"I should think," muttered Charles Effingham, the chairman of the board. Effingham hated meetings. He hated coming into the office at all. He was sixty-four years old, unabashedly a figurehead, and absolutely perfect in that role. Upper-crust British, with a shock of white hair generally described as leonine and an American wife typically characterized as incredibly rich, he served his shareholders best at charity balls, golf tournaments, regattas. Absently, he now riffled through the glossy four-color catalogue that had already been printed at vast expense for the Solstice Show. He found the pages devoted to the works of Augie Silver. Next to each illustration was listed the painting's size, approximate date of execution, medium, and Sotheby's most expert guess as to the value. He read the numbers, then stared at Campbell Epstein over the tops of his elegant half-glasses. "Rather Utopian, these estimates," he said.
The head of Paintings swallowed so that the knot of his yellow tie bobbed upward above the gold collar pin then quickly subsided like a dying erection. "Sir, may I be candid?"
Effingham gave forth a soft harrumph. Among his favorite peeves were these spasms of veracity that sometimes overwhelmed executives at meetings. What did they accomplish except to clinch the case that they were talking hogwash the rest of the time?
"The painting market is in a doldrum," Epstein went on. "That's common knowledge. The Silver estimates are optimistic, yes. But our hope was that record-breaking prices for this one artist would buoy the entire show, would spawn a sort of chain reaction—"
The chairman cut him off. "There'll be a chain reaction, all right. When the actual bids fall egregiously short on the Silvers, a chain-reactive pall will descend. There'll be the sad sound of closing wallets. Paddles will come to rest on well-upholstered laps. The bottom feeders will be most grateful."
The conference room fell silent save for the subtly maddening hum of the overhead fluorescents. Shoes slid softly over the Bokhara rug, someone rattled a Rosenthal cup back into its saucer. Claire Steiger felt that the moment had come to go on the offensive. "Am I the only one here," she said, "who believes the Augie Silver canvases will hold their value?"
She panned her soft brown eyes around the table, and for a moment none of the half-dozen men seated there took up the challenge. Finally, Campbell Epstein said, "Claire, your faith in your client is touching. But the estimates were based on the assumption—"
'That you had a hot dead painter on your hands," Claire Steiger said.
Epstein's tie did its little dance, he glanced nervously at his boss. Effingham looked interested for the first time all morning.
"Well," the dealer resumed, "I'm arguing that you now have something better. A miracle man. The publicity will be incredible. And on top of the reviews we already have? The Brandenburg alone—"
"Rather embarrassing for Peter," came a nasal voice from the far end of the table. It belonged to Theo Stanakos, the director of public relations. Where other people had a brain, Stanakos had a switchboard, a tracking station for gossip in and gossip out, a radar screen on which were etched the trajectories of news, opinions, careers as they took flight, arced, and fizzled.
"I don't think I follow you," Claire Steiger said. "Are you suggesting his review was not sincere?"
"I'm saying it was too sincere," Stanakos said. "A great deal too sincere. So unlike Peter to get swept up in the emotion of the moment. Or any emotion. He got choked up at the thought of writing a eulogy, I suppose. But now—it seems so excessive. Gushy. Smarmy. Don't you agree?"
"No, I don't agree. I think Peter Brandenburg got it right, and it makes no difference whatsoever if it was a eulogy or a midlife appraisal. What he said would have been said ten years ago if Augie Silver was more ambitious, if he pushed—"
"Claire, Theo," Campbell Epstein interrupted, "I think we're getting off the point."
"We are not getting off the point," Claire Steiger shot right back. "The point is that Augie's price will hold because his reputation is made, it's assured. The momentum—"
"A living artist can always muck it up," Charles Effingham put in. He spoke softly but there was something incisive about the Oxford accent, it cut right through the flabbier consonants of the other speakers. "Every collector is aware of that. This year's genius is next year's buffoon. Look at Schnabel. You can't sell him and you can't even have him on your wall without looking like an idiot. It's a nuisance."
"But an artist only mucks it up by continuing to paint," Claire Steiger argued. "Augie Silver hasn't worked in years—"