Blue Smoke and Murder

44

SEPTEMBER 15

7:15 P.M.

The breakfast nook in Frost’s big kitchen seated three. Barely.

The constant heat and flex of Zach’s hard thigh pressed against Jill’s was making her hotter than Lupita’s tamales. Zach didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Except that with every motion, however small, he ended up closer to her.

It had to be accidental.

And chickens lay chocolate eggs, she thought, feeling the heat of a fit, big male body all the way from her ankle to her hip.

“I hear what you’re saying,” she said to Frost, “but I still don’t understand the problem. Experts disagree all the time. Any lawyer can tell you that.”

Zach leaned over to get more hot sauce. Coming and going, his arm slowly brushed against her breast. It was a good thing Frost was speaking, because right now Jill couldn’t have said a word if her next breath depended on it.

“Experts can, and do, disagree,” Frost said with a shrug. “I’ve seen litigation over attributions that go on for years, even in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Western art, which is relatively well documented.”

Zach went for a second helping of hot sauce.

Or something.

“I’ve seen more money change hands in lawsuits over attribution than the art was worth in the first place,” Frost said. “There’s a case up in Montana right now, a picture I thought was a Charlie Russell and some others thought wasn’t. One of the dealers went public with his doubts. The owner of the piece sued him for slander, defamation, and general idiocy for destroying the value of a five-million-dollar painting.”

“What happened?” Zach asked, his voice low, husky.

Jill forced herself to breathe.

And reached across Zach for the stack of paper napkins on his right.

One good rub deserves another, she told herself.

Zach’s breath came in swiftly. His thigh muscles flexed against hers.

“The good ol’ boys on the Montana jury ruled in favor of the good ol’ boy Montana expert,” Frost said. “So the dealer turned around and sued the owner of the disputed Remington for malicious abuse of legal process. Another Montana jury awarded the Montana expert twenty million dollars or some such ridiculous amount. It’s being appealed seven ways from Sunday. Going to be in court until hell won’t have it.”

“A lesson to us all,” Zach said, breathing out when Jill’s body finally settled back next to his, “but it’s a good example of what can happen when you get wealthy collectors, lawyers, and art experts together. A real Mongolian goat-fu-er, roping.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to go public with your opinion of my paintings?” Jill asked Frost.

He laughed. “That’s one of the joys of getting old and rich. I don’t have to be afraid of anything or anybody.”

“Like you ever were,” Zach said.

Frost ignored him and spoke to Jill. “An expert pissing contest is only part of your problems. Another part is that, by comparison to the rest of Western art, the Dunstan market is thin and narrow.”

Zach reached for more hot sauce. “I’ve seen recent sales prices that looked pretty good to me.”

Jill got even by taking a deep breath. She knew her nipples were hard.

Now he did, too.

“Look behind the sales, boy,” Frost said. “Things aren’t always as real as they seem.”

Zach coughed and cleared his throat, quite sure that everything he’d touched had been real. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dunstan had a low output,” Frost said. “That can work against an artist.”

“I thought that scarcity was the name of the game in positional art,” Jill said.

“If there are several hundred canvases around, the competition gets spread a bit wider,” Frost said, waving his fork for emphasis. “More people jump into an auction because there’s more chance of picking something up.” He stopped and looked at Zach. “You keep reaching for that hot sauce and you won’t have any taste buds left when you’re my age.”

Zach ignored Frost and poured out a few more drops before putting the bottle back in the middle of the table. Slowly.

Frost shook his head. “For years there wasn’t much call for Dunstans. The overall Western art market is fueled by Western money, mostly oil money, and cheap oil cut into the positional wealth of Dunstan fanciers.”

“That hasn’t been a problem lately,” Jill said.

“No, but with art, you have to take a long view.” Frost sipped his red wine, then held the glass up to the light and admired the rich color. “The collector impulse is a dark one. At the highest levels, it’s more a competitive sport than anything else.”

“Edging right into a blood sport,” Zach agreed.

“At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I paid for every piece in my various collections with money I made off other collectors.” Frost smiled slightly. “Sometimes I think that collectors are trying to fill a black hole in their soul with all this stuff, but at least I’ve managed to make a living at it.”

“I can see where Zach got his cynicism,” Jill said.

“I did what I could for him,” Frost agreed.

She rolled her eyes. “There’s more to art than cynicism. Objects have an intrinsic as well as an extrinsic value. I suspect Zach has a highly refined aesthetic sense. And I know that you do,” she told Frost.

“With that and four hundred-”

“-dollars you can frame a small painting,” Zach finished.

Frost sent a hard look across the table.

Zach ignored it. Right now, the only hard thing that interested him was between his legs.

“Even among avid dealers and private collectors,” Frost said, “Dunstan collectors are an odd lot. There are really only about ten of them, and most of the fifty canvases have been accumulated by them.”

“Who?” Zach asked, looking up from his second enchilada.

“First and foremost, Tal Crawford,” Frost said. “Billionaire. Oil magnate. Horse’s ass.”

“I thought he was a modernist,” Zach said. “Didn’t he pay a bunch of money for a Warhol about the time I left Taos?”

“That Warhol was for his office in Boston. The Picassos were for his Manhattan office. The Pollock went to his estate in Martha’s Vineyard. Last I heard, he built a castle south of Reno, along with a cattle ranch that takes up most of the Carson Valley.”

“So, naturally, he has to have some Western art for all those castle walls,” Jill said.

“Billionaire and mega-millionaire art collectors are remarkably common,” Frost said. “Nowadays they pretty much drive the art market, no matter what the genre. Positional art is sending prices sky-high across the board. More beer?” he asked her.

“What about me?” Zach didn’t want one, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to pull Frost’s chain.

“You know where the refrigerator is,” Frost said.

“None for me,” Jill said.

“You sure?” Zach asked. “You can crawl over my lap to get out.”

“You’re such a Y gene,” she said under her breath.

Grinning, he took a sip of his first and only beer.

Frost ignored them. “Actually, Tal might not be in the billionaire’s club these days. Rumor is that in the last decade he’s been real good at turning millions into thousands. Maybe that’s why he’s been concentrating on Western art in general and Dunstan in particular.”

“Easy to make a big splash in a small pond?” Zach asked.

“Yes.”

“If the Dunstans go for four mil and up, that’s a pretty big pond,” Jill said.

Frost shrugged, unimpressed. “Not really. From what I’m hearing, the Dunstans in Las Vegas will go for as high as ten million.”

“It’s all relative,” Zach said. “Remember the Klimt?”

Jill drew in a breath, then let it out. “Yeah. Way more than ten million. It’s just…” She shook her head. “That many zeros don’t seem real to me.”

“Crawford has been collecting for thirty years,” Frost said. “One way or another, especially in the last few years, he’s bought every Dunstan that came on the market, plus some right out of private collections. Word is he’s the Bigfoot behind a Nevada state museum project that will house the best Dunstan collection in existence, mainly because it will be the only Dunstan collection in existence.”

Jill glanced toward Frost’s great room. “There are two unquestionably authentic Dunstans he won’t own.”

“Don’t think I haven’t been tempted by his offers,” Frost said. “I could easily get seven million for my bigger Dunstan, but I can’t afford to sell it.”

“Why not?” Jill asked. “Besides your love of the painting, of course.”

“Taxes,” Frost said. “I’d have to shell out a huge amount of money on the difference between the purchase price and the appreciated price, and I’m damned if I think the government has earned it.”

“I should have tax problems like that,” Jill said.

“If we can authenticate your paintings, you will,” Zach said.

“What?”

“Estate taxes,” he said.

“Modesty Breck’s estate is officially closed or paid out or whatever the lawyer’s call it,” Jill said.

Zach looked at Frost, who shrugged.

“It might fly,” Frost said. “And it might not. Government always wants more money. It’s how they buy votes.”

“You mean I might have to sell half the paintings to pay estate taxes on the other half?” Jill asked.

“Or donate them to a museum and thereby hang on to the others for ‘free,’” Frost said. “Donations are about saving taxes, not civic responsibility.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of taxes and family finances,” Zach said. “And lotteries. No matter who wins, government always gets about half of the jackpot.”

She reached for her beer and took a long swallow. “Remarkable. Why haven’t we had a revolution?”

“Too few winners.” Zach finished off a final bite of tamale and looked at Frost. “Do you have any way to get us in with Tal Crawford?”

Frost laughed. “It’s easier to get a picture taken with the president.”

“Maybe Steele knows someone who knows someone,” Zach said.

“I could get to one of the dealers Crawford uses,” Frost said, “but that’s still a long way from Crawford. Besides, he’s as likely to be in Africa or Venezuela as he is in Nevada or New Mexico.”

“I’d like to see what his reaction is to a dozen new Dunstans,” Zach said.

Frost slid out of the nook. “I’ll call some people. If Crawford is west of the Mississippi, I’ll find out. But only because I like you,” he said to Jill. “If it were just for the cowboy you’re traveling with…”

Zach watched Frost disappear from the kitchen, leaving him with the dirty dishes. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. If Zach stayed, it wouldn’t be the last.

And he didn’t have much choice except to stay.