St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

went for nearly seven million dollars.”
    Jill’s lips moved but she was too shocked to say anything. Finally she managed, “I grew up with Russell’s pictures from old feed-store calendars. He understood horses and wild animals, but…”
    “So did everyone in the non-urban West,” Zach said. “Most of the scenes we think of as ‘Western’ came from Russell and Frederic Remington art, or John Ford/John Wayne movies, arguably another kind of art.”
    “First you hack into my e-mail, then you talk about various genres of art.”
    “Utility infielder, that’s me.”
    His off-center smile would have been charming if she hadn’t noticed the piercing intelligence in his eyes.
    But she did.
    She was fascinated, not charmed.
    She thought about pursuing the subject of having her e-mail hacked, then decided it wouldn’t do any good. She’d asked for help. She’d got it, and its name was Zach Balfour.
    Nobody said she had to like everything about it.
    “Russell understood the West that was,” she said, sticking to the relatively neutral topic of art, “from the land to the Indians, and the Europeans who replaced them. Nobody was a god. Nobody was a devil. Just people going about their lives.”
    “You’d get an argument from the modern critics who condemn Western art as bigotry on canvas.”
    She shrugged. “Beats being ignored.”
    Zach gave a crack of laughter. That was the beauty of a smart woman—she went right for the jugular while other folks were still trying to figure out what was happening.
    “You’re right,” he said. “Some Western art is now accepted as world class, which means a whole new carcass to carve up for the folks with advanced educations and sharp academic knives. Plus new piles of money for art sellers.”
    “Still, nearly seven million dollars is way out there, isn’t it?”
    “When Gustav Klimt sells for an eighth of a billion dollars, everything on canvas starts heading up in price, even a painter once dismissed by Eastern critics as ‘a mere illustrator.’ Yesterday’s stratospheric price is today’s bargain.”
    Jill just shook her head. “So the cost of Western art rose because everything else did?”
    “Partly. Mostly it was the simple fact of money moving west. The center of financial gravity shifted, and with it the idea of what is and what isn’t art. Blue smoke billowed and high prices followed.”
    “Who bought the Russell?”
    “I can guarantee that the new owner doesn’t live full-time on the East Coast,” Zach said dryly. “But there’s a lot of money out west these days. New tech millionaires and billionaires with Western roots want to make statements about those roots and themselves. You have to decorate those second and third mansions, right?”
    “So Western art has become positional art?”
    “You learn fast. According to Ms. Singh, Worthington is the first dealer west of the Mississippi to have a vision of fine Western art as the new new thing in a world that is full of old old things. He’s hoping to raise a few hundred million with his public offering.”
    “To buy art?” she asked.
    “To create a big gallery and auction-house business specializing in fine arts, emphasis on the West.”
    For a time Jill was silent and motionless but for her fingers worrying a scrap of canvas that had crept free of her belly bag’s straining zipper. “Sounds like a big money business.”
    “It is. A few years ago I worked on a case involving Russian art. Some high-end galleries in the West were importing container loads of Russian Impressionist art, trying to create a market for it here in the United States.”
    “Did it work?”
    “The project is still under construction.”
    The ironic tone of Zach’s voice made Jill wince.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “The gallery importers ran up against the Russian mafiya, which was laundering money through Russian Impressionist art in its own American galleries. Those dudes don’t play well with others. Transnational crime is a down-and-dirty business.”
    “God…” Jill let out a long breath. “Modesty had no idea what she was getting into. She just wanted to raise a few thousand for taxes. Instead, she raised a whirlwind and ended up dead.”
    “Oh, we do real well with our own homegrown thugs,” Zach assured her. “The Russians are just some of the newer crooks at the international art money buffet.”
    “Blanchard? The good old American thug? Is he one of the pros?”
    “Maybe. It’s