Page 30 of The Picasso Heist
I feel my heart begin to race again.C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Look around the room, dude. Everybody’s waiting, excited. You can’t shut this down, right? You’re the CEO, make the call.
He makes it. With one quick nod of approval, Waxman takes the bait.
“We’re on,” I tell Skip. “Do your thing.”
CHAPTER26
CHAT WITH ANYreal horse-racing fans and they’ll tell you about some race at Churchill Downs on the same day as the Kentucky Derby that was better than the derby. Ditto with true boxing fans. There were certain bouts on the undercard before a Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather prizefight that were, punch for punch, more entertaining than the main event. But that’s horse racing and boxing.
This is art.
Sure, as I watch from the cheap seats in the back, a Degas sculpture, the third item up for bid, goes for a cool twenty million. And with the champagne flowing, the adrenaline pumping, and the anticipation building, a Rothko self-portrait from his early realist years sells for twenty-four million, six million above its reserve price. It’s a good night so far for the House of Echelon.
Still, there’s no doubt in the room that the best is yet to come. Major art auctions are always like Fourth of July fireworks: There areplenty of oohs and aahs throughout, but nothing compares to the finale.
“The last item up for bid this evening is a first-sale untitled Picasso believed to have been painted at the tail end of what’s commonly known as his cubism years,” declares the Echelon auctioneer, sounding as monotonal as humanly possible. The man is a pro, and he knows exactly what he’s doing as the painting is carried out to the stage and placed on an easel by two members of the auction team wearing white gloves. The auctioneer knows that no one in the audience is looking at him. Barely anyone is even listening to him. They’re well aware of what’s being brought out. His job is to set the mood and play to the moment, and nothing titillates the ultra-wealthy more than an understated approach. Less does mean more in this case. More drama. And ultimately more money.
Damn, he’s good. It’s an auctioneer’s master class. He’s doing our plan to limit the price absolutely no favors.You’re killing me, buddy.
He’s killing me even more when he starts the bidding higher than what Pierre told me the proposed opening would be. Instead of fifty million dollars, it’s fifty-five. He’s reading the room, the hunger. He can see it in their eyes.
I can’t see any eyes except for those of the Echelon staffers manning the phones along the side. I’m looking at everyone’s back, and as fast as you can sayDo I hear sixty million?,I’m looking at the backs of a sea of raised paddles.
Skip, who’s not even in the room, is expecting this. “Don’t worry. They’re just posers,” he whispers.
“They can’t all be,” I say. “What about the phones? Anything yet?”
“Too early.”
Of course. I knew that, and yet I still asked. My nerves are kicking in. Phone bidders, the ones who hunt major works, always linger on the sidelines at the start. They want a sense of the action beforebecoming part of it. For the same reason, Enzio Bergamo is sitting quietly, his paddle resting in his lap.
“Do I hear sixty-five?” asks the auctioneer, zooming past sixty million in a flash.
Whoosh!The same sea of paddles goes up.
“Okay, here we go,” says Skip. “First phone bid.”
“From where?”
“You have to ask?” In other words, Paris.
Skip’s tapped into the makeshift patch serving as the hub for all the phone bidders. The patch is unsecured. Skip can’t see names, but he knows locations, can tell where every call comes from, be it a landline or a cell tower. More important, he knows what’s being said; his backdoor software gives him real-time, voice-to-text playback of the conversations. In short, he can see everyone’s cards.
“What’s the bid?” I ask.
“It’s a brake pumper. Instructions to come in at seventy-five and a half.”
That’s someone who wants to get in on the action and force the increments down to a half million. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
“Seventy million, do I hear seventy-one?” asks the auctioneer. He points at a paddle. He has lots to choose from. “Now seventy-two. Front left, now seventy-three.”
“Hello, Tokyo,” says Skip in my ear. “Seventy-four with a ninety ceiling.”
As soon as I hear it, I see it. A woman on the far end of the phone desk wearing her royal-blue Echelon blazer raises paddle number 36 to bid seventy-four million on behalf of someone in Tokyo.
The dam breaks. The posers in the room give way to a flood of phone bids, one after another. They’re coming so fast, Skip can’t even read them. He doesn’t have to. I’m watching it all unfold before me.The auctioneer blows through the guy from Paris trying to pump the brakes, the increments remaining at a million.
“Seventy-seven,” he says. Then seventy-eight, followed by seventy-nine million.
