The Gilded Seal (4 page)

Southern pallor. But her large, honeyed hazel eyes were pure

Grandma May, a fierce woman who claimed to have met the

devil on two separate occasions; once on the ship over from

Haiti, the other on her wedding night. To her regret, Jennifer

had been too young to verify either of these stories with her

grandfather before he’d died.

And yet despite what others said, Jennifer had never really

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considered herself to be attractive, citing her younger sister

as an example of a far more natural and intuitive beauty.

Besides, she’d never been that concerned with what people

thought about how she looked. It was, after all, a poor proxy

for character, which is what she preferred to be judged on.

She stifled a yawn, the mesmeric fizz of the wipers across

the windshield exposing the effects of too many late nights.

She certainly could have done without today’s early start.

Then again, she’d not had much choice. Not when FBI Direc-

tor Green himself was calling the shots.

“This is taking forever,” she said restlessly as they shuffl ed

forward another few feet and the caffeine began to bite. “Cut

across to Eighth when you hit West Fourteenth.” She glanced

up and caught the driver eyeing the firm outline of her breasts

in the mirror.

“Sure thing.” He nodded awkwardly, his eyes fl icking back

to the road.

She sat back, her annoyance with the driver offset by her

amusement at herself. Only nine months in and she was al-

ready well on her way to being a real New Yorker—not only

irrationally impatient but also utterly convinced of her ability

to navigate to any point in the city faster than anyone else.

Not particularly attractive traits, perhaps, but ones that none-

theless gave her a sudden sense of belonging that she hadn’t

felt for a long time. Too long.

Twenty- five minutes later they turned on to West 89th

Street and drew up outside the elegant façade of the Clare-

mont Riding Academy, the oldest continuously working sta-

ble in the state, according to the sign fixed to the wall

outside.

Jennifer scanned the street—Green’s usual security de-

tachment was already there, a lucky few sat in one of the three

unmarked Suburbans, the rest sheltering in the doorways op-

posite, water dripping on to their shoulders and the toecaps

of their polished shoes. He was early. That was a fi rst. What-

ever he wanted, he clearly didn’t plan to hang around.

She stepped out of the car, a long coat worn over her usual

urban camouflage of black trouser suit and white silk blouse.

Not the most exciting outfit, she knew, but then she’d learned

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t w i n i n g

the hard way that people would grasp at anything to catego-

rize you into their rigid mental taxonomies. Certainly, given

how hard it was to make it as a woman in the Bureau, let

alone an African American woman, she’d rather be classifi ed

as frigid than as a potential fuck, which, convention had it,

were the only two points on the scale that female agents

could operate at. Besides, in a way it suited her—it was one

less decision to make in the morning.

A ramp covered with a deep carpet of dirt and wood shav-

ings led up to the riding school itself. She made her way in-

side, suddenly aware of the smell, an incongruous mixture of

horse and leather and manure amidst Manhattan’s unforgiv-

ing forest of steel and concrete and glass. There was a time,

she mused, when the whole city would have smelled this way,

when the clatter of hooves and the foghorns of ships arriving

in the harbor had signaled the forging of a new city built on

hope and ambition. She decided she liked this smell. It

seemed somehow real. Permanent. Relevant.

Ahead of her a single horse was trotting robotic ally in a

wide circle defined by the space between the walls and the

bright blue pillars supporting the whitewashed brick ceiling

above. A young girl was perched unsteadily in the saddle,

golden braids peeking out from under a pristine black velvet

helmet. An instructor was standing in the center of the school,

swiveling on the heels of his scuffed brown riding boots as

he followed the horse around and around, occasionally bel-

lowing instructions.

“Excuse me,” Jennifer called, as the horse rode past and

the man turned to face her. “I’m looking for Falstaff.”

“Falstaff?” He eyed her curiously as he walked over, his

muscled thighs sheathed in pale cream Lycra jodhpurs. “You’re

here for Falstaff?”

She nodded firmly, hoping that he had not noticed the

slight uncertainty in her own voice. Green’s call had been

hurried and muffled by the sound of a passing siren.
Seven

thirty a.m. Claremont Riding Academy. Ask for Falstaff.

Don’t be late.

“How many times? Keep your heels down,” the instructor

suddenly barked, his eyes fixed beyond her shoulder. Jennifer

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2 1

glanced behind her and saw the young girl blush crimson as

she wheeled away, heels firmly pressed down against her

stirrups, braids bouncing frantically off her shoulders. The

instructor’s searching gaze followed her as she circled past,

his face set into a disapproving frown.

“Yes, Falstaff. You know where I can fi nd him?”

The man glanced at her skeptically, before giving a vague

nod to his right.

“They’re waiting for you upstairs. First floor. Back and

right. That’s it. Good girl. Hands out in front. Now remember

your posture. It all comes from the posture.”

With a faint word of thanks, Jennifer headed over to the

spot he had indicated. A wide, curving ramp led up to the

stabling floor above, the stone worn and gouged by genera-

tions of hooves and overindulged Upper West Side kids.

Two more of Green’s men were positioned at the top of the

ramp, transparent earpieces snaking inside their collars.

They waved her down a central aisle that led to the far end of

the stables, narrower passageways containing loose-

boxes

leading off to the left and the right. The boxes themselves

were painted white and in various stages of decay and disre-

pair, with wooden slats missing or broken and the wrought-

iron railings thick with rust and overpainting. Saddles, reins

and various other pieces of tack and frayed rope were hang-

ing haphazardly from the peeling walls or slung over skewed

gates. A stereo dangled from an overhead beam, the music

clearly more to the taste of the Mexican workers mucking out

than the horses whose mournful heads she could see peering

over the stable doors.

Another of Green’s men was waiting for her at the end of

the main aisle. He silently steered her to the right. The sound

of voices drew her to the fi nal stall where a tin plate was at-

tached to the door with twine. A name had been punched

into it with a blunt nail—Falstaff.

Jennifer frowned, momentarily disconcerted. She’d as-

sumed Falstaff was someone whose parents had either had

an irrational love of Shakespeare, or a questionable sense of

humor. Not a horse.

With a shrug, she stepped into the box. Jack Green had his

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back to her and was locked in conversation with two smartly

dressed men, one noticeably older than the other. The younger

man looked up sharply when he saw her. Picking up on his

cue, Green spun around to greet her.

“Browne.” He gave her a fleeting smile. “Good.”

Green was one of those cookie-cutter DC insiders who

seemed to roll off a secret production line in some rich white

neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston. Crisp creases in his

suit trousers, ironed parting in his brown hair, plump cheeks,

perfect teeth and irises like faded ink spots on crisp linen

sheets, his gaze constantly flitting over your shoulder, in case

someone more interesting should come into the room behind

you.

He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him, adding

substance to the Bureau gossips who contended that he’d re-

cently remarried and that his new, much younger and richer,

bride had him on a treadmill three times a week. True or

not, he still had a way to go; the material around the top but-

ton of his trousers was buckling under the stress of holding

his stomach in. And if there was a new wife, she’d certainly

done nothing to improve his taste in ties, this morning’s of-

fering a garish blend of different shades of orange.

“Morning, sir.” She shook his hand.

“Thank you for coming. I know it’s early.”

“It’s not a problem,” she said generously. “I normally go

for a run at this time anyway.”

He gave her a look that was caught somewhere between

sympathy and admiration, before gesturing first toward the

older man, then his younger companion.

“I’d like you to meet Lord Anthony Hudson, Chairman of

Sotheby’s, and Benjamin Cole, his opposite number at Chris-

tie’s. Gentlemen, this is Special Agent Jennifer Browne from

our Art Crime Team.”

“Call me Ben.”

Cole gave a wide, teethy grin, his dark brown eyes search-

ing hers out earnestly and then darting away when she tried

to hold his gaze. She wondered if the others knew he was

gay. Probably. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit

and open-necked white shirt, the glint of a thin gold chain

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2 3

just visible in the cleft of his collarbone. She guessed he was

in his early forties, although he looked maybe ten years

younger, the healthy glow of his long pointed face betraying

a daily routine of wheat grass, exfoliation, free weights, soya

milk, pilates and expensive moisturiser.

“But whatever you do, don’t call him Tony,” he continued.

Hudson looked as jaded and shopworn as Cole was bright

and fit, the dated cut and frayed corners of his pin-striped

suit suggesting that it was some sort of family heirloom or

hand-me-down. His eyes had almost disappeared under his

eyebrows’ craggy overhang, while his cheeks were lined

and drooping like a balloon that has had the air let out of it,

and his lips were cracked and frozen into a permanent scowl.

She placed him at about fi fty-five; not quite retirement age,

but definitely counting the days. She had the sudden impres-

sion that he was weighing her up, as if he was gazing at her

through the crosshairs of a rifle on some distant Scottish moor

and estimating the distance and wind speed before pulling the

trigger.

“I recognize you both, of course.” She nodded, reaching

out to shake their hands.

Hudson was a Brit, a blue- blood distantly related to the

Queen who’d been shipped in to schmooze Sotheby’s mainly

North American clientele with canapés and a touch of old-

fashioned class. Cole on the other hand was a Brooklyn- born

hustler who, despite barely being able to spell his name when

he first joined the Christie’s mail room, had risen to the top

on the back of a silken tongue and an unfailing eye for a good

deal. The two of them neatly represented the social spectrum

of both the auction world and the clients they served.

“Then you’ll also know why I asked you to meet us here.”

Green waved semi-apologetically at their surroundings. Hud-

son shifted uncomfortably in mute agreement, his eyes fi xed

reproachfully on the thin coat of dust, straw and feed that

had already settled on his gleaming handmade shoes.

“I can guess,” Jennifer confirmed with a nod.

A few years ago both Christie’s and Sotheby’s had faced

antitrust cases over allegations that they were fi xing commis-

sion levels through a series of illicit meetings in the back of

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limousines and in airport departure lounges. Huge corporate

fi nes and even jail sentences had resulted, although Sir Nor-

man Watkins, Hudson’s predeces sor, had managed to avoid

incarceration so far by refusing to return to the United States.

The stables, therefore, offered a suitably discreet venue for

Hudson and Cole to get together, given that in the current

climate they daren’t risk being seen in the same room, let

alone meeting in private as they were now.

“Anthony,” Green turned to Hudson, “why don’t you ex-

plain what this is all about.”

“Very well.” Hudson loosened the inside button on his

double-breasted suit jacket, the lining flashing emerald green.

He bent down stiffly and picked up a gilt-framed painting

that Jennifer had not noticed leaning against the stall.

“
Vase de Fleurs, Lilas,
by Paul Gauguin, 1885,” he pro-

nounced grandly, as he held it up for her to see. It was quite a

small painting, featuring a delicately rendered vase of bright

fl owers against a dark, almost stormy background. “Not one

of his most famous works perhaps, since he had not yet