Alistair said as he smoothly took the portfolio from her and set it on his counter.
“I used to ride bikes around town,” Stone said. “I found that other drivers gave me a wide berth, as if they were afraid they might kill me.”
“Except taxi drivers,” Anita said. “They couldn’t care less.”
“I’ll tell you how to handle them,” Stone said. “After one of them has nearly killed you, you sneak up on him from behind, on the driver’s side—they always have their window open—and you scream at them as loud as you can.”
The woman managed a smile; she was relaxing. “That might work, you know.”
Alistair was opening the portfolio and taking out a print. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
“John Singer Sargent, 1910,” Anita said. “In excellent condition.”
“Can we have the wrapper off?” Stone asked, and Alistair took a craft knife and removed the clear plastic.
“A magnifying glass, Alistair?”
Stone took the glass and went over the picture, corner to corner, paying particular attention to the signature. “Mmm, it’s all right,” he said noncommittally. “What are you asking?”
“Eighteen hundred,” Anita replied.
“Mmmm. The next one?”
Alistair removed the Sargent, lifted the oil from the portfolio, and set it on the easel.
Stone knew the painting intimately, but he made a show of examining it closely. The beautiful frame, for which he had paid $1,500, was missing. He turned it over and found, written in a childish hand, Stone. He had signed it when he was nine. “Mmmm. How much?”
“Twelve thousand,” Anita replied with assurance. “Cheap at the price.”
Stone agreed. He wondered if she knew how cheap. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll give you twelve thousand for the two of them. Cash. Right now.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Thirteen,” she said.
Stone turned and offered her his hand. She shook it. “Done,” he said, “with a good provenance, of course.” He held on to her hand and looked her in the eye.
“Jim,” she said, “I have a small shop. People come in and sell me things. I don’t inquire.” She removed her hand from his. “Thirteen thousand. As you see them.”
“Who’d you buy the oil from?”
“A fella who comes in now and then.”
“Do you think he might have anything else by the same artist?”
“Could be,” she said.
Stone went to his briefcase, got $13,000, and returned. “A bill of sale, please?”
She took a sheet of paper from the portfolio, wrote out the document, and handed it to him. “There you are.”
Stone handed her the money and glanced at her letterhead: “Anita’s Artfest, Barrow Street.” “I’d like to visit your shop and see what else you’ve got,” he said. “I’m always in the market.”
“Sure.” She was closing up the folio.
“You open weekends?”
“By appointment.”
“How about noon on Saturday? Find me some more like the oil, and I’ll throw in a good lunch.”
“You’re on,” she said. “Phone?”
Stone gave her his cell number and she wrote it down.
“And your number?” He jotted it down. “I’ll bring cash,” he said.
“See you noon Saturday,” she said. “I’ll give the guy a call.”
And then she was out, on the bike and gone.
“Well,” Alistair said, “that was interesting. And I think I’m owed a commission on the sale. Say, twenty-five hundred?”
Stone returned to his briefcase and picked up a banded bunch of bills. “Here’s ten thousand,” he said, handing the man the money. “Help me get the rest of my pictures back, and there’ll be more. A lot more.”
Alistair grinned. “Always happy to be of service,” he said, wrapping the two pictures.
Stone shook his hand and left the gallery, the pictures under his arm. “One down, ten to go,” he said.
—
Back in his office, Joan came in. “Did you spend all that money?”
“Thirteen thousand,” Stone replied, “but I got a two-million-dollar painting for it.” He opened his parcel and showed her.
“Beautiful,” she said. “And this is nice, too.” She fingered the Sargent.
“Get that framed, will you? Something gilt, simple—you know what I like.”
“Will do.”
“And get me another quarter-million in cash from the bank. Used hundreds and fifties, banded.”
“My, you’re in an art-shopping mood, aren’t you?”
“You bet your sweet ass I am.”
41
Stone had still not heard from either Dino or Jim Connor, and he called Dino on his cell.
“Bacchetti.”
“Hi, can you talk?”
“Sure, I’m walking back to my office.”
“I got lucky today. The dealer who sold me one of my mother’s paintings several years ago called me and said someone had offered it to him. He got the seller back into his shop, and I bought it from her, along with a Sargent print she had, for thirteen grand.”
“A