Stuart Woods: Insatiable Appetites

“These four paintings are fakes,” the woman said.

Stone stepped forward and looked more closely. “Impossible. I know these pictures, they’ve been in the Bianchi collection for years.”

“Nevertheless,” she said. “They are brilliant fakes, but fakes all the same. Look at this.” She turned over the Toulouse-Lautrec, pointed to a place on the canvas frame, and handed Stone a magnifying glass. “Have a look.”

Stone looked at the spot. “I don’t see anything but the grain of the wood,” he said.

“Look more closely. I’ll point it out for you.” She held a pencil point at the spot.

Stone looked again. “Oh, I see it, it’s a check mark. How does that make it a fake?”

“It is a check mark, from a dye, tapped into the frame’s wood. It is the trademark of an art forger named Charles Magnussen.”

“Why would a man go to all the trouble to forge a painting, then put a trademark on it?”

“Pride, I suppose. Magnussen died last year, but on his deathbed he told the dealer who sold his original works about the trademark. The Metropolitan discovered two Renoirs about a month ago that bore the check marks.”

“First of all,” Stone said, “you are bound by your contract to keep this information confidential.

“Second, I want you to examine every painting and drawing in this house for the presence of that trademark and any other signs that any of the works might be forged.”

“As you wish. I’ll put my people to work on it.”

“And, if you would, please examine that Modigliani and the Picasso and the Braque below it.” He pointed. “Do those first.”

Stone led Herbie back into the study.

“I don’t understand,” Herbie said, “Eduardo willed his collection and the house to this foundation mentioned in the will, so there would be no taxes to pay on the art. Do you think Eduardo was bilked?”

“Possibly,” Stone said. “On the other hand, maybe he had the paintings copied and sold the originals — although I think that is extremely unlikely.”

An hour later, the woman came into the study again. “We’ve carefully examined the three paintings, and it is our conviction that they are all genuine.”

“Thank you,” Stone said. “Please continue with your work.”

“Whew!” Herbie said when she had gone.

Stone had to laugh.

By the end of the day Stone and Herbie had finished examining every object, cupboard, drawer, and book in Eduardo’s study and had found nothing of import. The art expert walked through the open door.

“Mr. Barrington, we have found twenty-four forgeries of artwork in the house, nearly all of them by Magnussen and nearly all of them from the cream of the collection. It will take us another couple of days to examine the rest of the collection.”

“Do you need more help?”

“I have already invited two experts on art forgery to join us, and they will be here tomorrow.”

“Good. May I have a copy of the list of the twenty-four forgeries?”

She tore a page from her legal pad and handed it to him. “I’ve already made copies for our purposes.”

“Remember, this information is highly confidential,” Stone said. “There may be a logical reason for the presence of the copies in the collection.”

“Of course.” She left the room.

Stone laid the list of forgeries on Eduardo’s desk and picked up the phone. “Now I have to call Mary Ann.”

“Why?” Herbie asked. “Isn’t that premature, until we know more?”

“Mary Ann may already know all we need to know.”

Ann Keaton sat in an office in the Executive Office Building, across from the West Wing, and methodically worked her way through a stack of mail that had already been seen by two other senior staffers. Each had a note stapled to it recommending an action of one kind or another. The one in her hand carried the notation: Decline — person rumored to have Mafia connections . The handwritten letter to Kate was from Mary Ann Bianchi, a name that meant nothing to her. The name of the “person,” however, had a very familiar ring. Ann gathered up the mail she had already approved for Kate’s eyes, put the Bianchi letter on top of the pile, and went next door to where Kate Lee sat at a big desk, leaning back in her chair, her trousered legs on the desk, reading documents. “Hey,” she said to Ann, “what’ve you got?”

“Standard stuff,” Ann said. “Except for the one on top.”

“Ooh,” Kate said when she had read the note. “I read the obit in the Times. Tell ’em I’ll be there.”

“You saw the staff recommendation?”

“Sure, I saw it. Tell Mary Ann I’ll be there, to save me a seat.”

“Let’s think about this one more time,” Ann said.

“Ann, do you remember the cocktail party that kick-started my campaign? The one where twenty-one people gave me a check for a million dollars each?”

“Of course, but I don’t remember Eduardo Bianchi being there.”

“He was there, without being there,” Kate said.

“Maybe that’s how you should attend his funeral.”

“No, I’m going to attend his funeral in person, dressed in black, looking sorrowful, because that’s how I’m going to feel. When you call Mary Ann, tell her I’d be very grateful if I could sit in the family pew. Eduardo didn’t have that big a family — maybe I can flesh it out a little bit.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ann said, rising to go.

“Ann, sit down.”

Ann sat.

“Eduardo Bianchi did things for me when I was at the Agency, and afterward, that nobody else could have done. He could make a phone call and find out stuff it would have taken us a year to unearth. He once got an Agency officer back from a kidnapping by the Naples Mafia, in less than four hours. He was a patriot and my dear friend, and that’s what I’m going to say when somebody sticks a microphone in my face and asks me what I’m doing there. As for the Mafia business, I suggest you read Eduardo’s FBI file.”

“I don’t have that on my desk,” Ann replied. “What does it say?”

“A great deal, but absolutely nothing about the Mafia.”

“Can I tell the press that?”

“Certainly not. You’re not supposed to know what’s in anybody’s FBI file. Anybody asks, tell ’em to make a Freedom of Information request for it.”

“If they do that, will they get the file?”

“Not in my lifetime,” Kate replied. “Maybe not in yours.”

She made a shooing motion with her hand, then went back to reading documents. “Wait,” she said, as Ann reached the door.

Ann stopped.

“Call all the lawyers in the Twenty-one group and ask each of them to give me a list of five names who they think would make a sensational Supreme Court justice, along with not more than five hundred words saying why. And tell them there’d better not be more than two white men on their lists.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kate smiled. “It’ll give you an excuse for calling Stone.”

Ann laughed, then she stopped. “Why now? Is there a justice with a really bad cold?”

“I saw one at a cocktail party not so long ago who looked like he might not finish his martini. As Fats Waller used to say, ‘One never knows, do one?’”

Ann returned to her office and called Stone’s cell number. “Well, hello there,” Stone said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“This is official business of the office of the President-Elect of the United States of America.”

“Oh, that. I was hoping you were in town and wanting to get laid.”

“Next week, maybe, if you play your cards right.”

“That’s good news. I can’t wait.”

“There are only about two hundred things that could go wrong, so don’t count on it.”