Is he playing with me? she thought. “Okay, then write me a certified cheque or send me a wire.”
He laughed. “Ms. Lee, I have not even close to that amount of money.”
Ava went quiet again. “I can’t give you a monthly instalment plan,” she finally said. “You have this townhouse, other assets.”
“Yes, we can talk about those.”
“And you have Liechtenstein.”
She expected the mention of Liechtenstein to at least give him pause, but without missing a beat he said, “I’ll give you Liechtenstein — all of it — if you’ll take it sight unseen and walk out that front door.”
“Mr. Hughes, I suspect you have some kind of plan. I mean, between the time your brother told you about my interest in the Fauvist forgeries and now, you’ve managed to come up with a proposal that you think will work. But instead of telling me what it is, you’d rather play this silly game.”
He turned towards her, his eyes looking in her direction without actually seeing her. “My brother didn’t tell me about the Fauvists. I figured that out myself. A Chinese woman poking around in Maurice O’Toole’s papers — what kind of sense does that make? This wasn’t some random search; this wasn’t a coincidence. And believe me, when I questioned Edwin, he did more sputtering than an old Vauxhall. It wasn’t too hard to reach the conclusion that the Hong Kong business had come unglued. I have done only one large piece of business in my entire life with someone Chinese, so it didn’t take any great intelligence to realize that your interest was in the Fauvists. Then when I got your name from Edwin, I did some research. There you were, Ms. Lee, an accountant aligned with a firm in Hong Kong that specializes in collecting odd debts for Asian clients.”
“You have me, and now I also know how smart you are,” Ava said. “So what’s your plan?”
He didn’t acknowledge her jibe. “That depends completely on what your priorities are.”
“I want my clients to be repaid.”
“And it depends on how practical you are.”
“I want the money repaid — that is exactly how practical I am.”
“Do you care how?”
“I won’t know that until I hear what you have in mind.”
“I have hardly any cash,” he said in a rush.
“So you’ve said.”
“I think if I maxed out all my credit cards and my lines of credit, borrowed from friends, I might be able to come up with three or four million, no more than that.”
“Ex-wives are a horrible thing,” Ava said.
“I own this townhouse, of course, and I think it’s now worth close to five million, but there’s a mortgage, and in this economy who knows how long it would take to sell.”
He’s playing with me, Ava thought, and decided to wait. Sooner or later he’ll tell me what he has in mind.
“You have nothing to say?” he said.
“This seems to be your meeting. I’m just a spectator.”
“If you want seventy-odd million, and if you want it sooner rather than later, then the resolution to both our problems is behind you on my walls.”
She looked up. “You’ll give us paintings?”
“Yes, and not just any paintings,” he said, standing up. “Come with me; I’ll show you something.”
He came to her side and extended a hand towards her. Ava ignored it as she got to her feet.
Hughes walked to the back of the room, Ava trailing. He stopped and pointed up. “That is a Picasso. To the left there, two over, a Gauguin. They would fetch you at least seventy million at auction. I’ll give them to you, today if you want, though I think it would be wise to let me manage their sale or consignment to auction.”
“Are they real?”
“Of course not,” Hughes said.
(28)
Ava left Hughes’ townhouse at twelve thirty, walked over to Fifth Avenue, turned right, and began the long walk around Central Park. It was close to two thirty when she arrived at the Mandarin Oriental, no more certain about what she was going to do than when she had left Glen Hughes.
In her ten years with Uncle she thought she had seen and heard just about everything. None of it came close to what Hughes was proposing. On the surface it was audacious, risky, and undoubtedly criminal. Yet, as Hughes explained to her how the process would work, how his checks and balances would come into play, how the Wongs would be insulated from any fallout if it all went south, she had come to admit that it was workable. It was still criminal, but it was workable. Ava hadn’t refused his offer.
“First things first,” she had told him. “I need to confirm that the Liechtenstein account is as barren as you claim. I need you to instruct Georges Brun to make available to me everything connected to the account.” He agreed, and offered to do it by conference call there and then. She took him up on it, listening as he called Brun to confirm a current balance of just over a hundred thousand dollars and to bemoan his bad run of luck.
She asked for his bank account information, PINs, and passwords. He gave the details to her and then sat next to her at his computer as she accessed the account and found minimal cash holdings. She then asked to see the deed to the house and his mortgage agreement. He had paid just over four million for it two years before and had mortgaged half.
“Those other paintings,” she said, motioning to the walls, “how many of them are real?”
“Most.”
“What are they worth?”
“In ten years, maybe millions. Right now, they’re investments in young artists.”
She did a rough calculation. If she took all his cash and sold the house she might net four million, but there was no guarantee, given the state of the housing market. “How did you burn through so much money?” she asked.
“I have three ex-wives. They all took a big chunk since, like you, I prefer a one-time payment rather than a monthly bloodletting. And then, of course, I have led quite a comfortable life.”
“Your brother mentioned some other assets, like a yacht.”
“You’re welcome to it, but you’ll have to pay some marina costs to get access to it, and then there’s the bank loan against it.”
“Stocks and bonds?”
“Dribs and drabs.”
“I’d still like to see the accounts.”
Ten minutes later she had found another few hundred thousand.
He sensed her frustration. “You do know, I hope, that what I propose is very practical and very doable. If your clients truly want their money back, this is the quickest and most direct way to make it happen.”
“You mentioned auction — that isn’t a dangerous route to take?”
“Not if you manage it properly, go to the right auction house.”
“Harrington’s, of course” she said.
He nodded.
“With Sam Rice authenticating whatever you want him to sign off on.”
His lips went taut and his eyes became more focused on Ava. “That isn’t a name we should be throwing about.”
“How many do you propose selling through Harrington’s?”
“I’d sell them both through Harrington’s, but only one — the Picasso — at auction. I believe they already have a private buyer lined up for the Gauguin. Not many Gauguins come onto the open market, so there’s a waiting list for his work.”
“So you’ve already talked this over with Sam Rice?”
He looked annoyed. “Naturally.”
