Still Lives(54)

“And this isn’t normal?” I ask.

“Not at all! You look at the provenance of a Chris Ofili or a Mike Kelley, and there might be an avid collector or two, but it’s pretty spread out over a dozen people and institutions.” She taps Nelson de Wilde’s name and says that the gallerist would have to be in collusion with the one mega-collector, or such a monopoly on one artist’s work would never be possible.

“But wouldn’t Kim Lord know?”

“Not necessarily. If the work got resold through someone other than Nelson,” she says.

“I can’t believe we’d be the first to figure it out,” I say.

Evie raises an eyebrow. “Maybe we’re not.” She tells me about a collector who is suing a Harlem gallery because it did not offer him first dibs on buying a painting by Julie Mehretu, despite the fact that he supported the same gallery with a $75,000 loan in return for the chance to snap up hot artists. “He got so steamed about it, he went to court.”

I’m not seeing the connection. “So?”

“So what if Janis Rocque wants another Kim Lord and she can’t get one? Why else would she hire that sleazy guy to snoop around?”

He’s not that sleazy, I think. But what Evie says makes sense. Janis Rocque invites her private investigator to the Gala to find the person who is hoarding the Lords. Then Kim doesn’t show up and J. Ro keeps him on, suspecting something darker. Janis Rocque has been way ahead of me since the beginning; she worried someone was trying to manipulate Kim Lord’s work in the marketplace. I am struck again with the uneasy pleasure of having my convictions confirmed.

“God, how did you find all this so fast?” I ask her. “You’re amazing at your work. I’m so grateful.”

Evie smirks, as if she feels sorry for me for finally noticing. She points to the yellow pad in my hands. “What are you going to do? Could this help Shaw?”

The hurt floods me again. “I hope so,” I say, averting my eyes.

Outside there’s a loud, rolling sound as the loading-dock door comes down. The light behind me darkens. Evie is saying something about Thursday. Visiting J. Ro’s sculpture garden on Thursday.

“I’ll be there,” I manage to say, and wave my thanks, although Thursday feels as far away as the Atlantic Ocean to me. I can feel Evie’s eyes on my back as I cross the cavern to the elevator. Fritz the security guard enters my field of vision, his tinted glasses still darkened from the recent flood of light. He’s waving something thin and brown.

“For you,” he says cheerfully. “UPS came by. Save you a trip to the mailroom.”

I grab it, thank him, and keep walking.


Once, in Thailand, I was sure I was pregnant. My period was late, and I didn’t know where to buy a test. As I sweltered in front of my chalky classroom blackboard, rode on the long bench of the covered taxi, strolled the fly-infested market where pig heads rested on ice, I felt myself expanding, becoming more than me. I wrote a letter to Greg, who was teaching two provinces away from me, but I did not send it. If I sent the letter, it could be true. If I waited, it was merely a secret, a threat. Also, a wish.

The blood came the week before I visited Greg at his house. As we lay on hammocks under his covered front patio, I told him about my scare. He sounded relieved. His relief made me angry.

“Is this a trial?” Greg flared back, and then added more gently, “Do you really want to have a baby? Because we should talk if you do.”

I denied the desire, but I sulked because I couldn’t express what I did want. Not a baby. Certainly not the diapers and co-sleepers that clogged my brother Mark’s life. But the feeling of our future inside me, mine and Greg’s? I liked that. It anchored me.

I punch the elevator button and the doors open immediately, the interior thankfully unoccupied. After the doors slip shut, I rip open the envelope, addressed to me in plain caps.

Inside: a torn notebook page, and a smaller white paper, folded. I read the notebook page first. The handwriting is Greg’s, hasty and scrawled:

M—I only have a couple of minutes to write this because the police are here, and it seems like they’ve found something incriminating downstairs, but one of my assistants said she’d mail this for me. (1) I am NOT guilty. I know you believe this. (2) Please don’t try to help, like I asked you last night. Let the police do their work. I got this under my studio door this morning and it’s freaking me out. Stay safe. Stay out of this. I love you, my friend.

—GSF

I unfold the second, smaller paper. Six words in black marker:

YOU’D BETTER WATCH OUT FOR MAGGIE.





20

Donor wall,” Hiro says. He is standing outside my office door, wearing a pine-green T-shirt for a bonsai society. He holds up two sheets of paper. “Can you look at these really fast?” he says, recoiling at my grimace. “We’re ninety-nine percent sure they’re correct, but you need to sign off on everything, right? For typos?”

YOU’D BETTER WATCH OUT FOR MAGGIE. The words on the note blaze through my mind. Now I understand Cherie’s suspicions. Greg thought someone was warning him to protect me; Cherie interpreted the opposite. Better watch out for Maggie, as in Maggie’s dangerous.

Who in the world would think I’m dangerous? Maybe Nikki Bolio once thought I was, when I asked her to expose the people she knew. Yet in a ruthless city like Los Angeles, I’m as harmless as a lamb. I make homemade cards for people’s birthdays. I exclusively wear practical shoes. I bring maple-bran muffins to cocktail parties.