Picture This

Ignoring him, she ran after Henry. ‘What about this Latisha woman – can you give me her number? Maybe I can ring her?’

‘Latisha, a phone? Lady, she’s not on the matrix, unless you a ghost or something. She one of those charismatics and she a member of the Spiritualist Church of East Harlem. Why, I hardly heard her talk before Maxine moved into this ’hood. Most of the time I swear she functioning on another plane. But if you want to try, she apartment seven – opposite apartment six, which was where Maxine lived.’

*

There was a distinct smell of fried rice intermingled with a kind of soapy odour Latisha assumed came from the laundrette on the ground floor. It was a curious, slightly bilious blend, which merged with the reek of the thick oil paint that clung in small moulds to a large wooden palette beside an easel upon which stood a half-finished painting. There were several other abstract paintings leaning up against the wall of the neglected studio apartment. A bed and several wooden crates were pushed up against the far wall. An old cooker with a food-encrusted saucepan was sitting on one of the gas rings in the corner, a cracked kitchen sink next to it. The carpeted floor was covered in newspapers, some of which were drenched in old turps and linseed oil that had penetrated to the carpet beneath. A Formica table sat under the large window, a glass ashtray spilling over with cigarette butts, an old wooden box filled with vintage lead soldiers, one of them half sitting in a glass of what smelt like vinegar, the enamel paint dissolved off the small metal figure.

Latisha walked to the table. The coffee in the cup had a film of mould on it. Bandini might have left in a hurry, but he was long gone.

On the other side of the room was a large glass cabinet. The carpentry appeared to be home-made. There was a power cord and some peculiar lights inside – like a self-tanning unit, she thought, until she noticed lines along the floor of the cabinet, blue, green, yellows, parallel and criss-crossed. Mystified, she switched it on. Immediately the cabinet was lit up with a violet light. She walked around it, still confused, then switched the light off.

She turned back; there was a box visible under the bed. Stepping across the newspaper, carefully avoiding the blobs of paint in case they were still damp, wondering abstractly how long oil paint took to dry, she reached the bed. Lowering herself down onto the thin mattress, the rusty springs groaning under her weight, she caught her breath before pulling out the cardboard box.

Inside was a tin of rusty tacks, a box of old-fashioned paintbrushes, a large envelope and a stack of sheets of blank pages that looked as if they’d been torn out of books, the paper yellowed and aged. Latisha picked up one of the paintbrushes and caressed the tip of it absent-mindedly as she tried to figure out how all these curious objects were linked. Then she carefully opened the envelope. It contained six photographs of the backs of oil paintings: close-ups of the corners, where the canvas was stretched over the frame. One photograph even showed the line of old tacks nailed into the frame.

‘Now why on earth would someone want a photograph of a piece of rubbish like that?’ Latisha asked out loud. Nevertheless she selected a dozen single pages and one of the photographs, then slipped them into her large handbag, careful not to crease them.

Just then the afternoon sun shot through the dusty windows, catching at the colours of the half-finished painting sitting on the easel. Curious, she hoisted herself back onto her crutch and made her way over.

The painting – half-painted and half-montage – was of a strange rolling landscape which, to Latisha’s amazement, was made up of Wrigley’s chewing-gum wrappers. It sat below a violet sky with a large sun painted with crude brushstrokes of thick yellow paint. There was a quality of the yellow paint that was instantly recognisable to Latisha. After picking up an empty glass jar from the trash can, she returned to the palette and scraped a large blob of the yellow paint into the jar, then screwed the lid tight and slipped that too into her voluminous handbag.

*

Susie peered through the letterbox of apartment six. The narrow vertical slit framed a sliver of the apartment inside: a section of bare wooden floor, the corner of a glass coffee table and the edge of a cheap floral-patterned couch, the sleeve of an abandoned pullover on the floor. Any traces of Maxine’s residency had been wiped away. It was an interesting choice for a studio; there would be enough light and space inside, but it was a long way from the galleries both downtown and uptown. Maxine must have wanted to isolate herself for some reason.

Taking a deep breath, Susie banged on the door, but there was no response. What am I searching for? she asked herself. Did I really think there would still be traces of her? Or that by some quirk of fate she would still be living here in some parallel universe, unaware of her death outside these four walls? She knocked again, this time pounding on the thin wood; again, no response.

Overwhelmed, she sat heavily on the last step of the stairwell and stared across at door number seven, where Maxine’s friend Miss Latisha lived.

Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out a sketchpad she always carried and began writing a note for the woman she assumed would be returning to the apartment later that day.

Dear Miss Latisha, My name is Susie Thomas, I was a very close friend of Maxine Doubleday and I understand you knew Maxine those last few weeks of her life. I would love to talk to you about her. My mobile number is (1) 646 586 9023 – ring me any time.

Many thanks,

Susie Thomas

PS My assistant Alfie’s number is (1) 646 586 9024, if my line happens to be busy.

She added a little drawing of her own face at the bottom of the page, then slipped it through the letterbox.

Chapter Eleven

‘We had agreed on 25 million, but another interested party has emerged. I am morally obliged to offer it now at 25.5, assuming we can settle today… ’ Felix, smiling, kept the right amount of neutral confidence in his voice without being too pushy. There was also the faintest whiff of regret in his tone, a trick he’d learnt from his mentor before he died: Make them feel like they’ve got a bargain, my boy, and you cannot go wrong. Arnold Tuchmann had known all the strategies and had had no moral qualms about selling on several impressionist works that were almost certainly Nazi plunder. In moments like these, Felix found himself missing the old bastard.

Felicity Kocak’s art broker – a young man with the glistening sheen of the perpetually nervous – leaned over to Felicity, herself resplendent in a gold Versace jumpsuit and matching chain-belt adorned with charms representing each of her properties, and whispered something inaudible in her ear.

Irritated, Felix waved a hand dismissively. ‘Of course, Felicity, if you are having second thoughts, there is the other party, although naturally I would prefer to see this painting in the Kocak collection, a collection I regard myself as being intimately involved with.’ He shot Felicity his most seductive smile, and was rewarded by a bemused but flirtatious look back – bullseye.

‘It is a pivotal work.’

The painting hung on the wall behind them, lit carefully to display the flat, almost invisible brushstrokes, the bold use of colour, the haunting realism and isolation of the figure in the centre. Privately, Felix thought Girl in Yellow Square of Light had never appeared so compelling.

‘The provenance?’ the art broker queried.

‘We’ve been through this… Several letters and a diary entry, in front of you in the folder. A letter from Jo Hopper to her friend and Hopper collector, Bea Blanchard, dated September 9, 1943,’ Felix continued smoothly, ‘in which she mentions the painting, particularly Hopper’s use of light, which she regarded as a breakthrough at the time. According to the letter, the painting had been sold, but the owner’s name is not mentioned. There is also a line in a diary entry of Jo’s from the year 1925, written during a holiday in Provincetown, in which she mentions that Edward is

working on the painting. The paper and ink of all the enclosed documents have been carbon-dated. There is also a letter of authentication from renowned art curator and Hopper expert Donald Voos, praising the historical uniqueness of the work and thus its importance in the Hopper canon – early and late. I also should remind you that the Whitney is waiting on the painting to include it in their Hopper retrospective, which starts… ’ Here he checked his diary, a ruse to show how this sale was merely one of many he had to deal with on a daily basis, ‘ …next week, I believe. The sale today would be dependent on them being permitted to hang it – with a small notice describing it as a generous loan from the Kocak Foundation, of course.’