Page 123 of Portrait of an Unknown Woman

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Villa dei Fiori

Admittedly, it was the last name in the world that Gabriel had expected to come out of Magdalena Navarro’s mouth. An experienced interrogator, he offered no expression of surprise or incredulity. Instead, he turned to General Ferrari and Luca Rossetti, to whom the name meant nothing, and recited a redacted version of Phillip Somerset’s curriculum vitae. Former bond trader at Lehman Brothers. Founder and chief executive officer of Masterpiece Art Ventures, an art-based hedge fund that routinely returned profits of 25 percent to its investors. It was clear the general suspected there was more to the story. Nevertheless, he permitted Gabriel to resume questioning the suspect. He began by asking Magdalena to describe her evening at what was once Manhattan’s most celebrated restaurant.

“The food was awful. And the decor!” She rolled her beautiful dark eyes.

“What about your dinner date?”

“Our conversation was cordial and businesslike. There was nothing romantic about the evening.”

“Why the fancy dress and Cartier watch?”

“They were a demonstration of his power to transform my life. The entire evening was a piece of performance art.”

“You were impressed by him?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. I thought he was a cross between Jay Gatsby and Bud Fox. He was pretending to be something he wasn’t.”

“And what was that?”

“A man of extraordinary wealth and sophistication. A Medici-like patron of the arts.”

“But Phillipwaswealthy.”

“Not as wealthy as he claimed to be. And he didn’t know the first thing about art. Phillip gravitated toward the art world because that’s where the money was.”

“Why did he gravitate to you?”

“I was young and beautiful and talented, with an exotic name and Hispanic heritage. He said he was going to turn me into a billion-dollar global brand. He promised to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Was any of it true?”

“Only the part about making me rich.”

Phillip acquired Magdalena’s paintings almost as quickly as she could finish them and deposited the money in an account at Masterpiece Art Ventures. The balance soon exceeded $2 million. She left her studio apartment in Alphabet City and settled into a brownstone on West Eleventh Street. Phillip retained ownership of the property but allowed her to live there rent-free. He visited often.

“To see your latest paintings?”

“No,” she answered. “To see me.”

“You were lovers?”

“Love had very little to do with what took place between us, Mr. Allon. It was a bit like our dinner at Le Cirque.”

“Awful?”

“Cordial and businesslike.”

Occasionally Phillip took her to a Broadway performance or a gallery opening. But for the most part he kept her hidden from view in the brownstone, where she spent her days painting, like Rumpelstiltskin’s daughter at her spinning wheel. He assured her that he was arranging a splashy exhibition of her work, one that would turn her into the hottest artist in New York. But when the promised exhibition never materialized, she accused Phillip of deceiving her.

“How did he react?”

“He took me to a loft in Hell’s Kitchen, just off Ninth Avenue.”

“What was in the loft?”

“Paintings.”