Free Restrike by Reba White Williams

peculiar scent—like the Straw Man in The Wizard of Oz —but who would have thought it would give Dinah hay fever? She reached in her bag for a tissue and an antihistamine pill. Her eyes were watering, too. She sneezed again.
    “We have a preliminary list of the prints we want. When you leave, Ms. Carswell will give each of you a copy. It’s a beginning—it includes a lot of obvious choices, but we don’t want to confine ourselves to the obvious.”
    Bain turned to Dinah. “For example, we’ll devote a large room to the history of US printmaking. We’ll want relatively unknown artists as well as the big names. I hope you have some nominations for milestones in your field. I understand you specialize in the history of colored printmaking?”
    Fanshawe-Davies barged in. “But surely the most important prints will be Old Masters?”
    “And, of course, contemporary prints—Jasper Johns, naturally,” another dealer said.
    Fanshawe-Davies sneered at the Johns advocate. “Surely negligible in the total scheme of things? Johns’s prints are important, of course, but when you consider them in the context of the total history of printmaking—well! Here’s my list of recommendations for the museum,” he said, handing a sheet of paper to Ms. Carswell. He launched into what turned out to be a long monologue. He discoursed on quality, availability, auction prices, and priorities. He was articulate and well-informed and he never referred to notes. He didn’t pause in his speech through the service of swordfish, salad, poached pears, and coffee. When anyone else tried to speak, he overrode them, and Bain, who seemed mesmerized, did nothing to stop the flow.
    Fanshawe-Davies ended his remarks just as Ms. Carswell looked at her watch, put down her coffee cup, and stood. Bain rose when she did, thanked them for coming, and Ms. Carswell ushered them out. Fanshawe-Davies was the only guest who’d said more than hello and goodbye. His timing was impeccable. He’d filled the available time exactly.
    Dinah walked downstairs to the ladies’ room to wash her face. She was dripping mascara and her nose was tomato-red. Worse, she felt like a fool. She hadn’t said a word. Maybe the looming failure of the Greene Gallery, and hearing Jonathan tell her every day she was unsuited to running a big gallery, had sapped her confidence more than she had realized.
    She blew her nose and powdered it, tidied her hair, put on fresh lipstick, and headed for the Fifty-Second Street door, looking forward to the haven of Cornelia Street, another antihistamine, and a long nap.
    Before she reached the doors, someone grabbed her arm. She turned, ready to smile a greeting, and cringed.
    “Maxwell Arnold! What are you doing here?”
    The man smiled. “What are you doing here? I eat at the Four Seasons every time I come to New York on business. Whenever I’m here, I inquire about you and your adorable cousin Coleman. I’ve never lost interest in the two of you, my dear, and I never will.”
    “Let me g-go!” Dinah whispered. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and ran for the door.
    In the taxi she struggled for control, and by the time she reached Cornelia Street, she could talk to Coleman without stuttering. “I ran into Maxwell Arnold at the Four Seasons,” she said when Coleman answered her cell phone.
    Coleman didn’t speak for a moment, then, “What did he say?”
    “Nothing. Well, he said he came to New York on business and he always asks about us.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Yes, but Coleman, it was the way he said it. He scared me.”
    “He’s scary because he’s crazy, but he can’t hurt either of us unless he catches one of us alone in the dark, and even then he’d have to have some of his bully-boys with him,” Coleman said. “What did he look like? Have his evil ways caught up with him? Or is he a Dorian Gray?”
    “There’s no justice—he looks pretty good. Still tall, of course, and not as heavy as lots of guys who