Free SoHo Sins by Richard Vine

There was about her a sense of arrival, of journey’s end. Fortunately, I was no longer susceptible to such treacherous myths.
    “But Amanda, for one,” I reminded our hostess, “might not have agreed with your view.”
    “No, she did not. She said she was going to take away the one thing Philip loved truly. His company.”
    “Did he tell his top brass about the threat?” Hogan asked.
    “Top brass? What is ‘top brass’?”
    “Those men around him—his false
consiglieri
, as you call them.”
    “Of course. They had to prepare, to protect. Like a war. They were making ready a big lawyer fight.”
    “You seem to know a lot about Philip’s business.”
    “No, nothing. I am too much like my father.”
    She laughed bitterly, but the humor was clearly lost on Hogan. He didn’t know what it meant for an old-fashioned museum director, especially a European intellectual like Enrico Silva, to face the transition to market-driven arts management.
    “My father calls himself a ‘displaced person,’ ” Claudia told Hogan. “You know what this means? Like a refugee. A man without a home or a future.”
    “Because he’s lousy at business?”
    “It is too cruel. When he was my age, Papa wrote a book on Fra Angelico. Three hundred pages. Such beautiful pictures, such beautiful words.”
    “And now?”
    “He only raises money. Without rest.”
    “Like most people, one way or another.”
    “He is not like most people. He should spend his time to think, to write, to make fine shows of the very best works—to be a man of culture. Isn’t that why they hired him?”
    I shook my head. “No, Claudia, they hired him for the semblance of those things. In order to attract trustees and big-money sponsors to the museum.”
    “It’s not fair. They want him to make a new building, to think a budget for ten years ahead, to be a ‘pro-active manager.’ You know what this is, this ‘pro-active manager’?”
    “Yes,” I said. “It’s something Enrico will never be.”
    Hogan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “If you married Philip Oliver, it would make your father’s life a lot easier,” he suggested. “He could be a man of culture again.”
    Claudia drew back slightly. “What do you say by this?”
    “How much longer until Papa is due to retire?” Hogan asked.
    “Seven years.”
    “A quick answer. You must have given his situation some thought.”
    “Now you talk like a stranger, like a policeman,” she replied. “It’s a pity.”
    Hogan laughed to himself. “I’m not suspicious by nature,” he said. “Just by experience.”
    “There, you see, Hogan is more European than he knows,” I joked awkwardly. I had that anxiety you get when you’re caught, a third party, in the middle of an old lovers’ spat. “Let’s just finish the wine,” I said, and poured all around.
    Claudia looked hard at Hogan. “You can ‘check me out’ all you want,” she offered. “Come back here whenever you like. Talk to everyone who knows me. In the end, you will decide I tell truths. I love my father, and I love Philip Oliver. Those are my crimes. Of everything else I am not guilty.”
    “I’m glad,” he answered.
    “Are you? Somehow I doubt.”
    “No, it’s true. It’s my fondest wish to find you, to find anyone, truly innocent.” Hogan forced a mild laugh. “At least it would break the monotony.” He raised his glass, waiting for us to join him. “
Buono, salute.
To the health of our friends.”
    “And the death of our enemies,” Claudia added.
    “I like this girl,” Hogan said, turning toward me. “She reminds me of my Marine drill instructor.”
    We drank down the last of the wine.

12
    A couple days later, Hogan and I went to see Philip at his office on 55th Street. The building lobby was two stories high and clad in green marble. A girl at the solid mahogany reception desk sent us up the express elevator to the forty-fifth floor. The doors opened onto another counter and another sleek