Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

She, Temple Barr, taking a Russian count out to dinner. On her expense account. An account for a count. For which she expected a full account of what was going on at the White Russian exhibition.

“I have become a professional consultant,” he explained as they awaited their cocktails in the Pluto Pavilion restaurant. Pluto was the farthest out planet in the solar system, and this restaurant was the New Millennium’s farthest out in menu and prices.

“Why not?” he asked rhetorically. “I am quotable, suitably distinguished, old but still mobile. I am camera ready. I have nothing to lose.”

“I guess your family lost it all in the revolution.”

“Yes. You Americans are just now getting a glimpse of how much can be lost so quickly. But I do not talk about the bad old days. I radiate their lost glamour. I bow and kiss hands. I assiduously ensure that I have not lost my heavy Russian accent and overlay it with a fine soupçon of French. In the old days, in Russia, my very, very young days, I had been born a prince of privilege. Here, at the beginning of another century, I have become a prince of media. The celebrity photographers rejoice to ‘shoot’ me arm in arm with Paris Hilton and her puppy dog. I would say ‘just shoot me,’ but I am too old to object to being still valuable in any arena, even that of mockery.”

Temple frowned as much as she was capable of, which wasn’t a lot. She was still too much of an optimist.

“When we met,” she pointed out, “you were playing that same role for the fashion magazine.”

“Of course. Trot out the old dog to do new tricks. I was being used as much as you were, my dear.”

“I really, really wanted to win and live in New York on their pittance of a salary and shock them all and become a famous writer or fashionista, but an original.”

“And so, what have you become?”

“You’ve seen it. A freelance public relations person. At least I work for myself.”

“Ummm” he said in a dubious British way. He had an international air, man without a country. “Then why are you probing the whyfores and whereabouts of our entire cast of culture vultures, as I believe we are called by the hoi polloi, during the time in which that rather vulgar fellow fell to his rather careless death?”

“It’s not enough to wait for the coroner and police to come to a conclusion. I need to know what might be behind the death so I can deal with the press. The opening is only days away. If the Czar Alexander scepter is stolen, it will ruin the exhibition and the hotel’s new museum. They won’t be able to book an exhibition of sweat socks after that.”

Volpe lifted one expressive eyebrow. “No? Sweat socks sound like the essence of Modern Art to me.”

By then their White Russian drinks had arrived and Temple was taking some solace in sipping a cocktail that tasted more like dessert than some Nouveau Cuisine blueberry aspic flan with seaweed garni.

“The key to a robbery,” she said, “is who would want the scepter.”

“It’s a priceless artifact and quite beautiful. Who would not?”

“But what would anyone do with it?”

“There are always the rogue collectors, my dear. I find them fascinating, and am sure that I’ve met a few. They are fabulously rich, their walls are papered with Old Master paintings, and yet you suspect that somewhere in some bank vault of a room they harbor some of the century’s missing masterpieces for their own private delectation, almost like an upscale pornography collection.”

Temple made a face. People like that were true culture vultures, accent on the word “vultures.”

“It is pornography or greed that inspires your obvious distaste?” he asked.

“That kind of greed is pornographic.”

“Nothing I can exercise, in case you’re wondering.” Volpe shook out his French cuffs, displaying his gold-and-malachite cufflinks. “I earn a decent, vulgar salary with consulting positions like this, but I earn my living as a professional guest and ‘interesting person’ on three continents. I could never afford to underwrite a major art theft, much less sit on the monetary results of it. And, as you say, the scepter is too rare and valuable to merely sell.”

By then the salads had come, frills of greens obviously hydroponically grown on Mars. Temple had seen curled dandelion stems (as a child, when that had been a game) that looked more edible. A bowl of dressing with little black specks that looked like nits floating in it sat alongside her plate.

Volpe noticed her dubious summation and called the waiter over. “Russian dressing, if you please.”

“This is the house recipe—”

“And most tasty upon a house, no doubt. But we celebrate all things Russian here.” As the waiter whisked away the offending bowls, Volpe leaned over the table, and said sotto voce, “A bottled mayonnaise–heavy abomination, I foresee, but better than that green mess with the measles.”

Temple laughed. “So. If a spoiled billionaire didn’t order the scepter stolen, who else would want to take it?”