Think Twice

“What do you think?” Stan Ulanoff, the curator, asked him.

He was at the Frick museum, the original one located in the Henry Clay Frick mansion, on Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Street. The Gilded Age mansion was currently closed to the public for an expansive renovation project that was finally reaching completion.

There are debates on how many Vermeers exist worldwide. Some claim thirty-four. Others say thirty-five or maybe thirty-six. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a stone’s throw away from the Frick (if you had an arm that could throw ten blocks), has the most Vermeers on planet Earth — five of them. The far smaller Frick owns an impressive three, all of which are now on the wall in front of Win.

“We used to keep the Vermeers in the West Gallery,” Stan explained, “but for this very special exhibition, we’ve moved them to this new spot. Our reopening gala will be the event of the season, and we hope you will accept being our guest of honor.”

“No, thank you,” Win said.

“I’m sorry?”

“No, thank you.”

“You don’t want to be our guest of honor?”

“That’s correct.”

“But we would like to recognize your generosity—”

“No, thank you,” Win said again. “Please continue your presentation.”

The smile faltered a little, but he got it back. He raised his arm, curator/guide style, and continued. “From the left to right — and also in chronological order from oldest to newest — we have Officer and Laughing Girl, then Girl Interrupted at Her Music, and The Mistress and the Maid, and of course, on this wall, by itself so as to highlight it, we can’t thank you, Mr. Lockwood, enough for loaning us...”

His voice tailed off as he looked at the Vermeer placed on its own wall next to these three. The Met owned five, the Frick owned three — and Windsor Horne Lockwood III, aka Win, owned one.

“...The Girl at the Piano.”

A voice next to Win whispered, “Great painter, not so clever with names.”

Win turned. It was his personal assistant Kabir.

The curator frowned. “Vermeer didn’t name his paintings. Others later attributed names to them based on—”

“Yeah, I know,” Kabir said to him. “I was joking.”

Kabir had just turned thirty years old. He had a long beard and as a Sikh American he wore a dark blue turban. Because we still jump to conclusions based on appearances, people often expected Kabir to speak with an accent or bow or something, but Kabir had been born in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers, loved rap, partied like, well, a thirty-year-old living in Manhattan, but still, to quote Kabir, “You always have to explain the turban.”

Stan frowned at Kabir for another second before turning to Win and lighting up the smile. “Do you like it?”

Win would be honest enough to admit The Girl at the Piano, the centerpiece of the opening, was the smallest and least impressive of the paintings, but then again, Win’s Vermeer was the most notorious. Stolen decades ago, The Girl at the Piano and the tragic mystery behind the heist had only recently been unearthed. When Win finally got the Vermeer back, he decided to send it on a tour so that the world could enjoy it. The painting’s first stop had been Win’s cousin’s historic mansion-museum in Newport, Rhode Island. Alas, that too had ended in tremendous controversy, thus adding to the painting’s mysterious and dark allure.

“I do like it,” Win said.

This pleased the curator.

“If you’ll excuse us one moment,” Win said.

He and Kabir slipped into the next room. They stood before another one of the Frick’s gems, La Promenade, the masterpiece of a mother with her two wide-eyed young daughters, by Renoir. The wide-eyed girls looked well-fed and well-to-do in their fur-trimmed overcoats. The mother had her hands on the girls’ backs. Was the mother protectively escorting her children or pushing them ahead? Win didn’t know, but something felt amiss in that promenade.

“Articulate,” Win said to Kabir.

“First up, those pickup games where someone might have gotten Greg Downing’s blood or whatever,” Kabir said. He read off his phone. That was how he took notes. Many young people did this, of course, but it still always looked strange to Win. “We had one of our best investigators go up to Wallkill. There is only one outdoor court that hosts pickup games. It’s near Wallkill High.”

“And?”

“Nothing. It’s a game that features mostly regulars, though like most of these things, anyone can show up. There’s a lot of trash-talking and arguing over calls, but no one remembers any incident involving blood spilled in the past year. Also no one remembers Greg Downing showing up.”

“Downing claimed that he went in disguise.”

“Yeah, like what? Fake mustache? Wig?”

Win said nothing.