New Archive:

January 2000 Issue, Volume 2

Openings and Closings
Part One

by Adam Abramowitz

The man waiting outside my office door wasn't waiting for me; I knew that. He was one of those professional sphinxes, someone who carved a living out of repose and didn't mind standing out in empty hallways counting floor tiles and inspecting his fingernails. He wore a loose black suit, black shirt and tie and wingtips that had been polished with the feathers from an angel's wing.

"The boss inside?" I said to him.

His nod was nearly enough to set the Chaos Theory into motion.

I opened the door and left it open behind me. It would save Blackie the trouble of opening it himself when he resumed his post inside.

The boss was sitting in the cushiest chair I owned, one velvet-panted leg draped elegantly across the other, feining patience and casual ease as only the very rich know how. A purple velvet jacket and collarless white dress-shirt completed the outfit. Black tasseled loafers with no socks. A gold tipped cigarette burning listlessly between pink manicured fingers.

"Mister Green, I presume?" His voice was as soft as his clothes, a practiced formality cushioning the words. It was the kind of voice that if you listened to long enough, would eventually slide into an English accent.

I grunted an acknowledgment.

"I've been waiting to see you, Mr. Green." He rose to his feet and avoided the possibility of a handshake by smoothing out some wrinkles in his pants that weren't there. "Hoping to have you take on a case for me. If you're not currently engaged, that is."

Currently engaged. I made a note to remember that phrase the next time my Rabbi invited me over for a "little" chat concerning his upcoming drach.

I unlocked the inner door, flicked on the overhead light-one of those energy saving bulbs that cost a fortune, lasted forever and ruined your eyesight in half that time-and dropped my newspaper onto the desk blotter where it fell open to the sports pages. My guest closed the door and busied himself into the chair that faced my desk. I sat down and, as I always did, unlocked the top drawer to see if my gun was where I'd left it. It was. I assumed that the same number of bullets were there too.

I leaned back, put my feet up on the drawer and laced my fingers over my stomach. Whatever my visitor had come to discuss didn't cause smoke to come out of his ears. He was leaning forward in his seat, glancing at the paper.

"Do you enjoy the fights, Mr. Green?"

The pictures and most of the accompanying text concerned last night's heavyweight bout between a local unknown and a former champion whose second career was going to jail for short stretches. It seemed to me like a lot of words for a fight that was over before the echo of the national anthem had even died out.

"Sometimes." I said. "When it's an even match. I didn't like it much last night."

"You're not a believer in David vs. Goliath then?" I shook my head. "Well, it looks like you're not alone in that regard."

"I don't think so, at least not for the same reason. I didn't like the fight last night before it even got started. Matching a killer with someone whose chief quality is the fact that he's melanin deficient and has a record built on guys who take naps for a living isn't a fight. It's a ritual slaughter. It's the ending of the fight that everyone else is grumbling about. The fact that the kid's corner threw in the towel before his brain got permanently silly. They figured they paid to see a fight, they ought to get their two pounds of flesh, no matter what."

"But you don't see it that way?"

"I just told you how I see it."

He smiled at that. As if I'd just confirmed something for him. Leon Green. Gumshoe. Savior of treed pussycats and honorable defender of big white stiffs.

I shifted in my seat and waited. Behind me, a cloud wasn't as patient and moved on, releasing sunshine that slashed through my blinds and threw shadow bars over my guest and onto the wall behind him. A single ray caught his eyes and I noticed that his irises were practically transparent, like film negatives. He didn't bother to blink the light away.

"My name is Ian Land." He finally said. "Perhaps you've heard of me."

"Sure." I said, figuring I'd save his publicist's job. "You're a famous art collector. You have a wing in the Museum of Modern Art named after you. Your family made its fortune in styrofoam. You go to all the smart parties and know all the right people. And you have a problem that your political connections to the police department can't help you with or you don't want them to know about and which Blackie out there, despite his snazzy looks and boisterous charm can't handle on his own. Am I getting warm?"

"Rather." He lit a new cigarette from the old one and crushed it underfoot. "Someone has stolen some things that belong to me, Mr. Green. I would like them returned."

"Can you be a little more specific?"

He smiled thinly. "Paintings, Mr. Green. Paintings I have already paid for and have yet to receive. A series of very valuable paintings by Benjamin Lincoln that were to be unveiled to the public this Friday at the NoSun gallery. Works that the art world and I have been waiting a very long time to see."

"You?" I said.

"Excuse me?"

"You said the art world and you. Are you telling me that you've already bought these paintings, but you haven't seen them yet?"

Ian Land frowned at me through his lingering smoke. "The art world plays by its own set of rules, Mr. Green. In this, the case of an artist with great talent, great market value, especially one who does not create much work, one invests in such a person."

"Sight unseen." I said.

"Yes."

"Are we discussing commissioned pieces, Mr. Land?"

"No. A commissioned work infers an artist's and patron's complicity in the production of work. This is entirely different. This is more in the nature of, shall we say...speculation."

"So what you're really buying is a name." He nodded. "And a potential based on last year's statistics."

"A crude metaphor, but yes."

I took a moment to think about that. "So what if this great artist, say, runs out of ideas or gets lazy and decides that urinating on canvas or picking his nose and throwing on some paint constitutes the finished product. What then?"

Land looked at me as if he pitied my mind's limitations. "In laymen's terms, it all depends where it's coming from, Mr. Green."

"I think from his bladder and nose." I said.

He ignored me. "Whether there is an inherent message being sent by using such crude methods and materials. Is the artist expounding on beauty? On the place of beauty in art? On our bodies and the relationships we have with art? Do you see the discourse that it encourages?"

"That beauty is in the eye of-"

"Please. Spare me that tripe. Will you help me, Mr. Green?"

"Were the paintings insured?"

"Of course they were insured!" He waved the cigarette at me. "Money is not the chief concern." I was glad to hear that; I had yet to set my fee. "It's my reputation that is at stake here. There has been an enormous amount of pre-publicity surrounding this opening. Art Forum, Freiz and Flash Art have all run extensive previews and many important people are slated to appear. My name is connected to these paintings, Mr. Green. Without them I am the laughingstock of SoHo. I must have them back. Quickly and quietly. That gives you three days. Will you take the job?"

Sure, I'd take the job. I knew lots about the art world. Van Gogh had one ear. Picasso went through a Blue Period. Cindy Sherman likes to dress up in different outfits and take pictures of herself. And nobody had to tell me not to touch the Mona Lisa. I was qualified. And if I didn't find the paintings? Well, I was bound to meet some swell people along the way, wasn't I?

I gave him my usual rate of a hundred and fifty a day plus expenses and bumped it up another fifty. He gave me four crisp one hundred dollar bills and stayed long enough to answer a few more questions. When we finished, I tucked the bills and whatever I'd written down into my coat pocket and waited for Blackie to make his appearance. Land stood as Blackie opened the door on cue.

"Three days, Mr. Green." He said. "I expect you'll begin shortly."

"I'm already working." I told him, and shot Blackie with my thumb and index finger.


Stay tuned for Part 2.

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