Sloane Catchings dumped the contents of her black quilted Chanel handbag on the counter. Lipstick, keys to the Saab, vintage Parker 89 fountain pen among other sundry items, spilled out. Where had she put the number? Think back she thought to herself. Late night of drinks at Ginny’s with old college friends had left her mind a blur. Did she actually drink a perfect Manhattan straight up?! My God, she thought thats exactly the drink my Nanna would quaff one after another. At the age of 31, Sloane was far from what she imagined her matronly Grandmother would have been at her age. As the owner of one of the trendiest art galleries in Chicago, Sloane catchings got her fair share of press. It didn’t hurt that she was also the wife of the very popular Mayor of the Windy City, Russell Catchings. Prior to having this additional responsibility of being the First Lady of the city of broad shoulders, Sloane had simply been Sloane Rooney, 1979 graduate of Northwestern University, graduated cum laude in Art History. It was at Northwestern where she had met Russell Catchings in a huge lecture hall class. “The lasting appeal of impressionist painters” was the course title and they often shared a pint of Newcastle Ale at O’Keefe’s pub after class. Russell was a very adept young man, convincing Sloane to “assist” him in writing commentary for required writing for the course. By assist it meant Sloane DID the work. She was intoxicated by the sly wit and dashing charm of Russell, a law student with aspirations for political office. The ironic thing was Sloane captured a “strong B” on her final grade in the class compared to a “healthy A” for Russell. Russell was the kind of a guy who could step on a pile of shit and end up with a hundred dollar bill adhered to his shoe.
Somehow, crumpled into a tight knotted form still inside the handbag was the scrap of paper Sloane was seeking. On it was scrawled a telephone number. the number was that of Judd Edmonds, an artists agent of sorts that she had run into via her gallery manager, Prudence Simpson. Pru had told Sloane that Judd was the agent who handled Claire Stamps prior to her fall from grace in the art world. Sloane was interested in seeing what new talent Judd might have dug up recently. Her gallery needed new blood. Fresh work. The Japanese had a healthy appetite for emerging artists and Sloane had always had something for them but it had been months since she had sold ANY item in the gallery in excess of $250,000. Her reputation was on the line and Judd Edmonds could possibly hold the key to her personal and financial satisfaction she longed for.