The Modigliani Scandal

V

DEE WAS LYING IN a sack chair, naked, when Mike walked into the Regent′s Park flat and shrugged off his coat.

″I think it′s sexy,″ she said.

″It′s just a coat,″ he replied.

″Mike Arnaz, you are insufferably narcissistic,″ she laughed. ″I meant the picture.″

He dropped his coat on the carpet and came to sit on the floor beside her. They both gazed at the painting on the wall.

The women were unmistakably Modigliani′s women: they had long, narrow faces, the characteristic noses, the inscrutable expressions. But that was where the similarity to the rest of his work ended.

They were thrown together in a jumble of limbs and torsos, distorted and tangled, and mixed up with bits of background: towels, flowers, tables. So far, it prefigured the work Picasso was doing—but keeping secret—in the last years of Modigliani′s life. What was different again was the coloring. It was psychedelic: startling pinks, oranges, purples, and greens, painted hard and dear, quite out of period. The color bore no relation to the objects colored: a leg could be green, an apple blue, a woman′s hair turquoise.

″It doesn′t turn me on,″ Mike said finally. ″Not that-away, anyhow.″ He turned away from the picture and laid his head on Dee′s thigh. ″This, however, does.″

She touched his curly hair with her hand. ″Mike, do you think much about it?″

″Nope.″

″I do. I think what a terrible, loathsome, brilliant pair of crooks you and I are. Look what we′ve got: this beautiful painting, for practically nothing; material for my thesis; and fifty thousand pounds each.″ She giggled.

Mike closed his eyes. ″Sure, honey.″

Dee shut her eyes, and they both remembered a peasant bar in an Italian village.

Dee entered the bar first, and saw with a shock that the short, dark-haired, dapper man they had sent on a wild-goose chase that morning was already there.

Mike thought faster. He hissed in her ear: ″If I leave, keep him talking.″

Dee recovered her composure quickly and walked up to the dapper man′s table. ″I′m surprised you′re still here,″ she said pleasantly.

The man stood up. ″So am I,″ he said. ″Will you join me?″

The three of them sat around the table. ″What will it be?″ the man asked.

″My turn, I think,″ Mike said. He turned to the back of the bar. ″Two whiskies, one beer,″ he called.

″My name is Lipsey, by the way.″

″I am Michael Arnaz and this is Dee Sleign.″

″How do you do?″ There was a flicker of surprise in Lipsey′s eyes at the name Arnaz.

Another man had come into the bar. He looked over at their table.

He hesitated, then said: ″I saw the English number plates. May I join you?

″I′m Julian Black,″ the third man said, and they all introduced themselves.

″It′s strange to find so many English people in a little out-of the-way place like this,″ Black said.

Lipsey smiled. ″These two are looking for a lost masterpiece,″ he said indulgently.

Black said: ″Then you must be Dee Sleign. I′m looking for the same picture.″

Mike cut in quickly. ″And Mr. Lipsey is also looking for the picture, although he′s the only one who hasn′t been candid about it.″ Lipsey opened his mouth to speak, but Mike forestalled him. ″However, you′re both too late. I have the picture already. It′s in the trunk of my car. Would you like to see it?″

Without waiting for a reply he got up and left the bar. Dee covered up her astonishment and remembered her instructions.

Lipsey said: ″Well, well, well.″

″Tell me,″ Dee said. ″It was only chance that led me to this picture. How did you two get on to it?″

″I′m going to be honest with you,″ Black said. ″You wrote a postcard to a mutual friend of ours—Sammy Winacre—and I saw it. I′m setting up my own gallery right now, and I couldn′t resist the temptation to have a go.″

Dee turned to Lipsey. ″So you were sent by my uncle.″

″No,″ he said. ″You′re quite wrong. I happened to meet an old man in Paris who told me about it. I think he also told you about it.″

There was a shout from the house, and the barman went back to see what it was his wife wanted.

Dee wondered what on earth Mike was up to. She tried to keep the conversation going. ″But the old man sent me to Livorno,″ she said.

″Me too,″ Lipsey acknowledged. ″But by that time all I had to do was follow your trail and hope I might overtake you. I see I failed.ʺ

″Indeed.″

The door opened, and Mike came back in. Dee was flabbergasted to see that he had a canvas under his arm.

He propped it on the table. ″There it is, gentlemen,″ he said. ″The painting you came all this way to see.″

They all stared at it.

Eventually Lipsey said: ″What are you planning to do with it, Mr. Arnaz?ʺ

″I′m going to sell it to one of you two,″ Mike replied. ″Since you so nearly beat me to the punch, I will offer you a special deal.″

″Go on,″ Black said.

″The point is, this has to be smuggled out of the country. The Italian laws do not permit export of works of art without permission, and if we asked for permission they would try to take it from us. I propose to take the painting to London. This means I have to break the laws of two countries—since I shall have to smuggle it into Britain. In order to cover myself, I will require whichever of you bids highest to sign a piece of paper saying that the money was paid to me to cancel a gambling debt.″

″Why won′t you sell here?ʺ Black said.

″The painting is worth more in London,″ Mike replied with a wide smile. He lifted the painting off the table. ″I′m in the phone book,″ he said. ″See you in London.″

As the blue Mercedes pulled away from the bar and headed for Rimini, Dee said: ″How on earth did you do it?″

″Well, I went around to the back of the bar and spoke to the wife,″ Mike said. ″I simply asked her if this was where Danielli stayed, and she said yes. I asked if he had left any paintings behind, and she showed me this. So I said: ′How much do you want for it?′ That was when she called her husband. He asked for the equivalent of one hundred pounds.″

″My God!″ Dee exclaimed.

″Don′t worry,″ Mike said. ″I beat him down to eighty.″

Dee opened her eyes. ″After that it was easy,″ she said. ″No trouble at Customs. The forgers knocked off a quick couple of copies of the picture for us, and both Lipsey and Black paid fifty-thousand-pound gambling debts to us. I haven′t got the slightest twinge of conscience about defrauding those two slimy creatures. They would have done the same to us. Especially Lipsey—I′m still sure he was employed by Uncle Charles.″

″Mmmm.″ Mike nuzzled Dee. ″Done any thesis today?″

″No. Do you know, I don′t think I will do any, ever.″

He raised his head to look at her. ″Why not?″

″After all this, it seems so unreal.″

″What will you do?″

″Well, you once offered me a job.″

″You turned it down.″

″It′s different now. I′ve proved I′m as good as you. And we know we make a team, in business as well as in bed.″

″Is this the moment for me to ask you to marry me?″

″No. But there′s something else you could do for me.″

Mike smiled. ″I know.″ He got up on his knees and kissed her belly, flicking his tongue in and out of her navel.

″Hey, there′s one thing I haven′t figured out.″

″Oh, Jesus. Can′t you concentrate on sex for a while?″

″Not yet. Listen. You financed those forgers, right? Usher and Mitchell?″

″Yes.″

″When?″

″When I came to London.″

″And the idea was to put them in a position where they had to do the copies for us.″

″Right. Can we screw yet?″

″In a minute.″ She pushed his head away from her breasts. ″But when you came to London, you didn′t even know I was on the track of the picture.″

″Right.″

″So why did you set the forgers up?″

″I had faith in you, baby.″

The room was silent for a while as dusk fell outside.