“There was never a chance I wouldn’t,” he said. He grinned, and I smiled back, meaning it.
“Thanks for the ride, English.”
“See you on the other side.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It had rained in the late afternoon and the pavement smelled like wet cement. I made my way on foot from the station, turning the corner to see Tollemache’s lit up like a birthday cake. The windows facing the street were permanently shuttered, but lanterns, glowing softly, hung on either side of the door. Someone had set out a line of boxwood topiaries hung with fairy lights—an intern, probably. The door was propped open and a decorative young man dressed in a tight plaid suit was standing just inside, repeating, “Welcome to Tollemache’s,” every five or six seconds like he was stuck on a loop.
I passed inside and grabbed a glass of champagne from a girl circulating with a tray. It was early yet, but the room was buzzing with anticipation and prospective buyers crowded around the paintings. I stood against a wall, letting the crowds pass in front of me as I sipped my champagne and took stock.
Tollemache’s had taken the mock Tudor theme to the extreme. The interior was designed to resemble the Globe Theatre, with an open stage in the center surrounded by galleried walkways. The upper gallery was reserved for sellers and Tollemache’s executives, with the lower gallery providing a sort of corral for onlookers and the press. There was even a wide stretch of wine-colored velvet curtains along the back of the stage with a podium set just in front for the auctioneer.
Next to the podium stood an empty easel. It was flanked by a long table outfitted with a phone bank. Most auction houses had a large computerized sign to display the reserve and current bids in various currencies, but Tollemache’s was too old-school for that. The reserve and current were shown in pounds sterling only, and if you didn’t know your euros from your yen, well, sucks to be you, I guess. More than one bidder had gotten burned by failing to calculate the exchange correctly, but Tollemache’s got away with it because it was supposed to be part of their eccentric charm.
After I’d downed half my drink, I joined the queue to see the paintings. It moved quicker than I expected and not many people were focused on the Sheba. They wanted the big-money pictures—the pushing to see the O’Keeffe had resulted in a shoving match. But the Sheba hung in a smaller alcove, grouped quietly with Vallayer-Coster’s pineapple still life. The pineapple was . . . well, it was a pineapple—yellow and green and surrounded by an assortment of other fruits and a sullen-looking lobster.
The Sheba was different. She had the quality of all of Anguissola’s women. They stare out with their painted eyes—not at you, through you. They stare so long and so hard you almost believe they’re real and you’re the creation from some artist’s imagination. They’re entirely alive in the way only great art can be. Most of Anguissola’s portraits have black backgrounds, but to set off the queen’s dark skin, she had painted a domestic scene behind, the soft white of the bedsheets a reminder of just what the queen had been doing—and who. Solomon’s naked thigh was a tanned olive against the tumbled linens, his muscles relaxed with fatigue and satisfaction. Sheba’s eyes were calm and watchful, a tiny smile playing over her lips. A spilled pitcher of water alluded to the story that Solomon had tricked her into bed, making her promise to sleep with him if she took anything belonging to him. Then he fed her spicy food, ensuring she would need to help herself to a cup of water in the night—a tiny theft with enormous consequences.
This Sheba didn’t look like a woman who’d been tricked into sex. She looked like a woman who had gotten exactly what she wanted. The king’s weapons were lying on the floor, useless and abandoned, a signal that war had been vanquished by love. Everything about the painting was sexy, from the glow on Sheba’s skin to the bowl of ripe peaches next to the bed.
I bent near to the bottom left corner, but I couldn’t find the repair. If you didn’t know it had been shot, you’d never suspect a bullet had once pierced the canvas. I was sad that the Provenance department had never unearthed any survivors from the family who had last owned it, but I was glad the Sheba was getting out in the world again. She deserved to be seen.
As I straightened, I realized someone was standing at my elbow. She was tall and wearing five-inch stilettos that put her easily over six feet. Her pantsuit was white, the trousers tight through the thighs but flaring from the knees. She wasn’t wearing a shirt under the low-cut white blazer, just a thin gold chain that clasped under her breasts and behind her neck. Her hoop earrings were diamond, as were the rings on her fingers. Her Afro formed a perfect circle around her head and she had frosted the ends in gold, giving her a glimmering halo. Her lips were the same shimmering gold. A flunky stood behind her holding a custom oversized white ostrich Birkin bag that Helen would have given her right arm for. It took me a minute to place her, and then it came to me—Mona Rae. The last time I’d seen her, she had been on the cover of Entertainment Weekly for winning the Golden Globe for Best Director.