Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (90)
The reactionary industrialist Max van Egan had parked $250 million at Masterpiece. He told Nicky he wasn’t going anywhere. Simon Levinson—of the retailing Levinsons—was also inclined to stay put. But Ainsley Cabot, a collector of exceptional taste but only eight-figure wealth, heeded Nicky’s advice. He rang Phillip at 9:15 a.m. Eastern time, as Phillip was stepping from his Sikorsky at the East Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport.
“How much?” he shouted over the whine of the rotors.
“All of it.”
“Once you’re out, there’s no getting back in again. Do you understand me, Ainsley?”
“Spare me the bravado, Phillip, and send me my money.”
Buffy Lowell reached Phillip at 9:24 a.m. as he was rolling up Third Avenue in his chauffeured Mercedes. Livingston Ford caught him eight minutes later, as he was crawling crosstown on East Seventy-Second Street. Livingston had $50 million in the fund and wanted out.
“You’re going to regret this,” warned Phillip.
“That’s what my third wife told me, and I’ve never been happier.”
“I’d like you to consider only a partial redemption.”
“Are you suggesting there isn’t enough cash in the till?”
“The money isn’t sitting in an account at Citibank. I’ll have to unload several paintings to make you whole.”
“In that case, Phillip, I suggest you start unloading.”
Which was how a seemingly offhand remark—made forty-five minutes earlier over a costly lunch in London—blew a $100 million hole in Masterpiece Art Ventures. The firm’s founder, however, knew nothing of what had transpired. Desperate for information, he conducted a pair of hasty Internet searches—one for his own name, the other for the name of his firm. Neither unearthed anything that would explain why three of his largest investors had suddenly fled his fund. A search of social media likewise produced nothing damaging. Finally, at 9:42 a.m., he tapped the icon for Telegram, the encrypted cloud-based messaging system, and opened an existing secret chat thread.
I’m bleeding to death, he typed. Find out why.
When Phillip Somerset purchased his town house on East Seventy-Fourth Street in 2014, $30 million was considered a great deal of money. He had obtained the loan from his banker at JPMorgan Chase using several forged paintings as collateral, just one of the ways he had waved a magic wand and turned swaths of worthless canvas into gold. Several additional forgeries adorned the interior of the mansion, all to impress prospective investors and confer upon Phillip a patina of extraordinary wealth and sophistication. They were the elite of the art world, his investors. The ones with more money than sense. Phillip was a fraud and a clever forgery himself, but his investors were the fools who had made the elaborate scheme possible. And Magdalena, he thought suddenly. It would have never worked without her.
He entered the mansion’s ground-floor foyer and was greeted by Tyler Briggs, his chief of security. Tyler was an Iraq War veteran. He wore a dark suit over a gym-hardened body.
“How was the ride in from the island, Mr. Somerset?”
“Better than the drive from the heliport.”
Phillip’s phone was ringing again. It was Scooter Eastman, a $20 million investor.
“Any scheduled deliveries today?” asked Tyler.
“A painting is supposed to arrive from the warehouse any minute.”
“Clients?”
“Not today. But Ms. Navarro is supposed to drop by around one. Send her up to my office when she arrives.”
Phillip dispatched Scooter Eastman’s call to his voice mail and mounted the staircase. Soledad and Gustavo Ramírez, the Peruvian couple who ran his household, were waiting on the second-floor landing. Phillip absently returned their greetings while eyeing his phone. It was Rosamond Pierce. Midnight-blue blood. Ten million invested in Masterpiece Art Ventures.
“I’ll be having lunch at home today. Ms. Navarro will be joining me. Seafood Cobb salads, please. One thirty or so.”
“Yes, Mr. Somerset,” replied the Ramírezes in unison.
Upstairs in his office, he listened to the new voice mails. Scooter Eastman and Rosamond Pierce both wanted out. In the span of thirty minutes, he had lost $135 million in investment money. Redemptions of that scale would threaten the most ethically run hedge fund. For a fund like Masterpiece Art Ventures, they were cataclysmic.
He relayed the news to Kenny Vaughan, the firm’s chief investment officer, during their usual ten o’clock video call.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I wish.”
“A hundred and thirty-five million is going to hurt, Phillip.”
“How long before we start to feel the pain?”
“Livingston Ford, Scooter Eastman, and Rosamond Pierce are all eligible for redemptions this month.”
“Eighty million?”
“More like eighty-five.”
“How much cash do we have on hand?”
“Fiftyish. Maybe.”
“I could dump the Pollock.”
“You owe JPMorgan sixty-five against the Pollock. Selling it isn’t an option.”
“How much do you need to make it work, Kenny?”
“Eighty-five would be nice.”
“Be reasonable.”
“Is there any chance you can lay your hands on forty?”