Читать книгу A Head in Cambodia - Nancy Tingley - Страница 12

3

“Don’t talk about it.” P.P. grumpily cut me off. I hadn’t spoken with him since our discussion in the conservation lab the previous week. We’d just arrived at Fort Mason and the yearly art fair opening, a benefit gala for a San Francisco museum. Dealers from all over the world, collectors, sightseers, and artsy types were rushing through the rain to pour inside the doors.

“What don’t you want to talk about?” Brian asked as he shook out his umbrella. I touched his arm, unable to resist the feel of his taupe cashmere jacket. Brian was not only one of the handsomest, best-dressed men I knew, he was also one of my closest friends. Which was a blessing, as we worked together as the only two curators at the Searles. His responsibility, Western art, was as broad as mine. His specialty was nineteenth-century European. Brian, P.P., and I shared an enthusiasm for art beyond your average enthusiasm. We could discuss a single work for hours.

“The head,” I said.

“Ah, the head. It looked lovely to me, but you know me, I’m a flat-work person. Give me a print, a painting, none of this three-dimensional stuff. I hate looking at rounded backs of things.”

I knew he was joking, but scowled at him anyway. Our tastes were completely opposite, which served us well in our work. I showed him the Asian flat work that came my way, and he consulted me about Western sculpture. We’d both learned a great deal through this arrangement over the past four years, enough that he was now organizing an exhibition of nineteenth-century French sculpture and I was planning to begin work on an exhibition of Balinese painting.

“Don’t talk,” said P.P.

“Right.” Brian pretended to zip his lip. “Maybe we can find a body here that needs a head.”

P.P. huffed and marched ahead of us. “You’re bad,” I said, disappointed that the three of us wouldn’t be viewing together. “He’s upset about this.” I checked my faux-fur coat at the coat check. Brian went wide-eyed when he saw my top, but I ignored his look.

“Just trying to lighten his mood.” He peered around me at my back. “Wow. Is your ‘year of no men’ over, or are you trying to give old men heart attacks so they leave their collections to the museum?” He looked around us. “There are quite a few candidates here, if that’s your intention. We know your history with old men.”

I accepted the glass of champagne that a waiter offered, and tried to shrug off Brian’s comments, but I must have looked pained. My relationship with an older man hadn’t ended well. The previous year’s foray into relationships hadn’t either. After back-to-back hot-and-heavy romances and the crashing end of the second, I had sworn not to be involved with a man for a year. I was discovering a year was a long time.

“Sorry, Jenna. That was uncalled for.”

If you can’t confide in your gay male friends about the men in your life, whom can you confide in? “Did it work, your lightening his mood?”

“Clearly not.” We bumped glasses and watched P.P. dart into one stall and out another. Like a panther, he was on the prowl.

“Am I really too risqué? I just got this shirt and thought it was festive. This is a gala, after all.”

“Oh, it’s festive, all right.”

“So it’s too much?”

He shrugged. “You need to live up to expectations, Jenna. You’ve got the body, why not flaunt it?”

There was nothing I could do about my outfit now. Once again I’d lost in the balancing act between wanting to dress young-attractive-sexy while I still could and being a professional. “Are you on the prowl?”

He raised his eyebrows in mock horror. “For women?”

“For art, Brian.” I knew he wasn’t on the prowl for anything else. Brian was in a long-term relationship that I sometimes envied. I was single, and though I frequently slid out of single into couple, I slid back just as quickly.

“No, not really. We just bought that Dürer print, and I doubt I’d be able to raise the money for anything worthwhile now. It may be years before I have the budget to buy a work of art. You looking for anything in particular?”

“Not usually too much Asian artwork at this fair. The material is more up your alley.”

“There were a couple of Asian art dealers last year.”

“True. I’m counting on their being back this year. Even if I’m not buying, it’s always nice to look.”

“We’ve lost him.” Brian peered down the first aisle.

“See what you’ve done.” I polished off my first glass of champagne and looked around for a table to set it on. A server whisked it out of my hand as he held out another tray of champagne. “Wait, let me grab another.” A crowd was easing the server and his tray away. I started after him, but Brian grabbed my arm and led me toward the art.

“All right, all right.”

“You drank that so fast, I’m surprised you didn’t pop your cork. Give yourself at least fifteen minutes before you nab your next glass. There will be food up ahead. We always lose P.P. He has to get ahead of us to find the best piece first and buy it.” Brian had only taken a couple of sips, so I reached for his glass, but he held on. He appeared to have his antennae set on the first of the stalls in the fair. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

He started off, and I followed. “It’s fine with me if P.P. beats us to the punch. He’ll probably donate what he gets to the Searles eventually. You can’t forget that he has impeccable taste.”

“True, usually. But he might have purchased a stolen head. Or maybe a fake. Either way, not so impeccable this time.”

“Yes, we all make mistakes.” I looked at him pointedly, but he was examining a small landscape on an otherwise blank wall and didn’t notice my dig. Either that or he didn’t want to be reminded of the purchasing error he’d made the previous year.

AN hour later, having consumed more sushi rolls and giant prawns than was advisable, I caught up with P.P. and his bulging shopping bag. He was talking with a dealer in front of his stall filled with later Burmese and Thai Buddhas and decorative art. I didn’t recognize the dealer.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. “I’d lost you.” He looked me up and down as if he was buying a horse.

“We lost you—immediately,” I said.

“Do you know Grey? Dr. Jenna Murphy, curator, Searles Museum.” He turned from Grey to look for Brian. “Brian?”

I shrugged. Hanging on to these two was like herding cats. I’d given up on them both. “Nice to meet you,” I said to Grey. “This is your stall?”

“Yes. It’s my first time doing this fair,” he said with a strong New York accent. He stepped toward me as he spoke, his eyes shifting as if drawing an outline of my silhouette, so that I was well aware of his height, his piercing eyes, his scent, a mixture of perspiration and citrus. I could tell he used his height to intimidate. I didn’t step back.

He looked to be in his fifties. He wore a designer jacket and jeans, his hair was pulled into a ponytail that exaggerated the fact it was thinning on top, his earlobe distended by an ancient gold Indonesian earring. Under his deep tan, his complexion was sallow.

He leaned closer. “I plan to come up to your museum at the beginning of the week, once I’ve packed up. Hopefully I won’t have much to pack by then. I live in Bangkok.”

“Good luck,” I said, turning to look at the sculptures in his stall, moving out of the aisle and in amidst the Buddhas, away from Grey and his hover. “Has business been good tonight?”

“Various people have helped me out.” He nodded toward P.P.’s bag.

“See you, Grey,” called a youngish man bustling by with his well-dressed wife, the diamond on her ring finger weighing down her hand. An attractive, youngish couple with a look that said tech start-up. At least that’s what it said in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’d have killed for her crimson boots.

“Good to see you, Barker, Courtney,” Grey said, raising his hand.

She slowed and waved. “We’ll be back over the weekend.”

“Talk with you again about that piece,” her husband said, taking her elbow and hurrying her along.

“Who?” P.P. frowned as he watched them weave away amidst the crowd. He was always concerned about the collecting competition.

“Local people. Bought a few things.”

“You, too, it seems,” I said. I’d ask him later what he’d purchased, though when I looked around the stall, I didn’t see anything that seemed particularly to P.P.’s taste. Moving farther into the space and away from the two men, I looked at the small bronzes in a wall case. Two rather coarse Cambodian sculptures sat on the top shelf, while folkish northern Thai or Lao bronzes populated the lower shelves. Two Burmese weights in the form of karaweik birds had been squeezed in with the rest. The men’s continued conversation hummed wordlessly in my ears until I heard “decapitated.”

“Terrible, really terrible. He seemed a very nice man,” Grey said.

Unable to contain my curiosity, I moved back to Grey and P.P. “Who are you discussing?”

“Tom Sharpen, a local collector,” said Grey. “Down in Atherton. I flew here to the States to discuss a piece with him. A terrible loss. He had a good eye.”

Clearly for him the loss wasn’t the person, but the sale, the promise of more sales. “What was the piece?” It was a rude question to ask, but I hadn’t thought before speaking.

P.P. cut me off before I could say anything more. “See you, Grey. Want to finish the fair tonight. Moving, Jenna.” He took my elbow and led me away.

“Why did you drag me off?” I said. “He was about to answer.”

“Atherton. Where I bought the head. Murder. Be careful about fakes.”

That flummoxed me. “What do you mean, be careful about fakes?”

“Don’t know. Need to go to garage sale house.”

“Garage sale?” I stopped short. “You bought that gorgeous head at a garage sale? That’s an important bit of information you didn’t bother to tell me. Obviously whoever sold it didn’t think it was real. I’ve had Tyler working on the thing all week. Really, P.P., you are too much.”

He shrugged.

“Who held the garage sale?”

“Daughter? I guess.”

“Well, that could be useful. What was her name?”

“No.”

I gathered this meant that he didn’t know. Or he could be saying know, not no. Sometimes translating P.P. was a pain. “But decapitated. That’s horrible. His poor family.”

“Poor head.”

“Yes, his poor head. Did Grey think the decapitation had to do with his collecting?”

P.P. shrugged, and I thought about the dangers of collecting. They didn’t usually involve murder, more often money poorly spent, fakery, forgery, excess. “You’re right, P.P. We need to go meet the woman who held the yard sale.”

“Maybe not related.”

“You told me the previous owner died a suspicious death. Decapitation is pretty suspicious.” There couldn’t have been two murders of collectors of Khmer art in the Bay Area within the past few months I didn’t think.

P.P. looked at me apprehensively. He knew I loved to read mysteries.

“I’m not suggesting we go to find her because of the murder. I’m thinking about our research on the head and its provenance. Do you think Grey was the dealer who sold it to him?”

“Yes.” But, as usual, he didn’t offer more.

I changed the subject. “What did you buy?”

P.P. shrugged and pulled his bag a bit closer to his body.

He wasn’t going to tell me a thing about his purchases. Probably still smarting over my concerns regarding the stone head. “C’mon, P.P. Show and tell.”

He distracted me with the strands of enormous turquoise beads screening the stall that we were passing. “Real?” he asked.

It was a question I couldn’t ignore. I pulled a strand toward me and bit one of the beads. If only I had some matches to test them further. When I turned around, P.P. was gone.