Restrike Read Free Page A

business. Most of the time I read. Maybe some people would like gettin’ paid to read mysteries, but I hate it. And I’m losin’ sleep worryin’—I was awake nearly all last night.”
    Dinah groaned. “I’ve been halfway expecting this. Will you at least stay until the end of the year? The Luigi Rist show should be successful, his color woodcuts are beautiful, and our Christmas business should do pretty well. I promise I’ll make it up to you financially if you’ll stay. We’ll work out what your commissions might have been if we were in a better location and open weekends, and I’ll guarantee them, plus a Christmas bonus.”
    “Okay. But that’s it, Dinah. I’d love to stay with you long-term if the gallery were in a better location. You need to be in an art neighborhood with other galleries to get the business.”
    Dinah sighed. “I know. I’ll talk to Jonathan about it again tonight.”
    When Coleman had done all she could think of to pursue the
Skating Girl
story, she was forced to return to a problem she’d mentally shelved.
    The latest issue of the Artful Californian , a new magazine published in Los Angeles, lay on her desk. The cover story, about paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe in New York collections, was one she’d planned to run in the January issue of ArtSmart. Even the illustration on the cover, an O’Keeffe painting featuring a great sheaf of calla lilies, was the image she’d have put on thecover of ArtSmart.
    For three months in a row, the Artful Californian had published stories that Coleman’s staffers were working on, printing them before they could appear in ArtSmart. Some of the articles showed up in the magazine proper, which was, like ArtSmart , a monthly. Others were featured in the Artful Californian Online , an e-newsletter published every Tuesday. None of them had been as well-written or as thoroughly researched as an ArtSmart article, but Coleman could no longer use the features she’d planned; she’d look as if she were copying the California magazine. Worse, she was sure one of her employees—all of whom she thought of as friends—was selling her ideas.
    She looked around the cream-colored walls of her office, hung with framed ArtSmart covers. After Coleman bought the failing magazine, she’d redesigned it and built up its circulation and advertising revenues with what had turned out to be an instinct for the next art trend. But if another magazine got there first with her best ideas, its management could beat her out with subscribers and her advertisers would disappear. The proprietor of the Zabriskie Gallery, her largest and most profitable advertiser, had warned her about the rise of the Artful Californian , and advised her to make sure she stayed on top of the art market, if she wanted to continue to be their leading advertising outlet. Coleman was worried. She’d staked her career and a lot of borrowed money on the future of ArtSmart.
    She rose and paced the room, Dolly at her heels, pausing first at one, then another of the framed magazine covers. She picked up the little Maltese and cuddled her while she looked at what she thought of as Dolly’s cover, a Christmas tree with dog-shaped ornaments. The story was about a Soho restaurant where, in defiance of a city ordinance, the art world took their dogs. This occasion was a Christmas party attended by some of New York’s most prominent art collectors and their pets. The host of the party was ostensibly Dolly’s chum Thomas, an aging pug, frequently photographed with his glamorous socialite owner. In the article, told from Dolly’s point of view, the guests were the dogs and their owners were attendants. The name of the restaurant was never mentioned, but many ArtSmart readers recognized it and its patrons. Those in the know ran up social mileage informing the less knowledgeable.
    She stroked Dolly’s head. “You liked that party, didn’t you, Dolly?” she said, and the little white dog wagged her tail, her