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I
don’t guess anybody plays tennis in thousand-dollar shoes.
    I ask the taxi
driver to cruise up Fernanda’s street until we find the address, passing quite
a few other galleries with art in the windows of the sort I’d need a few drinks
in me to even begin appreciating. Fernanda calls her place Shore , and it
looks as if her father’s money has been put to good use. It’s one of the
biggest places on the block, with some of the biggest windows, and the art in
those windows actually looks as if it might someday make somebody’s wall feel
good about itself.
    I pay off the
driver and move my suitcase out onto the sidewalk beside an open flatbed truck,
from which a crew of men in overalls are unloading what look like boarded-up
paintings. The door to the gallery is open, and this redhead in reading glasses
is standing there looking nervous. Could be thirty, could be sixty, and there’s
not a chance in hell this is Fernanda Shore. Her hair’s pulled back in a tight
bun, and the only makeup she’s got on is green lipstick. She’s the kind of
woman who makes herself ugly to punish the male species, though honestly I’ve
never met one of the species who felt the slightest guilty pang. Anyway, it
gets worse. She’s got this string of painted rocks round her neck and is
wearing what looks like a faded wedding dress. I’m thinking of Miss Havisham,
from ol’ Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations , because Miss Havisham
joins the circus is the overall effect.
    A bell rings
from inside the gallery, and she turns to go back inside. I follow her in,
where she’s picked up a phone from a big desk carved from what looks like
ebony. From what she’s saying, it sounds like they’ve got a big art show that
night, which must be what those fellas are unloading from the truck. I pick up
a paper off the desk and glance down a list of prices, and you just can’t
believe the number of zeros down there. Old masters, lots of what look like Dutch
and Italian names, though no sign of our friend Botticelli or his school. I
have a look around the place. White walls going up a couple stories, with
catwalks and more art up in the balconies. Hardwood floors stretching
everywhere and a mix of styles on the walls, from modern finger painting to
landscapes that look pretty old. From the stereo a woman in a sexy voice sings
over electronic beeps in a language that may be Scandinavian. We’re the only
ones in there, Havisham, me and this Scandinavian number, and if I know how
Fernanda bought the place, I wonder how she pays the bills.
    “Can I help
you?” Havisham says, like she knows perfectly well she can’t. She’s hung up the
phone and is giving me the smile she’s memorized for smiling occasions. You get
the feeling she’d be disappointed if I went ahead and wrote out a check.
    “I certainly
hope you can,” I say, giving her a grin that starts slow and carries right up
through the eyebrows. The Facelifter, I call it, and it will generally give you
a few seconds to work. Generally discombobulates, the Facelifter, and as
predicted Havisham lifts a hand to fidget with her hair.
    “Your hair
looks fine,” I say. “I’m looking for Fernanda Shore.”
    “Oh,” she
says. Cranks up that smile even bigger, and I’d hate to have to give a name to
this one. I mean you can just see those tendons working, such that you realize
for the first time what a terrible thing a tendon is. “I’m sorry,” she says,
“but Ms. Shore is out.”
    “Does she by
any chance have a phone number where I could reach her?”
    “Oh we don’t
give out Ms. Shore’s phone number.”
    “Then maybe
you can help me,” I say, beginning to get a bit irritated with Havisham. This
is going nowhere, so we may as well get there quick. “I was hoping to buy a
little painting today,” I say. “Maybe something fifteenth century. You have
anything fifteenth century? To my mind there hasn’t been any really superior
painting since.”
    “We do,” she
says, not