St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

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 isonly 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