I was anxious to express my gratitude to Anna, tell her that her tip had been correct, that the Ragdoll Artist and the murals artist were one and the same. I phoned her a couple of times, left messages, was upset when she didn’t return my calls.
Finally she sent an email: Feeling awful. Not answering the phone. Please come see me when/if you can.
I immediately emailed back. We made a date for me to come over to her place at six p.m. the following day.
She lived in the Windsor Arms, one of a pair of twin Style Moderne apartment houses just a block from Waverly Square. The Windsor Arms and the Cambridge Arms were two of the better buildings in the suburbs, streamlined with touches of nautical ornamentation, horizontal lines, rounded corners, and anomalous molded escutcheons set over their grand entranceways.
Anna didn’t look well.
‘I’ve been sleeping poorly,’ she said as she fixed us drinks. ‘Actually, I’ve been feeling like crap. Last week I even felt suicidal. Don’t worry, that’s over, but I’m still depressed.’
Her problem, she confided, was Anders Carlsen, who, she told me, was about to be fired from the CMA directorship.
‘Turns out the museum board decided to get rid of him, not because of our affair, but for lying to Jack Cobb about it. I told you about the anonymous letter, and that Jack asked Anders if what it said was true. Anders shrugged it off, then tried to find out who wrote it. He called his curators into his office one at a time and interrogated them like a Grand Inquisitor. Several of them complained to the board, and then someone pointed out he’d never completed his PhD as he claimed. Did all the course work, but never handed in his dissertation. Yet he insisted everyone address him as “Doctor Carlsen.”’
‘Jesus!’ I said. ‘Aren’t you glad you cut him loose?’
‘Sure. But it’s been painful. And really humiliating to find out everyone in the museum knew we were involved and gossiped about us at dinner parties. Now Anders insists he needs me. He keeps calling, leaving messages that because of me he’s losing his job and his family, and begging me to take him back. “I’m being shit-canned at the museum and you’re all I’ve got left. And now you don’t return my calls.”’
‘He really said “shit-canned”?’
‘At times he can be pretty crude. Thing is, I don’t know how to react. I can’t take the pressure. I’m tempted to see him if only out of pity. I’ve also thought about blocking his email address and his number, but I’m afraid that’ll just enrage him.’
‘Do it, Anna. And don’t you dare even contemplate suicide. He’s not worth it. No one is. Forget him. Move to New York. Become a private dealer there, like you planned. You were right – Courtney Cobb is the Ragdoll Artist. If it weren’t for you and your terrific eye, we would never have made the connection.’
I told her the whole story, and that we had video of Courtney’s shrink surreptitiously selling Courtney’s dolls to Susanne Weber. I urged her to go to Zurich, talk to Courtney and then DeJonghe, use the video and photos of the pornographic doll as leverage to get herself appointed Courtney’s US dealer. Then return to New York and start representing Courtney’s work to collectors.
‘As for Anders – he’s damaged goods,’ I reminded her. ‘You’ll be damaged too if you take him back.’
She gazed into my eyes. ‘You’re such a good friend.’
We talked for a while then about the murals, how they’d been created by two young people caught up in the passionate throes of art-making, who created an amazing work that most likely neither one of them could have produced on her own.
‘And the terrifying part for me,’ I said, ‘is that if there had been no violation, no abuse, those murals would probably not exist. So was it worth it? Can art that good justify such terrible pain?’
‘That,’ Anna said, ‘is always the great, horrible and unanswerable question.’
‘Well,’ I laughed, ‘now that we’ve dealt with the fundamental issue of art-making, what say we go out to dinner? Maybe try that sushi bar “O” on the square. Get ourselves a couple flasks of really good sake and celebrate the start of your new life.’
I waited while she changed and touched up her face.
‘Anders has a set of keys,’ she told me as she locked her apartment door.
‘You gotta get them back.’
‘That would mean seeing him.’
‘I’ll see him. If he doesn’t hand them over, change your locks.’
As we strolled out of the Windsor Arms, Anna suddenly stopped.
‘Shit!’ she hissed. ‘Across the street. That guy in the doorway – it’s him.’
I peered at a man wearing a fedora standing in the shadowed entrance of the Cambridge Arms, the twin of Anna’s building. He was standing ominously still. He seemed to be gazing back at us. I couldn’t make out his face, but then a car passed by, its headlights illuminating the doorway. For the fraction of a second that the man’s face was lit, he raised his eyebrows in an ironic way and a tight half-smile curled his lips. No question, it was Anders.
‘This is what I’ve been afraid of,’ Anna whispered.
‘Is he a stalker?’
‘He told me in grad school he stalked an ex. He thought that was clever. “Got under her skin. Really freaked her out,” he said.’
Jesus!
‘I’m going to talk to him.’
She grasped my arm. ‘No, Hannah! Please don’t!’
‘I’ll be right back. I’m going to get your keys and warn him to stay away.’
I broke free and strode across the street.
‘Anders?’
‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
‘We’ve met. My name’s Hannah Sachs. Stay away from Anna. Stop this stalking bullshit, or you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.’
‘Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?’
I studied his face – strong jaw, intense blue eyes, dark blond mustache and goatee. Under other circumstances I’d probably consider him decent-looking. That night I viewed him as a creep.
‘I’m Anna’s friend,’ I told him. ‘My brother’s a lawyer. Leave her alone or he’ll serve you with a restraining order. How’s that going to look along with your being fired from the museum for playing Torquemada with the curators, and lying to everyone about your doctorate?’
He sniffed. ‘I see that’s gotten around.’
‘Yeah, it has.’
‘I need to talk to her. Please tell her that.’
I shook my head. ‘She doesn’t want to talk. And she wants her keys back. Better hand them over now.’
As he stared at me, I saw madness in his eyes, the look of a cornered animal deciding whether to lash out or retreat.
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ I warned him. ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is.’
‘Yeah. Because the bitch ruined my life.’ He turned to where Anna was standing. ‘Hear that, cunt?’ he yelled. Then he reached into his pocket, threw a set of keys at my feet. ‘Take ’em! Tell her we’re done. Tell her I’ve got no use for her.’ And with that he huffed, spat at the spot where he’d thrown the keys, tipped his hat, huffed again, turned his back, then walked off with the swagger of a man under the delusion that he was making a dignified retreat.
When I got back to Anna, I found her looking strong.
‘I heard the whole thing,’ she said.
‘Still want to go out?’
‘Oh, yeah!’ she said, taking my arm. ‘Let’s go get that sake.’