Saturday, October 14, 2017
“She’s got the body of Venus de Milo, but with more arms.”
The words spilled out in a breathless rush, as though the man uttering them had plucked the greatest treasure in the world from the rarified air of the little art gallery. Maybe he had. The exhibit featured no big big names, but the works on display were all by up-and-coming artists, young visionaries poised—so the program claimed—to upend our ideas of beauty, culture, relevance, and ourselves.
But no, the man admiring the epitome of feminine beauty wasn’t entranced by a sculpture. Not a stone sculpture, at least. His eye was on…
“Don’t look now,” Bernard Earls whispered to his wife Melody, “but you have yet another admirer.”
“Really?” Melody pirouetted like a ballerina, her beautiful auburn hair sailing in a breeze of her own making, her beautiful blue eyes sweeping the gathering until they locked with the wide brown eyes of a dumpy fellow whose jaw must have come unhinged. The guy had a friend, a bit less dumpy but no less unhinged. He, too, was gaping at her.
“I told you not to look,” Bernard said. “We don’t want attention.” Which was a dumb thing to say, because Melody could no more avoid attention than could a sun-sprayed mountainside draped in autumn foliage. With his arm about her, Bernard was the frame to her landscape, a dashing fellow in the mold of Johnny Depp but a few inches taller with a wave of brown hair cresting his crown and a devilish smile—when he felt like smiling—that made women swoon. Accidentally, though. Bernard had no desire to make any woman but Melody swoon.
But back to the point: they didn’t want attention. Probably Mr. and Mrs. Earls were in the wrong business.
“Poor fellow,” she whispered. “He looks desperate. Oh, well.” Melody finished her turn and ended up where she started, face-to-face with a serene mountain vista, gray ridges behind gray ridges fading into a sepia sky. The painting was small, six by eight, framed in translucent gray plastic. “Where are the trees?” she asked.
“There aren’t any.” Bernard slipped his cell phone from his left trouser pocket and checked the time. “They should be calling us to the buffet in a few minutes.” He put an arm about Melody’s shoulders, pulled her close, kissed her hair. “Please don’t get distracted this time,” he whispered.
They didn’t have any children, but Melody managed an impressive look of motherly rebuke.
“I only mean—” he started to object.
“I’m not the distracted one, Bernie. Look at this thing.” She nodded at the painting. “It’s boring.”
“It’s a Samuel Weston.”
“Yeah, who?”
“Samuel Weston. Remember? Destined for greatness?”
“According to whom?”
They’d been through this a hundred times in the past month, but fine, they could manage one more go. “Mr. Jacobi.”
“And who is he?”
“Come on, Melody, you know who he is: the guy paying us to nab it.”
“Uh-huh. Why?”
“To create notoriety. He already owns a few Westons. He thinks a theft will boost their—”
“What,” Melody demanded, “does Mr. Freaking Jacobi know about art?”
“It doesn’t matter what Mr. Freaking Jacobi knows about art. He’s paying us three grand to—” Bernard glanced around. Why did he always let her get him wound up? Fortunately, nobody had noticed their, uh, conversation. Not yet. He ratcheted down the volume. “To acquire it for him.”
Melody snorted, a rarity for her. She was too suave to snort. “For that much, he should want something good. Like that one over there.” She pointed three artworks to the left, where a black-and-white photo hung. “See that? A group of naked people arranged to make a flower. Now that’s art.”
Bernard pinched his eyes shut, just for a moment. “It may be art to you, but Mr. Jacobi is looking for an investment. Once this vanishes, his other Westons could be worth a small fortune.”
Regarding the Weston, Melody shook her head. “He’s no Frank Schlief, that’s for sure.” She had become enamored of Schlief’s bold colors and sensuous lines a year or so back, and now she compared everything to his work. Bernard couldn’t fault her taste, but he wished she’d cut it out. “The point is,” she continued, “I’m not the distracted one. Both you and Mr. Jacobi are distracted by gold. Real art has value beyond money.”
Bernard pressed his lips tight and thought, Fine, fine, whatever, just so long as we get out of here with the painting. And without handcuffs.
In hindsight, he really shouldn’t have thought that. Although he hadn’t spoken, he’d inadvertently invoked the “unspeakable law,” to wit: As soon as you mention something, if it’s bad, it happens; if it’s good, it goes away.
First, a monkey-suited docent glided into the gallery and announced in ringing tones, “Luncheon is served. Please join us in the adjacent room.”
The murmur of conversation waned for a moment, then the guests began a haphazard retreat, rather like liquid sloshing in the bottom of a suddenly tilted glass. Bernard and Melody stepped closer to the Weston, allowing the others to pass by unimpeded. Shortly the room was empty save themselves. In one smooth motion, Bernard gently lifted the painting and secreted it in the largest of the pockets sown into the lining of his suitcoat. He buttoned the coat and tugged the material straight, then turned to escort Melody out the other door, the door not leading to the buffet.
Except she wasn’t by his side. She was three artworks down, lifting the naked flower people from the wall.
“No, no, no!” he whispered. “Let’s go before…”
“Ma’am?” a new voice intruded. The docent had returned to lock up. Having caught sight of Melody with the photo in her hands, he approached, eyebrows raised, body tense, more than a little disbelief marring his otherwise handsome face.
Melody turned her brilliant smile on the fellow, who halted, simultaneously alarmed and dazzled. The look he gave her was more priceless than all the art in the Louvre. “How much?” she asked. She turned the photo so he could see it better.
The docent hadn’t even registered Bernard’s presence. Knowing he’d better play to Melody’s lead, Bernard removed the Weston from his pocket and waited.
The docent croaked something, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Twenty-eight hundred. But I’m sorry, ma’am, it stays on the wall until you pay for it. We’ll package it for you at that time.”
“Oh my, I’m so very sorry. I didn’t realize.” She carefully rehung the naked flower people. The docent eyed the operation. And the operator. “How about that one?” Melody asked, pointing to Bernard. Bernard slowly raised the Weston so the docent could see it.
The man’s eyebrows arched again, farther than before. “Twenty-five hundred,” he said. “But again…”
“My apologies,” Bernard said. He rehung the Weston and brushed off his fingers as though the painting had been caked with dust. Then he came to his wife’s side, took her arm, and said, “Come, love. I’m hungry.” He escorted her out, knowing without seeing that the docent watched them every step of the way, knowing that by the time they were out of his view, the only thing he’d remember was Melody’s swaying hips.
As they left the room, Melody turned a knowing smile on her husband. “See, Bernie?” she said. “I told you the other one was better.”
𝄞
Mr. Freaking Jacobi—Bernard thought he might just call him that from now on—had a few choice words for the botched job and its perpetrators, after which Bernard decided he didn’t really want Jacobi’s three grand anyway. He had just delivered a savage finger punch to the red icon that terminated the call and was about to throw his cell phone through the balcony door when the demonic thing rang again.
Probably Jacobi calling back to continue his tirade. Bernard refused the call.
Half a minute later, the phone rang again.
He refused it again.
It rang again.
Snatching up the phone, he snarled, “Go to hell, Jacobi!”
Laughter, then a wrinkled old voice asked, “Who’s Jacobi?”
Bernard squeezed his eyes shut. “You don’t want to know. Who’s this?”
“Who’s this? Why, Bernard, love, don’t you remember?”
It was a woman’s voice, not quite ancient but getting there, somehow familiar. He was pretty sure he’d stolen something from her once upon a time, except his victims didn’t usually call him “love.”
She waited in silence for him to break his silence. When he didn’t, she said. “It’s Dolley.”
Oh, God, not her.
“Dolley Madison Plaskett. You and Melody attended a couple of my debauches last year.”
Melody, who had been in the bedroom, chose that moment to saunter up behind him and shove her cell phone in his face. “Whatcha think of this?” she asked. On the screen, a burnished cedar chest glowed. A thirteen-hundred-dollar price tag glowed beneath it.
He pushed her hand back to get picture and price in focus. “We can’t afford that,” he said.
“I’m not selling anything,” Dolley said. “In fact, I have a proposition for you.”
“I only accept propositions from my wife,” Bernard grumbled.
“Who are you talking to?” Melody demanded.
“You don’t want to know.”
“If she’s propositioning you, I sure do!”
Dolley laughed again. “God, I’ve missed you two. Put me on speaker.”
Bernard sighed but did as requested. To Melody, he whispered, “It’s Dolley.”
Melody face-palmed herself.
The Earls had good reason not to want Dolley calling. Several good reasons. First, she was an aging hippie who never outgrew the 1960’s. Enough said about that. Second, they’d stolen a weasel from her family—a silver one, not a live one—and while Dolley ultimately found that hysterical, certain of her siblings might still be holding a grudge. And third, although none of the Plasketts ever figured out how the theft had taken place, nor how one weasel had morphed into three in the process, Bernard and Melody didn’t care to be associated with any incident that qualified as theft. It wasn’t good for their lifestyle.
“The proposition,” Dolley said, “isn’t anything at all improper.”
Bernard wondered why they would want to listen in that case.
She laughed once more—she was good at laughing—and added, “I can’t believe I’m saying that.”
“So what is it?” he asked.
“I have a friend who’s interested in acquiring something of historical value, and she needs a go-between. Naturally, I thought of you.”
Bernard looked at Melody who looked at Bernard. She held up her phone and waggled the cedar chest while arching her eyebrows.
“So,” Dolley finished, “let’s discuss it over dinner. My place, seven o’clock this evening.”
“I don’t know why you think I’m a negotiator,” Bernard said, just to be difficult.
Melody shoved the cedar chest in his face.
“Don’t be modest,” Dolley said. “You have—what do the young folk say these days? Mad skills?”
That was one way of putting it, although sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t a different kind of mad. “All right,” he said. “Since you’re feeding us, we’ll stop by.”
“Wonderful. You like crab imperial, I presume?”
Bernard liked anything smacking of emperorship. “Of course,” he said.
Melody liked anything yummy. “You bet!” she gushed.
“Then I’ll see you at seven.” Dolley disconnected without saying goodbye.
Bernard looked at Melody. Melody looked at Bernard.
“Think of the money,” they told each other.
“Okay,” they both replied.
𝄞
Dolley Madison Plaskett’s home, if you could call it that, had walls of gleaming alabaster—or some sparkling white material, anyway—that undulated about the grounds in graceful curves. Standing before it, you’d think it more abstract sculpture than home, but an aerial view revealed something astonishing: the form of a nude woman lying on her side, her arm tucked beneath her head. Bernard had seen that girl once before, courtesy of online satellite imagery. Inside, the place was less astonishing. Enormous, yes. Sinfully well-appointed, yes. Undraped figures prancing and sprawling over the walls, yes, but well-known classical paintings all, one or two possibly originals.
Last time they were here, they were greeted by a short guy with blonde face fuzz, cutoff jeans, and a faded red t-shirt. That had been high summer. Now it was autumn, and the same guy greeted them in blue jeans and a faded green t-shirt. In a fit of embarrassment, he previously refused to identify himself. Bernard didn’t bother asking his name now. His paranoid examination of the drive and the grounds and the scattering of clouds floating overhead suggested he remained terrified someone would discover him working here. Before, Bernard thought Dolley’s excesses were the cause, but he’d since learned it was the opposite: she and her hangers-on had, in the main, grown too old to perpetuate a shocking lifestyle. The young man found that even more embarrassing than the alternative.
Embarrassed or not, he hustled them in, pushed the door shut, and scurried to the dining room. The Earls had to trot to keep up.
“They’re here,” the servant announced.
Seated at the head of the table, Dolley waved them in. To her right, her octogenarian partner Bob Wetzlinger had probably dozed off, although his eyes remained open a crack.
“Bernard, dear!” Dolley said. “Melody, dear! Sit, sit, we’re about to serve.”
Another servant scurried in from a side door with a tray of salads and set them around. In short order, wine and the main course were brought in. Bob woke up enough to gum his meal and occasionally blink at Melody as though he recognized her, possibly as someone he’d slept with six decades ago. Although if she was, she hadn’t aged a day, making life way more unfair than he’d ever realized. Meanwhile, Melody effused praise for the flavors, while Bernard enjoyed them in silence and awaited the inevitable.
Eventually, Dolley obliged him. “Do you know the art collector Gerhard Nachtnebel, Jr.?”
Bernard wasn’t sure he wanted to know anyone with a name like that. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“He’s famous.”
“I can’t track every famous guy.”
Dolley grinned. “Especially since the advent of social media influencers.”
“What about this collector?”
“He has a place upriver in Swampside, a big house, half again as big as mine. Half of it is given over to art events and instruction. Artists, art historians, students, and God knows who else flock there like vultures for classes and to study his collections. It’s rumored he has a secret collection, a stash he doesn’t let anyone see.”
Bernard thought that too strange to credit. Unless…
Melody perked up. “Why? Did he steal them?”
Yeah, unless that.
Dolley’s smirk suggested it was exactly that. “I mentioned a friend of mine needs help negotiating acquisition of an item of historical value. That item is said to be in Gerhard’s secret collection.”
“She wants us to steal a stolen relic.” Normally, Bernard wouldn’t have used the “s” word, but this was Dolley. She had supplied weed—and God knew what else—to her friends long before it was legal in Maryland.
“Twice stolen, in fact. It’s right up your alley. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about those weasels. I still don’t know how you pulled that off.”
And she never would. “What do you mean?” Bernard asked.
“How you turned one weasel into three.”
“About this relic being twice-stolen, I mean.”
“Oh. It goes like this. Adolf Hitler assembled a collection of original manuscripts by the composer Richard Wagner.” She pronounced it REE-kard VAHG-nur. “They were kept in his bunker. That much is known for certain. At the end of the war, when the bunker burned, they were presumed lost. But the scuttlebutt is that a highly-placed SS officer stole one of those manuscripts before the fire. In fact, he’s believed to have swept up a considerable stash of stolen art as the Nazi war effort collapsed. Then, while sneaking it out of Germany, he was allegedly shot by his driver, who stole the stolen loot and escaped. That driver was Gerhard’s father.”
Bernard figured a story like that couldn’t possibly be true.
“A story like that,” Melody said, “has got to be true. Right, Bernie?”
“To be honest, love—” Bernard began. He didn’t get to finish.
“So what does your friend want?” Melody asked Dolley. “And most important, what’s the payout?”
Dolley grinned. “Twenty grand. The target is the original autographed manuscript of the opera Rienzi, which someone gave to Hitler as a fiftieth birthday present. That opera, it’s been said, was a big inspiration for his career. Can you imagine what that must be worth?”
Not really. The name Richard Wagner meant nothing to Bernard, and as far as he was concerned, anything that had inspired Adolf Hitler should be exorcised and incinerated and its ashes buried in hallowed ground to keep it safe from warlocks and satanists. But the fee was another matter. Twenty grand. Damn.
“Why does your friend want this old parchment?” “Why?” wasn’t a question Bernard generally asked, but once again, this was Dolley, and more to the point, the whole thing sounded like somebody’s drug-induced hallucination. Which made sense, because this was Dolley.
Bob Wetzlinger looked up from his meal and blinked. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Can’t think why I would,” Bernard told him.
He shrugged, said, “Suit yourself,” and resumed eating.
Dolley shook her head at him. “The whole world believes Rienzi to be lost forever. Whoever finds it will be famous.”
“People like us don’t want to be famous,” Bernard said.
“I do,” Melody insisted.
“Not for stealing a stolen relic, love.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Nobody will know it was you,” Dolley promised. “And you’ll have twenty grand, tax free.”
“Plus expenses,” Bernard said.
Dolley winked. “She can afford it.”
“Who?”
“My friend.”
Who wished to remain anonymous while becoming famous. Weird. “Will she meet with us?” Bernard asked. “You have her address?”
“She will, and I do,” Dolley replied. She slid a slip of paper to him. “We won’t speak of this again. The rest is up to you.”
Yeah. It always was.
