Restoration (39 page)

“In summary,” she said, “there are several common denominators among these collectors. The first, obviously, is wealth. The second is an impulse to spend this wealth on things that are important to them. The third might be called greed if that word didn’t carry such a negative connotation. These buyers are all competitive individuals whose motivation to spend money often is driven by their desire to possess things simply so that others of their financial stature can’t have them. Any questions?”

“What about the issue of provenance?” I said. “Might they be dissuaded from bidding on the painting without some record of previous ownership? For all they know, the mural could’ve been stolen from a private collection or, worse, a post office.”

“Good one, Jack. I failed to mention a fourth common denominator, that being a disdain for the federal government. When I spoke with these collectors, I explained the history of Levette’s mural in detail. I then followed up these calls by overnighting them packages containing photocopies of old stories about the mural. I also included a batch of eight-by-ten color photographs documenting every step of the restoration, from the start when the surface was yellow with house paint to its current state. None seemed opposed to taking possession of an object that was produced for and then discarded by the government. In fact, to a collector they seemed excited by the prospect.”

“Eight collectors, that really isn’t so many, is it?” Joe Butler said.

“You would think for something as important as Levette’s mural there’d be more.”

“You’re right. But for obvious reasons I couldn’t involve the museums or those private collections that offer access to the public, such as the Historic New Orleans Collection. And after consulting with Lucinda, I also decided against involving potential buyers who, to put it simply, were straight arrows. I didn’t want anyone who conceivably could take issue with buying an object that might be considered stolen property.”

“What about dealers?” I said.

“I eliminated them, too.”

“All of them? What about the guy in Charleston, the one who was supposed to be such a player? West, was it?”

“I couldn’t risk it,” she said. “Dealers have big mouths, and some of them can be difficult, not to mention stingy, jealous and hateful. Competition has made them that way. If a dealer were to be the winning bidder, other dealers would be bad-mouthing him and the purchase before he could get the painting out the door. The losing dealers would then be on the phone reporting us to the General Services Administration. Also, why sell to a dealer when we can sell directly to a collector? The dealer’s interests begin and end with himself. Any dealer who bought the painting would only turn around and try to place it—at a profit, a great profit—with one of the collectors visiting us today.”

“The people who are coming,” Rondell Cherry said, “they sound a little different to me. They might have the money, they might know what kind of pictures they like, but they sound like they’re not right in the head, you know what I’m saying?”

“You’re right, Mr. Cherry, they’re eccentrics, all of them. But most serious, committed collectors are flawed personalities. Most of them feel a sense of duty to the things they buy. They feel they have a responsibility to their collections, and that responsibility compels them to continue growing their collections. It’s like feeding a monster whose appetite can never be satisfied. These people are as addicted to
buying what they like as heroin addicts are to shooting up. But you know what I say? I say thank God for them. Without them I wouldn’t have a job, and we wouldn’t be here today in these lovely rooms in the Hotel Monteleone.”

“Boss?” Joe Butler raised his hand again. “Boss, do I have to keep my tie on?”

“Sweetie, if you knew how cute you looked, you wouldn’t be asking me that.”

Both Rondell Cherry and I turned to him and nodded.

Over the last few days Rhys had contacted each collector and given him the suite number and his appointed time for viewing the painting. As Rhys had drawn up the rules, no one was to be more than fifteen minutes early or fifteen minutes late, and no one could inspect the mural for more than his allotted time. If anyone did arrive more than fifteen minutes early or late, he would forfeit his chance to inspect the mural. The auction itself was scheduled for the next day at three o’clock in the afternoon. It would be held in the same suite. To protect the integrity of the auction and avoid against any possible allegations of phantom shill bidding, buyers had no option but to attend the sale in person; there would be no phone bidding allowed. Payment in full was to be made within twenty-four hours after the hammer came down. Rhys would accept a wire transfer only, and the painting would be released to the winning bidder as soon as the deposit registered in her bank account.

“What about a reserve?” I said. “What’s the minimum you would take for the painting?”

“I haven’t set one. But, as I told the collectors, I reserve the right to stop the auction at any time and withdraw the painting.”

“And they went for that?”

“It’s a twenty-foot-long oil painting by Levette Asmore, Jack. It’s the single greatest thing he ever did and it’s likely to be the greatest southern painting these people see in their lifetimes. Most of these
collectors would travel around the world for a chance to see newly discovered
sketches
by Asmore. They can’t expect me to give the mural away and, believe it or not, they wouldn’t want me to.”

“And why is that?” Cherry said.

She carefully considered the question. “It’s like love, I guess. If it doesn’t hurt a little, and if you don’t bleed for it, then it somehow doesn’t feel right. They need to know that what they’re buying is unique, special and historically significant. The best gauge of that is how much they have to pay for it.”

Not wishing to intimidate any of our visitors, Rhys asked the three of us to remain secluded in the second suite. She would leave the door unlocked in the event of a problem. We were welcome to leave the building one at a time, as long as two of us stayed behind. She also green-lighted room service orders and gave us permission to eat and drink anything we wanted from the concessions bar. “Last but not least,” she said, minutes before the Andersons were scheduled to arrive, “I want to thank you all for being here today. Mr. Cherry, thank you, sir. Joe? Thank you, sweetheart. Jack, you’ve been amazing. Thank you for everything.”

And that was how she left it, before quietly pulling the door closed. Joe Butler went back to the bedroom and lounged on his stomach, grazing TV channels with the remote, while Rondell Cherry sat by a window in the living room and read the morning paper. I stood next to the door between the two suites smelling the quiet residue of Rhys’s cologne, and replaying her last words to me. “It’s going to be a long day, Jack,” Cherry said. “Maybe you should come have a seat.”

“Rhys called me amazing, Mr. Cherry. You caught that, right?”

He was wearing drugstore reading glasses and his shaved head glowed a rich copper in the block of sunlight. He didn’t look up from the paper. “I was wondering about that myself,” he said. “Miss Goudeau knows a lot, she’s smart about that art, especially. But I guess she doesn’t know everything.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

“No problem.”

I was listening with my ear against the door when Cedric and Julie Anderson arrived promptly at 9:00 A.
M
. Rhys welcomed them and Mr. Anderson weighed in with an ominous weather prediction, but after they moved off in the direction of the painting their conversation became too muffled to make out. I pulled a chair up to the door and sat there until their voices were clear again. By now thirty minutes had passed and Rhys was thanking them and saying good-bye. “I’m glad you’ll be coming tomorrow,” she said. “We open at two, and you’re welcome to inspect the painting again at that time.”

After they were gone she rapped on the door and I opened it. Joe Butler had left the bedroom and come up behind me and Rondell Cherry was standing there, too. None of us had to ask Rhys how it went. You could see the answer in her face.

“Was it really that good?” I said.

“I don’t think they were quite prepared,” she replied. “Mr. Anderson cried. Mrs. Anderson asked if she could touch the figures of Jacqueline and Levette. I told her she could grope them if she liked. This got her to laugh, but her hands were trembling when she reached to place them on the canvas.”

“They liked it, huh?” Rondell Cherry said.

“Yes, Mr. Cherry. They liked it.”

Taylor Dickel came next. He was easier to hear than the Andersons had been because he was a shouter, and a drunken one. “Oh, shit, will you look at that!” he said. Dickel had one of those voices with the old, benighted South in it. The old, benighted South was in short supply these days, but it had a foothold in him. “You knew he had a thing for my mama, didn’t you, Rhys? Yes, he did. Old Levette had a thing. Hey, well, lookee here. Is that Mama? Hell, Rhys, that ain’t Mama…. Who is that? That’s him, all right. That’s Levette. But who on earth is
that?
Who’s he with? Jesusgodawmighty! Will you look at all them
homos
!”

Rhys opened the door and stuck her head inside. Her cheeks were burning red. “Where’s Joe Butler?”

“Watching TV in the bedroom.”

“Jack, will you please pour Mr. Dickel a drink. He wants bourbon. Forget I said only a jigger. Give him a glassful in a plastic cup.”

“Why don’t I pour it in a regular glass?”

“No, I’m about to run him out of here. Make sure it’s plastic.”

I did as instructed and five minutes later she’d succeeded in escorting him out into the hall. As he stumbled away I could hear him conversing with the same invisible man all hard-core drunks seem to converse with. “Get me out of this place! Where’s the elevator? Hey, hombre, you call that art? Come here. That’s right, come here. I’ll show you… I’ll show you some art…”

Although doing so broke one of Rhys’s rules, I looked outside and saw Dickel staggering down the hall. The cup lay in the middle of the floor, with ice cubes scattered on the carpet. Dickel moved on to the elevators, beside which stood several houseplants. “Hang on a minute!” he yelled to his invisible friend, then chose the rhododendron on which to relieve himself.

At noon we ordered club sandwiches and chocolate cake from room service. In the other suite Rhys was showing the mural to Sam Horowitz of Greenville, Mississippi, a plantation owner with a helicopter pad on the edge of one of his cotton fields. Joe Butler excused himself and toted his tray to the bedroom. Even though three hours had now passed, Rondell Cherry was still reading the paper, his glasses poised at the end of his nose. With his left hand he dipped French fries in a puddle of ketchup; with his right he made circles around listings in the Classifieds. “You shopping for something in particular, Mr. Cherry?” I asked, past my own mouthful of deep-fried potato.

“Just a job,” he answered.

The room became quiet again. I watched as he ate, read and circled, all at once.

“I wish I was a registered nurse. I’d have me some benefits and paid vacation time.” He put down the fries and the pen and touched
the bandage on his cheek. “I’m not going to work at no Taco Bell, I can promise you that.”

“You should ’ve kept that money Tommy Smallwood paid you for the mural, Mr. Cherry. I don’t think anyone would’ve said anything.”

“That money wasn’t mine to keep, Jack. I thought we already been through that.” He lowered the paper and looked at me over his glasses. “I guess you heard, huh?”

“Heard what?”

“About that money.”

“You paid it to a lawyer for Mrs. Wheeler. His retainer, you said.”

“I did pay the man. But Miss Wheeler went behind my back and let him go and got back with this so-called niece.”

“She rehired Alice O’Neil?”

“That’s it. She rehired Alice O’Neil. The man called me last week and was real nice but said Miss Wheeler had told him his services were no longer needed. He said he tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t listen to reason. I told him I understood completely. You know what I think? I think she went and hired herself a shopping partner in this Alice because what those two women do together has nothing to do with the law, I can promise you that. Dillard’s, Bombay Company, Adler’s Jewelry, Chick-fil-A. That’s always last, the Chickfil-A. They sit in the food court with their cigarettes and waffle fries and look at the hairdos and the clothes the other women are wearing. I’ll tell you what else I think. I think she’s tired of the aggravation and ready to give up the school.”