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“I finished five days ago,” Monique said. “And if I was bored, what do you think you could do about it?”
“Oh, I can think of something,” I said.
“Well, think of something else.”
“All right,” I said. “Almost as good—the paintings?”
She just shook her head. “Come take a look.”
She led me over to a corner of the studio where two easels stood side by side. She’d thrown a bedsheet across the top that hid whatever was on them. I was itching to whip off the sheet and look, but I knew better. Monique has a dramatic streak. She likes to do things with a little flair. You know—showmanship. Or is it show-woman-ship?
Anyway, I waited while Monique flipped a switch on the wall. A handful of track lights came on, and the easels were flooded with light. And only then did she whip off the sheet. “Ta-da,” she said with quiet pride.
I had been sure the pictures would be perfect, and one quick glance said they were—from a distance. I mean, I expect perfection from Monique, but I never take anything for granted. I had to be absolutely sure. I took a magnifying glass from a pocket and moved up to the first canvas, the Rauschenberg.
Monique and I have done this before. She knows how I work. So as I began, she got comfortable in a nearby chair and started flipping through an Italian art maga
zine, Espoarte. She didn’t really speak Italian, but as an art-history buff she could usually get the gist of what she read. Besides, Espoarte was mostly about the gorgeous pictures anyway. So I stopped thinking about her and dove into the Rauschenberg.
I am not a huge fan of modern painting. Too much of it is like jerking off; it’s fun for the guy doing it and doesn’t mean a whole lot to anybody else. But I kind of like Rauschenberg. I don’t know why. One thing is, it has texture. You can look at photos of Rauschenberg’s work without really getting a true sense of it, and that kind of keeps you from appreciating what he’s done. You need to see the real thing—because the feeling of it is a big part. You want to run the palms of your hands across the canvas.
Monique knew that—hell, she knew it a whole lot better than I did. And as I got up close and personal with her copy, I had to admit she’d copped it beautifully. The way she’d laid on the paint was pure Rauschenberg, and the bumpy, gritty surface of the canvas was just right. I wanted to rub my cheek on it.
I didn’t. I just looked, and I took my time. I went over every inch of that canvas, looking for any small mistake. I mean, I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any, but everybody has to sneeze or burp or something, and that’s all it takes. What’s the thing they say about the glitches in the Odyssey? “Homer nodded,” right? So if Monique had nodded, I needed to find out now. After twenty minutes, I had to admit that if she had, she’d done it somewhere else. The canvas was flawless.
I looked at the bottom left corner last, the spot where I’d told her to put the Times clipping. At first pass, I couldn’t see it. I got closer, used the magnifying glass—and there it was. Once I had seen it, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Before that, it was invisible. Monique had pulled off that trick of making something undetectable until you see it, and then you can’t un-see it. I don’t have any idea how the trick works, but I’ve seen it enough times to know it does. I had to smile, looking at it. Then I straightened up and moved to the second painting.
I’m not as fond of Jasper Johns. He’s a little too simple and neat for me. I can’t feel any heartbeat in his stuff. I guess it’s just me, because plenty of people pay big bucks for his paintings. So it didn’t matter if I didn’t like the painting. I just had to make sure it could pass for the real thing. I went over it just as carefully as I had the Rauschenberg. It was a lot simpler in terms of composition and color and content, but once again Monique nailed the trick with the Times clipping.
When I was done, I took a few steps back and looked them both over again. And if I took more time staring at the Rauschenberg, who can blame me? I was pretty sure they would both pass almost anybody’s inspection. Shit, I was positive. And even knowing that the Times clippings were there, I couldn’t see them from three steps away. Monique had totally killed it. The paintings were perfect.
“Fucking beautiful,” I said. I mean, I didn’t want Monique to get all full of herself, but I couldn’t help it.
I heard a rustling behind me and turned. Monique had closed her magazine, leaving one finger to hold her place. “What did you say?” she said, kind of polite and distant.
I took two big steps over to her, grabbed her shoulders, and hugged her. She didn’t really return it, but I didn’t care. She’d made me the cheese for my rat trap—two perfect hunks of cheddar. “I said, fucking beautiful,” I told her. “Totally excellent! Monique, you hit it out of the park!”
She shrugged, but I could tell she was pleased. “What did you expect?” she said. That made me want to kiss her, but when I moved in for it, she held up the magazine between us.
I was so excited, I didn’t really care. I stood up straight and reached into my pocket.
A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Monique’s mouth. “Really, Riley,” she said. “You act like you didn’t think I could do this.”
I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Bullshit!” I said. “I knew you’d do it. In fact, I was so sure, I already wired the money for these two to your account. The Hong Kong one?” Hong Kong was the new Cayman Islands—a really good place to stick money when you didn’t want anybody to know about it. They didn’t ask questions, just stuck your cash in an anonymous numbered account.
Monique nodded and glanced at the paper. She did a small double take. She looked up at me with a raised eyebrow. “A tip? Really, Riley?”
“Fuck, yeah,” I said. I realized I was kind of bouncing on my toes—but what the hell. I was jazzed about her work, seeing her two paintings done so perfectly. It made the whole impossible thing I was trying to pull off more real—and made me feel it working. Like my plan was some kind of machine, and we’d just started it and could hear the engine purring for the first time. “You earned that and more,” I said.
Monique watched me bouncing for a few seconds. Then she shook her head and stuffed the receipt into her pocket. “And now what?”
I gave her a big, toothy leer. “We could celebrate,” I said.
“Or not,” she said. “I meant, what’s next? With your super-duper top-secret I’m-a-genius ten-digit amazing plan?”
“Weeeeelllll,” I said. “I mean, celebrate was the first choice—”
“Nope, not gonna happen,” Monique said, a little too quickly. “I mean the work, Riley. You said there was something big after these two paintings.”
