The Last Weynfeldt (24 page)

Strasser was not in the bar. She ordered a glass of champagne and waited precisely fifteen minutes—the maximum she ever waited for a man.

Then she walked to the grand ballroom, following the signs attached to the auction posters, and passing through the lobby.

It was four in the afternoon, hotel guests and art enthusiasts were sitting in the easy chairs drinking coffee and eating cake; a pianist was playing tea music.

The auction poster showed the nude kneeling by the stove, now so familiar to her.

At the entrance to the ballroom, at a table full of catalogues, sat a fat young woman with a blonde bob in a loose black dress. Opposite her stood a scary man in the uniform of a private security firm. At first Lorena thought she would have to pay admission, and reached into her handbag. But the fat girl gave her a friendly nod and wished her a good day.

Lorena walked into the ballroom. The curtains had been closed. Temporary exhibition panels had been placed in front and between them, and the large dance floor was also partitioned with panels, forming a labyrinth of art.

A few visitors were walking from lot to lot, talking in an international museum whisper.

The first picture to grab Lorena's attention was the portrait of Weynfeldt's mother. It was ascribed to “Varlin (Willy Guggenheim, 1900-1977).” Beneath this was written, “
Luise W
., mixed media (oil and charcoal) on canvas, 1974, private collection, Switzerland, CHF 80,000 to 120,000.”

She paused in front of it, nodded to the old lady as if to an old acquaintance, and, under her watchful eye, set off in search of the Vallotton.

She soon found it. It was hanging alone on one of the exhibition panels in the center of the ballroom. Two men stood in front of it, both armed with notebooks, writing things down.

“Félix Vallotton, (1865-1925),
Femme nue devant une salamandre
, tempera on card, 1900, private collection, CHF 1,200,000 to 1,500,000.”

The two men were standing close to the painting, and Lorena waited till they had moved away. No sooner had they done so, than a middle-aged couple arrived, the man clearly an art expert. “It was sold by Vallotton's heirs two years after his death, and it's remained in that family ever since.”

“So why are they selling it now?” the woman wondered.

“Perhaps there are too many beneficiaries. You can split money. You can't slice up a painting.”

“I don't know,” the woman snorted. “In this case it wouldn't be such a pity!”

“What do you mean?” the man said aghast.

Lorena was forced to sit out a long argument involving allegations of faulty perspective and the female torso as a phallic symbol, before she was finally left alone and could examine the signature close up.

There'd been no need to meet Strasser; it was easy enough to identify the original. Weynfeldt had removed the period she'd added with her lipstick after the surname.

Weynfeldt, that little mama's boy, hadn't had the nerve to put the copy up for auction, and now he'd robbed Lorena of Baier's fifty thousand. Along with her share of the two other recent jobs, she would have made a total of one hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred francs. For the first time in her life she would have had a degree of independence.

She turned in fury, and nearly collided with Strasser.

“Sorry, I was held up.” There was a red wine mark on his lower lip.

“Doesn't matter. I've seen all I need to see.”

Strasser glanced past her at the Vallotton, took a few steps toward the painting, looked at it quickly and came back to Lorena. A strange smile on his lips.

Lorena had to vent her anger. “Someone wanted to hoodwink Adrian with a forgery of the painting, but it didn't work. It was very clumsy.”

If there'd been any uncertainty whether Strasser was in fact the author of the copy, his reaction to this banished all doubt. “Oh yes?” he snapped haughtily. “Too clumsy for the expert eyes of Dr. Weynfeldt. Is that so?”

She could see it was eating him up, and announced, “I'm going to the bar now.”

“It's very expensive.”

“It's on me.”

They crossed the lobby, full of tea guests, and entered the bar, all gleaming polished wood, where the first cocktail guests were already sitting. They commandeered a niche upholstered in green leather and ordered: Lorena a glass of champagne; Strasser a Black Label on the rocks.

“Very clumsy,” he said, when the drinks arrived. “Is that so?” And repeated this a few times, till, after the third whisky, he asked, “Can you keep a secret?” He put his fingers to his lips, or tried—he had to have several goes at it.

Even if Lorena hadn't nodded, he would still have told her: “The Vallotton in the exhibition—it's not by Vallotton.”

“No?” she said, trying to sound disinterested.

“The
Salamandre
in the grand ballroom is a blatant forgery.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm the only person who can know.”

Lorena pretended not to understand.

Strasser succeeded first in pointing to his chest with his index finger, then placing it to his lips conspiratorially.

“You mean … You mean—you? You forged it?”

He waved dismissively. “Not forged. Let's say, doubled.”

Lorena laughed, with a similar gesture. “Doubled!” She drained her glass.

Strasser placed the catalogue in front of him, took out a mechanical pencil and pointed to an area of the painting on the cover. “See here, in the right hand corner of the
salamandre
, the cast-iron relief?”

“It looks like a bud or something.”

“To me it looks like a little ass.”

“True, could be a little ass,” Lorena admitted.

“A little ass seen from the left,” Strasser pointed out. “That's Vallotton's Vallotton. Now I'll show you Strasser's Vallotton.” He called the barman, Lorena paid and they returned to the exhibition.

“We close in five minutes,” the fat girl at the entrance said.

“We only need four,” Strasser replied.

The hall was empty now, except for an elderly woman holding a catalogue full of yellow sticky notes. She was standing in front of the Hodler with the telegraph posts, and took no notice of them.

Strasser led Lorena up close to the Vallotton. “Can you see it, the little ass?”

Lorena could.

“And do you notice anything?”

“Something's different.” She peered intently, but couldn't say what. Strasser gave her the catalogue to compare.

“Now I've got it: the perspective.”

Strasser nodded proudly. “They are both little asses, but this one is seen from the right, like the big lady here.”

No shit: the cast-iron relief on the
salamandre
looked like twin buttocks here too. But unlike on the catalogue cover, here you could see more of the right buttock than the left. Like the kneeling model.

“Pretty clumsy, right?” Strasser said, “Of Adrian. Not to notice.”

“Maybe he did.”

She looked at the signature again carefully. The period after the Vallotton's surname was missing, like the original she'd seen in Weynfeldt's study.

Then she compared it with the cover photo on the catalogue. The resolution and the print quality were good enough for her to read the signature here too.

Here too the second period was missing.

As soon as she got rid of Strasser, she met Pedroni in the Old Scotsman, an old-fashioned pub in the area of the old town once popular among revelers, now out of favor. Various Scottish tartans were stretched across the panels lining the interior. The advantage of this form of decoration was it absorbed noise; the disadvantage, it retained odors. Now early evening, it stank of stale smoke and the legendary goulash which had made it a favorite last port of call for the party crowd.

Pedroni was the only guest. He was sitting a long way from the bar, at a corner table, and waved her over, somewhat impatiently. Lorena was over half an hour late.

He was accordingly grumpy toward her, but Lorena wasn't going to let her good—almost euphoric—mood be spoiled.

And it was heightened when Pedroni pushed an envelope across the table toward her containing, as she confirmed in the ladies bathroom immediately, sixty thousand francs.

When Lorena was in a good mood she couldn't handle people who didn't feel the same way. She either had to look for new company or cheer up her current company, at any cost.

In Pedroni's case, the cost was several hugs and kisses. And the story of the doubled Vallotton.

When he dropped her off at Weynfeldt's building, he was almost euphoric too.

“N
OW!
” H
E HEARD
L
ORENA'S VOICE THROUGH THE
closed door to the dining room.

She had turned up at his place, highly buoyant; they had thrown together a cold supper from the contents of the fridges and eaten it in style, with Lorena's favorite champagne, by candlelight and firelight—Lorena had insisted on lighting one of the stoves, and had got it going herself. She told him about her visit to the auction preview, and her meeting with Strasser. Suddenly she said, “Go outside for a minute, and don't come back till I say so.”

“Is this a game?” he asked, and she nodded.

He left, smiling, and she called after him: “Only when I say,
Now!
”

He had been standing quite awhile outside the door before he realized he still had the smile on his lips he'd left the room with. The realization made it broaden.

I think I'm something along the lines of happy
, he thought. Not that till now he'd been unhappy. But he had to say, standing outside the door like a naughty schoolboy, that there was a huge difference between not unhappy, and happy.

“Now!” she called, and Weynfeldt entered.

The room was darker. The only light-source was one of the spotlights, normally pointing at the art on the walls. Now it was pointing at Lorena. She was kneeling in front of the stove, her hair tied up, naked.

Adrian didn't dare move. He hardly dared breathe for fear of destroying the image.

She was the one who broke the spell, observing, “I'm afraid I can't compete ass-wise.”

They made love right there and then. With a passion Weynfeldt had not thought he was capable of.

“You surprised me,” she said, as he returned with pillows and quilts from the bedroom. “With the Vallotton, and just now.”

“What about the Vallotton?” he asked, lit one of her cigarettes, took a drag and passed it over, before snuggling up to her.

“I didn't think you had it in you, to put the, erm … the newer one in.”

“I didn't.”

“You so did. Your friend Strasser showed me the subtle difference.”

“The second period?”

“You painted that out, admit it.” She told him about the thing with the little cast-iron ass. Weynfeldt went to his study and fetched the catalogue.

Lorena looked at it and said knowledgeably: “The original. Ass seen from the left. Take a look at the copy in the Imperial tomorrow. There you see it from the right.”

Lorena laughed like an excited child.

Adrian congratulated her silently, and had a sudden desire to kiss her again. But she turned her head away and evaded him. “Only if you admit it,” she laughed.

In the end Weynfeldt admitted it, and surprised both of them a second time.

A
DRIAN WAS STANDING IN THE LOBBY CHATTING TO A
group of auction guests. He was looking good, in a lightweight wool suit the color of cigarette ash. His left hand was in his pocket, his gaze continually wandering from the people around him to search the lobby.

Now he saw Lorena, excused himself and walked over with a smile. They greeted like a couple still getting to know each other. “I'll take you in. It's starting in a minute,” he said. She put her arm through his and he led her to the grand ballroom.

The fat girl with the bob was standing at the entrance. “May I introduce you: Véronique Graf, my assistant; Lorena Steiner, a good friend.”

The two women shook hands. “We met briefly at the preview, right?” Véronique said. So this was his assistant.

The center of the room was filled with rows of chairs now, like a concert hall. The exhibition panels had been pushed to the edges. In front of the audience, a podium had been set up, a lectern placed in the middle with “Murphy's” written on it. Paintings were leaned against the foot of the podium, lots with low numbers.

The hall was filled with a sea of voices. At least a hundred people were there, and more kept entering.

Weynfeldt took Lorena to an aisle seat on the second row. He removed a sign saying “Murphy's—Reserved.”

“What about you?” Lorena asked.

“I'll be sitting over there,” he pointed to a table to one side of the podium, where his assistant had just sat down, “on the telephone.”

“To who?”

“To bidders. Several regular clients bid by telephone. If you'll excuse me, I'll see you in the break.”

She watched as he wandered around, greeting guests, then made his way to the table where, alongside Véronique, a young man was also now sitting. Six white telephones were lined up in front of them. Weynfeldt sat down and smiled at her. Lorena saw Véronique give him a searching sideways glance.

A stocky, gray-haired man was now standing at the lectern, talking to a group of assistants, without exception men in suits and ties. All at once he turned to the audience and banged on the lectern with a small hammer.

The sea of voices fell silent, but the ballroom lights were not dimmed as for a concert or a play. The auctioneer greeted the audience, reminded them briefly of the most important rules and announced the first lot. A drawing by Hodler, study of a female figure in a long dress, oil and charcoal on paper. Lorena saw hands holding numbers shoot up here and there, the auctioneer raised the price in small increments, soon hit disinterest and let an elderly man in the front row with dandruff on his shoulders have the picture.