was Cy himself. He not only looked pampered by the best tailors, dieticians, physical therapists, and cosmeticians, he looked as if he truly deserved it.
John Ransome’s fortune was to the tenth power what Cy Mellichamp had managed to acquire as a kingpin of the New York art world, but on the night of the gala dedicated to himself and his new paintings, which he had no plans to attend, he was casually dressed. Tennis sweater, khakis, loafers. No socks. While the Mellichamp Gallery’s guests were drinking Moet and Chandon below, Ransome sipped beer and watched the party on several TV monitors in Cy’s study.
There was no sound, but thanks to the gallery owner’s expensive surveillance system, it was possible, if he wanted, to tune in on nearly every conversation on the first two floors of the gallery, swarming with media-annointed superstars. Name a profession with glitter appeal, there was an icon, a living legend, or a luminary in attendance.
Cy Mellichamp had coaxed one of his very close friends, from a list that ran in the high hundreds, to prepare dinner for Ransome and his guests for the evening, both of whom were still unaware they’d been invited.
“John,” Cy said, “Monsieur Rapaou wanted to know if there was a special dish you’d like added to his menu for the evening.”
“Why don’t we just scrap the menu and have cheeseburgers,” Ransome said.
“Oh my God,” Cy said, after a shocked intake of breath. “Scrap—? John, Monsieur Rapaou is one of the most honored chefs on four continents.”
“Then he ought to be able to make a damn fine cheeseburger.”
“Johnnn—”
“We’re having dinner with a couple of kids. Basically. And I want them to be at ease, not worrying about what fork to use.”
A dozen of the gallery’s guests were being admitted at one time to the room in which the Ransome exhibition was mounted. To avoid damaged egos, the order in which they were being permitted to view the new Ransomes had been chosen impartially by lot. Except for Echo, Peter, and Stefan Konine, arbitrarily assigned to the second group. Ransome, for all of his indolence at his own party, was impatient to get on with his prime objective of the evening.
All of the new paintings featured the same model: a young black woman with nearly waist-length hair.
She was, of course, smashing, with the beguiling quality that differentiates mere looks from classic beauty.
Two canvases, unframed, were wall-mounted. The other three, on easels, were only about three feet square. A hallmark of all Ransome’s work were the wildly primeval, ominous or threatening landscapes in which his models existed aloofly.
Two minutes after they entered the room Peter began to fidget, glancing at Echo, who seemed lost in contemplation.
“I don’t get it.”
Echo said in a low firm tone, “Peter.”
“What is it, like High Mass, I can’t talk?”
“Just—keep it down, please.”
“Five paintings?” Pete said, lowering his voice. “That’s what all the glitz is about? The movie stars? Guy that plays James Bond is here, did you notice?”
“Ransome only does five paintings at a time. Every three years.”
“Slow, huh?”
“Painstaking.” Peter could hear her breathing, a sigh of rapture. “The way he uses light.”
“You’ve been staring at that one for—”
“Go away.”
Pete shrugged and joined Stefan, who was less absorbed.
“Does Ransome get paid by the square yard?”
“The square inch, more likely. It takes seven figures just to buy into the play-off round. And I’m told there are already more than four hundred prospective buyers, the cachet-stricken.”
“For five paintings? Echo, just keep painting. Forget about your day job.” –
Echo gave him a dire look for breaking her concentration. Peter grimaced and said to Stefan, “I think I’ve seen this model somewhere else. Sports Illustrated. Last year’s swimsuit issue.”
“Doubtful,” Stefan said. “No one knows who Ransome’s models are. None of them have appeared at the shows, or been publicized. Nor has the genius himself. He might be in our midst tonight, but I wouldn’t recognize him. I’ve never seen a photo.”
‘You saying he’s shy?”
“Or exceptionally shrewd.”
Peter had been focusing on a nude study of the unknown black girl. Nothing left to the imagination.
Raw sensual appeal. He looked around the small gallery, as if his [lowers of detection might reveal the artist to him. Instead who he saw was Taja, standing in a doorway, looking at him.
“Echo?”
She looked around at Peter with a frown, then saw Taja herself. When the Woman in Black had her attention she beckoned. Echo and Peter looked at each other.
“Maybe it’s another special delivery,” Peter said.
“I guess we ought to find out.”
In the center of the gallery’s atrium a small elevator in a glass shaft rose to Cy Mellichamp’s penthouse suite. A good many people who considered themselves important watched Peter and Echo rise to the fourth floor with Taja. Stefan took in some bemused and outright envious speculation.
A super-socialite complained, “I’ve spent seventeen million with Cy, and I’ve never been invited to the penthouse. Who are they?”
“Does Ransome have children?”
“Who knows?”
A talk-show host with a sneaky leer and a hard-drive’s capacity for gossip said, “The dark one, my dear, is John Ransome’s mistress. He abuses her terribly. So I’ve been told.”
“Or perhaps it’s the other way around,” Stefan said, feeling a flutter of distress in his stomach that had nothing to do with the quantity of hors d’oeuvres he’d put away. Something was up, obviously it involved Echo, and even more obviously it was none of his business. Yet his impression, as he watched Echo step off the elevator and vanish into Cy’s sanctum, was of a lovely doe being deftly separated from a herd of deer.
Taja ushered Echo and Peter into Cy Mellichamp’s presence and closed the door to the lush sitting room, a gallery in itself that was devoted largely to French Impressionists. A very large room with a high tray ceiling. French doors opened onto a small terrace where there was a candlelit table set for three and two full-dress butlers in attendance.
“Miss Halloran, Mr. O’Neill! I’m Cyrus Mellichamp. Wonderful that you could be here tonight. I hope you’re enjoying yourselves.”
He offered his hand to Echo, and a discreet kiss to one cheek, somewhere between businesslike and avuncular, Peter noted. He shook hands with the man and they were eye to eye, Cy with a pleasant smile but no curiosity.
“We’re honored, Mr. Mellichamp,” Echo said.
“May I call you Echo?”
‘Yes, of course.”
“What do you think of the new Ransomes, Echo?”
“Well, I think they’re—magnificent. I’ve always loved his work.”
“He will be very pleased to hear that.”
“Why?” Peter said.
They both looked at him. Peter had, deliberately, his cop face on. Echo didn’t appreciate that.