Stuart Woods - Quick & Dirty

“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone replied. “Are you feeling better?”

“Much better,” Angelo said. “I walked into my apartment building and felt a little queasy, and I had a pain in my back on the left side. I don’t remember anything else. I’m told I collapsed into the arms of a doorman, who did all the right things. I woke up here.”

“I’m glad you did. I want to thank you for the glorious van Gogh you did for me. It’s already in a place of pride in my house. I don’t think I’ll tell anybody it’s a fake.”

“Tell them it’s an original Farina,” Angelo said.

“Perhaps I will, once they get over the initial shock. I had dinner with Morgan last evening, partly to give back her van Gogh.”

“They found it, then?”

Stone took him through the chain of events that had led to the picture’s recovery. “The final thief sold it back to the insurance company, saving them a bundle.”

“That was smart. Who was he?”

“He called himself Sol Fineman, at least for a while. Nobody has been able to find out anything else about him.”

“Mark Tillman would have enjoyed that story. He was a very tricky fellow himself.”

“I’ve come to know you’re right about that.”

“How so?”

“Last night, while Morgan was making dinner, she asked me to rehang the van Gogh. In so doing, I accidentally dislodged a very nice Utrillo from its place, and I got quite a surprise.”

“From Utrillo? Nothing very surprising there.”

“I won’t argue art with you, but tucked inside the Utrillo’s frame I found another, smaller frame. I pried it out and lo, another van Gogh, virtually identical to Mark Tillman’s.”

Angelo smiled broadly. “Did you now?”

“I did, and now I have a question for you, Angelo. Which of Mark’s van Goghs is the fake?”

Angelo laughed. “Both of them.”

Stone’s jaw dropped. “They are both fakes?”

“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are both original Farinas.” He coughed a few times.

“Have some water,” Stone said. He took a glass from the bedside table and held the straw so that Angelo could take a few sips.

“That’s better,” he said.

“Why would Mark want duplicate van Goghs?”

Angelo sighed. “Perhaps he was a belt-and-braces sort of guy,” he said. “Or perhaps he had more nefarious reasons. As I say, he was a tricky fellow.” He began to cough again, and Stone offered him the water, but he waved it away. Stone rang for the nurse.

She was there immediately, and shooed Stone from the room. He took a seat, and through the open door he heard a periodic beep from one of the monitors turn into a continuous tone. A doctor and another nurse, pushing a crash cart, ran down the hallway and into the room and closed the door behind them.

Stone waited for the better part of half an hour before the doctor emerged.

“Are you family?” the doctor asked Stone.

“No, just a friend.”

“We did everything we could,” the doctor said, “but we were unable to revive him. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Stone said.

“I should call his son,” the doctor said, and walked away down the hall.

Stone decided to walk home. As he walked through the crisp morning air, he went over in his mind the chain of events that had led to this day.

He thought about Morgan Tillman. Perhaps she would discover the duplicate one day soon, or perhaps much time would pass before someone came across it. He thought he would let that happen.

He thought about Arthur Steele. Arthur and his company would never again see the five million Sol Fineman had taken from him, and Stone would hate to see Art Masi have to give back the two million he had worked so hard for.

He thought about the ten million he himself had pocketed. Still, the insurance company had saved many millions. Perhaps, Stone thought, a large charitable donation would be in order for him.

He decided not to attend the board meeting that afternoon.

I must give my thanks to the artist Ken Perenyi, who knows all things about the creation, as well as the forgery, of art. His book, Caveat Emptor , tells (nearly) all on that subject, and I hope it kept me from sounding like an idiot on the subject. I own and treasure several of his “re-creations,” and you may find his work for sale on the Internet, as well as, if rumors be true, in many museums and art collections around the world.