Pizza and Netflix tonight?
The tranquility broke when two phone lines started to ring simultaneously.
“Kissy Von Bizmark’s office, this is Anna.” The third line lit up.
“Anna, it’s Max, big problem. Turn on Channel Four.” Anna heard a commotion or something on the television in the background at Max’s office. All the lines in the Von Bizmark office and residence were suddenly alight.
“OK, my phone is on fire . . .”
“Anna, do! Not! Answer! The phone!” Max could get militaristic in a media emergency. “Just turn on Channel Four.”
“You’re scaring me, Max.”
“Television. Now.”
Anna flicked on the local news. Two uniformed cops were firmly escorting Felix Mercurion, in a sharp suit, his face a careful mask of denial, out of his own gallery in handcuffs as a few lithe employees watched, horrified. A sheet of straight brown hair quivered as a young woman wept into her friend’s silky shoulder in front of the Mercurion Gallery. The anchor voiced over the footage: “. . . estimate somewhere between one hundred and two hundred million dollars and are confiscating all of Mercurion’s holdings as collateral.”
Cut to outside the opera house, where a large white van’s rear end was opened to the stage door. Men in black windbreakers emblazoned with the white letters IRS were moving the large art crates into the vehicle. “We are live at the New York Opera, where the Internal Revenue Service is in the process of seizing a dozen of Mercurion’s masterpieces at this very moment. Shelly, what can you tell us about what’s happening over there?”
A zippy cub reporter all too happy to score a big story launched with zeal. “The IRS asserts Mercurion donated these pieces to the opera in an effort to avoid taxation and subsequently claim bankruptcy. This plan would have allowed Mercurion to maintain control of his Swiss bank accounts as well as avoid criminal prosecution. The IRS is now seizing these pieces, which they will sell to cover Mercurion’s debts. And from what my sources tell me, it’s going to be quite an auction.”
Behind the reporter, Anna saw Mrs. Von Bizmark in her tidy fur vest and killer shoes looking on in bewilderment as the crates she had gone there to ceremoniously open filled the back of the IRS van. STT stood next to her, jaw hanging, camera up, photographing it all. At one point, he turned the lens on her, and she held up her hand. A terse exchange. Anna returned to the phone but continued to watch.
“Max? Max, are you there?”
“Can you get her out of there? There’s no reason for her to be there right now,” Max said, realizing. “Is that STT next to her? Oh, Jesus.” The Von Bizmark phone lines rang incessantly, the little buttons all blinking like Christmas lights.
Anna thought of Ilana. How would Anna explain this to her? This devastated their chances of saving the school. Even if Anna had done her best to clarify that the auction was not completely certain, in her heart of hearts she knew that she had let Josefina think that the whole thing was basically taken care of. She had even let herself enjoy a sense of real usefulness and fulfillment. What would she tell Josefina? Or Principal Sellers, who had already had just about enough of the upper-upper crust and their problems? All they had now was Sellers’s plea for donations at the lunch.
“OK, she’s getting in a cab,” Max said in Anna’s ear, more concerned with how this would all play out in the media than for Ilana, whom he had never laid eyes on. “Just don’t talk to anyone until we’ve decided on a plan going forward. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Anna watched the phones in a stupor. Everyone called: Bloom, Pippy Petzer, Julie, Florence . . . the news continued. The phone rang. All three computers dinged and buzzed and trilled, various sorts of messages piling up. The newswoman talked about how the proceeds from the art sale were supposed to go to a public school that would surely close. Anna just sat quietly, all the noise and lights swirling together into a whirlpool of dots. It almost felt good to disconnect completely like this, to give up for the moment and just exist. Why hadn’t she tried this before? Dimly, Anna wondered if she was about to pass out.
“Anna?” Josefina stood in the office with Alicia. How long had they been there, witnessing both the news and Anna herself, staring into space while the office exploded around her? When she stood unsteadily and approached Josefina, it was enough to confirm the worst. “Problem?” Josefina asked, stuck on a tenacious smudge of hope, which Anna would now have to erase.
“Yes, Josefina, there’s a big problem. The man with the art, he’s a criminal. The government owns the art now.” Josefina’s eyes welled up, her big cheeks quaking. “I don’t know what will happen. I’m so sorry.” Josefina choked back the tears. Alicia looked on, face strained.
“I know you tried,” Josefina said. Alicia put her arm over Josefina’s shoulders, and they retreated to the laundry room.
Anna shook herself out of her stupor by pacing three steps back and forth. She gnawed on a cuticle until it started to bleed. What could be done? What could be done? The phone finally quieted down, ringing only every few minutes. Why had she volunteered this idea? This would never have happened if she’d just stayed in her place. Florence’s favorite adage haunted her: Never do more or less than what you’re asked. This was why.
The foyer doors opened and closed. Slow heels on the hardwood. Mrs. Von Bizmark walked past the office doors to the laundry room, and Anna followed to observe from afar.
“I’m sorry, Josefina,” she said. “But we’re going to do what we can.”
“Oh, Mrs. Von Bizmark!” Josefina responded, her face shining with tears. Mrs. Von Bizmark squeezed her thick shoulder and returned to the office. She looked beleaguered, practically collapsing into her desk chair without taking off her vest.
“What did Max say?” Mrs. Von Bizmark asked without preamble.
“He said to not answer the phone until we have a plan. He’ll be here in about forty-five minutes.”
“Perfect. I called a meeting with everyone at one.”
Who was “everyone”? Anna’s eyes went straight to the clock: 12:13 p.m.
Max was the first to arrive, impeccably dressed but more casual than usual in a gray suit with no tie and a simple white shirt. No accessories save a small leather case that could hold a notebook or a tiny handgun. Even his generally flawless shiny waves of hair looked rumpled with anxiety.
“Max, you look . . .”
“I know. Butch. This is my emergency suit. So listen.” He took Anna’s elbow to keep her in the foyer for a quick confab. He lowered his voice. “Does the Mrs. really not know Mercurion, or is that bullshit?”
“She really doesn’t know him.”
“Terrific.” He strode down the hallway, calling, “Kissy!”
“Max!” They double kissed and sat down in the dining room, which Cristina had outfitted for their midday meeting with a selection of various sandwiches—avocado, smoked salmon, turkey club—and fresh juices on ice from E.A.T. on Madison, the world’s most overpriced deli. No one touched any of it.
“The key thing is that we say nothing about Felix Mercurion. He was a friend of the opera’s,” Max says. “Just say, ‘I don’t really know him.’”