Philadelphia
At USArtists 2003, a John Frederick Peto painting entitled “A Dollar Bill” sold for $175,000

I.

The woman in the antiques shop watched me carefully as I touched her things. Dressed in ripped jeans and a shirt that wasn’t clean, I was obviously not the type to buy anything of value.
         “May I?” I said, reaching up to unhook a shadowbox. The woman looked suspicious, but she nodded.
         Inside the shadowbox hung an antique dollar bill, pinned like a butterfly. Series 1893. A creamy tan color, scuffed and wrinkled, touched by many hands. The lower right side curled under, making a little cave. Brass pins glinted from the top two corners. I wasn’t a collector of old money, but this had a soft, powdery look that caught my eye. From the left side of the dollar bill stared Martha Washington, tight-lipped and wary in her oval frame.
         “Fooled you, didn’t it?” said the woman.
         Looking up I saw her mouth pucker, a little smile. Then I knew why. What I saw was a near-perfect illusion. A pane of glass an inch or so over the painted dollar bill gave it a three-dimensional quality. Though I had been fooled, I was glad. What I held was much better than an old dollar bill. A sticker on the back showed the painting had been hung at a trompe l’oeil exhibit at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. I recognized the artist’s name: Peto. J.F. Peto. I looked for a price. There was no tag, nothing. My palms felt moist. “You know what you want for it?” I said, hoping.
         “Well,” she said, jabbing her finger at the painting as if there was something unwholesome about it, “You know it’s not real. You know it’s not a real dollar bill.”
         I gave her a dopey smile. Let her think I was a fool. Let her judge me for my clothes (I had been stripping furniture). After all, she was right: I had been fooled. Wasn’t that what made the painting good?
         “I don’t know,” she said, looking at me doubtfully. “I’ve got to get at least thirty-five.”
         Thirty-five, I thought. Thirty-five hundred. A bit high maybe, but it had to be. So much for stealing it for a couple of hundred. I stuck my hands in my pockets and sighed. “It’s worth it,” I said, “but I’ll have to pass.”
         The woman shrugged and put the painting back on the wall. I looked around quickly to see what else she had—oak dressers, silver plate, Currier & Ives prints, a stained glass lamp. Everything was ugly and expensive. As I headed for the door, she said, “All right. You can have it for thirty.”
         “Thirty?” I asked, turning.
         “Thirty dollars,” she said, making clear it was her final offer.

II.

“C’mon,” I begged. “Give me a break. All I want is thirty crummy bucks.”
         Kate, my ex-girlfriend, shook her head. “No way,” she said. “First you tell me you can’t pay me what you already owe. Then you ask for more. When are you going to grow up?”
         Kate was disgusted with me. She had begun to develop a healthy resistance to the best of my schemes.
         “Dave,” she said, “you don’t borrow more money when you haven’t paid what you already owe.”
         “Right,” I said. “But I can’t pay what I owe until I borrow thirty dollars to buy that painting.”
         “I’ve heard this before,” she said, removing the scrunchie from her hair. She shook her head and her hair fell across her face like a damp curtain. “Look, I’m all sweaty from running. Why don’t you go so I can take a shower.”
         “Just look at this,” I said, sitting down and opening a hefty book I’d taken out from the library. “It’s called After the Hunt, and it’s got a chapter on John Frederick Peto. Look at these.” I flipped through the pages showing his paintings. “Kate, I’ve got until tomorrow to buy that thing, and you’re the only one who can help me.”
         This was probably true. I doubted my boss would give me an advance on Friday’s paycheck so early in the week, especially since I worked part-time as needed, and I might not even earn that much. Kate already knew this from past emergencies.
         “What happens if I give you the money?” Kate said flatly, looking tired.
         “I buy it,” I said.
         “And after that?”
         “I sell it.”
         “Oh yeah? Where? Here in Moscow, Idaho? Fat chance.”
         “I’ll do research,” I said, beginning to feel desperate. “You see the guy who wrote this book?” I pointed at the flyleaf with the author’s photo. “I’ll write to him and find out where to sell it.”
         “Alfred V. Frankenstein,” Kate said, reading the bio. “What kind of name is that?”
         “It’s a great name,” I said. “A famous name. According to this, he used to be curator at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor, and that’s where the Peto painting was exhibited, along with a bunch of others.”
         “I don’t know, Dave. It’s not that I don’t trust your aesthetic sense. But if I give you money now, I know it’s just the beginning.”
         “The beginning of something different this time, something big. This is the real thing. This is luck.”
         “Not for me, Dave.”
         “For us both. You’ll see. I’ll sell it and make enough to pay you and get back into school and start over again. Whose fault is it I’m poor?”
         “Not mine. For one whole year I kept you going.”
         “Thanks,” I said, and it came out bitter. Kate had a trust fund of thirty grand a year. What did she know about not having money? Besides, her investments with me had brought her profits. Well, sometimes. “Thank you very much,” I said.
         “This is my thanks,” she said. “You here asking for more.”
         “Thirty dollars, Kate. And for that I’ll give you ten percent.”
         “Ten percent of nothing.”
         This was making me depressed. Here was this attractive, intelligent, wealthy young woman telling me to buzz off. Here was somebody I’d been the best of friends with, then a lover, and now this. “You’re wrong,” I said, “but okay, all right, forget it. I’ll let you go.”
         I got up and put the book under my arm, but before I made it to the door she unclasped her purse.
         “Mozart to my ears,” I said. I couldn’t help myself.
         “Oh Dave, you’re such an ass. Here—” and she handed me two twenties.

III.

To talk about money honestly is always risky. With most people, once you begin to strip away the surface of venality, you expose deeper, ever more pungent layers of the same. Or worse. Perhaps this was the case with me. It was true that my life had prepared me for the enjoyment and appreciation of fine things: I had attended a private college in the East on a full scholarship; had studied in London at the British Film Institute; had won a partial scholarship to study art history at the University of Idaho. But at age twenty-four I could not travel, live in a decent apartment, buy a used car, or keep anything of value. I could not afford to stay in graduate school beyond the first year, because the only part-time job I found was stripping furniture at a woodworking shop that paid minimum wage, where the fumes gave me such fierce headaches that it was nearly impossible to think.
         I wanted a chance to get ahead, to save, to escape from a nowhere job and no future. I wanted to invest in art that would sell for a lot more than what I paid. I didn’t want luxurious things for the sake of having them around so that I could feel sophisticated. I wanted a break. I wanted to climb out of the manure pit I called my life.
         To Kate, I was the ex-boyfriend from hunger. For a long time I had known that you can go to school with rich people, you can look like them, dress like them, and talk like them—you can even make love to them—but without money, you can never be one of them.
         I had to make a killing with the dollar bill.

IV.

The first thing I did was write to Alfred V. Frankenstein. What a lot of ribbing he must have taken when he was a kid, I thought as I typed the letter—though I loved his name. In the letter I said I had read his book and wanted to know if he had seen the painting I now had in my possession. “I am a retired stockbroker,” I wrote, “and I recently inherited this along with several other works of art from my mother in Chicago.” I enclosed a couple of photos taken with a Polaroid camera I’d borrowed from Kate. They were fuzzy, but I hoped they would do. I also indicated that although I had no real need for money, the painting might at some future date be for sale, and I asked whether he might recommend some reputable dealers who would want to buy it.
         While I waited for his reply I hung the painting above my bed in my one-room apartment. It had the same comforting effect that a glow-in-the-dark statue of Christ had on me when I was a kid. On sleepless nights I felt reassured when the lights of passing cars showed the painting was still there. Every day when I unlocked my door I checked there first to see if it had been stolen. The dollar bill remained where I had placed it, a kept promise that promised more with each passing day.
         A month later Frankenstein’s letter arrived. In it he apologized for the delay, saying he had been ill. Nevertheless, he was delighted to see the pictures of the Peto painting and, yes, he thought he remembered it from the exhibit in 1948. Then he wrote:

I’m sure you are aware of the recent, dramatic rise in the value of American art. This concerns me because it will be difficult for small or moderate-sized museums to acquire good paintings like the one you own.

He went on to say that anyone would be lucky to acquire a Peto, a Harnett, or a Haberle—all late 19th-century American artists famous for their skill at illusion—and despite today’s high prices it would be wonderful to donate such a painting to a museum trying to build a collection.
         Not wonderful for me, I thought.
         He added that if I could not do that, I should refer to the short list of dealers he enclosed. “Be aware that some dealers are unscrupulous,” he wrote. “A minority, certainly. But the names here rank among the best, and I’m sure they will make a fair offer.”
         I read the names and addresses. There were just three. All in New York City.
         “Sincerely yours, Alfred V. Frankenstein.”
         Now what do I do, I wondered. How much should I ask for? Do dealers make you an offer, or are you supposed to come up with a price?
         I sat down at a typewriter in the city library and wrote identical letters to each of the dealers:

A client recently paid a debt by giving me a small painting by John Frederick Peto. (Please see the enclosed photo with measurements). I have been in touch with Mr. Frankenstein of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who recommended that I write to you. I am interested in selling this painting to you and would like an estimate of its value.

         Then I waited. Two weeks passed and the nights became noticeably cooler. Still nothing. A couple of days later I accosted the mailman and asked if he’d seen anything for me from New York. He said he hadn’t, but as a special favor he would look out for it. Then on the fifth of October I saw a cream-colored envelope on top of the bundle he carried as he came up the front steps. He delivered everyone else’s mail, then handed me the envelope, saying, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Your precious letter.”
         It was from Lawrence Fishman at the K——— Galleries. He said he was interested in the painting but would have to see it first. “If you could make some arrangements to ship it to New York at your convenience,” he wrote, “I would then be able to discuss the painting with you.”
         “See,” I said, showing Kate the letter. “This guy Fishman wants to buy it.”
         “He wants to discuss it with you,” Kate said. “That’s hardly buying it. He doesn’t even tell you what it might be worth.”
         “But he wants it,” I said, feeling less and less convinced. “All I have to do is ship it to him.”
         “You do and he’ll offer you squat,” Kate said. “Once he’s got it, it’s his. He’ll tell you he can only give a hundred for it, and then if you refuse, you’re stuck paying him to ship it back.”
         I hadn’t thought of this.
         Kate scowled. “Where are you going to get the money for that?”
         I looked at her entreatingly.
         “No way,” she said. “You’ll have to settle for the hundred bucks.”
         “Even so, I’ll make at least fifty.”
         “Big deal,” Kate said. “Besides, you don’t even make that.”
         “Huh?”
         “You owe me forty, Dave. What I gave you to buy the thing. Forty plus whatever it costs to ship it one way. So you make practically zip, which means you lose.”
         “I lose if you’re right.”
         “You lose if you sell yourself short.”
         “So,” I said, brightening. “You believe in this thing now?”
         “I don’t know,” Kate said. “I think this man is trying to play you for a fool.”
         “Great,” I said. “Why?”
         “Because he wants it,” Kate said. “For nothing. That’s why he never said what the painting was worth. Not even a rough estimate. Only a fool would send it to him.”
         Maybe she was right. But it didn’t bother me because I could see we agreed about the most important thing. Fishman wanted it. I should not sell it short. I had been right all along. The painting was really worth something.

V.

“Bonus,” said the mailman, handing me two letters. “New York loves you, baby.”
         Coming as it did from a man in his forties who still wore a ponytail, this did not surprise me. I wiped from my hands what was left of an egg salad sandwich and took the letters up to my room. The one from James Maloney had a plain envelope with my name misspelled on it; the other, from H——— & A—— Galleries (American Department), was a bit more impressive, owing to a nice logo with a drawing of the building.
         I tore them open and read each as if they were letters from God. The one from H——— & A—— said basically the same thing as Fishman’s letter. Their buyer, Stuart I. Fell, wrote:

I would suggest that the best thing for you to do would be to have the painting carefully packed and send it to us via Emery air freight. At that time we will be able to give you a precise idea of the value of the picture, which is, I should think, substantial.

         Thanks a lot, I thought.
         Maloney’s letter, on the other hand, offered specifics. I stopped when I reached the line on the crisp paper where he wrote “I would be prepared to offer you somewhere in the range of ten to fifteen thousand for it.”
         I dreamed of what money like this could do for me. In the weeks while I waited for these letters my poverty had become more and more acute: I had barely enough for rent and the cheapest food. At night I felt suffocated lying awake in the small hot box that was my room, thinking perhaps the diet of macaroni and cheese was starting to get to me. I wondered if I was the only one who didn’t realize I was a fool. Maybe I was wasting Kate’s cash with another hare-brained scheme. Self-doubt was poisoning me, like the methylene chloride I used to strip paint from furniture. I stared at the dollar bill, alternately loving and hating it. To have no money was to be a slave, I thought: to have nothing, to be nothing. The dollar bill behind the glass in the frame mocked me: it was money, yes, but not a cent I could spend.
         Now this. Ten to fifteen grand. I ran to the payphone to call Kate. “I’m in luck—no, you’re in luck,” I said. “We’re in luck together.”
         “Yeah, right, Dave,” she said and yawned. “It’s too early for this.”
         “It’s ten-thirty-three,” I said, worried she’d been out late with someone—was perhaps with him now. “Ten to fifteen thousand,” I said in a more neutral voice: Mr. Business. “Maloney offers ten to fifteen. Which means it’s probably worth more.”
         Kate failed to perk up. “Hmm,” she said.
         “I’m flying to New York,” I said. “To sell it.”
         I could hear the sound of sheets shifting. A rustling and a creaking. Her body alone, I hoped. Muffled talk. Feet hitting the floor. “Look, I’ll call you back,” she said.
         “I’ll need a plane ticket,” I said. “Plus money for clothes.” It sounded as if Kate was moving around, becoming distant. “And food,” I said loudly. “And cabfare.”
         I heard a click, then the dial tone.
         “Thanks,” I said to no one. Even so, I felt ecstatic. Things were going to be easier now, brighter.
         A couple of days later I found a letter with no stamp in my mailbox. In it was a typed note from Kate saying she was sorry but enough was enough and from now on I was on my own. She said we had nothing to say to each another anymore; she didn’t want me calling or stopping by or even saying hello on the street. The only condition that could return me to the status of a human being in her eyes would be me paying my debts. These debts were itemized at the bottom of the page, the dollar figures rounded off, and for the first time I realized that all I would probably ever amount to with her was a negative balance. Charm, kindness, strength of soul, intelligence, a sense of humor, good looks, or whatever else I might possess just didn’t matter.
         “You’re on your own,” she wrote, and as I read it over again I knew she was right.
         “Morning, ace,” the mailman said as I stood in the littered hallway by the broken mailboxes. “Nothing for you today.” I looked up and saw in his bemused expression what other people saw when they looked at me. I went upstairs and washed my head in the sink at the end of the hall, shaved, picked out a clean undershirt, and resolved to do what I had to do. VI.
         What happened next is something I’m not proud of. If you are born a slave, I suppose there is no special dishonor in behaving like one. Even so, I hated it.
         I went to Kate. I knocked on the door and sure enough she was with somebody new. He was thirtysomething, bored and superior, perhaps amused to see me at the door begging to have a private word with my former banker.
         To get rid of me, to quiet my pleading, she stood in the hallway and wrote out a check that I solemnly promised to pay back, and if I had owned anything other than the painting, I would have gladly given it in exchange.
         “Here, don’t blow it,” she said, retreating toward her door without looking at me.
         For me, especially then, to write a check for four hundred dollars would have been momentous. But if you are rich, it is easy. It means nothing. It is a way to get rid of someone.
         Nevertheless I was grateful. I had enough to buy a one-way plane ticket, plus some left over. I had a friend who was eking out a living selling Amway products in Queens. I could stay with him. I needed some decent clothes, so I went to the Salvation Army and bought a suit that almost fit and looked good if I held my hands over the frayed spots. I also found an old leather briefcase that was just right to carry the painting in. After getting a twelve dollar haircut I felt ready for New York.

VII.

When I arrived at my friend’s dinky apartment in Queens, I called the dealers and made appointments. I was in luck: all three could see me the same day. At eleven in the morning was Stuart Fell; Fishman at two, then Maloney at three. I went to bed on a fold-out sofa and lay awake all night thinking about the strange turns my life had taken. I had always been hopeful, despite all the reasons not to be. I believed that if I were put before a firing squad, someone would ride up seconds before the bullets tore through my body and save me. I believed that the first, lousy part of my life was payment for a better second half. I believed that if I worked hard and showed talent and had a little luck, someone would reward me. I believed I would sell the painting and buy a return ticket and pay Kate for everything and start all over again in school. I stood at the threshold of a new and glorious life.
         I woke to a drizzly dawn. The subway was a brisk walk from my friend’s apartment. As the train snaked its way along an elevated section of track, rain began to make long streaks on the dirty glass. I saw a fleeting reflection of myself: a severe, white-faced kid in a tight suit. The city looked overwhelmingly gray, industrial, full of people with their collars turned up, hunched under awnings, or running in the rain. I sat clutching the briefcase under my arm, feeling strangely at home as I moved through this ugly yet exciting landscape.
         In the past my reaction to large cities had always been the same: they were something I had to endure, steel myself against, survive. I was always a scared rabbit in the middle of a highway. But this time I was here to carry out an important mission. The painting hidden in the briefcase was a talisman that would protect me. This time I had something good that I could sell to the best dealers in New York—one of them, anyway. I would sell it to one of the most reputable dealers in the nation, perhaps the world. It seemed like a sure thing.
         The train plunged into a tunnel. I affected the same disinterested, sleepy gaze I saw on the faces around me. When I finally came to my stop I got to my feet and moved confidently onto unfamiliar turf, as if this were something I had done every day.
         Five minutes to the appointment at H——— & A—— on East 70th Street. As I ran two steps at a time up the subway stairs to the street, I saw people coming down with blown, wet hair and streaming coats. This didn’t prepare me for what happened as I merged with the crowd outside. The wind turned my umbrella inside out and broke one of the ribs. Instantly I was soaked.
         At the gallery door a few minutes later, the woman who buzzed me in smiled brightly. I grinned back even though I didn’t feel like it. When she got on the phone to call Stuart Fell, I saw her exchange glances with another woman, who did not bother to hide her smirk. The two were beautifully dressed. Stuart Fell then swept into the elegant hallway like a giant black butterfly and said smilingly, “My, my. You do appear to have been deluged.”
         He led me into a large room stacked floor to ceiling with paintings. “Allow me to apologize for the appearance of my office,” he said pleasantly. “So many paintings, so little time.” He fluttered one hand toward a small couch in the center, where I sat down, awed by the sheer volume of artwork, impressed by his polished manner and superbly tailored black suit, and comforted by his obvious interest in what I had. The whole time he did not take his eyes off the soaked briefcase under my clammy arm.
         He sat down next to me, saying, “You won’t mind, will you, Mr. McIlvey, if I tell you I’m surprised to find that you are so young.” He seemed young as well—at most thirty-five or forty. I watched him place his sleek, long-fingered hands together and hold them as if in prayer. “From your letters,” he said, “I thought you would be, well, older. This is a compliment, you understand. A high compliment. You write a very good letter.”
         “Thank you,” I said, pleased with my ability to deceive. At the same time I was intensely aware of my appearance. Here there was no possibility of deceit. My coat lapels had curled and my tie had puckered. From my wet wool suit came a heavy, doggy odor. All that was missing were burrs on my pantlegs and a sign that read “Hick.” I placed the briefcase on my knees and snapped it open. “Here it is,” I said, hoping to keep him distracted.
         “Oh,” he said. “Oh yes.” I tried to pick it up to hand it to him, but he was fast. He plucked it off my lap. His fingers caressed the wood frame. He held it up and turned it over and examined every part of it quickly and thoroughly, all the while saying things like “Oh yes, yes, very nice. Good. Just as you described it. Yes.” Mr. Fell tapped the brown paper covering on the back of the frame. “Has anyone removed this?” he asked hopefully, raising one arched eyebrow.
         “Haven’t touched it,” I said.
         “Do you mind,” he said breathlessly. “I love to be the first inside a painting.”
         “Be my guest.”
         He drew a scalpel along the edges of the frame and skillfully freed the rectangle of paper. Beneath it, in bold script on the back of the painting, was the title: A Dollar Bill. “Ah,” Fell said. “Excellent. Now, what do you have in mind?”
         This puzzled me. So far, except for my looking like a piker, things had gone pretty well. “I’d like to sell it.”
         “Yes, but how?”
         “I would like to sell it to you,” I said, confused.
         “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Fell helpfully. “Would you prefer to sell on consignment?”
         I felt a surge of fear. Was I blowing it? “Consignment?” I asked.
         “Yes. We could put this in our gallery. When it sells, we send you the money, minus our percentage.”
         “I would prefer to sell it outright,” I said.
         “I see,” said Mr. Fell, smiling politely. “How much would you like for it?”
         I remembered what he had written in his letter: the value of the painting was “substantial”—whatever that meant. Thinking of what Maloney had estimated, I decided to aim high. “I want fifteen thousand for it.”
         The effect could not have been worse if I had farted.
         “Mr. McIlvey,” Fell said. “Fifteen thousand is out of the question. It is a fantasy. Perhaps if we kept it here on consignment, we might be able to sell it for twelve thousand, but—”
         “What if I sold it to you now?”
         “That is a different proposition,” Fell said, becoming chummy again. “I could, I suppose, offer ten thousand.”
         Ten grand. Right away. Money I desperately needed. But what about the other two appointments? Could I get more? “Mr. Fell,” I said, glancing at my watch. “This is a generous offer. I need to think about this. I would like to have lunch and call you back later this afternoon.”
         Mr. Fell leaned forward and said very close to my face, so close that I could smell his hot breath, “Mr. McIlvey, you may call me. But I warn you. Every day I spend a great deal of money. I will buy many paintings today. I have only so much to spend. Should you call back this afternoon, I may not have ten thousand for you. I may only have five.”
         “I see,” I said, placing the painting back into the briefcase and getting up unsteadily. Mr. Fell also rose. “Thank you for your time,” I said, feeling nauseous.
         “Mr. McIlvey,” Fell said, taking my hand. “A pleasure to meet you. Good luck. Oh, and I know where you’re going.”
         I stopped and stared.
         He was smiling. “The art world in New York is surprisingly small,” he said. “Very small.” He looked at me significantly.
         “Thank you, Mr. Fell,” I said. And I walked out into the pouring rain.

VIII.

Lunch was out of the question. The best I could do was to drink a cup of coffee. I took a stool at a tiny, crowded coffee shop with steamy windows. The coffee warmed me, and when the waitress came back to offer refills, she asked if I wanted to order lunch. I told her no. “Look,” she said, “no offense, but somebody who wants to eat could use this spot.”
         In my pocket was enough for the subway back to Queens, plus seventy-five cents for the coffee and a quarter tip. I got up.
         If you had seen a miserable young man in a bagged-out suit under an awning that wet October day, it could have been me. Or it could have been a thousand other slaves of the city. After wandering for a couple of hours in the rain without an umbrella (I’d thrown it in the gutter before the first meeting) I finally arrived at the gray, art deco facade of K——— Galleries on West 57th Street. My shoes squished as I walked into a red-carpeted vestibule. Two or three guards stood next to a metal-detecting machine like the ones at airports. I prepared myself for the phony niceness I’d been treated to at my first appointment.
         “What do you want?” said one of the guards, stepping up to intercept me.
         “My name is McIlvey,” I said, wiping moisture from the briefcase. “I have an appointment with Mr. Fishman.”
         The guard picked up a phone. Then he told me to walk through the metal detector. “Elevator to the right,” he said without looking at me. “Fifth floor.”
         The inside of the building contrasted sharply with the first gallery. It seemed like a converted factory. The halls were long, wide, and brightly lit. Exposed plumbing and electrical wires hung from the unpainted ceilings. Going up in the rumbling elevator, I wondered if I had the right place. The fifth floor hall was empty, cavernous, and quiet, like a deserted subway platform.
         I was looking for a restroom when I saw a door with a plaque on it: “Lawrence Fishman.” It was already past two so I knocked. No answer. I knocked louder. Nothing. I tried the knob. It turned, so I went in. A middle-aged woman with earphones swiveled in her chair and stared at me. “Yes?” she said.
         “I have an appointment with Mr. Fishman.”
         “Does Mr. Fishman expect you?”
         “I’m David McIlvey,” I said. “Didn’t they call up?”
         She shrugged. “Mr. Fishman took it.”
         “No!” I heard from behind a big brown door. “No, no, NO!”
         “He’s off the phone,” the secretary said, glancing at the dead light on her console. “You may go in.”
         I passed into an office with nothing at all on the white walls, not even curtains. A short, fat man sat scowling behind a desk. He wore a green shirt open at the neck, the shirtsleeves pulled back to expose hairless arms. An unlit cigar plugged the corner of his mouth. His lips were huge.
         Even though I was soaked to the skin and chilled, I began to sweat. He looked like a frog.
         “Mr. Fishman,” I said, giving my name and reaching across the desk. Grudgingly, he took my hand. His fingers were stubby, but his arm was thick and muscular.
         “You’re the one with the Peto,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
         I thought I should stop worrying about what Stuart Fell had told me. No way could this man be his friend; no way could they be from the same art world, no matter how big or small; no way could they even be from the same planet. “Show me,” Fishman said.
         He reacted with a series of approving grunts, turning the painting over and examining the signature, then holding it at arm’s length to gauge the trompe l’oeil effect. Whatever his thoughts, he kept them to himself. “What do want for it?” he said at last.
         “You mean on consignment?”
         He frowned and opened the palm of his hand. “No, now. What do you want?”
         I didn’t hesitate. “Twelve thousand.” I figured this was reasonable, given what Fell had said.
         “Twelve? I’ll offer you eight. It’s not that terrific.”
         “I need twelve thousand,” I said.
         “Eight,” he croaked. “Take it or leave it.”
         Eight in the hand, I thought, quavering. Should I take it? Would Fell offer as much now? He said he might give me only five if I called back. And what about Maloney?
         “May I think about it?” I said.
         “Go ahead,” Mr. Fishman said. “Think. But you call me later, I’ll offer you four.”
         “I’ll need to think about it.”
         Mr. Fishman flashed an unfriendly smile that said I was being stupid. “I know where you’ve been,” he said.
         I stared at him. He levelled his eyes at me.
         “And I know where you’re going.”
         My mouth went dry. “Thanks, Mr. Fishman.”
         “Well?”
         “I’m going to think about it.”

IX.

The last address was on East 74th Street. The rain had tapered off but my feet felt swollen and raw. Maloney was my last chance, though by now I knew the game was rigged.
         I stopped in front of a four-storey brownstone wedged between glass and steel buildings. After re-checking the address, I hobbled up to the tall double doors.
         “Oh yes, come in,” said the metallic voice through the intercom. The lock buzzed like an angry bug.
         I entered a dark hallway with a flight of stairs that rose steeply. When I reached the top an attractive woman greeted me and said, “I’m Patricia. Mr. Maloney is with someone now. May I get you something?”
         “A towel,” I said.
         She buttoned her sweater; looking at me seemed to give her a chill. “Be right back,” she said. I noticed through an opening between doors a young man sitting comfortably and talking to someone I couldn’t see—someone with a confident, booming voice: Maloney, I guessed. Maloney seemed to be advising him about the art business. He talked about auctions and dealers and how good art was getting harder to find. From what I could see, the walls bristled with paintings. One, a small canvas called “Which Is Which?” stood out because I had seen it in Frankenstein’s book. It showed two stamps side by side, a real one and a painted one. The real stamp had faded, but even from a distance the fake was as bright as a strawberry.
         Patricia returned with a fluffy towel. “Would you like something to drink?” she said pleasantly. “Some tea or sherry?”
         “Tea,” I said, playing it safe.
         While she prepared the tea I wiped my face and looked in a mirror. My flattened hair hung in wet bangs. I looked like Moe of the Three Stooges.
         “Ah, Mr. McIlvey!” Maloney said, bursting into the room before I could fix anything. “So glad to see you!” He was a large, bald, athletic-looking man who wore a tennis shirt and jeans with holes at the knees. He grasped my hand so hard my knuckles cracked. Before I had a chance to put the towel down he led me into a book-filled room he called his study. “Patricia and I have been looking forward to this,” he said happily. “Have a seat.”
         I sat on the towel.
         When Patricia gave me the tea, the cup and saucer rattled noisily in my hand. Patricia glanced at Maloney: pity, or conspiracy, I wondered. I imagined the two of them together with Fell and Fishman in some restaurant, having drinks and talking about the piker coming to town; how by the time I arrived here, I would be so beaten down that no matter what Maloney offered, I would have to take it—or walk back to Idaho. They knew the truth about me: I was desperate.
         “You’ve brought the painting,” Maloney said, eyeing the briefcase. With a mixture of hope and dread, I handed it over.
         Watching him pull it out and carefully study both sides with Patricia looking on, I had a strange reaction. After being handled by Fell and Fishman, and now Maloney, the painting seemed to have lost something. It seemed smaller somehow, degraded. It was less mysterious, as if it had been opened up and emptied of its secrets.
         “I like it,” Maloney said, finishing his inspection. “I really like it.” He held it out to Patricia. “Look what Peto does with light here,” he said. “It’s direct and simplifying, like sunlight. Look at the etched shadows behind the pins. Isn’t it great? Isn’t this fun!”
         “Oh, yes,” said Patricia.
         “Fun?” I thought. What did that mean? That the painting was a trivial kind of game? Did that make it worthless? “So what are you saying?” I said. “That it’s just a joke?”
         “A joke? Hardly,” Maloney said. “There’s play here, yes: Peto conceals as much as he reveals. But what I’m talking about is in the tradition of vanitas still lifes: I see it as a meditation on the mortality of things.”
         “Oh,” I said, feeling like a fool.
         “Look,” said Patricia, taking the painting from Maloney’s hands. “The dollar bill is dated 1893, and here by the signature it says ‘94. That means it was practically new when he painted it. But look how ancient it is, all torn and worn out and ragged already.”
         “And what does that tell you?” Maloney said, smiling.
         I looked at him blankly.
         “That Peto loved an experienced surface,” Patricia answered.
         “That all is vanity,” Maloney said, leaning toward Patricia. “It isn’t the dollar bill that matters, because a dollar bill doesn’t last. It cannot last. The dollar bill isn’t even the subject here.” Maloney’s voice became intense: “You see, he’s trying to connect us to something much bigger, so from a fixed point in time he aims at timelessness, and out of a common, everyday object he creates the eternal.”
         “Peto was a poet,” Patricia said, respectfully handing the painting back to Maloney.
         “Have you checked it with a black light?” Maloney asked me. “Peto often painted over old work without scraping it down.”
         “No,” I said, a bit disappointed to return to earth so abruptly. All this was so different from what I had experienced with Fell or Fishman that I almost forgot I was there to sell something.
         “Then we will,” Maloney said. He reached over to a desk and opened a drawer. Patricia turned off the table lamp closest to us. Maloney held a small flashlight device that glowed purple when he switched it on. “Ah, pentimento,” he said, and both his and Patricia’s eyes grew sparkly in the weird light.
         Together we saw a ghostly image of another dollar bill emerge cross-wise beneath the one I thought I’d known.
         “Well, Mr. McIlvey,” Maloney said, putting the black light away and pulling the chain on the table lamp. “Two for the price of one, you might say.” Smiling, he clasped his big hands on one knee. “So, what do you want for it?”
         I took the painting in my hands and admired the tan and lustrous dollar bill and the deep watery green behind it. Something was going on beneath its surface, whether it was what Maloney said or something else altogether. I sensed this the first time I saw it.
         “Twenty thousand,” I said.
         The words hung in the air.
         Maloney grinned. “Worth every penny.”

X.

I would like to say that this was the beginning of a long period of luck in my life. I certainly hoped so as I walked out with directions to Maloney’s bank on Madison Avenue, where the guard at the door let me in to buy traveler’s checks. The bank, though officially closed, cheerfully opened upon Maloney’s request: for him, a simple phone call. I would like to say that this was just the beginning of opened doors—for me. But to reverse the saying people use when someone loses a job or suffers a misfortune, one door opens, another closes. And though I felt triumphant as I walked down the broad street with the autumn sky deepening and the city grown mysterious and inviting, I realized that to belong in that neighborhood, to truly belong, I would have to do this over and over again. Until then the doors through which the bankers and lawyers and advertising executives strolled would be closed to me, a scruffy guy from out of town who got lucky, once. Even so, I was lucky; despite my appearance, I had money in my pocket and dreams. That, at least, was no joke, no illusion.
         I did not hurry home.

J.P. Maney has co-edited several books of short stories, including Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories, Sudden Fiction International, The Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, and A Celestial Omnibus: Short Fiction on Faith. He has published many stories in a variety of magazines such as Western Humanities Review, Green Mountains Review, American Fiction, and Confrontation. He is currently working on a novel about the antiques trade and makes his living as a dealer of art and antiques.