ALL THIS TALK of the 1980s, and how poor we were and how we needed an economic miracle, just like now, takes me back to, well, the 1980s and how poor I was and how desperately I needed an economic miracle.
I’d been in New York City for a month, and I was out of work and about to be moved on from a friend’s apartment, where I’d been sleeping on the sofa. I had about two dollars left and was wondering whether to spend it on one last cheese blintz with sour cream at the Odessa cafe in Avenue A. Then the phone
rang.
A man called McCready introduced himself and asked me how things were progressing. He said he’d been told about my circumstances and that he might have some work for me. He didn’t say what kind of work, just gave me the address of a gallery in the East 90s and told me to bring my passport.
Two hours later, I had walked the 90 blocks to the gallery. Watching the city get into gear made me feel industrious; hungry too.
McCready took a long time to answer the door. When he did, I followed him up a narrow flight of stairs to his one-room private gallery. His movements were slow, complacent, a droll statement on the pointlessness of effort.
“Want to earn 200 bucks today?” he asked. “Nice simple assignment.”
“‘Sounds good,” I said.
“Hundred now, hundred
when you get back from
Washington.”
“I’m going to Washington?”
“On the next train.”
At the far end of the gallery was a screen with a sliding door. We stepped through into a chaotic mass of pictures. Something that looked like a Jackson Pollock was propped at an angle, its corner resting in a bowl of dog food.
McCready busied himself trying to extract a big bubble-wrapped parcel from the back of a pile. Finally, he yanked the package out into the open, sending several other pictures flying. He fiddled around with scissors, tape and a big label, on which he wrote the name of a US army general and the address: “Pentagon, Washington DC”.
“Picasso,” said McCready. “Valuable. That’s why I have to ask you to leave your passport. I don’t want to hear next week that it’s going to auction in Mexico.”
Must be worth a bit, I ventured.
“Tens of thousands.”
“The general’s buying it, is he?” I asked.
McCready couldn’t tell me. “Security issues,” he said.
It was a struggle for McCready and I to get the picture down the stairs and into the back of the taxi.
“You a painter?” the cab driver asked me. “You ought to work on a smaller scale. I can’t see what’s behind me.” We got to Penn Station, and the Picasso and I were on the train early, with a table to ourselves. The wrapped-up masterpiece had the two seats opposite me and sat shimmering in the sunlight as the magnificent American landscape flew by outside the window.
My long walk through Manhattan was beginning to catch up with me. Suddenly, I was in the middle of an anxious dream about riding a wild horse down narrow streets, pursued by tanks and shot at by rooftop snipers. Something crashed on to my head and I woke up to find the Picasso had toppled over. I fought the picture back into position. Like a big bored child, it flopped and swayed as the train sped along. But at least it was still there.
By the time we arrived in Washington, my mood was jumpy. I was hungry and I hadn’t been able to use the toilet because it wasn’t big enough to accommodate the masterwork I was lugging around. The words “security issues” came back to me; what did I know about McCready anyway? I hauled the Picasso into another taxi and headed straight for the Pentagon.
There were security checks at the entrance, and nothing seemed to be amiss. I waited in the outer office. Military types strode along the corridors, engaging in brisk conversations, checking wristwatches, changing direction abruptly like remote-control toys. On the walls were photographs of beaming service faces, a framed speech by some historical figure, a couple of wistful landscapes.
The general came racing through a door, perfectly postured, iron-faced, George C Scott in a hurry.
“You from McCready? Pleased to meet you. My picture? I’ll take receipt. Is it signed?”
“What?”
“The picture. Did he sign it?”
“Picasso?”
“Yes. Let’s have a look.” He took from an inside pocket an ivory-handled penknife and made a neat incision in the bottom right-hand corner of the bubble-wrap. A flap fell open to reveal Picasso’s signature in pale blue.
“Thank you,” the general said. “Ask one of these guys to get you a cab.” He skated back through his doorway, dragging the bedraggled package after him.
I got dropped off at a coffee shop, where I ate the cheese blintz I’d promised myself. I was revived. After a couple of hours in DC, I got the train back to New York, where McCready gave me the two $50 bills he still owed me.
“Free again tomorrow?” he asked. “Want to double your money? Go and get the picture back?” I didn’t understand. “See, I shouldn’t tell you really, because these people don’t like anyone to know their movements,” McCready said. “But it seems the general is having a dinner party tonight for a very prominent British royal couple. He decided his walls needed a painting to show he was a man of culture. For one night, the general poses as an art collector, and tomorrow you go down and bring his prize artwork back. And his pose is our gain.”