Still Lives(56)

Jayme doesn’t respond. She is looking at my Cy Twombly drawing, her head tilted back, as if she hasn’t seen it before.

“What if it is just a scribble?” I say. “Don’t you ever wonder that?”

“Did you see that report on Kim Lord’s family?” Jayme says. “Her sister’s been found. She never left Toronto. She contacted the parents, and she’s back in rehab.”

Kim’s sister never left Toronto. That means she can’t be the woman on the flash drive.

“Thank God she’s safe,” I say. “I can’t imagine how their parents are feeling right now.”

Jayme gives a convulsive little shrug.

“I’m sorry, I—” I begin.

“I always thought it was a scribble,” she interrupts dryly, gesturing at the Twombly. “Excuse me.” She pulls out her phone, dialing a number.

Hiro appears behind Jayme. “Just two more minutes,” I call to him.

Jayme departs, hand to her ear, already deep in conversation. I’m amazed at how she can compartmentalize so fast. I ought to try it. I gesture at Hiro to sit while I scan through the last few names. He lowers himself into a chair and folds his hands. I mention Bootleg, and we joke about their awful food, about filling up at a happy hour before. Even to my own ears, I sound cheerful. Maybe compartmentalizing is the only way to cope this week. Kim’s sister is safe. That should be good news. But, then, who is the woman in the photos on the flash drive?

“So … CJ Gallery—is that what this says?” I ask, tapping the list.

He looks at the list, frowns. “No, CJF. MeiMei wrote that. I think it used to be Curtain, Jug, and Fruit, but they changed their name before they opened.”

“Curtain, Jug, and Fruit?” I repeat. “I can see why they shortened it. Let me check the punctuation, though.”

I open a search engine, make sure the initials have no periods, and hand the whole list off to Hiro, who thanks me profusely and splits. I am about to click on Yegina’s message when the back of my neck prickles. I look again at the search results.

CJF is a brand-new Santa Monica gallery, run by proprietor Steve Goetz. I’ve seen that last name before, but can’t remember where—another donor list?

Curtain, Jug, and Fruit is a painting by Paul Cézanne that sold for $60 million in 1999, making it one of the most expensive still lifes in the world.

Steve Curtain was the notation in Juanita’s planner. Steve at Curtain?

Kim Lord’s hastily painted backdrop in “Disappearances” features a hanging cloth depicting oranges, apples, and jugs. Curtain, jugs, and fruit.

Kim Lord was warning him. Or the rest of us. But warning us of what?


Steve Goetz—proprietor of CJF Gallery, art collector, former Catesby’s consultant, master’s degree from Yates—is burly and dish-faced, with thick brown hair and a flush in his cheeks like he just swallowed a hot toddy. In the photo accompanying one news article, he stands erect, legs spread, in front of the Guggenheim Bilbao, hands in the pockets of his indigo suit. The article is about art philanthropy. Steve Goetz has started an organization called the Patron Foundation to pair wealthy international collectors with individual up-and-coming artists. “Like the microloan movement, but for New Masters,” he says.

A call to my contact at the Yates library turns up his thesis from 1993 called “The Supercollector and the Artificial Artist,” keywords: art market, economy, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Charles Saatchi, YBAs.

The librarian says she has the abstract. Do I want her to fax it?

“Can you read it to me now?” I beg her.

In our new international contemporary art market, the artist’s value is no longer principally attached to the artist’s work; rather, it is attached to other factors such as wealthy collectors, media hype, and the increasing trend to collect “wet paint” artists. This thesis proposes that key individual non-artists (i.e., collectors, critics, curators) may have a greater influence on artistic movements than the artists themselves, and that the future is ready for a new figure, the “supercollector,” to shape a new canon of “artificial artists.”

“Say that again—a ‘supercollector’ …”

“Shapes a new canon of ‘artificial artists.’ Geez. I’ll be an artificial artist if someone wants to hype me,” she says. “Too bad I can’t even draw.”

“It’s disgustingly cynical,” I say, thinking of all the artists I know who would be mortified to be called artificial. “Like the process and the appreciation of art don’t exist, just its market value, which can be influenced at will.”

The librarian makes a noise of assent. “Yeah. It’ll never happen, though. What’s the payoff for being the so-called supercollector? That everyone knows you really are a douchebag?”

“It could happen,” I say. “It could have happened.”

There’s an expectant silence.

“That’s all I’m saying,” I say.

“Really,” she says thoughtfully. “You know, you’re the second person to request that thesis this month.”

“Who’s the first?”

“Can’t tell you,” she says reluctantly. She’ll copy the thesis itself and fax it to me by tomorrow morning.