Henry Wood: Time and Again: by Brian Meeks Read Free Book Online Page A

china tea cup and two vases had fallen victim to Garneau’s rage. He circled the room yelling about incompetence, calling Arthur names and firing him…twice.
    The breakfast rampage lasted for close to an hour. Garneau worked up such a lather, he needed another bath. The French maid and Claude, upon hearing the ruckus, had curtailed their amorous activities. Claude went to find shelter in the car. The maid went to fill the tub for Garneau. He soaked until the water was lukewarm, then he bellowed out a command for more warm water. The poor maid needed to make two return trips that morning.
    “Hurricane Andre,” as Arthur sometimes called him, though not to his face, lost steam after a while and was downgraded to a tropical storm. Even Andre knew that his bluster was gone. So he dressed again, ordered Claude to come around with the car, and told Arthur they were going to visit the Matisse place.
    Claude knew the way to the gallery. When his boss needed to go someplace but didn’t have anything important to do, he would go to the gallery at 41 East 57th Street, in the Fuller building. Pierre Matisse, a talented artist, who was born in the shadow of his father, Henri Matisse, opened the gallery in 1931. The gallery was the site of Andre’s first legitimate art purchase, a piece by the surrealist, Paul Delvaux.
    They arrived, and Claude waited in the car. For an hour, Andre Garneau and Pierre shared a glass of wine and talked about art. Then he returned to the car and instructed Claude to drive to the church.
    The pieces of art which Andre had purchased from legitimate gallery owners like Pierre were nice, but they were just for show. The real treasures were locked in a secure room with perfect lighting, steady temperature, and a single velvet chair. He had three lost master works, which had disappeared during WWI, and two more which were presumed destroyed when the Germans rolled through Hungary. Knowing that people were searching for his treasures made owning them extra enjoyable.
    There were others around the world, who like to admire their own ill-gotten art, in tiny rooms. This group’s members knew of one another, but never met. A competitive club (some might say ruthless), but without each other, the game would be meaningless.
    Like any good sport, there needed to be rules. One of the rules was that notice would be given before visiting the “other gallery,”, as they referred to it.
    It wasn’t a gallery at all, but a cathedral, with a priest who was the intermediary.
    Each member of this club had established a trigger location. They would go there first and stay an hour. This would give the local eyes and ears time to “announce” the pending visit. The priest would then become available for “confessions.”
    Andre Garneau had chosen Pierre Matisse’s gallery for his trigger. It was the only place he could imagine spending an hour where he would not have looked out of place. He had considered choosing one of his favorite restaurants, but then he would have had to limit his visits.
    This was not acceptable.
    The thought had crossed his mind that he could choose a restaurant he did not like, but then he would have needed to endure an hour of dreadful dining, also a non-starter. He chose Pierre’s gallery because it was logical.
    The second rule was that the trigger location must not be “involved” in any way. Pierre was completely on the up and up, and would have objected had he known how he was being used. The semi-frequent purchases by Andre made Pierre’s the perfect place for him to be seen. Even Claude didn’t know that the gallery stop was associated with visits to the cathedral, because he had been driving Garneau there since long before it had become Andre’s trigger.
    Claude had noticed, however, that Garneau only seemed to go to confession after their visits to Pierre’s place. He never understood why, but assumed that Garneau was getting the better of the young Matisse, and was feeling a need