St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

laughed and shook his head. “I’m beginning to appreciate what Faroe is up against with Grace. Of course, he gets some really nice side benefits.”
    “Intelligent conversation?” Jill asked blandly.
    “I don’t know anyone who made a baby just by talking about it.”
    She tried not to smile, failed, and just shook her head. “I’m beginning to sympathize with Grace. Truce?”
    “We’re not at war.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s not a game,” Zach said. “The only reason Faroe kept me with you is because I’m real good at making people believe I wrote thebook on crooked. I also know enough about Western art to bullshit with the best of them.”
    Jill blinked. “Okay. You’re a good liar. We’ve established that. And?”
    “Lying is the best way to get down with the crooks who are running the scam.”
    “We’re talking art?”
    “And scams. Blue smoke, remember? That’s how you separate the marks from their millions.”
    “We barely touched on fraud in my fine art classes,” she said, frowning.
    Zach scanned the sky that was getting brighter with each heartbeat. Where is the damn plane? He sipped coffee and went back to the education of Ms. Jillian Breck.
    “A good forger can embrace today’s art history bullshit, turn out the next missing Old Master from his grandmother’s attic, and embarrass the shorts off the art establishment,” Zach said. “No salesman, critic, or curator likes to talk about really good forgery with a mark. Raises too many questions about the nature of art and value. Worse, it makes the marks real nervous. He or she is trusting the experts to know good art and suddenly the experts are telling the buyer there ain’t no such thing as certainty.”
    “Everyone who collects art isn’t a mark.”
    He shrugged and sipped coffee. “Depends on your point of view. In China, old calligraphy sells for a lot of money. It’s considered the highest form of art in a civilization that reveres art.”
    “Calligraphy? Really?”
    “You make my point. You majored in fine arts and yet you’ve barely heard of Chinese calligraphy. It sells real well among the wealthy Chinese, though. In art, context is everything.”
    Jill remembered Zach’s care, expertise, and pure esthetic enjoyment of her paintings. “Were you, um, blowing blue smoke about my paintings?”
    “No. That was personal. This is business.” He held out his empty cup and looked hopeful. “It’s all about con artists and marks.”
    She poured coffee carefully. “You sound like there’s no intrinsic, transcendent value in art.”
    He sipped coffee and almost sighed. Strong enough to float horseshoes. Perfect.
    “Before you lecture me about the transcendent nature of true art,” Zach said, “think about how well fine Chinese calligraphy sells in the U. S. of A.”
    “How well?”
    “Outside of the overseas Chinese communities, it doesn’t sell worth a handful of spit. Cultural context makes the difference in value.”
    He scanned the sky again. Still empty.
    “And context is another word for bullshit?” she asked.
    “It can be. Especially when it comes to positional art.”
    “Positional art? Must be another thing we didn’t cover in my fine arts classes,” Jill said, shaking her head.
    “What do you do when you’re the newest billionaire on the block?” Zach asked, watching the sky. “You have the mansions in trendy spots all over the world, you have enough expensive cars for ten showrooms, you have a yacht bigger than Monte Carlo; and so does every other billionaire. How do you separate yourself from the herd?”
    “Buy something the rest can’t buy. One-of-a-kind art.”
    He turned and looked at her. “Have I mentioned how much I like smart women? That’s exactly what people do, whether it’s a Japanese corporation driving Impressionist art out of the stratosphere to impress the Western world, or a tech billionaire outbidding everyone else for a Jackson Pollock. Positional art is a statement of importancethat has damn little to do with love of art and everything to do with ego.”
    “A wealthy version of the old mine-is-bigger-than-yours game.”
    Zach laughed. “Yeah. In the context of an auction, you’re buying the spotlight as well as the painting. Spend big bucks. Impress your business associates. Get known as an important collector. Get the red carpet treatment at high-end galleries. Don’t give a hoot whether you personally like the art you buy or not. Welcome to the