Dante’s Inferno
DANTE’S INFERNO
Evelyn
“It’s a great turnout,” Chloe, my assistant and best friend, said, looking around the gallery. It was five o’clock on a rainy Friday afternoon and most of the guests we’d invited to the private exhibition had come.
I smiled. “It is, isn’t it?” But then, Colombian artist Mateo Reyes always pulled in a high-caliber crowd.
Surveying the guests, two words sprang to mind. Money and taste. Collectors in tailored suits with earnest frowns. Patrons in designer couture drinking my expensive French champagne. Only the best for this clientele.
“I can’t believe we managed to pull this together.” I watched two well-known critics from Frieze and Artforum standing in front of the largest piece, Cartagena, 4 a.m., saying nothing, which I’d learned to read as a good sign.
The exhibition almost hadn’t happened. We’d had a few setbacks, but Chloe and I had worked extra hard to make the night a success.
Last month, our shipment from Colombia had almost been destroyed. There’d been a breach at the docks, and our container had been ripped apart. Thankfully, Mateo’s paintings weren’t stolen. I didn’t know what we’d have done otherwise. Tickets for this show had been sold out for months.
“We did good,” Chloe decided, grabbing two flutes of champagne from a passing server.
We clinked glasses.
As I sipped, the light caught the slim tennis bracelet at my wrist, and I felt the familiar little swell of pride.
I’d bought it for myself two years ago, the morning after the Agora turned its first real profit.
It was a private toast to the fact that I’d built something out of nothing, with no one’s name on it but mine.
Chloe was everything a gallery assistant should be, and I was lucky to have her.
Despite being younger than me by four years, we’d clicked the moment she’d arrived early for her interview and found me struggling under boxes of stationery supplies.
She’d rushed up, taken some of the boxes off my teetering pile, and stayed to help me unpack.
I hadn’t bothered interviewing anyone else.
Now she managed the day-to-day running of the gallery, leaving me free to focus on acquiring new artists, public relations, and networking with auction houses, magazines and other important people in the art world.
She’d watched me get dumped twice, held my hair after the first time, and bullied me into therapy after the second. She was the closest thing I had to family.
“Well done, ladies,” Vincent said, gliding over. “I see we already have several red dots on key pieces. This will keep the bank accounts healthy for a while.”
He looked handsome and distinguished in his three-piece Savile Row suit and neckerchief. At sixty-two, with white hair swept back from his tanned, lined face, Vincent Calabria was considered something of a silver fox. And of course, being British, he oozed an old-world charm that the buyers loved.
Despite being my accountant-slash-financial advisor, his knowledge of art was almost as good as mine.
“Numbers are my bread and butter, art is my passion,” he’d told me once.
“We even have an offer on the small study on the south wall,” Chloe informed him with a grin. “It’s on hold for a buyer in Geneva.”
He gave a satisfied nod.
“Where’s Alberto?” I asked him. My logistics manager should be here. He’d had an invite, not that he needed one. “I was expecting to meet his new girlfriend.”
Vincent shrugged.
“Maybe he’s running late,” Chloe said.
“Could be.” Alberto wasn’t the most punctual of people.
“Fabulous collection, Eve,” a woman in a stunning alizarin-red Donna Karan gown said, coming to stand next to me. “Pity the artist couldn’t be here tonight.”
I’d met Helen Beaumont at Columbia, where I was finishing my master’s degree in art history.
She’d been a sophomore to my senior, and we’d had many deep conversations during late-night study sessions in the Commons about provenance ethics, restitution, Nazi-looted works, and the origins of avant-garde art.
Now Helen was a buyer for a handful of very wealthy art lovers. A good person to know.
Chloe excused herself to talk to one of the caterers who were flitting around with silver trays laden with crystal glasses and canapés, while Vincent got cornered by a fashion designer and art aficionado who’d just had a very public break-up with his husband of ten years.
“Thank you.” I flashed her a warm smile. “Unfortunately, Mateo had a family commitment and wasn’t able to come this time.” His wife had gone into labor the night before he was due to fly out, so he’d canceled his trip. Another hurdle we’d had to work around.
“I don’t suppose it matters. His reputation precedes him.” Helen cast me a sly grin. “My client is interested in acquiring the Ashes & Bone tonight.”
“An alluring piece. I’m delighted to hear it.”
“Let’s have lunch soon.” She moved on, leaving a cloud of Chanel No. 5 in her wake.
“Miss Cruz, could we get a photograph of you outside the gallery?”
I recognized the reporter and her photographer. They worked for a small, local publication, the kind that was stocked in food markets around the city.
“Sure.”
I set my glass down on one of the cocktail tables, nodding politely to a man who looked like he was about to approach me, then followed them outside.
The newspaper would be read by the well-heeled women of the Upper East Side and Tribeca while they lunched on nicoise salads and drank lattes at the gourmet coffee bars. I wasn’t about to refuse.
I posed and smiled like I’d done a hundred times before, until they’d gotten their shots.
But it hadn’t always been like this.
Ten years ago, I’d been a college graduate with no job offers, just a burning desire to succeed.
I loved art, I knew I wanted to exist in that world, but I didn’t want to be a struggling artist. So after a few years traveling around Europe, I’d taken what money my parents had left me and bought this place.
I’d secured a loan based on my capital investment and purchased my first painting.
“Mateo Reyes owes his astounding success to you, doesn’t he?” the reporter asked.
“He owes it to his remarkable talent,” I corrected, giving a small grin.
“But you were the one who discovered him?” She wanted some commentary for her article.
“That’s right. I saw his work on a scouting trip a couple of years back and instantly recognized his potential,” I told her. “I offered to represent him on the spot.”
“And then he exploded onto the New York art scene,” she noted.
“It’s well deserved,” I said, smiling.
Apart from being a great earner for me, he’d also brought a ton of new business to the Agora. My exhibitions were sleek, selective, and sold out. The Agora was my masterpiece, made of other people’s genius. The irony made me smile.
The man who’d been hovering before the photoshoot came up to me.
“Ms. Cruz, this is just breathtaking, but I have to admit, you look every bit as lovely tonight as the paintings.”
I cringed. Like I hadn’t heard that one before?
Forcing a smile, I was relieved to see Mikhail Orlov approach.
“Mikhail, I’m so glad you could make it.” I turned to him, holding out my hand.
The Russian art aficionado took it and kissed it, deliberately ignoring my admirer. There wasn’t much that got past Mikhail.
“Evelyn, you look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you.” I shot him a grateful smile.
Disappointed and overshadowed by the elegant, well-dressed Russian, my admirer moved on.
“I can’t stay long.” He lowered his head. “I just wanted to put a reserve on The Fire Within. Sergei was most insistent.”
I nodded and beckoned to Chloe. “Of course. I’ll see to it right away.”
Sergei Malakov, the Russian oligarch for whom Mikhail worked, was a very good customer, and not many people could afford to pay the price of one of the exhibition’s largest pieces.
“Thank you.” He accepted two glasses from a passing tray and handed one to me.
Chloe hurried over. “Mr. Orlov, how lovely to see you.”
“I’ll leave you in Chloe’s capable hands, Mikhail,” I said, touching his arm. “Please give my regards to Sergei.”
He bowed his head. “Of course.”
The evening passed in a blur of champagne-fueled deals, good conversation and carefully performed charm. Mikhail had left after placing his client’s very generous offer, but everybody else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.
“It’s a good thing we ordered those extra bottles of the Veuve Clicquot,” Chloe told me, an eye on the server.
“It’s a good thing you did,” I corrected her. I couldn’t take credit for that.
A slow murmur rippled through the crowd, and we turned to see a glamorous couple enter the gallery. My eyes widened in alarm.
“Holy crap!” I gripped Chloe’s arm, nearly making her spill her champagne. “What are they doing here?”
She paled as she surveyed the pair. “They didn’t RSVP,” she whispered.
“You invited them?” I hissed. My gaze—along with the rest of the women in the room—was still locked on the tall, dark, and sinfully handsome man that had entered the gallery. His magnetic presence seemed to suck the air from the room like the instant before a nuclear detonation.
My pulse ratcheted up a couple of notches as I studied him. His cheekbones were lethal, his strong jaw chiseled, and despite the suit, he sported an indecent amount of stubble. It was also impossible to miss the wolf-head tattoo climbing up his neck, just visible under his blazer collar.
“I invited Leo Marcelli—he’s a renowned art lover—but I thought he’d send an intermediary, not his immediate family,” she told me.
The woman with him had her arm intimately entwined with his, but I knew her to be his sister, Isabella Marcelli—a force to be reckoned with in her own right, if the tabloids were to be believed.
I didn’t know the family personally, but it was impossible to exist in New York without knowing who they were. The Marcelli empire extended from construction and property development to finance and politics. They were also rumored to be connected to the mob, although that had never been proven.