Heads You Win Read online

  “You asked my assistant if I could value this picture for you?” he said, looking closely at Alex. The words “slow” and “measured” came to mind. This was not a man in a hurry. “I’m afraid I have to tell you, sir, that it’s a copy. The original is owned by a Mr. Lawrence Lowell of Boston, and is part of the Lowell Collection.”

  I’m well aware of that, Alex wanted to tell him. “What makes you think it’s a copy?” he asked.

  “It’s not the painting itself,” said Rosenthal, “which I confess had me fooled for a moment. It was the canvas that gave it away.” He turned the painting over and said, “Warhol couldn’t have afforded such an expensive canvas in his early days, besides which, it’s the wrong size.”

  “Are you certain?” asked Alex, suddenly feeling first angry and then sick.

  “Oh yes. The canvas is an inch wider than the original one in the Lowell Collection.”

  “So it’s a fake?”

  “No, sir. A fake is when someone attempts to deceive the art world by claiming to have come across an original work that is not recorded in the artist’s catalog raisonné. This,” he said, “is a copy, albeit a damned fine copy.”

  “May I ask what it would have been worth had it been the original?” Alex asked tentatively.

  “A million, possibly a million and a half,” said Rosenthal. “Its provenance is impeccable. I believe Mr. Lowell’s grandfather bought it directly from the artist in the early sixties, when he couldn’t even pay his rent.”

  “Thank you,” said Alex, having quite forgotten why he’d originally come into the gallery.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Rosenthal. “I ought to get back to my office.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

  Rosenthal left them, and after a moment Alex realized Anna was staring at him. “We met on the subway, didn’t we?” she said.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Why didn’t you say something when I first showed you the painting?”

  “Because for a moment I wondered if you were an art thief.”

  “Nothing quite so glamorous,” said Alex. “During the day I work at Lombardi’s, and spend most evenings at business school.”

  “Lombardi’s margheritas were my staple diet before I graduated.”

  “My mother cooks a mean calzone,” said Alex, “if you’d like to give it a try.”

  “I would,” said Anna. “Then you can tell me how you came into possession of such a fine copy of a Blue Jackie Kennedy.”

  “It was just an excuse to see you again.”

  29

  ALEX

  Brooklyn

  “Now tell me,” said Anna, “did you follow me onto that train?”

  “Yes, I did,” admitted Alex, “even though it was going in the wrong direction.”

  She laughed. “How romantic. So what did you do when I got off?”

  “Traveled on to the next station, and as I was too late for my evening class, went home.”

  A waiter came across and handed them both a menu.

  “What do you recommend?” Anna asked. “After all, you own the joint.”

  “My favorite is the pizza capricciosa, but you choose, because they’re so big we can share.”

  “Then let’s order one. But you’re not off the hook, Alex. So after your lamentable failure at trying to pick me up, you decided like Antony to come in search of me.”

  “I spent the morning checking out half the galleries in Manhattan. Then by chance I spotted you having lunch in an expensive restaurant with a handsome older man.”

  “Not that much older,” said Anna, teasing him. “Then you followed me to the gallery with the excuse that you wanted your painting valued, when surely you must have known it was a copy.”

  Alex said nothing as the waiter placed a large pizza between them in the center of the table.

  “Wow, it looks great.”

  “My mother will have cooked this one herself,” said Alex, cutting off a slice and putting it on Anna’s plate. “I should warn you, she won’t be able to resist coming over to meet you. So you’ll have to tell her it’s simply the best.”

  “But it is,” said Anna after taking a bite. “In fact I think I’ll bring my boyfriend here.” Alex couldn’t hide his disappointment, but then Anna grinned. “Ex-boyfriend. You saw him at the restaurant.” Alex wanted to learn more about him, but Anna changed the subject. “Alex, it was obvious when Mr. Rosenthal told you your painting was a copy, that you were surprised. So I’m curious to know how it came into your possession.”

  Alex took his time telling her the whole story—well, almost the whole story—glad to at last have someone to share his secret with. By the time he’d come to their meeting in the gallery, Anna had almost finished her half of the pizza, while his remained untouched.

  “And why would your friend give you half a million for a painting that can’t be worth more than a few hundred dollars?”

  “Because he doesn’t know it’s a copy. Now I’ll have to tell him the truth, and what makes it worse, I can’t see Evelyn returning one cent of my money.”

  Anna leaned across the table, touched his hand, and said, “I’m so sorry, Alex. Does this mean you won’t be able to open the second Elena’s?”

  “Very few entrepreneurs don’t have setbacks along the way,” said Alex. “According to Galbraith, the wise ones chalk it up on the blackboard of experience and move on.”

  “Is it possible that your friend Lawrence was in on the scam, and deliberately placed you next to his sister at his party?”

  “No,” Alex said firmly. “I’ve never known a more decent, honest man in my life.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Anna, “that was rude of me. I don’t even know your friend. But I must confess, I’d love to see the Lowell Collection.”

  “That would be easy enough,” said Alex, “if you could…”

  “You must be Anna,” said a voice. Alex looked up to see his mother standing over them.

  “You have a gift for timing, Mother, that the Marx Brothers would be proud of.”

  “And he never stops talking about you,” said Elena, ignoring him.

  “Mother, now you’re embarrassing me.”

  “I’m so glad he eventually found you. But wasn’t he stupid not to have followed you off the train in the first place?”

  “Mother!”

  Anna burst out laughing.

  “How was the pizza?” Elena asked.

  “Simply the best,” said Anna.

  “I told her to say that,” said Alex.

  “Yes, he did,” admitted Anna, leaning across the table and taking his hand. “But he needn’t have bothered, because it is the best.”

  “Then can we hope to see you again?”

  “Mother, you’re worse than Mrs. Bennet.”

  “And why have you eaten hardly anything?” she asked, as if he was still a schoolboy.

  “Mother, go away.”

  “Has Alex told you about his plans for a second restaurant?”

  “Yes, he has.” Alex was uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t told his mother the whole story. “It sounds very exciting, Mrs. Karpenko.”

  “Elena, please,” she said as Alex stood up, clutching his knife. “Well, I’d better get back to the kitchen, or the boss might sack me,” she added, smiling at them. “But I hope I’ll see you again, then I can tell you how Alex won the Silver Star.”

  Alex raised the knife above his head, but she had already scurried away. “I apologize, she’s not normally so—”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for, Alex. She’s just like her pizzas, simply the best. But do tell me how you won the Silver Star,” she said, suddenly serious.

  “The truth is, it should have been awarded to the Tank, not me.”

  “The Tank?”

  Alex told her everything that had happened when his unit had come across the Vietcong patrol on Bacon Hill. How the Tank had not only saved Lawrence’s life, but his as well.

  “I would lo