“No idea,” he said, widening his eyes and shaking his head. “She came over one day, said she was done, and that all future work would be performance. That was that. I was nervous for her. Everybody was. Tyler especially. We thought it might damage her career. But in the end—it was too brief to make a difference. They were livid, though.”

“Pine City?”

“Yes. They cared about money while she was alive, they were always inserting themselves in everything, pushing on her behalf, but now that she’s dead they seem to want the whole thing to go away. It’s—”

My face had lost all pretense of innocence. I was rapt, nearly drooling. I was too much. The second Charlie noticed, he backtracked.

“I—I shouldn’t be talking about it,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to sour your relationships over there. They’re good artists. They mean well. It was all very tragic, and I think if we could resolve everything in a way that was satisfactory to everyone, then yes, Max and I would like to do something new.”

“Time for a new house, maybe,” I said, after a beat.

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking of doing something big. A museum.”

“For the write-off?” Savvy collectors who turned their collections into legal nonprofit entities needed only to “show” the works a few times per year in order to save hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars in taxes.

“No, an actual museum.” He laughed. “Open every day, cheap to access, nice bathrooms.” It was my turn to laugh. “The work, and us above. Like the old English country houses, you know, bygone, genteel aristocrats living upstairs with their dogs in one heated room while the public clomps around for 2p downstairs.”

“Won’t that cost like a billion dollars?” I laughed at myself. “I’m sorry again. I cannot stop asking you the rudest questions. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s okay. Yes. We opened a gallery in Dubai. Literally ten times what we make anywhere else. It only sells prints. No—it’s that, we have so much artwork, more than we can display, far more than I know what to do with. I like to see people looking at it. It gives me joy. And Max needs…not to be alone so much,” he said lovingly, shaking his head. “I worry about her. Do you worry?”