Chapter 7: Ghost Hand

Four new canvases arrived at the loading dock on Monday night.

Blair's name was on the crate.

The preparators carried them up to the old framing room on the second floor.

They would not meet my eyes.

"Hang them Wednesday," Blair told me over her shoulder. "Don't touch the surface."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

She left at seven with Rupert's driver.

By eight the building was empty and I was at the front desk with a flashlight and a plan.

I wanted to see the work.

Not to find a flaw.

I wanted to know what I was up against.

The studio door was unlocked.

I let myself in and turned on a single lamp.

The four canvases leaned against the wall, each one taller than I was.

They were night cities, dark blues and windows, and a lantern in each window.

I stood in front of them for a long time.

They were good.

They were technically very good.

But the lanterns were wrong.

The light came out even, flat.

A lantern should lean.

The paper breathes, the flame shakes, and the light spills sideways onto the sill.

These had been copied by someone who had never held a match.

A voice said, "Please don't touch it."

I turned.

A young man stood in the back doorway of the studio with a brush in one hand and a paint rag in the other.

He was maybe twenty-six, thin, with a smear of ultramarine along his jaw.

He had a sleeping bag rolled up behind him on the floor, and a camp stove.

"You live here?" I said.

"No. I mean, since Thursday. Her dealer's people moved me in to finish the rest."

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