Part 9:
It’s vague, but it’s specific enough. Someone who was at the estate or connected to someone who was posted about a potential major Stellarini discovery in the United States. How specific is vague? Vague enough that they don’t have the details. Specific enough that the people who matter will start making calls. Ethan absorbed this.
Who posted it? Unknown account could be anyone. the state staff, someone who saw the authentication team arriving, could even be someone in our network, which is a terrible thought I’m going to not think about. James paused. The point is the the information is moving. We have maybe a week, 10 days before someone with resources starts trying to verify it and things get complicated.
We need to accelerate the formal process. Yes. And Isabella Sterling needs to get ahead of this. If this becomes a story before we have the authentication complete, it’s going to be messy. Ethan was already reaching for his jacket. I’ll call her. Ethan. James’s voice was careful. When you call her, she’s going to be upset about the leak, about the timeline pressure.
Don’t let her make any public statements until she has legal counsel in place. I know. and try to look just be careful about how you handle this with her. She’s in a position where she needs good advice and she’s probably not used to getting it from someone in your He stopped. In my what? Ethan asked, keeping his voice even.
James was quiet for a second. In your current position. Ethan let that sit for a moment. Then he said, I’ll call you after I talk to her. And hung up. He sat with the phone in his hand for a second. He wasn’t angry exactly was he understood what James meant, understood the class mechanics of it, the way the world automatically sorted people by visible markers and adjusted its expectations accordingly.
He’d lived in those mechanics long enough to know how they worked. It didn’t make them less irritating. He called Isabella Sterling. Her assistant picked up, but Isabella was on the other line within 90 seconds, which told him something about how alert she was to anything related to the car. Mr. Walker. There’s been a leak, he said.
Information about the possible Stellarini discovery is circulating in specialist circles. It’s vague right now, but that won’t last. A pause. When she spoke, her voice was controlled, but tight. Who leaked it? We don’t know. Could be anyone with peripheral knowledge of the authentication visit. I need to know who. with respect.
Right now, that’s less important than managing what comes next. He said, “The specialist community moves fast when something like this surfaces. You’re going to start getting calls from collectors, dealers, possibly journalists who cover the high-end market. You need legal counsel in place before any of that happens.
I have lawyers. You need someone who specifically understands cultural property law and art authentication disputes. Your corporate lawyers may not have that background.” She was quiet for a moment. Do you have a name? He gave her a name. A woman named Patricia Crane in New York, who had handled two of the authentication cases he’d been involved with years ago and who was as good as anyone in the country at this kind of work.
I’ll have my assistant reach out today, Isabella said. Good. He paused. The other thing I’d recommend against making any public statement until the formal authentication is complete. Not even something general. Anything you say right now gets used to fill in the blanks that the speculation is already creating. So I say nothing.
You say nothing. That’s going to be difficult when people start calling. I know. He paused. Do you want me to be a point of contact for specialist inquiries? I can screen them, give you assessments of who’s credible and who’s fishing. Another silence. He couldn’t read it. Why would you do that? She asked. You’re already, she stopped.
You’re not being paid for any of this. No. So why? Because the car deserves to be handled correctly, he said. Because your father spent 20 years keeping something safe without knowing exactly what it was. And the last thing it needs is for the discovery process to get contaminated by a leak and a rush to capitalize. He paused.
And because I started this, I want to see it finished right. another silence longer. “All right,” she said. “Yes, I’d appreciate that.” The calls started within 48 hours. Ethan fielded seven in the first two days. Three from dealers who frame their inquiry as concern for proper authentication and were almost certainly scoping the potential for acquisition.
Two from collectors who were more direct about their interest. One from a journalist at an automotive trade publication who was extremely charming and received no useful information. And one from a man who identified himself as representing a European consortium and who offered to make what he called a preliminary expression of interest before authentication was complete.
Ethan handled each call with the same even unrevealing manner, took notes on all of them, and sent Isabella a summary each evening. On the third evening, she called him back directly instead of going through her assistant. The consortium call, she said. What did they actually want? Exactly what it sounded like.
