AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Spanish Harlem,’ Gabriel murmured afterwards, still collapsed over the desk. ‘She lives in Spanish Harlem.’
*
After the painter had left Felix reached into his desk and pulled out his other mobile phone – the burner phone, the one he rarely used that boasted an unlisted, untraceable number. After checking the time, he dialled a number.
‘Jerome, it’s me… I have a photo, a first name and a possible location. I’ll fax over the details. She’s distinctive; ask around and you’ll find her. First name Latisha, somewhere on 125th Street, Spanish Harlem. I don’t need her frightened, I need her silenced and, judging by the age and size of her, it should be easy to make it look organic.’
*
‘Theo told me you had a late calling. I appreciate that, a mature sister like yourself.’
Eugene, Theo’s friend, dressed in his security guard outfit, was walking them through the dimly lit corridors of the Whitney. To Latisha’s mind, without people the place resembled the labyrinthine wings of some monolithic mausoleum. It was past midnight, but she was invigorated: she was taking matters into her own hands and, even if it meant lying a little to her own blood, it was for a good cause.
‘Eugene is studying to be an art historian during the day. This job is just to pay for the college fees,’ Theo explained to his aunt, anxious she should understand the gravity of his friend’s vocation. Eugene ushered them into the small gallery where the two Hoppers were exhibited. Girl in a Yellow Square of Light hung on the opposite wall, right next to a painting Latisha recognised from the library. It made her heart pound to see it there: forgery or no forgery, it is a fine piece of work, she thought, walking up to it.
‘I plan to put African-American artists on the map,’ Eugene continued emphatically, revelling in his captive audience. ‘I mean, look around you; you tell me how many of these paintings are by our people? In the permanent collection, maybe two, and both of them by Basquiat. Don’t get me wrong, the brother was a genius, but where are all the others? Marginalised and labelled—’
‘That has to change,’ Theo chimed in, then added proudly, ‘Aunt Latisha here, she was made into art, weren’t you, Aunt?’
Latisha swung back around from the painting she was studying. ‘Indeed, immortalised in bronze and naked as the day I was born. But the artist, Eugene, I’m afraid to say, was white and she was British. Still, she was a damn fine artist.’
‘Inspired by a fine-looking African-American sister,’ Eugene added flirtatiously, revealing a whole other side of him that made Latisha smile and Theo a little anxious. ‘Happy to facilitate any kind of higher calling, Latisha. Being in these hallowed corridors all alone at night is a particular treat’
At which Theo, nervous at the flirtatious direction the conversation was taking, stepped in. ‘Eugene, why don’t you take me to see this Basquiat if he so good?’
‘My pleasure. You coming, Latisha?’
‘In a minute, I just want to relish these magnificent paintings a moment longer. You boys go on without me… ’
*
After the two men left, Latisha turned back to the Hopper. Reaching into her handbag, she took out a small penknife and a sterile plastic container she’d bought from Rite Aid. Carefully she scraped some of the yellow paint from a corner and placed it into the container, then slipped the sealed container back into her handbag and stepped back. There was no evidence that the paint had been taken.
Chapter Seventeen
Felix stood in the cubicle, his naked torso cross-draped by two holsters filled with gun ammunition, blue fabric wound into a loincloth covering most of his torso. He had arrived that morning, in his disguise as Mask Man: a blond wig, a mask (a sinister Spider Man full-face one), stained cheap jeans and an old T-shirt. He’d kept his head down, barely spoken and was unrecognisable, even to himself.
Now he was dressed in the costume for the restaging of the painting, he stared into a mirror through the narrow eye slits of a different mask: a red one, a perfect replica of Abraham Lincoln’s face. Upon arriving at the studio, Alfie, oblivious to Felix’s true identity under the Spider Man mask but overly sensitive to ‘Mask Man’s’ mental-health issues, had briefed him in patronisingly simple terms on the painting that was to be re-enacted. It was Nicholas Poussin’s The Triumph of Pan, but he’d had no idea how Susie intended to weave American content into the re-enactment of the work.
The Lincoln mask, which looked both startling and haunting, was a good indicator.
Muriel entering interrupted his reverie; she pressed a crown of fresh flowers onto his head and then stepped back. Alfie had obviously explained to her that Mask Man was possibly intellectually challenged and should be handled carefully. Consequently she’d talked to him as if he were a six-year-old, much to Felix’s secret amusement, but it had at least allowed him to just follow her instructions mutely.
‘Now you’re finished and you look simply splendid. Are you okay? Can you see through that mask?’
Felix nodded like a happy child.
‘Good. Don’t worry about the fact that the statue in the original painting had no arms. Ms Thomas will Photoshop yours out in the editing process. So I’m going to lead you to the set. You’re to do exactly what Ms Thomas instructs, you understand?’
She took him by the hand and led him out to the studio. He blinked in the bright light. Through the mask he could see that the set resembled the forest glade Poussin’s original orgy was set in, but instead of the Italianate forest and mountains as backdrop, Susie had painted the outline of the Rocky Mountains, with spruce and fir trees in the foreground. Felix paused for a moment, in stunned rapture; he could almost smell the pine needles.
The ten other costumed extras loitered beside the set, waiting to take up their positions in the drunken orgy. Five women playing the nymphs were all draped in togas, duplicating the original clothing of the nymphs in the painting. Susie, playing the central nymph, wore the Stars and Stripes, a touch that Felix thought particularly strong.
The four satyrs were naked and suitably swarthy. One of them, representing a full satyr, appeared to be goat from the waist down: a visual that had Felix marvelling at Muriel’s skill. There were also two children dressed up as the cherubs in the original image – only in Susie’s version one cherub was Arabic, the other South American, presumably a reference to US geopolitical interests.
A model of a white goat was already on the set waiting to be mounted; the set itself was angled so that the ‘earthy ground’ sloped downwards towards stage front; in the far corner lay an old ESSO oilcan – the substitute for the upturned ceramic flask of wine that featured in the original. Across from that on the opposite side lay three abandoned red Lincoln masks like the one Felix was wearing. But, whereas in the original painting the masks were of classical tragic-comedic figures, here they were of three iconic American presidents: Kennedy, George Bush Sr and Nixon.
Now Felix could clearly see that the whole image was shaping up as a political commentary on US foreign policy of the past decades and its dependence on the oil industry. It was a concept that instantly excited him; it was both topical and commercial, guaranteed to provoke a certain amount of outrage and therefore publicity – the perfect ingredients for a sale. Felix’s brain immediately swung into possible strategies and a list of potential collectors he could approach.
