Steve Martini: Double Tap

Iranian by birth, having immigrated with his family to the United States when the Shah fell in the seventies, he had arrived in this country with nothing. He now owned his own gallery in one of the most exclusive shopping locations in Southern California.

As Madelyn walked through the door, a mellow electronic tone announced her entrance, and Ibram turned to look.

Asani’s eyes lit up. He put his hands together as if in prayer to the deity whose authority was over all things mercantile. “Ah, my good friend, Ms. Chapman. So good to see you. I assume you received my message.”

“Indeed I did.”

“One moment. I will be right with you.” Asani turned toward two women who were examining a smaller object under glass in one of the cases.

A shop owner who missed his calling in diplomacy, he excused himself and left the women to peruse on their own as he walked briskly toward Madelyn and the scent of money.

“Ms. Chapman, how are you?”

“Fine, Ibram. And you?”

He wrinkled up his face, an expression somewhere between the Middle East and Europe. “No complaints. Business has been good.”

“My secretary told me that you called. Something about a new piece by Yadl Heulich?”

“Shh.” He held his finger to his lips, and looked toward the two women, neither of whom paid any attention. “Yes, it came in yesterday. A truly unique piece. It is one of his early private commissions.” Asani cupped one hand to his lips and leaned in to her ear. “It is from an estate.” The way he said it-in a whisper-made it sound as if he had stolen the item in question. “I don’t think they knew the value.” He smiled and shrugged. “At least, the executor did not.” Something that Asani would no doubt quickly rectify. “A friend alerted me and I was able to purchase it. I want you to understand, there is no obligation. I did not intend to purchase it on commission.”

“I understand.”

“I would have bought it for the gallery even if I did not think you would be interested.”

“Can I see it?”

“Of course. It is incredible.”

He went to the phone on the counter and used the intercom to call to the storage area at the back of the gallery. A few moments later Asani’s son pushed a small cart through the doorway and into the gallery’s main room as his father stepped around a display case and quickly walked over to provide direction. The cart was specially designed, its top recessed like a deep bowl with deep foam rubber lining the sides so that the object on it was cradled and cushioned like an embryo in a womb.

As they reached the counter, Asani, with a quick, efficient motion, whipped a rubber pad from a shelf under the cart and laid it out on the counter. He shooed the boy away and alone he lifted the shimmering blue sphere from its foam cradle and placed it carefully on the rubber pad.

Madelyn looked at it, moving closer. She had never seen anything like it in her life. Her gaze was fixed on the glass as it glittered in the light. As she moved, the glass took on subtle changes of texture and color. Its form was a near-perfect sphere, its gossamer swirls of blue and white suffusing with light, turning to brilliant indigo just inside the surface of the orb as you looked at it straight on. In their purest form the colors reminded Madelyn of photos taken by astronauts that captured the curvature of the earth from space at dawn.

Asani looked at Madelyn, who appeared to be in a trance as she studied the object. The shop owner smiled, wondering whether his calculator possessed enough digits to cipher the sale and its consequent tax.

Madelyn came to, just long enough to ask a question: “Does it have a name?”

“Ahh, yes. The original owner, the man who commissioned it-he and the artist agreed that it would be called Orb at the Edge .”

He escorted her to the inner sanctum at the rear of the gallery, a small office where he opened negotiations for the purchase. After haggling over the price for several minutes, Asani tried to excuse himself from the room for a moment. A call of nature, he told her. Madelyn looked at her watch and told him she was late for an appointment and would have to leave. While she had a dinner engagement at eight, there was nothing pressing, neither was she left behind the door when the brains were dispensed. If Asani left the room at that point, her offer would be withdrawn and she would walk. Madelyn had no intention of getting into a bidding war via long distance with some acquisitions director for a museum her company was probably sustaining through its program of corporate contribution to the arts.

Finally they agreed on a price and Madelyn cut a check. Asani wanted to deliver it personally the next day, but Madelyn would have none of it. The shop owner and his son went to work packaging the piece.

Madelyn was much more content with the boxed blue sphere on the seat next to her as she maneuvered through traffic. It occupied her attention sufficiently that she missed the change when the traffic light went green. The driver in the car behind her tapped his horn. She could see him gesticulating in her rearview mirror: Rich bitch in the Formula One can’t drive .

“Relax.” Madelyn looked at him through narrow little slits from behind her dark glasses. “Keep your shirt on.” She touched the gas with her foot and the Ferrari inched forward, slowly gaining speed. For the first time since getting the car, she regretted not having automatic transmission. That way she would have had one hand free to protect the box if it lurched forward at a stop. Instead she kept one eye on the cardboard container, the other on the road, her right hand alternating between the shift lever and the box on the seat next to her.

The sleek racer never got past thirty or out of second gear. Finally she turned into her driveway and pressed the button on the remote. The double iron gates began to swing open.

A few seconds later she was in the garage, the overhead door closed behind her. She left the briefcase with her laptop along with a stack of important mail from the office in the car. Then, with the strap of her purse over one shoulder, she wrestled the large box through the passenger-side door. She slammed the door closed with one hip to get it out of the way and caught the strap of her purse in the crook of her arm as it slid off her shoulder. In four-inch heels she maneuvered around the Ferrari. The box containing Orb at the Edge wasn’t as heavy as it was awkward, too big for her to get her arms around. Another woman might have waited for help, but not Madelyn. Ever since she was a kid she resented women who employed their feminine wiles to get some man to do what they should be able to do for themselves. Given the tools and a book of directions, she would be as good at repairing cars as she was at crafting software.

She made it to a small potting table at the end of the garage near the door to the backyard. She carefully set the box on the table, then slid the purse off her shoulder, dropping it on the floor. She hiked the waistband of her skirt up a couple of inches. It had slipped down as she was grappling with the box.

Madelyn was puffing a bit, studying the door leading to the kitchen twenty feet away. She looked around for something she could use.

Six minutes later she stood in the kitchen, in the middle of a small sea of litter, packing tape, and bubble wrap strewn across the floor and over the countertop. A smile formed on her lips, the joy of owning such beauty, as she took in the Orb at the Edge . Gingerly she picked it up and walked through the kitchen and down the hall. Madelyn made her way to the large oval ebony table in the entryway. The moment she had seen the piece in Asani’s gallery, she had known where she wanted to put it. It would be the first thing anyone saw when entering the grand hall.