Second Deadly Sin Read online

  “Yes, darling,” Saul Geltman was saying. “You better if you know what’s good for you … Yes … Put it down in your little mauve book … June ninth from eight o’clock on … Of course … Darling, but everyone! … I can expect you then? Marvelous!” He made kissing sounds into the telephone.

  The two detectives looked about the office. A square room painted dove grey. The most startling fixture was a window behind Geltman’s desk. Through the window they saw waves breaking on a rocky coast. It took a second or two for their minds to adjust. It was a marvel of trompe l’oeil. An actual wooden window frame had been fixed to the wall. The panes were glass. There were curtains of white nylon ninon. The seacoast was a large phototransparency, lighted from behind. The effect was incredibly realistic. The icing on the cake was that the bottom half of the window had been slightly raised, and a concealed fan billowed the curtains.

  Both men smiled; a whimsical trick, but a good one. There was nothing else on the office calls, no paintings, drawings, etchings. The furnishings were all white and black leather and vinyl on chrome and stainless-steel frames. The desk appeared to be pewter (over wood?) supported on a cast-iron base. The desk fittings—rocker blotter, pen set, letter opener, etc.—were antique mother-of-pearl. In one corner of the room was an ancient safe, at least a hundred years old, on big casters. It was painted black, delicately striped, the front decorated with an ornate American eagle, wings outspread. There were two tumblers and two polished brass handles.

  “Black-and-white,” Geltman said on the phone. “White walls … But you know Maitland’s colors, darling; you just can’t compete … Correct … Darling, leave it to Halston; he’ll know what to do … Yes, dear! … See you then. Byeee.”

  He hung up and made a face at the two officers.

  “Rich, lonely widows,” he said ruefully. “The story of my life.”

  He bounded to his feet, hurried around the desk to them, hand out-thrust. Then they saw how small he was.

  “Don’t get up, don’t get up,” he said rapidly, motioning them back. “Take you five minutes to fight your way out of those chairs. Sergeant Boone, nice to see you again. You must be Chief Delaney.”

  “Yes. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. It’s obvious you’re very busy.”

  “Listen, Chief,” Geltman said, rushing back behind his desk again, “I’ll see you every day in the week and twice on Sunday, if you say so. Just as long as the cops haven’t forgotten Victor Maitland.”

  “We haven’t forgotten,” Delaney said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Geltman pressed his forefingers together, tapped them against his lips a moment, then straightened up, sighing. “The poor guy.”

  “What kind of a man was he?” Delaney asked.

  “What kind of a man?” Geltman repeated. He spoke quickly; occasionally spraying a mist of spittle. “As a human being, a terrible, frightening, mean, contemptible, cruel, heartless son of a bitch. As an artist, a giant, a saint, a god, the one real genius I’ve seen in this schlocky business in the last twenty years. A century from now you gentlemen and I will be nothing. Dust. But Victor Maitland will be something. His paintings in museums. Books on him. Immortal. Like David and Rubens. I really mean that.”

  “So you put up with his miserable personality because of his talent?” Delaney asked.

  “No,” Geltman smiled. “I put up with his miserable personality because of the money he made me. Fifteen years ago I had a hole-in-the-wall gallery on MacDougal Street in the Village. I sold a few crappy originals for bupkiss, but mostly I sold cheap reproductions. Van Gogh’s sunflowers and Monet’s water lilies. Then Victor Maitland entered my life, and today I’m in hock for almost a quarter of a million, I have three lawsuits pending against me, and my ex-wife is threatening to sue for non-support. Success—no?”

  They laughed with him; it was hard not to.

  He was a small man, made somehow larger by his vigor. He was in constant motion: slumping, straightening, twisting, gesturing, drumming his fingers on the desk top, crossing his knees to scratch his ankle, pulling an ear lobe, smoothing the brown-grey hair combed sideways across a broad skull.

  He wore a beautifully tailored Norfolk suit of brown covert with a white turtleneck sweater of some sheeny knit. His little feet were shod in Gucci loafers, and Chief Delaney noted a bracelet of heavy gold links hanging loosely from one thin wrist.

  His head seemed disproportionately large for his body, and his features seemed small for the head. Big face, but small eyes, nose, and mouth, like a pumpkin jackknifed with tiny openings. But the voice that came booming from this pleasantly ugly little man was warm, confiding, bubbling with good humor and laughter at himself.

  “Not entirely correct,” he told them, speaking so quickly he sometimes stuttered. “About putting up with Maitland’s nastiness because of the money he made me. Half-correct, but not all correct. The bulk of my income came from him; I don’t deny it. But I represent other artists. I do okay. If Maitland had left me, I wouldn’t have starved. He got killed, but I’m still in business. The money I liked, I admit it. But something else … When I was a kid, I wanted to be a violinist.” He held up a hand, palm out. “God’s truth. Another Yehudi Menuhin I wanted to be. So I studied, I practiced; I practiced, I studied, and one day I was playing a Bach concerto, and I suddenly stopped, put the fiddle away, and I haven’t touched it since. I don’t mean I was bad, but I just didn’t have it. At least I had sense enough to know; no one had to tell me. Studying isn’t enough, and practicing isn’t enough. If you haven’t got it in the genes, you’ll always be a second-rater, no matter how good you force yourself to be. Maitland had it in his genes. Not just talent—genius. Hey, genius and genes! Is that where the word comes from? I got to look it up. But Maitland had it, and it’s too rare to let go of just because the guy insults you in public and treats you like dirt. I represent a lot of other artists. Good artists. But Maitland was the only genius I had, and probably ever will have. Well … you don’t want to listen to me dribble on and on. What do you want to know?”

  “No, no, Mr. Geltman,” Delaney said. “Just keep talking. It may be a help. Tell us about your financial arrangements with Maitland. How did that work?”

  “Money,” Geltman said. He smoothed his hair again, leaned back in his chair. “You want to know about the money. First, let me tell you something about the art business. Like any other business, you buy low and you sell high. That’s basic. But art—now I’m talking about original paintings, drawings, sculpture, and so forth—is different from other business. Why? Because Kellogg’s makes umpteen million boxes of Corn Flakes every year, and all those boxes are identical and make a lot of money. Closer to home, a writer writes a book, and a million copies of that book are sold, if he’s lucky. And a singer or even a violinist makes a recording and maybe a million copies are sold. But a painter? One. That’s all. One. Oh, maybe guys like Norman Rockwell and Andy Wyeth can make deals to sell reproductions, and drawings and etchings and lithographs can be reproduced in limited numbers. But now we’re talking about oil paintings. Originals. One of a kind. Maybe the artist worked a year on it, maybe more. He wants to get paid for his work, his time, his talent. That’s natural. Normal. But how many people in this country, in the world, buy original works of art? Original oil paintings and sculptures? Especially from artists who haven’t made a reputation yet? Guess how many?”

  “I couldn’t guess,” Delaney said. “Not many, I’d say.”

  “You’d say right,” Saul Geltman said, clasping his hands behind his head. “Three thousand. Four thousand maybe. In the whole world. Who’ll pay a good price for original art. That’s where an agent comes in. A good agent. He knows those three or four thousand people. Not all of them, of course, but enough of them. You follow? The agent builds a reputation, too. The rich people who collect art, they trust him. Damned few of them trust their own taste, so they trust an agent. Maybe they want to buy art just for an investment—a lot of them do; I could tel
l you stories of profits you wouldn’t believe!—or they want art to match their drapes, or maybe, just a few of them, like art the way I do. I mean they just like it. They want it in their homes. They want to see it every day. They want to live with it. A good agent knows all these kinds of art nuts. That’s how he makes a living. That’s the service he supplies to the artists he represents. Thirty percent. That’s what I got on Victor Maitland.” Geltman grinned cheerfully. “The bullshit buildup was so you wouldn’t think it so much. I took thirty percent of the selling price. From a new artist I’d take on, it would be maybe fifty percent. Up or down, depending on the type of thing the guy does, what the critics say, how much work he turns out, and so forth.”

  “Thirty to fifty percent,” Delaney repeated. “Is that normal for most galleries?”

  Geltman flipped his hands up in the air.

  “Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. With the rents we got on Madison Avenue, I’d say thirty to fifty is about right.”

  “And what determines the selling price of a painting?” Chief Delaney asked.

  “Oh-ho,” Saul Geltman said, jerking forward suddenly. “Now you’ve opened a whole new can of worms. Is the guy known? Has he had any good reviews from the critics? Is he turning out the stuff like sausages or does he really sweat them out? Have any museums bought him? Has he got something to say? Has he got a new way of saying it? Has someone important bought him? Has he got a good gallery behind him? Has he got a following who’ll buy anything he does? And on and on and on. It’s not one thing; it’s a lot of things. I charge what I think the traffic will bear, after considering all those factors.”

  “I read Maitland sold for a hundred thousand,” Delaney said. “What made him so special? I happen to like his work, but what made it worth that much?”

  “Yes, I sold Study in Blue for a hundred,” Geltman said. “He brought it in, I made one phone call, sold it sight unseen. So I made thirty G’s on one phone call. But it took me twenty years to learn who to call …”

  He spun in his swivel chair until he was facing the fake seacoast. He stared at the unmoving waves. The breeze ruffled his hair.

  “To answer your question,” he said, speaking to the wall. “What made him worth big money … Victor was a throwback. A dinosaur. He knew what was going on in painting in this country in the Fifties and Sixties. Abstract Expressionism, Pop-Art, Minimal, Op-Art, Less-is-More, Flat, all the avant-garde idiocies. But Maitland paid no attention to it. He went his way. Traditional. Representational. If he painted a tit, it was a tit. And you’d be surprised how many people want paintings they can recognize, paintings that tell a story, beautiful paintings. And Maitland could paint beautiful. A marvelous colorist. A marvelous draftsman. A marvelous anatomist.”

  “But it can’t be wholly a matter of technique,” Delaney said. “It was something more.”

  “Oh, yes,” Geltman nodded. “Much, much more. Without trying to intellectualize what Maitland did, I think it’s obvious that he, in a way, spiritualized sensuousness. Or maybe a better way of putting it would be to say that he conceptualized physical passion. So you can look at his nudes and feel no more lust than you would on viewing the Venus de Milo.”

  “Can I?” Delaney said dryly.

  Geltman laughed shortly.

  “Well, let’s say I can,” he said. “To me, there’s nothing carnal in Maitland’s work. I see his paintings as essentially sexless. They’re more the idea of sex, the visual representation of a conception. But I admit, that’s my personal reaction. You might see something entirely different.”

  “I do,” Delaney assured him.

  “That’s one of Maitland’s greatest gifts,” Geltman nodded. “He’s everything to everyone. He gives you back what you bring to his art and confirms your secret dreams.”

  He swiveled to face them, his eyes wet.

  “What can I tell you?” he said, his voice clogged. “I was so ambivalent about him. I hated his guts. But if I had the money, I’d buy everything he did, buy it for myself, line my apartment walls with it, lock the door, and just sit there and stare.”

  Chief Delaney flipped through his notebook. The tears didn’t impress him one way or the other. He remembered an accused ax murderer who had literally banged his head against the wall in horror and despair of being charged with such a disgusting crime. Which he had committed, of course.

  “Mr. Geltman,” he said, “I know you’ve been questioned several times before. I just want to review briefly your movements from Friday, the day Maitland was killed, until you discovered the body on Sunday. All right?”

  “Sure,” Geltman said. “Shoot.” Then he added hastily, “Except maybe that isn’t the right thing to say to a cop!”

  Delaney ignored the weak joke.

  “According to our records, you said you had an appointment with Maitland on Friday. He was to meet you and an interior designer here at three o’clock to go over plans for the installation of a new exhibition.”

  “Correct. Now it’s a memorial show. The interior designer is that fag running around out there dressed like a cowboy.”

  “Let me finish, please. Then we can go back and pick up any additions or changes you’d like to make.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s start with that Friday. You arrived here at the Galleries about nine, maybe a little before. Talked to your staff, sent out for coffee, and did a little business on the phone. Went through the morning mail. At about ten, you walked around the corner to your attorney’s office, Simon and Brewster. Your lawyer is J. Julian Simon. You had an appointment with him at ten. You were with him till about one-thirty. You didn’t go out for lunch; the two of you sent out for sandwiches around twelve-thirty. Roast beef on whole wheat.”

  “With sugar-free Dr. Peppers,” Geltman said solemnly. Delaney paid no heed.

  “You and Simon discussed personal matters—taxes, the lawsuits pending against you, and so forth. Until one-thirty. Approximately. You returned directly here. Busy with mail, phone calls, business in general. The interior designer showed up at three, on schedule, but no Maitland. You didn’t worry; he was usually late.”

  “Invariably.”

  “But by four o’clock, you were concerned. The interior designer had another appointment, couldn’t wait. You called Maitland’s Mott Street studio. No answer. You called his home. His wife didn’t know where he was. You made five more calls on Friday, and, you estimate, at least a dozen on Saturday. Now you were also calling Maitland’s friends and acquaintances. No one knew where he was. No one had heard from him. On Sunday morning you called his home again. They hadn’t heard from him. You called his studio again. No answer. So you cabbed down and found him. At about one-twenty Sunday afternoon. Any additions, corrections, comments?”

  “No,” Geltman said shortly, his face pale. “That’s about it.”

  “About it?”

  “No, no. That is it. How it happened. Jesus, just remembering … Of course, you’ve checked it out?”

  “Of course. Your staff saw you here Friday morning between nine and ten. Your lawyer says he was with you from ten to one-thirty. Your staff and customers saw you here from one-thirty to six that evening. The people you say you called said you did call. We even found the hackie who took you down to Mott Street on Sunday. Yes, we checked it out. I just hoped you might have something to add.”

  “No,” Saul Geltman shook his head. “I have nothing to add.”

  “All right … Now let’s get back to your financial dealings with Maitland,” Chief Delaney said. “I’m trying to get a picture of how it worked. Suppose Maitland finished a new painting in his Mott Street studio. Would you send for it, or would he bring it up here?”

  “Usually he brought it up here in a cab. Then we’d talk about it.”

  “You gave him your opinion of it?”

  “Oh, God, no!” Geltman said, coming alive again. “I wouldn’t dare! With Maitland, I had a standard comment for his stuff: I’d say, ‘Victor, it�
�s the best thing you’ve ever done.’ Then maybe we’d discuss how it should be framed if it was going into a show, or if we should leave it unframed, on the stretcher.”

  “Stretcher?”

  “That’s the interior frame, made of wood, over which the canvas is stretched and tacked down. Maitland made his own stretchers.”

  “Then what would happen, after you discussed the framing?”

  “I’d enter the painting in the book. I keep a ledger for every artist I represent. I keep telling them they should keep a journal themselves: a list of their paintings, when started and when completed, title, size, brief description, and so forth. A great help if there’s ever any question about the provenance or a forgery. But most artists are lousy businessmen and don’t keep complete records. Maitland didn’t. So when he’d bring in a new painting, I’d have a color Polaroid taken of it. I’d paste that in his ledger, with the date it was delivered, the title, the size in centimeters, and so on. When it was sold, I’d enter date of sale, name and address of buyer, amount received, and the number and date of the check I mailed to Maitland. Here, let me show you …”

  Geltman bounced to his feet, strode to his antique safe, worked the combination on both dials, swung open the heavy door. There was another locked door within, this one sheet steel opened with a key. The agent took out a large buckram ledger with red leather corners. He carried it back to his desk. Chief Delaney and Sergeant Boone fought their way out of their deep chairs and stood on either side of Geltman, dwarfing the diminutive agent.

  “Here’s one we called Red Poppies. Delivered March third, nineteen seventy-one. The Polaroid shot. The size. Date of sale. Amount. Check. Go ahead, take a look. That’s how I handle all my merchandise.”

  “Who set the selling price?”

  “I did. But with Maitland, I always checked with him first before making the deal.”

  “Did he ever object? Want more?”

  “That happened a few times. I never argued with him. Once he wanted to hold out for more, and we did get more. The other times he settled for what I recommended.”