Portrait of an unknown w.., p.25
Portrait of an Unknown Woman, page 25
“She doesn’t have the training to paint Old Masters.”
“So she says. But if I were you, I would revisit the matter.”
“I’ll boil her in suntan oil after lunch.”
“Why don’t you let me take her back to Rome instead? She can tell her tragic tale to the FBI legal attaché at the embassy. A prize like Magdalena would do wonders for my standing in Washington. Besides, it’s an American problem now. Let the Americans handle it.”
“And do you know what the FBI legal attaché will do?” asked Gabriel. “He’ll call his superior at FBI headquarters. And his superior will call the assistant director, who will call the director, who will walk across Pennsylvania Avenue to the Justice Department. DOJ will assign the case to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the US attorney will spend months gathering evidence before arresting Phillip and shutting down his company.”
“The wheels of justice turn slowly.”
“Which is why I’m going to deal with Phillip myself. By the time I’m finished, Masterpiece Art Ventures will be a smoldering ruin. The Feds will have no choice but to immediately make arrests and seize assets.”
“A fait accompli?”
Gabriel smiled. “It definitely sounds better in French.”
General Ferrari and the rest of the Carabinieri team departed Villa dei Fiori at two that afternoon. A unit from the Amelia station kept watch over the gate, but otherwise Gabriel and Magdalena were alone. She slept through the afternoon and insisted on preparing a proper Spanish dinner of tapas and a potato omelet. They ate outside on the villa’s terrace, in the cool evening air. Magdalena’s personal mobile phone lay between them, flaring with incoming message traffic and silenced phone calls, mainly from her circle of friends in Madrid.
“No man in your life?” asked Gabriel.
“Only Phillip, I’m afraid.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“God, no.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it is my intention to leave you alone in his presence for several hours in New York next week. And I want to know whether you intend to live up to our agreement or run away with him.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Allon. I’ll get you everything you need to take Phillip down.”
He asked where the meeting would take place.
“That’s up to Phillip,” said Magdalena. “Sometimes we meet at Masterpiece’s office on East Fifty-Third Street. But usually we get together at the town house on East Seventy-Fourth. It doubles as Masterpiece’s gallery. That’s where Phillip receives potential investors and buyers.”
“How does he handle the sales?”
“He prefers to deal directly with clients to avoid scrutiny and commissions. But if the client insists on an intermediary, he routes the sales through another dealer or one of the auction houses.”
“How many other people work for the firm?”
“Three young female art experts and Kenny Vaughan. Kenny used to work with Phillip at Lehman Brothers. He’s in it up to his eyeballs.”
“What about the women?”
“They think the sun rises and sets on Phillip and that I’m a broker who buys and sells paintings on his behalf in Europe.”
“General Ferrari is convinced that you’re the forger.”
“Me?” She laughed. “A Picasso, maybe. But not an Old Master. I don’t have talent like yours.”
Gabriel read late into the night and was relieved to find Magdalena still in her bed when he rose the following morning. After loading the automatico with Illy and San Benedetto, he unleased Proteus on Phillip’s personal smartphone, and within minutes the device was under his control. A scalable map depicted its current location and elevation: the eastern shore of an egg-shaped peninsula, twelve feet above sea level.
Gabriel downloaded Phillip’s data onto his laptop and spent the remainder of the morning wandering the digital debris of one of the greatest scam artists in history. It was half past twelve when Magdalena finally appeared. She wandered into the kitchen and emerged a moment later with a bowl of milky coffee. She drank it in silence, her eyes unblinking.
“Not a morning person?” asked Gabriel.
“Opposite of a morning person. A night stalker.”
“Is the night stalker ready to do some work?”
“If you insist,” she said, and carried her coffee to the pool.
Gabriel followed her outside with the laptop. “What were the first six paintings you sold through your father’s gallery?”
“It was a thousand years ago,” she groaned.
“The exact amount of time you’ll spend in an Italian prison if you don’t start talking.”
She recited the artist, tableau, and dimensions of each work, along with the name of the buyer and the price it had fetched. Next she listed the particulars of more than one hundred paintings that had passed through her brokerage in Madrid during the first year of the scheme. Most of the paintings she had simply sold back to Masterpiece Art Ventures. Phillip had then inflated their value with additional phantom sales before unloading the paintings onto unsuspecting buyers and cashing in on his investment. He also used the works as collateral to secure massive art-backed loans, money he used to acquire legitimate art and pay handsome returns to his investors.
“The loans,” said Magdalena, “are the key to everything. Without leverage, Phillip and Kenny Vaughan wouldn’t be able to make it work.”
“So in addition to selling forged paintings, Phillip is committing bank fraud?”
“On a daily basis.”
“Where does he do his banking?”
“Mainly, he deals with Ellis Gray at JPMorgan Chase. But he also has a relationship with Bank of America.”
“How much debt is he carrying?”
“I’m not sure even Phillip knows the answer to that.”
“Who does?”
“Kenny Vaughan.”
The next ground they covered was Magdalena’s expansion into bricks-and-mortar retailing, beginning with her partnership with Galerie Georges Fleury of Paris and concluding with the recent acquisition by Masterpiece Art Ventures of galleries in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Dubai. The total number of forged paintings the network had unleashed on the art market exceeded five hundred, with a paper valuation of more than $1.7 billion—far too many works for Magdalena to recall accurately. She was certain, however, that a significant percentage had passed through Masterpiece’s opaque portfolio.
“How many does he currently control?”
“That’s impossible to say. Phillip doesn’t even reveal the genuine paintings in his possession, let alone the forgeries. His most valuable pictures are in his Manhattan and Long Island homes. The rest are in the warehouse on East Ninety-First Street. It’s the equivalent of his trading book.”
“Can you get inside?”
“Not without Phillip’s approval. But a directory of the warehouse’s current contents would tell you everything you need to know.”
Over lunch, Gabriel logged into Magdalena’s ProtonMail account and forwarded several years’ worth of encrypted emails to his own address. Next they reviewed her personal finances, including her account at Masterpiece Art Ventures. Her balance was $56,245,539.
“Don’t even think about trying to make a withdrawal,” Gabriel warned her.
“My next redemption window isn’t until September. I couldn’t if I tried.”
“I’m sure Phillip would make an exception in your case.”
“Actually, he’s quite strict when it comes to redemptions. He and Kenny fly rather close to the sun. If a handful of major investors were to simultaneously withdraw their funds, he would have to sell some of his inventory or secure another loan.”
“Using a painting as collateral?”
“The art-backed loans,” repeated Magdalena, “are the key to everything.”
Gabriel downloaded Magdalena’s account statements, then checked the tracking information for Danaë and the Shower of Gold. The painting was currently westbound over the Atlantic. It would spend the night in the air cargo center at Kennedy International and was scheduled to reach its final destination, Chelsea Fine Arts Storage, no later than noon on Monday.
A search of the flights from Rome to New York produced several options. “How do you feel about the ten a.m. Delta into JFK?” asked Gabriel.
“That would require awakening several hours before noon.”
“You can sleep on the plane.”
“I never sleep on planes.” Magdalena reached for the laptop. “Can I pay for your ticket?”
“Phillip might find that suspicious.”
“At least let me give you some miles.”
“I have plenty.”
“How many have you got?”
“The moon and back.”
“I’ve got more.” She booked their seats. “That leaves the hotel. Is the Pierre all right?”
“I’m afraid Sarah prefers the Four Seasons.”
“Please tell me she’s not coming with us.”
“I need someone to keep an eye on you when I’m not around.”
Magdalena reserved her usual suite at the Pierre and with a childlike frown returned to her chaise longue next to the pool. Her wounds, thought Gabriel, were definitely self-inflicted. Still, she was by no means beyond repair. After all, if a former contract killer like Christopher Keller was salvageable, then surely Magdalena was as well.
For the moment, she was merely a means to an end. All Gabriel required now was a reporter to turn her remarkable story into a weapon that would reduce Masterpiece Art Ventures to rubble. A reporter who was familiar with the worlds of finance and art. Perhaps one who had investigated Masterpiece in the past.
Only a single candidate fit the profile. Fortunately, the number for her cell phone was in Phillip Somerset’s contacts. Gabriel dialed it and introduced himself. Not with a work name, or one he plucked from thin air, but his real name.
“Yeah, right,” she said, and hung up the phone.
52
Rotten Row
The next call Gabriel placed that afternoon was to Sarah Bancroft. It found her on Rotten Row in Hyde Park, where she was attempting to dislodge the ten pounds that had settled astride her hips. The news from Italy came as a shock, so much so that she asked Gabriel to repeat it, just to make certain she hadn’t misunderstood him. It was no less astounding the second time. Masterpiece Art Ventures, the art-based hedge fund where a portion of Sarah’s inheritance was invested, was a $1.2 billion fraud propped up by the sale and collateralization of forged paintings. Furthermore, it seemed that Magdalena Navarro, she of the shimmering black hair and elongated body, had been sleeping with Phillip the entire time he had dated Sarah. For that reason alone, she leapt at the chance to travel to New York to take part in his destruction. Even if it meant staying at the Pierre.
“Shall I bring along Mr. Marlowe? I find that he comes in rather handy in situations like these.”
“As do I. But I have another job in mind for him.”
“Nothing dangerous, I hope.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Sarah left for New York early the following morning and arrived at JFK at midday. A Nissan Pathfinder awaited her at Hertz. She killed an hour in the cell phone lot and at two fifteen made her way to Terminal 1. Gabriel emerged a moment later, accompanied by the woman whom Sarah had last seen walking along the pavements of Jermyn Street.
Now, as then, she was wearing a shortish skirt and a formfitting white top. Gabriel loaded their bags into the rear storage compartment and slid into the backseat. Magdalena climbed into the passenger seat, bringing with her the scent of orange blossom and jasmine. She crossed one long leg over the other and smiled. Sarah slipped the Nissan into drive and set out for Manhattan.
The Pierre Hotel stood at the corner of East Sixty-First Street and Fifth Avenue. Magdalena entered the ornate lobby alone and was received by the hotel’s management as though she were returning royalty. Her suite, with its sweeping views of Central Park, was located on the twentieth floor. Gabriel and Sarah had been assigned adjoining rooms on the opposite side of the corridor. Like Magdalena, they checked in pseudonymously and instructed the woman at Reception to block all outside calls.
Upstairs, all three convened in the sitting room of Magdalena’s suite. She opened a complimentary bottle of Taittinger champagne while Gabriel connected his laptop to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network and logged in to Proteus. It appeared that Phillip had decided to remain in North Haven rather than return to the city. Gabriel increased the volume on the feed from the microphone and heard the clatter of a keyboard. The output from the camera was a rectangle of solid black.
Gabriel handed Magdalena her phone. “Let him know that you’ve arrived and would like to see him as soon as possible. And remember—”
“This call is being recorded for quality assurance.”
Gabriel carried the laptop into the bedroom and closed the heavy internal door. Phillip answered Magdalena’s call instantly. “How about one o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” he asked. “We’ll have lunch.”
“Will Lindsay be joining us?”
“Unfortunately, she’s spending the week on the island.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’ll send a car,” said Phillip, and the connection went dead.
Gabriel listened to a minute or two of typing before returning to the sitting room. “Now the Gentileschi,” he said to Magdalena.
The number for the warehouse was in her contacts. She tapped the screen and lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hello, Anthony. It’s Magdalena Navarro calling. Did the painting arrive from Florence as scheduled? . . . Wonderful. Send it to Mr. Somerset’s residence tomorrow morning . . . Yes, the town house, please. Place it on the easel in the gallery. And make certain it arrives no later than noon.”
Magdalena killed the connection and surrendered her phone to Gabriel.
“Your wallet and passport as well.”
She removed them from her Hermès Birkin handbag and handed them over.
“I need to run an errand, which means that you and Sarah will have a chance to get to know one another better. But don’t worry,” said Gabriel as he stepped into the corridor. “I won’t be long.”
Sarah chained the door behind him and returned to the sitting room. Magdalena was adding champagne to her glass. At length Sarah asked, “Is it true that Phillip was sleeping with you the entire time he was seeing me?”
“Only when I was in New York.”
“Ah, that’s a relief.”
“If you must know,” said Magdalena, “he was only using you.”
“For what?”
“Introductions to rich benefactors of the Museum of Modern Art.”
“And to think I gave him two million dollars to invest.”
“What’s your current balance?”
“Four and a half. You?”
“Fifty-six point two.”
Sarah smiled without parting her lips. “I guess you were better in bed than I was.”
53
Literary Walk
In the spring of 2017, Vanity Fair magazine published an investigative profile titled “The Great Somerset.” Twelve thousand words in length, the article chronicled its subject’s rise from a working-class town in northeastern Pennsylvania to the pinnacle of Wall Street and the art world. No corner of his personal life escaped scrutiny: the instability of his childhood home, his youthful athletic prowess, his brief but meteoric career at Lehman Brothers, his ugly divorce, his peculiar penchant for secrecy. A source described only as a former friend said he had a dark side. An old colleague went further, suggesting he was a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. Both sources agreed that he was hiding something.
The article was written by Evelyn Buchanan, an award-winning reporter whose work for Vanity Fair had served as the intellectual property for two Hollywood films and a Netflix limited series. At present, she was seated on a bench along Central Park’s Literary Walk. Robert Burns, feather pen in hand, eyes skyward in search of inspiration, loomed over her right shoulder. On the opposite side of the footpath, a sketch artist sat waiting for a subject.
Evelyn Buchanan was waiting, too. Not for a subject but a source. He had called her without warning the previous day—from where he refused to say. No, he had assured her, it was not a practical joke; he was in fact the man he claimed to be. He was coming to New York on an unpublicized visit and wished to meet with her. She was to tell no one that he had been in touch. He promised that she would not be disappointed.
“But national security isn’t my beat,” Evelyn protested.
“The matter I wish to discuss is related to the financial world and the art market.”
“Can you be a bit more specific?”
“The Great Somerset,” he said, and rang off.
It was an intriguing clue, all the more so because of the source. He had attended a book party at Phillip’s showy North Haven estate that spring. Or so claimed Ina Garten, who insisted he’d had a hot little blonde on his arm. Evelyn, who had attended the same party, had found the prospect laughable. Now she had to admit it was possible after all. How else to explain why a man like Gabriel Allon would be interested in a creep like Phillip Somerset?
Evelyn checked the time. It was one minute before five o’clock. One minute before the world’s most famous retired spy had promised to appear. The walkway was crowded with tourists, spandex-clad joggers, and Upper East Side nannies pushing strollers laden with the tycoons of tomorrow. But there was no one who looked as though he might be Gabriel Allon. Indeed, the only possible candidate was a man of medium height and build who was pondering the placard at the foot of the Walter Scott statue.
At the stroke of five o’clock, he crossed the walkway and sat down on Evelyn’s bench. “Please go away,” she said quietly. “My husband will be back any minute, and he has anger-management issues.”
