Michelangelo_s Notebook

1881

Height: 41.3 cm (16.26 in.), Width: 32.2 cm (12.68 in.)

Hoffman Gallery New York 1995

Deaccessioned: Park-Hale Museum of Art 1993

Grange Foundation bequest 1957

“I don’t get any of this shit.”

“It’s a list of paintings.”

“You really must think I’m some kind of an asshole. I got that, Kenny, even though I didn’t go to college.”

“The list is keyed into these records through the letter code.”

“The letter code being the name of the painting, yeah, I got that too, Ken.”

“The other stuff is what we call ‘provenance.’ ”

“We?”

“It’s the name for where the picture came from, its background and sales history.”

“And?”

“And so far they all ran through the same provenance. The same history. The Grange Foundation gives it to the Parker-Hale, who gets rid of it by selling it to the Hoffman Gallery, who then flogs it to private citizens like Kressman.”

“Who winds up being sliced to ribbons in his swimming pool.”

“You think the two things have anything to do with each other?”

“Lot of money.”

“But nothing’s been stolen.”

“Any way you can add up all the figures on those sheets?”

“I think so.” Kenny played with the computer for a few minutes. The figure appeared:

$273,570,000

“To one guy?” said Kenny. “Christ on a crutch!”

“I think we’re out of our depth here, Kenny,” said Izzy. “In deep water, you might say.” And then he laughed. Kenny didn’t think it was funny at all.