Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

The hotel was booked wall-to-wall, and had been from the day it opened. One of the upsides to contract work for St. Kilda Consulting was that they could get a room almost anywhere, at any time, from a flophouse to a penthouse. Someone always knew someone who knew someone.

In this case the someone at the end of the chain of favors was Shane Tannahill, the owner of the golden-glass and black-steel monument called the Golden Fleece. And it was Tannahill’s name that had convinced someone in the auction bureaucracy to allow the hotel owner’s personal guests to see some of the paintings before the official preview tomorrow.

Thomas Dunstan’s paintings, to be precise.

No big deal. The paintings were, after all, there to be previewed. It was a necessary part of every auction protocol. Zach was just being certain that no one got in the way before they examined the stretcher edges of the paintings.

He didn’t have a good feeling about this op.

He kept telling himself it was because he was personally involved with the client, and therefore more edgy, but he wasn’t buying it.

Somewhere, somehow, in that great flusher in the sky, this op was going south.

He knew it.

He just couldn’t nail down how, who, where, or when.

Faroe’s call hadn’t helped. The idea that so many millions were at play for a man as politically powerful as Tal Crawford just made Zach jumpier. When the zeros started rolling up, people got crazy.

“What’s ‘the usual bodyguard arrangement’?” Jill asked, sitting next to Zach in the lobby.

“Two rooms, connecting door.” Only one of the beds will be used, unless we mess it up too much. Then we’ll use the other.

But thinking about that was stupid. He needed his mind on his op, not his crotch.

“I take it the connecting door gets left open?” she said.

“Always.” He looked at his watch. “Hope this auction dude gets here soon. I’m too old to live on junk food forever. No matter what the ads say, sugar, salt, and grease aren’t food groups.”

Jill opened the auction catalogue and looked through it again. Like Zach, she hoped it wouldn’t be long until they saw the paintings.

She kept wondering if she was dreaming.

“I still don’t believe it,” she said in a low voice. “Five to eight million dollars. Each.”

“Remember what Frost said-the buzz on the art circuit is ten million bucks for the big ones. Each.”

“Is that common?” she asked.

“What?”

“To have a lot of rumors that basically fix the price of some paintings at a higher cost than the auction catalogue indicates.”

“It’s called excitement, and the more the better. The catalogue is nothing but a guesstimate of future bidding.” Zach’s stomach growled. Living out of mini-marts and fast-food outlets was a great way to starve.

“You heard those two back there,” she said, indicating the registration desk of the Golden Fleece, where guests waited twelve deep for the opportunity to check into the most luxurious hotel-casino-shopping megaplex in Las Vegas. “They were talking about ten million per Dunstan at Sunday’s auction like it was a done deal.”

“In good times, paintings can blow through the top of their range,” Zach said.

“Are times that good right now?”

“I could argue either side of the question.” He frowned, thinking back on the conversations he’d overheard while they waited in line to register. A lot of the people were here for the art auction, not the casino action. “But you’re right. Nearly everyone is talking ten million for the Dunstans. It makes me wonder.”

“About what?”

Zach kept watching the people milling in the lobby. The plainclothes guards were well dressed and invisible to anyone who didn’t know that in Vegas, armed guards were always around. A whole lot of those Bluetooth receivers plugged into men’s ears weren’t what they seemed.

It was easy to separate the hopeful buyers from the hopeful sellers. The sellers didn’t clutch heavily earmarked catalogues. But seller or buyer, the undercurrent of excitement, of being at the place where art history will be made, was unmistakable.

It made the back of Zach’s neck itch.

“What’s wrong?” Jill asked in a low voice.

“I’m wondering how big a fix is in on the auction.”

“That’s just one more subject my fine art education lacked,” she said wryly.

“What?”

“Fixing auctions.”

“Any auction can be fixed,” he said, thinking of Faroe’s conversation about Lane’s swarming. “Hidden floors for some goods is a favorite.”

“Translation?”

“Say that the auctioneer and the owner of some paintings have made an agreement that no paintings from that owner will sell under, oh, five million. Or a buyer and an auctioneer have an agreement on a minimum price. Normally a floor is put right out there for everyone to see. If the floor isn’t met, the painting or whatever is withdrawn. That’s open and legal.”

“And when the floor is hidden?” she asked.

“It’s illegal,” Zach said. “It could involve straw bidders in the crowd, or bogus signals from the phone banks, or winning bidders who quietly fail to follow through and take delivery after the headlines about a painting’s record price are made-any or all of the above can be used to be sure the floor is reached, and probably surpassed.”

Jill frowned. “I can see why the seller would want a big price. Where’s the benefit to the buyer if he’s the one doing the rigging?”

“Tax deductions. The bigger the sale price of the object, the bigger the deduction if the work is donated. When everyone is in on the fix, the seller gets enough of a kickback to pay capital gains on his art ‘profit,’ which he never really sees but still has to pay taxes on. Or the seller donates other paintings at the inflated price and ends up not having to pay taxes on his gains for the paintings he did sell.”

“You’re giving me a headache,” Jill said.

He shrugged. “Those are just a few of the ways to rig sales numbers. When St. Kilda’s researchers get some breathing space, they’ll go through the records and see just how much real money Dunstan owners have tied up in their paintings. I’m betting that at least one of them doesn’t have a tenth of the upcoming auction’s price into his Dunstans. The rest is blue smoke and auction fever. There are plenty of ways to juice the numbers, especially at an auction.”

“Is it common?” she asked.

“You mean like dirt? No. Common like something you should always be aware of in any auction? Oh, yeah. Millions of bucks change hands on the tip of a paddle or the lift of an eyebrow. A smart auctioneer or a savvy floor man can cover a multitude of backstage tricks. Sometimes the whole auction isn’t rigged, just certain lots in the auction. Real hard to prove and it all adds to everyone’s bottom line.”

“So a dozen new Dunstan paintings wouldn’t be very welcome if the game is already scripted.”

Zach smiled thinly. “About as welcome as a snake in a hen-house.”

A young man wearing an expensive suit and a harried expression crossed toward them.

“Here we go,” Zach said in a low voice. “Remember, we’re front people for a potential bidder, nothing more. Mr. and Mrs. Arlington.”

“Another charade. Craptastic.”

“You want to wait in the suite? I can take care of this.”

“I thought you were worried about me being alone.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Zach said, watching the crowd. “St. Kilda has ops in town, so if someone whispers St. Kilda in your ear, or Faroe’s name, do whatever they tell you to, including hit the door or the floor.”

She took a deep breath, steadying herself for a run down unfamiliar rapids. “I’ll follow your lying lead.”

“Pretext, not lie. You’re hurting my delicate feelings.”

Her laugh turned into a cough as the young man stopped in front of them. “Mr. Arlington? I’m Jase Wheeler. I’m very pressed for time, as you can well imagine.” He gave them a harried smile. “As you were told, the paintings aren’t really set up for public viewing at this-”

“No problem,” Zach interrupted, smiling easily. “My partner and I are used to artists’ studios. Nothing messier.”

Jase tried again. “You really would have a better opportunity to examine the works tomorrow, when we move across the hall to the Grand Ballroom.”

“Unless we like what we see today, we won’t be here tomorrow, because our client won’t be bidding,” Zach said. His smile had a lot more teeth than Jase’s.

“I see.” Jase straightened his suit-coat. “Your client was particularly interested in the Dunstans, I believe?”

“Yes,” Jill said. Her smile, too, was more teeth than good fellowship. She was getting tired of being transparent to salespeople when Zach was around.

“I hope your client has a great deal of money,” Jase said to Zach. “The excitement about those particular canvases is very intense.”

“Our client never worries about money,” Jill said, “just about getting what he wants.”

“And he wants Dunstans, but only if they’re top quality,” Zach said.

“I don’t recall a financial disclosure form being filled out for any client represented by you,” Jase said.

“There won’t be any need of financial disclosure unless we like what we see today,” Zach said gently. “Or is a financial vetting required simply to preview the works?”

“Uh, no, of course not,” Jase said.

Zach waited.

Jase gave in and guided them down a long narrow hall to a meeting room that was crowded with dozens of easels containing artworks.

“Only two of the Dunstans are on the floor right now,” Jase said. “The others are still, uh, being uncrated.”

“If you’re lucky, we’ll see something interesting in what you already have out,” Jill said coolly. “Otherwise, you might want to expedite the uncrating of the other two.”

Jase’s shoulders tightened, but he didn’t say a word.

LAS VEGAS

SEPTEMBER 16

5:13 P.M.

At the front of the room, two Dunstans waited in gilt frames that had been secured to large, sturdy easels.

Zach stopped twenty feet away and studied the paintings carefully for a full two minutes. The first painting was a Great Basin landscape that glowed with its own internal light, the magic moments of late afternoon sunlight captured forever in oils. The other painting was much more fierce, a winter storm slashing down across a dry lake bed that could have been in Nevada or east of the Sierras in California.

“Remarkable, aren’t they?” Jase said. “No one manages to catch raking light like Dunstan did.”

Jill made a sound that said she was too busy absorbing the paintings to waste time restating the obvious.

Zach walked up to the two paintings, examining them from a few feet away, looking pointedly at all four corners and the edges. Then he turned toward Jase.

“The corners look like they could be damaged,” Zach said.

Jill took the cue and came to stand closer, staring at the corners of each painting.

“Very doubtful,” Jase said. “These are some of the finest Dunstans in the world. They came directly from the family collection. They’ve never been offered to the public before.”

“Yeah?” Zach said. His voice said he wasn’t buying what Jase was selling. “So the Dunstans are peddling their heritage-or are they just editing the family collection?”

Jill bit back a smile. Editing was art-speak for culling inferior works from a museum or individual collector’s holdings.

“Not at all,” Jase said instantly. “It’s simply that there comes a time in a man’s life where art like this is simply too precious to keep in the home. The costs of insurance alone are staggering. Lee Dunstan is a simple man with simple needs.”

“At four million apiece, the paintings could take care of a lot of simple needs,” Jill said.

Jase ignored her. “Lee wanted his father’s work to be in a place where it could receive top-level care and display. The new museum in Carson City is just such a place. Lee will donate two of the four Dunstans to the museum. Those are the paintings that haven’t been uncrated, because technically, they aren’t part of the auction.”

“They won’t be sold?” Jill asked.

“No. As I said, Mr. Dunstan will donate them at the end of the auction.”

“What’s he waiting for?” Jill asked.