Mystery at the Guggenheim
Lies, Betrayal, Lust, Stolen Art., A Dangerous Woman, A Man in Love, a Hunt for Stolen Art from New York to Germany.
Hilla is the grandniece of the fabulous Baroness Hilla von Rebay, Solomon Guggenheim’s partner in creating the Guggenheim Museum. Beautiful, fascinating, impossible to resist her beauty, wit, and sexual charm. She is also a thief.
Ann Carroll is the head of a global corporation that bears her family name, the owner of a priceless art collection. She suspects something. She’s not quite sure what Hilla really is after, and why she’s after her son. Ann is a formidable person, a dangerous foe.
Ann’s son, Joe Numa, cannot resist Hilla and her stories about her great-aunt and Peggy Guggenheim. Hilla tells him she is hunting for a lost watercolor of her great-aunt’s, the first abstract painting in art history. Joe and his girlfriend Christine are drawn into the hunt. They become a threesome.
Daniel Guggenheim is the head of the Guggenheim Museum. He is fascinated by Hilla and her ideas about the mystical origins of the Frank Lloyd Wright museum. He could not be more excited.
They are closing in the lost watercolor and the secrets of the Museum when . . .
But was Hilla ever really “Hilla”. Her captivating stories have gotten her access to the private collections of the wealthiest art collectors in New York and the Guggenheim warehouse.
Then she disappears, along with their priceless art. Now the hunt begins, the search for Hilla and those paintings.
“Members Monday Morning” at the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue, the crowd much smaller than the public hours. Joe was slowly working his way up the inclined spiral ramp, moving through a special showing of Solomon Guggenheim’s own purchases for the museum. He peered at a Kandinsky. A bright explosion of colors and forms. Swirling toward him from a space outside this one. Or from a place within the artist. Perplexing but fascinating. Lines and colors, he thought. Colors and lines. Lines and colors, signifying something. But what?
He glanced away from the Kandinsky, looking across the great void of the atrium, his eye settling on a girl a few levels above him, who seemed to be looking at him, but then glanced away. Guess not. Very attractive. He thought he remembered her in the cloakroom when he checked his jacket.
He turned back to the paintings, pausing before them, one by one, a few Maleviches. One was his famous red and black square. Then a diamond shaped Mondrian, a Kupka he thought he almost understood. Almost.
A girl was blocking his view of the next painting. He looked over her shoulder. She was staring at a delicate composition of red, yellow, and blue.
The girl was shaking. Rocking back and forth. “Something wrong?” he whispered. She spun around and wrapped her arms around him, her face on his shoulder, her body pressed against his. She looked up at him and blinked. He recognized her as a girl he had spotted looking at him across the atrium. Shoulder length blond hair. Dark eyebrows and lashes. The look and figure of a Russian tennis player. Black turtle-neck sweater and jeans. Eye-catchingly attractive. “Who are you?” she blurted, and her voice was completely American.
“Who do you think I am?”
She wiped her face on his blue cotton sport coat. “Somebody with my tears on his coat.” She gave his lapels her attention. She looked at him, with a grin, eyes full of mischief. “Some snot too. Sorry.”
“No problem.”
“I’m okay now. You can let go.”
He didn’t want to, but he released her. Reluctantly. “You still want to know who I am?”
“Okay.”
“My name is Joe. And don’t worry. Those aren’t the first tears on my jacket.”
“What about snot?”
“That too.”
“Oh, don’t tell me I’m in love with a philanderer?”
“Okay, I won’t tell you I’m a philanderer. And what’s this about being in love with me. That was quick.”
“That all depends on if you tell me if you’re a philanderer. I couldn’t love a philanderer.”
“Not saying.”
“Why not?”
“That’s my secret. I will tell you that I’m a wastrel.”
“Well then, you’re my first wastrel.”
“Probably not. Just the first one who confessed.”
“‘Scuse, me. My nose is runny again.”
“Don’t worry. They said this was stain resistant.”
“They say anything about a girlfriend’s nose drippings? And tears.”
“I don’t remember. What’s this about being my girlfriend? My real girlfriend might have something to say about that.”
“She’ll just have to suck it up. I’m your girlfriend now. Crying on your shoulder gives me some rights. By the way, nice shoulder.”
“Thanks. And what do I get out of being your boyfriend?”
“Not saying.”
“No kisses.? No hugs? No nothing?”
“Nope.”
“My other girlfriend is a better deal. By the way, I think what happened just now qualifies as a hug. How about another?”
She shook her head. “Does she know you’re a wastrel? Have you told her?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Then your relationship is based on a lie. Time for a do over with a girl who knows your secret shame. By the way, what’s a wastrel?”
“I’d say it’s someone who lives off his mother’s money. And does what he pleases.”
“And what pleases you?”
“You’ll have to get to know me a lot better.”
“Fine. You are my first self-confessed wastrel. Sounds like a great fit. You’re a wastrel and I wish I were one.”
“This all sounds too good to be true. I’ll have to tell mom I’ve traded the milky white cow for a magic bean.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“The milky white cow – my girlfriend. The magic bean – you. And by the way, my girlfriend is no cow.”
“This is the deal of your life.”
“I can tell this isn’t the first deal you’ve ever done. It’s my first magic bean deal.”
“Poor baby.”
“My mom told me a long time ago, Joe, you’re a rich kid, people are going to be coming to you with great deals. Before you sign, bring it to me so I can get in on it. So, let’s go see her tomorrow. You tell her what you’ve just told me. Ditch my girlfriend. No hugs. No kisses. Watch out, she’s a standard mom who thinks her boy shouldn’t be deprived, girl-wise. Just saying.”
“I can handle her.”
Joe took out a scrap of paper and scribbled on it. “Here’s her address. Tomorrow. Eight o’clock.
He walked over to the painting she had been crying over. Colorful spirals, a yellow oval angled to the right, ribbons of white, red, and blue lines swirling. “Hilla Rebay,” he read. “A Lost Memory of a Sudden Rush of Devotion in the Fourth Dimension, 1925.” He looked closer. It was actually a collage, tiny pasted pieces of colored paper.
Hmm, he thought. So that’s a lost memory. In the fourth dimension, no less. And it got her sobbing. She must know what it means. Interesting girl.