Stuart Woods: Insatiable Appetites

“Good idea,” Stone said. “I’ll send them to you. In the meantime, if you could put a couple of people to work going through auction catalogs for the past twenty years, to see if anything on the list came up for sale.”

“That will be a huge job,” Pitt said. “May I hire extra help at the expense of the estate?”

“Yes, you may.” Stone stood up and shook the man’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

Stone retrieved his coat, left the gallery, and took a cab home. This, he thought, was going to be a mess.

Stone and Dino met for dinner at a new restaurant, the Writing Room, which was located in the old Elaine’s premises on the Upper East Side, at Second Avenue and Eighty-eighth Street. It was their first time there, and they walked into a place that was unrecognizable as the site of the old joint.

The bar had been moved into the smaller of the two main rooms, and the new dining room was much larger than the old. They were greeted as old friends by the new owners and seated in the rear room, designed as a library.

“Where did they find the space for this room?” Stone asked.

“This was the outdoor space where the garbage cans were kept,” Dino said. “Not bad, huh?”

Their drinks arrived unbidden. At least that hadn’t changed.

“Something’s come up,” Stone said.

“Tell me.”

“A crime may have been committed, but I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, I’m the police — tell me.”

“You can’t treat this as a crime, until I know more.”

“Come on, Stone, give.”

“It looks as though twenty-four of the best paintings in Eduardo’s collection are forgeries.”

Dino choked on his drink. “Impossible,” he was finally able to say. “Nobody could get a forgery past Eduardo, let alone two dozen.”

“That’s not how it happened. Eduardo hired a well-known art restorer to work on these pictures. It looks as though he returned forgeries to Eduardo. Since they were all supposed to be restorations, Eduardo may have been taken in. At ninety-four, his eyesight might not have been what it was.”

“What have you done about this?”

“I went to see Raoul Pitt.” Stone told him about the check marks. “He’s very concerned, and he wants the estate to audit all the paintings in his studio and in storage, so that no one will suspect him of being involved.”

“Does anybody outside the family know about this?”

“Only Mary Ann knows — I had to tell her. The others have no idea, and at some point, Mary Ann, Ben — plus Dolce, if she’s capable — are supposed to choose twelve pictures each as part of their inheritance. The others are supposed to be left in the house. Eduardo wanted arts organizations to be able to bring small groups to view the collection.”

“How good are the forgeries?”

“The forger, one Charles Magnussen, had a long history of making undetectable copies of paintings. He was finally nailed and did some time. After that, he made his living as a restorer. I guess he finally had a conscience at the end, because he told Raoul on his deathbed about the check marks. When word gets out, collectors all over the world are going to be taking a magnifying glass to their canvas frames.”

“Anything I can do to help in all this?”

“Just keep your mouth shut for the time being. I’ll let you know when to turn it over to the art squad.”

“Whatever you say.”

Their dinner arrived, and they pronounced it pretty good.

Riding home in Dino’s departmental armored SUV, Dino took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can think of another scenario with these pictures,” he said. “I feel bad about even bringing it up.”

“Go on.”

“When the searching starts for the originals, you’re going to have to take a look in Mary Ann’s town house.”

Stone was shocked. “Are you kidding me?”

“I hope I’m wrong, but she’s avaricious enough to want them for herself, instead of touring groups of art lovers. After all, those people are not going to know the difference between an original and a forgery. She thinks that way.”

“I can’t believe she’d do that.”

“Look at it from her point of view: she would figure she’s not hurting anybody, and if the secret didn’t get out, she might someday be able to sell some of them privately, or just leave them to Ben.”

“I was just thinking this afternoon that this is going to be a terrible fucking mess, but if Mary Ann is involved, it’s going to be exponentially worse.”

“Not necessarily,” Dino said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Mary Ann is smart enough to have a way out of this. If she gets caught, she can just give the pictures back and it would all be kept in the family. No one would want the publicity that would come from prosecuting her.”

“You have a serpentine mind, Dino.”

“Not I — Mary Ann. Trust me, she has a very serpentine mind. She was always a step ahead of me.”

“You know, when I think about it, this might be the most favorable explanation.”

“Favorable?”

“In the sense of resolving it while making the fewest waves.”

“Careful, Mary Ann will be one step ahead of you, too.”

Stone was at his desk the following morning, working on the Bianchi estate financial statement, prior to giving it to the accountants to help them prepare a final tax return for Eduardo and an estate tax return.

Joan buzzed. “There’s a guy on the phone who says he has some important information for you, but he won’t give his name.”

“How crazy does he sound?”

“Not very.”

“Oh, all right.” He pressed the other line button. “This is Stone Barrington. Who’s this?”

“I can’t tell you that now, Mr. Barrington — maybe later. A meeting took place last night in Washington, and what was discussed there has shocked me to the core.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“I guess you could call it a strategy session,” the man said.

“Who attended?”

“About two dozen Republican senators and congressmen. It was held at a private residence in Georgetown.”

“Were you there?”

There was a long pause. “Let’s just say that I have an intimate knowledge of what was discussed.”

“What was discussed?”

“Henry Carson was the de facto chairman. He shared the chair with the about-to-become-former Speaker of the House. These people are extremely angry about losing the presidency and furious about not having control of either House.”

“Are you a Republican, Mr...?”

“I’d rather not say which party I belong to.”

“Go on, tell me what transpired.”

“Carson spoke to the group, and he was right up front. He said the party strategy in Congress would be to oppose and obstruct — he actually used those words — every bill that was introduced by the new administration, and they would issue talking points to the group about what to say to the press and media when the new administration announced policy initiatives.”

“Every bill? Every policy? No matter what?”

“Every single one. They said they would find ways to peck to death any bill or policy. The rationale for each set of talking points will be created and laid out in the circulated memo.”

“Well, that shocks me, too,” Stone said. “They don’t even know what policy initiatives she’s going to issue.”

“They can guess from Mrs. Lee’s campaign speeches.”

“What do you want me to do with this information?” Stone asked.

“I want you to get it into the press and media. I want to create a big to-do about this, and I want to blunt their tactics.”

“Those are noble aims,” Stone said, “but you’re going about this in the wrong way.”