The Art Whisperer (An Alix London Mystery) by Aaron Elkins, Charlotte Elkins Read Free Book Online Page A

others that failed to meet monetized eyeball criteria, and the resultant shrinking of curatorial departments. It was also Clark who had engaged Endicott to handle the auction, and who was now negotiating terms and arrangements with them.
    Through all of this, so Alix had heard, Mrs. B had sat back as her Golden Boy implemented his twenty-first-century business marketing strategies. And to his credit (this was said grudgingly, with qualifications), the desperate financial circumstances that the Brethwaite, along with so many other non-profits, had found itself in with the recession had markedly improved since his arrival, and it appeared that the museum might actually be in the black again in the not-too-distant future.
    Nonetheless, it wasn’t Mrs. B’s nature to fade decorously into the background. Every now and then, Alix had been told, Clark would step out of line or get a little too pushy for her, and she would cut her senior curator to pieces as brutally as she would anybody else. This was a source of rare pleasure for the staff, and apparently, this was to be one of those mornings. She began without preamble.
    “Clark, before we get to the agenda—I’ve decided not to present to the board your proposal to include a graphic novel show to next year’s exhibition schedule.”
    “Oh, I think that might be a mistake, Mrs. B. The last time the Institute of Graphic Novels put a similar show on the road, six museums in California and Arizona took part, and the income it generated for each of them in a single month-long exhibition was equal to—”
    “There is more to museums than income generation, Clark, as important as that may regrettably be.”
    From the corner of Alix’s eye she saw Prentice’s chin dip in a barely perceptible nod of approval, and it brought to mind another remark of his—actually in one of his published essays—that had stuck with her through the years. “Income—profit—must never be the goal of an art museum, but only the means to higher ends. Otherwise, what exactly is the point? Self-perpetuation? There is a great difference between running a museum in a businesslike manner, which is a good and necessary thing, and running it as a business, which is neither.”
    “The heart of the matter,” Mrs. B went on, “is simply this: I am not having comic books on display alongside my father’s Audubons and Whistlers. It won’t do.”
    Clark threw back his shaggy blond mane for an airy laugh. “Graphic novels are a long way from your father’s old Superman and Captain America comics full of Bam! s and Pow! s, Mrs. B. They’re taught in literature seminars now, and reviewed in serious journals as the postmodern supra-literary constructions that they are. Nowadays, they’re rightfully seen as unique, sequentially generated narratives, which make possible levels of subtext that ordinary—”
    But Mrs. B refused to put up with the jargon. “I know what graphic novels are, Clark. They are strips of cartoonish, generally morbid drawings of people and talking animals with dialogue balloons over their heads. Otherwise known as comic books. And we are not having them at the Brethwaite.”
    She spoke with severity, snapping off the words, and Alix saw surreptitious satisfaction shine on the faces of Drew, Madge, and Alfie. Even Prentice looked discreetly pleased.
    “Mrs. B, they’d be in the temporary exhibition area, completely separate from the permanent collection. You wouldn’t even be able to see—”
    “Have I been unclear, Clark? I don’t believe I have been unclear. Does anyone else think I have been unclear? Pay attention now, Clark. We . . . are not having . . . that crap . . . in the Brethwaite. Would you like me to say it one more time—more slowly yet, so that you can grasp it in its entirety?”
    Wow, Alix thought, if Clark was supposed to be her favorite, he had it wrong; this really was one tough old bird.
    Clark’s cheeks flushed, but he managed to laugh it off