Caveat Emptor (14 page)

Gino began to get the word out among his millionaire friends that he was helping the Mob move some artworks stolen from museums and galleries in Europe. As predicted, they took the bait and wanted in on the action. Cloaked in secrecy—like under the Brooklyn Bridge at two in the morning—Gino would produce a “van Goyen,” but the customer had to be ready, usually with a couple thousand bucks in cash. Soon Gino was making sales to “rich broads” on Fifth Avenue and Garment District businessmen, with the proviso “You gotta bury the piece for twenty years.”

“But Gino,” I remarked after he'd made a few sales, “what if they find out it's a scam?”

“No problem,” he assured me. “I'll just break their heads.”

Gino was particularly agitated after the judge modified the court order. With his patience wearing thin, he was ready to take matters into his own hands.

“Kenny, let me tell ya somethin',” Gino said as he hunched over me in a confidential chat in a bar. “I'm gettin' sick of all this bullshit, ya understand?” I promised him that I did, as I glimpsed the strap of his shoulder holster beneath his jacket.

“So, what can we do about it?” I asked him.

Gino got down close to my ear. “Look, we put two gallons of rubber cement in that fuckin' furnace that heats the boiler downstairs, set the timer, and take a walk. When we come back, the place is a parking lot!”

“I don't know, Gino. Look, I just want to make money out of this whole thing somehow.”

“Okay, so listen to this,” he said. “I saw 'em filling up a storage room in the basement across from my room, with all kindsa stuff that businesses donate to 'em. They put a padlock on the door. We can bust in there tonight and see what they got.”

Equipped with flashlights and tools, Gino and I broke the lock and entered the storage room at two in the morning. At first it looked like a bust. There was nothing but cases of canned food and bags of rice. Gino started ripping open boxes, and he hit pay dirt. “Olive oil! There's a ton of olive oil here! I can move this shit!” he said. Gino had discovered box after box, each containing six gallons of imported olive oil. Before the night was over, we had boxes of olive oil stacked to the ceilings in the closets of our rooms.

A ferocious hatred grew between me and Mr. Levi, the director of the clinic. Levi was a creepy-looking guy who was in the habit of striking intimidating poses in the lobby just outside my door. He dressed in outdated mod clothing. His favorite ensemble consisted of a ghastly double-breasted suede overcoat that reached his ankles, leather boots, and a hat that resembled the kind worn by the Three Musketeers. His attire, I believe, fulfilled a romantic fantasy in which he cast himself as a courageous cavalier on a noble quest to defend his clinic and vanquish all his enemies.

Levi vowed to make my apartment his abode. I, in turn, told him to “fuck off” on every occasion. He saw me as the embodiment of all his troubles and was convinced that, if he could only get me out of the house, he would be on the road to victory. But this enmity hardly approached the contempt Roy had for Rubel, architect of the whole ridiculous scheme. An incompetent, middle-aged oaf, Rubel had a long nose that hung down in the middle of his fat, florid face in a way that made it look like the rear end of a baboon. He showed up in court wearing a cheap, ill-fitting overcoat and a dopey Russian hat of fake chinchilla that he twisted onto his head. As an added refinement, he carried a plastic attaché case that refused to stay closed.

Rubel was hopeless in the courtroom. Since he'd gotten Igor into this mess, he had no choice but to play it out to the end. He went on the offensive and brought a pathetic lawsuit against me, designed in his fertile imagination to get me evicted. After reviewing the papers, Roy was so appalled at the man's stupidity that he briefed me on a few simple points of law so that I could show up in court and get the case thrown out myself.

It just so happened that the day before I was scheduled to appear in court, Tony showed up, broke as usual. He was desperate to go to Boston with friends from SoHo for an important sculpture show that weekend. Again the subject of his selling a “Dutch” painting came up, but then I had another idea.

Having just sold a painting myself, I was flush, and sitting in the lobby of the Warren Club was an exceptionally fine seventeenth-century Italian credenza. Things had been known to disappear there, and under the present circumstances anything could happen.

Tony was taking a bath in my tub when I put it to him. “You want four hundred bucks?” His eyes grew big. “I'll tell you what. You know the club they have down the street, the Warren Club? Well, there's a small cabinet next to the Coke machine in the lobby that I want. You grab it, and I'll pay four hundred for it.”

The next day I went to the court on lower Broadway. It turned out that Rubel hadn't even brought his case against me in the right kind of court! Instead of landlord-tenant court, he'd brought the suit in small claims court. It was a rinky-dink affair where they handled dog bites and broken windows. The judge, who had long since gone crazy there, resembled a mad scientist, with a mess of gray hair and disheveled robes.

Rubel began by accusing me of all sorts of crimes, from destroying property to refusing to pay rent. With each charge Rubel made, the judge snapped his head toward me and glared through his Coke-bottle glasses. For a minute I began to get worried, but when the judge realized that Rubel was asking for an eviction, he blew his top.

“Mr. Rubel, you're in the wrong pew!” he yelled. “Why don't you go back to law school?” and he promptly threw out the case. Rubel turned purple with rage, slammed down a stack of papers, and began to yell at the judge. The judge threatened to have him arrested if he didn't shut up. As I left the courtroom, I looked back and saw the judge lean over the bench and scream at Rubel, “Now get outta here!”

As soon as I returned to the house, I was confronted by Ann and Raun, who were engaged in serious conversation outside my door.

“Did you hear what happened last night?” Ann excitedly asked as I approached. “Somebody went into the Warren Club and took a valuable piece of furniture. The police were over there and came here too!”

“Well, who took it?” I asked, turning pale.

“Oh, they don't know,” she said, “but some guy was seen running out of the lobby and diving into a Checker cab with it. The police asked a lot of questions and filled out a form.” Blood returned to my face, and I regained strength.

“Well, I hope they catch 'em,” I replied with outrage.

Then they wanted to know what had happened in court. As I opened the door to my rooms so we could talk in private, I looked down, picked up a folded note on the floor of the foyer, and slipped it into my pocket. I pretended to have to use the bathroom and pulled out the note. It read: “Got the piece at my place. Call me later. A.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Urban Survival

B
y the time spring came, things had quieted down. I loved the Upper East Side and Sixty-Eighth Street. I made many new friends, and the neighborhood held a lot of promise for me. I even saw Halston walking his dog most every day, and we began saying hello as we passed. Just knowing Roy was a huge asset. Despite his high-flying lifestyle, I was struck by how down-to-earth he was.

Roy invited me to hang out at his town house any time I liked, giving me carte blanche with the telephones, sundeck, showers, and even the occasional use of his limo and comedian chauffeur, who could pass for a rabbi, for errands around town. The atmosphere there was exciting, even addictive. Roy was addictive. I never knew who I might meet there or who Roy might introduce me to. And he wasn't shy about putting me to work. He always needed something delivered, something picked up, or something done at the house. Once he had me stationed at his place all weekend just to hand an envelope to a couple of scary-looking guys who showed up in a flashy car. Sometimes he'd stop by with a friend or two to look at my paintings. He'd get my attention by standing out on the sidewalk and throwing quarters at my window. I'd look out, and Roy would be standing there with a large scotch in his hand.

Roy was diabolical, but very funny, and never lost an opportunity, no matter what the circumstances, to use his dry New York humor to crack me up. Once I got a postcard from him when he was in Europe. It pictured a fabulous palace, something like Versailles. On the back, Roy had scribbled, “I found this place over here. Do you think we could interest Encounter in it?” One evening I went to a gallery reception with him and Dave on Fifty-Seventh Street. I found myself with a group of people in evening dress gathered around a painting. Basically it looked like some slime smeared around a canvas, but everyone was trying to look thoughtful and take it seriously. Roy sidled up next to me and whispered in my ear, “What kind of bullshit is this?”

Roy's power was astonishing. On one occasion I found out what just a letter from him could do. When I had moved into the Fergusen Club, I placed my beloved Army Jeep in dead storage in a garage at the west end of Fifty-Seventh Street. Months passed, and when our situation stabilized and things quieted down, I decided to get it out of storage and park it locally so I could drive it around again. I went over to the garage, entered a dirty little office, and presented my receipt for the car to a tough-looking manager seated behind a desk.

He took a long time looking at the wrinkled-up piece of paper. He shook his head and informed me he couldn't release the car with this. He wanted to see a title (which was at my parents' house in Florida), he wanted a registration, he wanted my driver's license, and on and on. But no matter what I came back with, it still was no good. Finally I got angry and started yelling, but it seemed that's just what he wanted. He ran up to me and yelled in my face, “Now, listen, if you know what's good for you, you'll get the fuck outta here! And I don't want to see you here again!” He shoved me right out to the street.

Walking back home and thinking about the situation, it occurred to me that every time I went back to the garage, I noticed a young punk who looked like the manager's son hovering in the background and taking everything in. I began to suspect that the kid wanted the Jeep and the old man was going to see if he could get rid of me. I had once heard that many of the city's garages are Mafia operations, and they have no trouble getting new papers for a vehicle. The old man sure looked like a wise guy to me.

I thought I would call Gino, but the next day I was at Roy's and mentioned the situation to him. “Go see Scott,” Roy said casually. “Bring your receipt along, and tell Scott to make up a letter, and I'll sign it.” Scott, a partner in the firm, composed a letter that politely requested the Jeep be released to me, their client, at once. It was signed “Roy Cohn.” A few days later, I got a call from Scott. “Ken, you can go and pick up your Jeep anytime.”

There was never a dull moment, and there were always people dropping in. Some of my new friends were people I met at Roy's. Others I met in the neighborhood. And sometimes via circumstances that only happen in movies.

Around the Upper East Side, it's not unusual to see cover-girl models on the street, but every so often you see one so stunning that you feel like passing out as she walks by. Just such a girl lived in my immediate neighborhood, and occasionally I'd pass her on Madison Avenue. She had sandy blonde hair with hazel eyes and was of course pencil thin. Every head turned when she passed by.

One afternoon, I was painting in my room with the music playing when I heard a knock at the door. I went over and swung the door open, expecting to see one of my friends. Instead, there in front of me stood
that
girl. Not only was I not dreaming but, even better yet, she was a damsel in distress! She introduced herself as Alexandra King and explained that she and two other girls (all models) shared an apartment just around the corner on Madison Avenue. She had heard of me in connection with the legal case we were embroiled in and wanted my opinion on a document that she had just found posted on her apartment door. Of course I invited her in, and, being an expert on the subject, took a look at the document. Unfortunately, I had to inform her that,
unlike
the eviction notice that was attached to
my
door, this was the real thing, a genuine court order signed at the bottom by a judge.

“What this means,” I informed her, “is that your landlord can enter the premises at any time, remove your possessions, and lock you out!”

“You mean we could be thrown out at any time?” she exclaimed in alarm. I told her it was so and offered my help without reservation. She thanked me profusely and fled.

Two hours later, there was another knock at the door. Alexandra was back, this time with one of her roommates. Sure enough, they were being evicted. We ran around the corner to Madison Avenue, where a big truck was double-parked in front of their apartment house. The moving men were already loading furniture into the truck.

“Oh, my God!” Alexandra shrieked. “They're gonna take our clothes!” We all ran into the apartment. The girls frantically grabbed suitcases from a closet and began stuffing them with clothes. “They're taking the bureau!” someone screamed as two men made for the door with a chest of drawers. The girls lunged for the chest and pulled the drawers open even as the goons were carrying it through the hall. What seemed like hundreds of bras, panties, and nightgowns were being thrown toward me as I followed with a laundry basket to catch them. For the next hour, to the astonishment of mink-coated, poodle-walking passersby, we ran down Madison Avenue to my place with lamps, chairs, boxes, and anything else we could grab before it went into the truck.

Exhausted, we sprawled around my apartment and tried to figure out what had happened. The girls had fallen victim to an old New York scam. They had subleased the apartment from someone else. The original tenant to whom they were paying rent had no intention of returning to the apartment, so he simply pocketed the rent instead of paying the landlord. Hence the eviction.