Greg Iles - Dead Sleep

“Hold the other side while I pull,” he says.

I set my cappuccino on the floor, then take hold of the other side of the crate while he slides out a padded metal frame that holds the gilt frame inside it.

“There,” he says. “You can see it now.”

I’m torn between wanting to step around the crate and wanting to stay right where I am. But I have to look. I might recognize one of the victims who was taken before Jane.

The instant I see the woman’s face, I know she’s a stranger to me. But I could easily have known her. She looks like ten thousand women in New Orleans, a mixture of French blood with some fraction of African, resulting in a degree of natural beauty rarely seen elsewhere in America. But this woman is not in her natural state. Her skin should be cafe au lait; here it’s the color of bone china. And her eyes are fully open and fixed. Of course, the eyes in any painting are fixed; it’s the talent of the artist that brings life to them. But in these eyes there is no life. Not even a hint of it.

“Sleeping Woman Number Twenty,” says Wingate. “Do you like it better than the paintings downstairs?”

Only now do I see the rest of the painting. The artist has posed his subject against a wall, knees drawn up to her chest as though she’s sitting. But she is not sitting. She is merely leaning there, her head lolling on her marbled shoulder, while around her swirls a storm of color. Brightly printed curtains, a blue carpet, a shaft of light from an unseen window. Even the wall she leans on is the product of thousands of tiny strokes of different colors. Only the woman is presented with startling realism. She could have been cut from a Rembrandt and set in this whirlwind of color.

“I don’t like it. But I feel… I feel whoever painted it is very talented.”

“Enormously.” Genuine excitement lights Wingate’s black eyes. “He’s capturing something that no one else working today is even close to. All the arrogant kids that come in here, trying to be edgy, painting with blood and making sculpture with gun parts… they’re a fucking joke. This is the edge. You’re looking over it right now.”

“Is he an important artist?”

“We won’t know that for fifty years.”

“What do you call this style?”

Wingate sighs thoughtfully. “Hard to say. He’s not static. He began with almost pure Impressionism, which is dead. Anyone can do it. But the vision was there. Between the fifth and twelfth paintings, he began to evolve something much more fascinating. Are you familiar with the Nabis?”

“The what?”

“Nabis. It means ‘prophets.’ Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard?”

“What I know about art wouldn’t fill a postcard.”

“Don’t blame yourself. That’s the American educational system. They simply don’t teach it. Not unless you beg for it. Not even in university.”

“I didn’t go to college.”

“How refreshing. And why would you? American institutions worship technology. Technology and money.”

“Are you American?”

A bemused smile. “What do you think?”

“I can’t tell. Where are you from?”

“I usually lie when someone asks that question. I don’t want to insult your intelligence, so we’ll skip the biography.”

“Hiding a dark secret?”

“A little mystery keeps me interesting. Collectors like to buy from interesting dealers. People think I’m a big bad wolf. They think I have mob connections, criminal clients all over.”

“Do you?”

“I’m a businessman. But doing business in New York, that kind of reputation doesn’t hurt.”

“Do you have prints of other Sleeping Women I can see?”

“There are no prints. I guarantee that to the purchaser.”

“What about photographs? You must have photos.”

He shakes his head. “No photos. No copies of any kind.”

“Why?”

“Rarity is the rarest commodity.”

“How long have you had this one?”

Wingate looks down at the canvas, then at me from the corner of his eye. “Not long.”

“How long will you have it?”

“It ships tomorrow. I have a standing bid from Takagi on anything by this artist. One point five million pounds. But I have other plans for this one.”

He takes hold of the metal frame and motions for me to brace the crate while he pushes the painting back inside. To keep him talking, I help.

“For a series of about eight paintings,” Wingate says, “he could have been one of the Nabis. But he changed again. The women became more and more real, their bodies less alive, their surroundings more so. Now he paints like one of the old masters. His technique is unbelievable.”

“Do you really not know if they’re alive or dead?”

“Give me a break,” he grunts, straining to apply adequate force without damaging the frame. “They’re models. If some horny Japanese wants to think they’re dead and pay millions for them, that’s great. I’m not complaining.”

“Do you really believe that?”

He doesn’t look at me. “What I believe doesn’t matter. What matters is what I know for sure, which is nothing.”

If Wingate doesn’t know the women are real, he’s about to find out. As he straightens up and wipes his brow, I turn squarely to him and take off my sunglasses.

“What do you think now?”

His facial muscles hardly move, but he’s freaked, all right. There’s a lot more white showing in his eyes now. “I think maybe you’re running some kind of scam on me.”

“Why?”

“Because I sold a picture of you. You’re one of them. One of the Sleeping Women.”

He must not have heard about what happened in Hong Kong. Could the curator there have been afraid to risk losing his exhibit?

“No,” I say softly. “That was my sister.”

“But the face… it was the same.”

“We’re twins. Identical twins.”

He shakes his head in amazement.

“You understand now?”

“I think you know more than I do about all this. Is your sister okay?”

I can’t tell if he’s sincere or not. “I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d say no. She disappeared thirteen months ago. When did you sell the painting of her?”

“Maybe a year ago.”

“To a Japanese industrialist?”

“Sure. Takagi. He outbid everybody.”

“There were other bidders for that particular painting?”

“Sure. Always. But I’m not about to give you their names.”

“Look, I want you to understand something. I don’t give a damn about the police or the law. All I care about is my sister. Anything you know that can help me find her, I’ll pay for.”

“I don’t know anything. Your sister’s been gone a year, and you think she’s still alive?”

“No. I think she’s dead. I think all the women in these paintings are dead. And so do you. But I can’t move on with my life until I know. I’ve got to find out what happened to my sister. I owe her that.”

Wingate looks at the crate. “Hey, I can sympathize. But I can’t help you, okay? I really don’t know anything.”

“How is that possible? You’re the exclusive dealer for this artist.”

“Sure. But I’ve never met the guy.”

“But you know he’s a man?”

“I’m not positive, to tell you the truth. I’ve never seen him. Everything goes through the mail. Notes left in the gallery, money in train station lockers, like that.”

“I don’t see a woman painting these pictures. Do you?”

Wingate cocks one eyebrow. “I’ve met some pretty strange women in this town. I could tell you some stories, man. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen.”

“You get the paintings through the mail?”

“Sometimes. Other times they’re left downstairs, in the gallery. It’s like spy novels – what do they call that? A blind drop?”