“Five minutes later I heard Deni yelling as though she were standing in my very room. Language I doubt many of the hotel guests had heard before. Lowell, as I later learned in exquisite detail from Deni, was in the middle of some kind of acrobatic sexual maneuver with Gwendolyn’s great-granddaughter, a twenty-five-year-old local beauty who was no doubt trying to up the ante on the family fortune. She had captured Lowell’s attention and was hoping to keep his bids high that evening.”
“Any point in asking what happened next?”
“Deni used more four-letter words than I thought I’d ever find in Webster’s. The young lady came downstairs wearing a hotel bathrobe, and Deni tossed her underwear out thewindow, probably landing it on someone’s scones and crumpets. Gwendolyn’s eighty-nine-year-old sister, Althea, watched the whole episode unfold from her wheelchair in the middle of the courtyard.
“When Lowell stormed through there, fully dressed, about fifteen minutes later, Althea lifted herself up with her cane, reached it out to stop him in his path, and announced for all the family friends to hear, ‘I applaud your courage, Mr. Caxton. Must have been something like trying to fit an oyster into a parking meter, having your way with my great-grandniece? Lovely to have met you. Sorry you can’t stay for the evening.’ ”
“He didn’t go to the sale, after all that?”
“No. In fact, he had our driver take him directly to the airport for a flight back to New York.”
“And Deni?”
“She and I went to the auction. She was furious, and determined to do something to show what he had taught her professionally. Everyone in the room, of course, was impressed that she showed up at all. To them it was pure American moxie. She dressed elegantly, beamed at everyone-flirting with the men and being unusually courteous to the women- and focused her attention on every item in the sale.”
“How’d she do?” I asked.
“Like a dream. She bought a portrait of the Marchesa Cecchi for sixty-seven thousand dollars. It had been unattributed in the catalogue. But Deni brought it back to her restorer, Marco Varelli-have you encountered him yet? He’s a genius. And after he cleaned it up, they actually found Sir Joshua Reynolds’s signature under a couple of centuries of grime. She sold that piece for more than a million and a half. And just for fun, she bought a small piece of garden statuary, some kind of wood nymph if I remember correctly. I don’t think it cost her two thousand dollars.”
Marilyn Seven took a breath, put out one cigarette and lighted another, and reminded the waiter to bring her another glass of Saint-Veran.
“I’ll tell you, Miss Cooper, I was sitting in the same room, looking at the same objects. I thought the sculpture was too kitschy to put in my own backyard. Turned out to be an original by Giambologna, the great Florentine artist. Worth close to ten million. Deni refused to sell it. Just shipped it home and installed it in Lowell’s bathroom. She wanted to remind him of the entire experience. Make it indelible.”
“I take it that was the beginning of the end?” “
“Why didn’t she just walk away from him? Certainly she’d made enough money to go out on her own.”
“I suppose when you come from a background like Deni’s, there’s never quite enough to erase the fears that you’re going to find yourself back on the farm sowing soybeans in the dirt for the rest of your life.”
“With what she was sitting on? I can’t believe that.”
“It wasn’t a very attractive side of my friend, but she also wanted to take Lowell to the cleaners. Deni wanted some of the Caxton treasures as well, and she had no plans to walk away without them.”
“But she had no right to them, Ms. Seven. They’re clearly Lowell’s, aren’t they, except for some of the works acquired during the marriage?”
She looked at me as though I were an absolute idiot. “I’m not talking about the art in their home or in the gallery. Don’t you know anything about the Caxton operation? Because if not, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
“The Caxtons have been at this now for three generations. Lowell has such a tight grip on the collection that not even his employees know the extent of what he owns, or more importantly, where all the art is. Deni knew there were paintings stashed in Swiss vaults and even in an old Cold War bunker on a hillside in Pennsylvania. He moves his pieces in armored cars and by private jet.”
Deni’s friend was certainly devoted to her. I could see she was going to go on bashing Lowell as long as I’d listen.
“Are you aware that Three-you probably know it was his childhood name, and it made him crazy when Deni called him that-was never invited to join the Art Dealers Association of America?”
Again, I shook my head to tell her that I was not.
“In seventy-five, I think it was, and certainly before Deni, he was caught bugging the telephones of the most prestigious galleries in New York, long before hi-tech spying became a tool of the business world. He was checking on their inventory, as well as trying to get an idea of what their customers were searching for on the market. Lowell’s father had used a lot of his money to pay scholars to write catalogues raisonnes.”
“Sorry, you’ve lost me. I don’t know what they are.”
“They’re the key to individual artists and their works. Good ones are well researched and documented, and by controlling the catalogues of a particular artist, you control the price and value of his work. Many experts think there’s an aura of questionability about the Caxton catalogues, that histories and pedigrees have been altered for the family’s private gain. Several art historians have denounced the works publicly, which made Lowell furious. It threw into question his Vermeers, his Legers, his Davids.”
“But Deni thought she could get her hands on those paintings?”
“Well, yes-in part. She was also terribly frightened that she knew too much about them for Lowell to let her go. His first two wives had never really participated in his professional world. But once Deni learned it and loved it, he let her in. She knew things about Caxton and his father, and their manner of doing business, that Lowell regretted having told her once the bottom fell out. Her greatest fear-and she spoke of it to me often-was that he’d never let her walk away from him, knowing what she did about his dealings. She couldn’t stay with him, Ms. Cooper, but he wouldn’t let her go.”
I wondered if Marilyn Seven knew anything about Deni’s partnership with the late Omar Sheffield. “Do you have any idea how desperate your friend was to get rid of her husband?”
“About as anxious as you or I would be, if your life had been threatened like hers had.”
“How and when was
“Well, that answers that. I didn’t suppose Lowell told you about the letters Deni got last year, which practically drove her insane.”
“No, so far he hasn’t mentioned any letters to us at all.”
“I’ve brought you a copy of one of them, if you’d like to see it.”
Marilyn Seven withdrew a xeroxed paper from her slim purse and passed it across to me. The copy was a page of lined white paper, covered with neatly printed handwriting and addressed to Denise Caxton. I scanned it quickly.
My name is Jennsen, and I live in Brooklyn. I know you don’t know me, but I have been watching you since you got home from England. I know how you look like, and I know how to find you. Listen, if you go to the police about this, I will hurt you bad, or go back to Oklahoma and kill someone you really love. I know when you leave your house and go to W. 22 nd St., so I could follow you. I know you get your hair cut at La Coupe and you eat dinner twice a week at Fresco on 52 nd St. Your husband pays you $ 125,000 a month for your expenses. Are you getting this yet? I know where you buy your underpants and how much you pay for your wine. Now here’s what I want. Listen close. I want you to send $ 1,000 to my friend, who is in jail, and who’s address is on this letter. This is to show you that I am not kidding, by two ways. One is that I know every move you make, and the other is to show you that my best friends are locked up doing time, so you know I am not playing games. We know how to hurt people very bad. Lowell also told me who the five men are who are your lovers. Now you think I’m jiving? Send a check or money order to my friend Omar Sheffield, 96 B- 1911, Box 968, Coxsackie Correctional Facility, Coxsackie, New York 12051.
