suspended from the ceiling.
'How many billions together do you two represent?'
'She's a poet.'
'Is that what she is? I thought she was a Shifrin.'
'A little of both.'
'So rich and crisp. Does she let you touch her personal parts?'
'You look gorgeous today.'
'For someone who's forty-seven and finally understands what her problem is.'
'What's that?'
'Life is too contemporary. How old is your consort? Never mind. I don't want to know Tell me to shut up. One more question first. Is she good in bed?'
'I don't know yet.'
'That's the trouble with old money,' she said. 'Now tell me to shut up.'
He placed a hand on her buttock. They lay a while in silence. She was a scorched blonde named Didi Fancher. 'I know something you want to know.' He said, 'What?'
'There's a Rothko in private hands that I have privileged knowledge of. It is about to become available.'
'You've seen it.'
'Three or four years ago. Yes. And it is luminous.' He said, 'What about the chapel?'
'What about it?'
'I've been thinking about the chapel.'
'You can't buy the goddamn chapel.'
'How do you know? Contact the principals.'
'I thought you'd be thrilled about the painting. One painting. You don't have an important Rothko. You've always wanted one. We've talked about this.'
'How many paintings in his chapel?'
'I don't know. Fourteen, fifteen.'
'If they sell me the chapel, I'll keep it intact. Tell them.'
'Keep it intact where?'
'In my apartment. There's sufficient space. I can make more space.
'But people need to see it.'
'Let them buy it. Let them outbid me.'
'Forgive the pissy way I say this. But the Rothko Chapel belongs to the world.'
'It's mine if I buy it.'
She reached back and slapped his hand off her ass.
He said, 'How much do they want for it?'
'They don't want to sell the chapel. And I don't want to give you lessons in self-denial and social responsibility. Because I don't believe for a minute you're as crude as you sound.'
'You'd believe it. You'd accept the way I think and act if I came from another culture. If I were a pygmy dictator,' he said, 'or a cocaine warlord. Someone from the fanatical tropics. You'd love it, wouldn't you? You'd cherish the excess, the monomania. Such people cause a delicious stir in other people. People such as you. But there has to be a separation. If they look and smell like you, it gets confusing.'
He pushed his armpit toward her face.
'Here lies Didi. Trapped in all the old puritanisms.' He rolled belly down and they lay close, hips and shoulders touching. He licked along the rim of her ear and put his face in her hair, rooting softly. He said, 'How much?'
'What does it mean to spend money? A dollar. A million.'
'For a painting?'
'For anything.'
'I have two private elevators now One is programmed to play Satie's piano pieces and to move at one-quarter normal speed. This is right for Satie and this is the elevator I take when I'm in a certain, let's say, unsettled mood. Calms me, makes me whole.'
'Who's the other elevator?'
'Brutha Fez.'
'Who's that?'
'The Sufi rap star. You don't know this?'
'I miss things.'
'Cost me major money and made me an enemy of the people, requisitioning that second elevator.'
'Money for paintings. Money for anything. I had to learn how to understand money,' she said. 'I grew up comfortably. Took me a while to think about money and actually look at it. I began to look at it. Look closely at bills and coins. I learned how it felt to make money and spend it. It felt intensely satisfying. It helped me be a person. But I don't know what money is anymore.'
'I'm losing money by the ton today. Many millions. Betting against the yen.'
'Isn't the yen asleep?'
'Currency markets never close. And the Nikkei runs all day and night now. All the major exchanges. Seven days a week.'
'I missed that. I miss a lot. How many millions?'
'Hundreds of millions.'
She thought about that. She began to whisper now. 'How old are you? Twenty-eight?'
'Twenty-eight,' he said.
'I think you want this Rothko. Pricey. But yes. You totally need to have it.'
'Why?'
'It will remind you that you're alive. You have something in you that's receptive to the mysteries.'
He laid his middle finger lightly in the rut between her buttocks.
He said, 'The mysteries.'
'Don't you see yourself in every picture you love? You feel a radiance wash through you. It's something you can't analyze or speak about clearly. What are you doing at that moment? You're looking at a picture on a wall. That's all. But it makes you feel alive in the world. It tells you yes, you're here. And yes, you have a range of being that's deeper and sweeter than you knew.'
He made a fist and wedged it between her thighs, turning it slowly back and forth.
'I want you to go to the chapel and make an offer. Whatever it takes. I want everything that's there. Walls and all.'
She didn't move for a moment. Then she disengaged, the body easing free of the goading hand.
He watched her getting dressed. She dressed in a summary manner, appearing to think ahead to some business that needed completing, whatever he'd interrupted on his arrival. She was in post-sensual time, fitting an arm to a creamy sleeve, and looked drabber and sadder now He wanted a reason to despise her.
'I remember what you told me once.'
'What's that?'
'Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.'
'What did I mean?' she said.
'You meant I was ruthlessly efficient. Talented, yes. In business, in personal acquisitions. Organizing my life in general.'
'Did I mean lovemaking as well?'
'I don't know. Did you?'
'Not quite ruthless. But yes. Talented. And a commanding presence as well. Dressed or undressed. Another talent, I suppose.'
'But there was something missing for you. Or nothing missing. That was the point,' he said. 'All this talent and drive. Utilized. Consistently put to good use.' She was looking for a lost shoe.
'But that's not true anymore,' she said.
He watched her. He didn't think he wanted to be surprised, even by a woman, this woman, who'd taught him how to look, how to feel enchantment damp on his face, the melt of pleasure inside a brushstroke or band of
