Electroboy (21 page)

March 13, 1992
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In two weeks Stuart calls me with the good news. The Manhattan D.A.’s office has turned down the case. Tremendous relief. I can breathe. The assistant district attorney thinks the case isn’t strong enough—there are obvious credibility problems and it will be difficult to prove that the paintings were unauthorized. But soon I’m contacted by a detective who wants to interview me, and we learn that the Eastern District (including Brooklyn and Queens) has taken on the case. The representative of the Japanese company involved is located in their jurisdiction, and this is where faxes were transmitted and monies were wired. I tell the detective I have been advised not to speak with him.

In the meantime Annike and I have delusions of dealing art on an international level. Thoughts of vast sums of money being wired into my “special account” at Citibank and of transferring monies from my Swiss account to my offshore account fuel my fantasies. We actually set up shop in two different locations, my studio and her studio, with two phone lines, two faxes, and Rolodexes of dealers, galleries, and art journals, and we’re ready to get to work. Annike is confident that we can combine my sales skills and her contacts in Europe to sell paintings. She knows many international art dealers and tells me stories about their incredible successes. These delusions of making hundreds of thousands of dollars are a part of my mania and serve to repress the nightmare of the whole Kostabi debacle. But we actually start to break into a network of dealers, agents, and gallery owners, meeting them mostly by phone, by referral from dealers we already know or just by cold calling, but also some in person. Since we have no direct clients who own actual works, we’re fighting an uphill battle. For
instance, we might call a dealer in Dallas and ask him if he’s looking for anything in particular, and he may tell us he’s looking for a specific Magritte. We’ll call as many dealers as we know in search of the painting. After a while, you get to know where to find things. We’re on the telephone and fax for most of the day and night, trying to interest other dealers in works we “have access to.” But for the most part, everybody has access to the same product. We spend most of our time trying to make a deal happen—FedExing slides and transparencies of artwork across the country and around the world. We think we actually come close to making deals, but the dealers are just playing the game and leading us on. A dealer in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, guarantees us that she has gone to Western Union and wired us a deposit for an O’Keeffe painting and that it will arrive the following day, but it never does. She does this every day for a week. But there is really nothing there. We sit and wait days for money to be wired into our accounts. But the only person who really has a client is the agent, who’ll keep the deal for himself. But we persist: van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso—nothing is out of our league. My determination to make a million-dollar deal is simply a way to induce a manic feeling. I forget that it’s impossible, playing along because it gives me a rush to be working again and supposedly “getting close” to a deal.

A friend who is a dealer in the Midwest hooks me up with a young New York dealer whose family has a lot of money and an impressive contemporary collection. He invites me to meet him for lunch at La Goulue on Madison Avenue. I arrive ten minutes early and wait on the sidewalk. I spot him across the street right away. He’s wearing a navy blue double-breasted blazer, white khakis, a white linen shirt, and dark sunglasses. His dark black hair is slicked back, and he’s sunburned. He looks like he’s about twenty-three. I walk over and introduce myself. “You must be David. I’m Andy Behrman,” I say. “Nice to meet you,” he says. The waiter seats us at a table on the sidewalk, and David lights up a cigarette and blows the smoke straight above him. “Kate tells me you’re an incredibly brilliant guy,” he says. “And you know how to
make money,” he adds. “I know your whole story and I don’t care. I thought it was absolutely genius.” I smile. “I’ve got a number of clients always looking for good work at reasonable prices. Maybe we can do something together,” he suggests. We order lunch, and I try to impress him with my knowledge of the contemporary French painting scene and tell him a little bit about my collection. “I’d love to see it,” he says. “It sounds like something I’d like.” He invites me to a party Friday night at his apartment, where he’ll be showing the work of a new German artist. “Don’t miss it. It’ll be a good party, too,” he says. In the meantime, he leaves me with some transparencies of works by some contemporary American artists, which I promise to show only to clients who have expressed a specific interest in them. He seems pleased by our meeting. I tell him I’ll see him on Friday. The truth is, Annike and I don’t have any clients interested in these paintings, and I return them to him at his party.

Annike and I have isolated ourselves from everybody, and now we enter the Tofu and Banana Period. It’s all we have money for. That and the occasional stolen cheese and crackers from the corner deli. Annike has such an artful way of presenting tofu and bananas on a plate—she makes them look so beautiful, so delicious—that I look forward to each meal with tremendous delight. We are waiting to be indicted and still deluding ourselves that one of our million-dollar deals is going to come through at any minute. We’re desperate. I even borrow $50 from the corner newsstand vendor I hang out with at 3:00
A.M.
We’re shuttling between my sublet and Annike’s studio in Jersey City, paying rent on neither, and waiting to be evicted from both. One morning I do not receive my usual wake-up call from Annike. I can’t find her all day. I leave message after message and fax but get no response. Later that evening my phone rings. Her voice is faint. She’s admitted herself to Payne Whitney, a psychiatric hospital on the Upper East Side, and she assures me she’s fine, but that they want to hold on to her for a few days for observation. The survival game has gotten to her.

When I go to visit her, she is wearing a white hospital gown with a light blue star print. Her skin is bright white, her lips dry and peeling. I ask her if she is hungry or thirsty. She tells me she’s just eaten some eggs. I’m relieved. She tells me that they’ve put her in the same room Marilyn Monroe stayed in thirty years prior, a fact that appeals to her sense of history and drama. I pretend to be amused. But I feel isolated and alone. Annike has given up on herself and on me. She was the one who told me how important the survival game was, how we both needed each other. She didn’t come to me when she needed me. I realize how selfish and sick I am. I need her, and I will be alone until they release her from this hospital. Now I have to eat tofu and bananas on my own.

Annike pushes to be released from the hospital and they let her go after five days. I’m even more protective of her now, like an older brother of his sister. I don’t want her dealing with the same kind of stress she’s had recently. I keep her with me at my studio for a while to keep an eye on her and stop her art-dealing activities for a few days. We’re running low on money, and I start stealing more food from the deli by shoving it in my knapsack while no one is looking. It’s pretty easy. When we realize we’re still not making progress and the pressure is about to spill over, I finally borrow $2,000 from an old friend, telling him I need to get to Europe to close a business deal. Given the sums of money I used to deal with, it seems like such a small amount to ask for, but I feel like I’ve asked for the universe—and it’ll certainly get us as far as we need to go. Annike and I decide to leave the country and go to the Basel Art Fair, then continue on to visit dealers in Germany. Our official intention is to meet some of the dealers we’ve been talking to, to solidify our relationships and to establish new ones, but we really have no specific business to address. The idea of leaving the country together is what’s really driving us, and I fantasize that we will never return.

Annike’s attorney warns her that her telephone line could be tapped, so we both become paranoid and stop communicating by phone, using only our fax machines to get in touch with each other. Our messages go back and forth day and night. Late at night, the sound of the phone ringing and the clicking noise of the fax machine wake us up.

(unsent)

June 18, 1992. New York
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It’s finally the day to depart for the Basel Art Fair. I organize my suitcase carefully: my navy blue Yamamoto double-breasted suit, three dress shirts, and three ties. I pack my slides and transparencies, my last forty capsules of Prozac, and all of my canceled credit cards—I know I might be able to use them.

Annike meets me at my apartment, and we take a cab to Newark Airport, arriving early for our flight to Hamburg. We’ve spent most of the money we’ve borrowed on the tickets but still have about $600 left. She repeatedly tells me not to be concerned about money. I’m struggling to figure out how we’re going to manage a weeklong stay on so little. Hotels. Car. Food. Gas. But I have faith in Annike, because she’s never let me go hungry. As I notice people forming a line near the gate, I start to feel like I’m fleeing the country to avoid arrest. But this is just self-induced paranoia. I haven’t been indicted yet, and I have a passport and am free to travel abroad. I’m just afraid that while I’m away something might come up and they won’t be able to find me. I’m eager to board the flight and take our art-dealing show to another continent, confident that we’re going to hit the jackpot this time with a million-dollar sale. I actually believe it will happen.

It’s early morning when we arrive in Germany, and we rent a brand-new Volkswagen with my canceled American Express Gold Card. Nobody checks it through a computer. They just take an imprint. Not my problem. Stay calm. Hurry. Get in the car. Annike speeds out of the parking lot onto the Autobahn, and we’re on our way to Basel. I’m having fun mispronouncing the names of
the exits, and we’re both laughing and giggling and I’m thinking at any minute we could be arrested or, worse, die, but it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It might relieve some of my pain.