LOT 47
A major contemporary art auction is always the place to be if you are an important art enthusiast. The bigwigs arrive in their private jets from all over the world. They all show up at 6:30 to make their way up the line of adoring fans and wannabes. They are the art-collecting stars walking their red carpet. The trade magazines are all there to make notes on who buys what and for how much. Established art dealers swarm around like a hive of bees, all waiting to bid for important clients or for themselves. Rarely do artists show up. This is too much like a cattle auction. Their creative sensibilities are offended by the sale of the product: their art.
The special buyers have their spots reserved on the main auction floor. Each knows their pecking order in the art-world hierarchy. The back is standing room only, relegated to press and those who aren’t going to buy anything but somehow got a golden ticket for the big show. The suites above the bidding floor are reserved for those who are either the consigners of large, important pieces or the really big buyers who don’t want to be bothered or identified.
May 7th was Bernard Phillips’ night. He was the consigner of a much-talked-about painting and those in the know understood he would be a multimillionaire in just a matter of an hour. He was offered a box seat weeks ago, but insisted he wanted to be on the floor close to the action. He needed everyone to see his moment, one his father had never had. Bernard was incredibly cool for a person who had just murdered his longtime artist/partner and arranged for the other Yellowhorse dealer, Bloom, to meet his demise as well. Nonetheless, Bernard was genuinely enjoying himself, coming early to meet his fans and talk up his painting, shaking hands and making small talk with those he hoped would bid on STRUGGLE.
The crowd finally took their seats and the auctioneer, a distinguished, tall man with a regal-sounding British accent, gave the disclaimers to the potential buyers. This audience had heard it all before. You don’t make the main floor seating of the May contemporary art sale at Sotheby’s unless you have spent a lot of money in the past and are a known entity. Each auction has its own rhythm. The auctioneer’s objective was to try and gauge what the tone of the sale was going to be, and manipulate the crowd to the best of his abilities.
An enthusiastic group of bidders will start things rolling along with lots of secondary background noise, even clapping if things go well. The opposite can also be true. If a major piece fails early on, it can dampen the mood and the room falls silent. The crowd wonders if the art market has changed in some unperceivable way and maybe bidding too exuberantly is unwise that night. The auctioneer’s worse nightmare is quiet in the room.
The first couple of lots were positioned to go above their estimates, which they did at tonight’s auction.
A spectacular Damien Hirst butterfly painting sold for a million dollars, nearly twice the high estimate. The next lot was a large, colorful Keith Haring of a man in a box with a dog barking for his head. It brought nearly $700K, a very strong number. The auction continued right on track, each progressive lot never missing a beat, with great prices for the material being offered and the best still to come. The art market was supposed to be in a recession but not tonight. Values for paintings were strong, as were the paintings. The auctioneer was able to get the last cent, or in many cases, half-million dollars, out of the crowd.
When the Yellowhorse, lot 47, came up, the crowd instinctively silenced themselves to hear the auctioneer’s impressive description of the last Yellowhorse painting ever produced. Bernard Phillips fidgeted in his seat. He felt the need to juggle something to ease the first stress he had felt all night.
The auctioneer cleared his throat and said in a most distinguished and yet firm voice, “We will be skipping lot 47 tonight, the Yellowhorse, as the family has decided to pull the piece. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused any of our clients tonight.” Then without missing a beat and trying to keep the crowd upbeat and on the same good roll, he continued, “Now for the piece we have all been waiting for: the Rothko, one of the best of its kind!”
All in the know in the crowd simultaneously turned their heads toward Bernard Phillips, who was sitting in the coveted first row. He had been going on and on about the piece just 50 minutes before. The painting must have been pulled without his knowledge. What could have happened? Phillips himself was in a state of shock and anger. His face turned beet-red and he felt his heart rate explode.
Bernard wanted to scream, “You can’t pull my painting! I took care of Bloom! Sell my fucking painting; I killed three people to get this goddamn piece here!”
But realizing something had gone terribly wrong, Bernard got up and exited the room. Again, many eyes followed his movement, ignoring the Rothko as it was reaching a near-record price. The art reporters tried in vain to get a tidbit from Bernard for their magazines, but Phillips ignored them and exited the room quickly and without a word. The Rothko had become the secondary story of the night. Bernard Phillips’ omitted painting was the first.
Phillips was out the door and nearing the escalator when he saw four police officers rapidly heading his way. Behind them was the very pale Charles Bloom with a smile on his face. Bloom—out in the world? Ghostly looking, yes, but obviously not dead?
Bernard realized he was in serious trouble. He would have to make a run for it. He had over a million dollars in an offshore account waiting for him. He couldn’t proceed forward. Turning backward, he saw two Sotheby’s guards and Rupert had closed the auction doors and were guarding them, stopping him from returning to the auction and stopping anyone from coming out.
Phillips’ gun was in the car waiting for his final plant, which was now a fast-fading memory. The only way out was to jump over the railing to the floor below. He saw himself as Harrison Ford in the “The Fugitive,” jumping into the waterfall while Tommy Lee Jones looked on helplessly as Ford makes his successful escape. His destiny would not be jail like that of his late father, Jim Callahan. The still-athletic Bernard Phillips went for his dramatic final gambit.
The desperate plunge might have succeeded if not for a red Italian silk scarf around Bernard Phillips’ neck, which he had worn for the unusually chilly night. The scarf got entangled in the railing’s metal slats, twisting at the last moment into a perfectly formed hangman’s noose, the scarf’s length just long enough so his whole 200-pound body weight felt the full impact as the expensive silk textile tightened its high-quality yarn, never failing even with Bernard’s heavy load, breaking his cervical spine at C1/C2. Bernard’s demise was instantaneous. There was no painful struggling, his life ending in one quick pull, unlike Willard’s death with its inhuman strangulation that resulted in the so-called painting. The irony was not lost on Bloom, who stared in morbid fascination.
The scene was surrealistic. The well-dressed man hanging from the Sotheby’s railing by an expensive red scarf, a slow drip of urine coming off his new crimson Donald Pliner shoes. The whole event seemed like some well-orchestrated, art-performance piece done for public consumption. It would make a great story, of which Bloom wanted no part. At that critical moment, Bloom’s thoughts were of Rachael, Preston, Willard, and Hastiin Sherman, the old medicine man who would finally have peace and his grandson’s return.