Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (86)

“Why wasn’t the material included in the piece?”

“You first, Mr. Allon. Why Phillip Somerset, of all people?”

“Masterpiece Art Ventures is a fraud. And I’d like you to be the one to break the story.”

“What have you got for me?”

“A whistleblower.”

“An employee of the company?”

“Close enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’m going to impose some rather strict ground rules in order to protect the whistleblower’s identity and to conceal my role in this matter.”

“And if I refuse to accept those ground rules?”

“I’ll find someone who will. And you and your magazine will be playing catch-up when Masterpiece crashes and burns.”

“In that case, I’ll listen to what you and your whistleblower have to say.” She paused. “But only if you tell me where you got the number for my cell phone.”

“I found it in Phillip’s contacts.”

Evelyn Buchanan smiled. “Ask a silly question.”





54

Central Park




“How did you find her?”

“She was arrested in Italy last weekend after purchasing a forged Gentileschi from an undercover Carabinieri officer. I was a consultant to the Italian investigation.”

“A consultant?” asked Evelyn dubiously.

“It’s possible I might have painted the Gentileschi for them.”

“A fake forgery painted by Gabriel Allon? This story is getting better by the minute.”

They were moving at an unhurried pace along the footpaths of Central Park. For the moment, Evelyn’s notepad was tucked safely into her Chanel handbag. She was a petite woman of perhaps fifty, with short, dark hair and oversize tortoiseshell glasses. They were her trademark, the spectacles, like her razor-sharp prose, acerbic wit, and ruthless competitive streak.

“Where’s the painting now?” she asked.

“A warehouse on East Ninety-First Street.”

“Chelsea Fine Arts Storage?”

“That’s the one.”

“I remember when Phillip acquired it. I have to say, it made no sense to me at the time. Why would a tycoon like Phillip Somerset want to own a small-time art services company like Chelsea?”

“Because the tycoon needed the ability to ship and store forged paintings, no questions asked. He’s flooded the art market with hundreds of fake paintings, including four that have ended up in the Louvre. But the best part of the story is that—”

“Phillip is using forged paintings as collateral to obtain massive bank loans.”

“How did you know?”

“An educated guess.” Evelyn smiled. “Did I mention that my husband works for Millennium Management. It’s one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Before that, he was a prosecutor in the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. When I was working on the profile of Phillip, Tom took a hard look at—”

“Your husband is named Tom Buchanan?”

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

“Please.”

“When Tom analyzed Masterpiece’s annual returns, he was quite impressed. Envious, actually.”

“Because Masterpiece had outperformed Millennium?”

“Easily. Tom being Tom, he started doing some digging.”

“And?”

“He was convinced that Phillip was using borrowed money and money from new investors to pay off his old investors. In short, Tom believes that Phillip Somerset is the Bernie Madoff of the art world.”

“He’s running a Ponzi scheme?”

“Correct.”

“How close did you get to proving it?”

“Not close enough for my editors. But Phillip definitely knew that I was on to him.”

“How?”

“He employs a man named Leonard Silk to watch his back. Silk is retired CIA. When he left the Agency, he opened a one-man private security firm here in New York. He called me when I was working on my profile and threatened legal action if the piece alleged wrongdoing of any kind. I also received messages from a man who somehow knew that I liked to take long walks in the park. He warned me to be careful. He said bad things happen to women who walk alone in New York City.”

“How subtle.”

“Leonard Silk doesn’t waste time on subtlety. That’s Phillip’s department. He was incredibly charming during our interviews. It’s no wonder your whistleblower agreed to work for him.”

“Actually, she saw through Phillip from the beginning.”

“What was the original connection?”

“Drugs. When she couldn’t sell any of her paintings here in New York, she earned a living dealing cocaine. Many of her clients were Wall Street types.”

“Phillip snorted a mountain of blow back when he was at Lehman Brothers,” said Evelyn. “It was just one of the reasons why they fired him. Even by Wall Street standards, he was out of control.”

“Your article said he left Lehman on good terms.”

“That was the public version of the story, but it isn’t true. Phillip was practically frog-marched out of the building, and a do-not-resuscitate order went out on the street. When no one else would hire him, he started a hedge fund called Somerset Asset Management. And when the hedge fund collapsed, he hit upon a novel idea.”