A Question of Values

It began on a Tuesday. Every Tuesday Fred and Louise Snapp emptied their van and headed north from Upper Stepney in Connecticut all the way to Rutland, Vermont. If you were in the antique business you knew the best and cheapest of them were in Rutland-a little cleaning up here and there, a few minor repairs and they could be sold for three times the price in Upper Stepney, and ten times the price back in the city on Madison Avenue.

"Fred loves to work with his hands," Louise would smile when she told her friends about the business. Louise, on the other hand, had a sharp eye for art and things of value. After Fred took early retirement from B.V.D.&B., he and Louise started a small antique business in Upper Stepney in their own home and finally had to rent a store in town. They called it "Snapp Impressions." It was Louise's idea, not Fred's. After 30 years in advertising, Fred had lost his touch for words.

Every Tuesday they closed the store and drove to Vermont. They'd stay until Thursday morning, then drive back to Upper Stepney with a load of butter churns, lobster traps, and syrup buckets and open "Snapp Impressions" in the afternoon.

"We could sell paintings, Fred. Gladys Brewster Phipps came in looking for paintings on Sunday...early American, Hudson River School...we don't have anything like that."

"We're doing OK now," Fred grumbled. "We don't have a gallery, we don't have the space for it. You need walls and lighting and besides, you can't buy bargain paintings." Fred had also lost his touch for pictures. After a spotty career in advertising, words and pictures no longer had value. Old busted up things...that's what he loved...putting them back together, making them live again.

They took Route 103 into Rutland and stopped in Cuttingsville for coffee.

"Think about it, Fred," she went on, "we could put up hinged panels, you know, swinging out from the wall? We have the space and it would be less work for you, too."

A small gallery Louise had noticed once before sat diagonally across the street from the coffee shop--"Jasper Jones-Canvasses." She was determined to get Fred over there and check it out.

"Look, Fred, over there-let's give it a look while we're here."

Reluctantly, Fred trailed after her. Jasper Jones, why did that name ring a bell?

"It's dark in there, Louise-must be closed," but a hand-lettered sign on the door said "Open for Business." Another one said, "You Won't Believe Your Eyes." In the rear of the gallery they could see a tall man in a black suit standing under a skylight. Louise opened the door, and immediately the gallery was flooded with soft light. Paintings were everywhere...the walls and floor covered with them. It was as though they had blundered into a museum's basement storage room. She thought there must be a king's ransom here...how did a priceless collection like this ever find its way into this one-horse-town of Cuttingsville?

All six-foot-four of Jasper Jones pulled himself erect and walked toward them, with legs bent backward. A strange sort of walk-like a large aquatic bird.

"Welcome, my friends, welcome to the gallery of Jasper Jones. I trust you are lovers of the art of painting. If so, my gallery will please you. From the Renaissance to Post-Impressionism...the treasures of the world hang before you." He waved his arms expansively.

This guy must have done time in the advertising business, thought Fred. He whispered to Louise, "We're not gonna find any bargains here, Louise...c'mon let's get what we came for."

"Sir! -- I have never been in the advertising business...and as for bargains, where can you buy a Monet for $150 these days?"

Had he whispered louder than he thought? Had this man read his thoughts as well? He tried to pull Louise away, but she was overcome by the wealth of these precious paintings and couldn't be budged. She stood, like Lot's wife, transfixed in front of a Van Dyke...a portrait of a beefy, red-faced man holding a silver tankard of ale. "It must be worth millions," she murmured.

"If I had not painted it last week, madam," Jasper smiled.

"My God!" she exclaimed. "You painted this?"

"Exactly, madam! A fair question from someone who knows value when she sees it, but we have depreciated the painting by a hundred percent, you and I. Had it been a Van Dyke, it would certainly be worth millions-but now that you know who painted it, it is worth next to nothing."

Louise stole a quick glance at Fred, and he was aware of an unfamiliar, calculating expression that had crept across her normally frank and honest face, one he had only seen before at tax time.

"The gentleman in the painting, Madam, it is Charlie Spivak ... the bartender at a local tavern here in Cuttingsville. It is not my custom to copy, but to recreate-in the master's style-scenes he was not privileged to see. Scenes he might well have painted were he living in Cuttingsville today. The Van Gogh at your feet...that is the cowpath leading to Singleton's Dairy Farm. Might I assume you are Louise Snapp, and you, sir ... are Frederick?"

"Now wait a minute..." Fred began, but Jasper went on as though he were lecturing to children.

"Your names are well known in Rutland, sir. You go there weekly, and what goes on in Rutland is the talk of the town here in Cuttingsville. I am not psychic, but I am quite able to read your name on the van across the street. I am acutely aware of the actions of others...I am by nature an impressionist." He picked up the Van Gogh and hung it next to the Van Dyke. "You are practical people. You must know magic is a practical business and the better the magician, the better the business...the better the magic."

Louise took a deep breath, "You mentioned $150?"

"Ah, yes, the Monet. It is lovely, isn't it? Claude could not have done better; he might have done far worse, mind you, but I'm sure he could not have done better." He picked it up and moved closer to Fred and Louise, close enough for them to detect a dusty smell. Like he'd been beating a rug, Fred thought.

"You place great value in money, madam?"

"I...well...I think money is the scale we use for value, isn't it? I mean, you can't put a price on everything...but, well...you know what I mean. Unless you put a price on something, you don't know what it's worth."

"I did not mean to be elliptical, Mrs. Snapp, but it occurs to me that the price we put on things of value is based on what we think people will pay for them. Do you agree, Mr. Snapp?"

Fred didn't like the way this was going. He could sense the manipulation, and he didn't like Jones's effect on Louise. She seemed to be mesmerized by the paintings. That's what he hated about paintings, people talked about them too much. Give him lobster pots every time.

"Money's just about everything, Mr. Jones," Fred sighed. "When you've got money, you can have anything it buys."

"Then why bother with values...heh, Mr. Snapp? Yes...!" Jasper's eyes narrowed. "Things of value fade quickly in the face of money. Your wife is quite willing to spend $150 for this painting that looks like a Monet, is that not so, Madam?" Louise nodded eagerly. "For the sake of argument, let me ask you if you would still pay $150 for it if I sign it 'Jasper Jones'?" Louise looked helplessly at Fred, then back to Jasper Jones.

"Somewhat less, I expect, Mrs. Snapp. Is it because of the magic-the illusion that perhaps this painting is really a valuable Monet, after all? Or perhaps someone else might be convinced that it is. Enterprise! Yankee ingenuity! Is it not the American way? I am not so out of touch with the world that I have forgotten the value of good business."

"Would you excuse us, Mr. Jones? I'd like to have a word with my husband...alone."

Louise steered Fred to the front door. "Listen to me," she started. "You see the possibilities, don't you? We don't have to claim they're authentic. We don't have to guarantee anything...just put a bug in their ear. We'd come in somewhere between the $150 we spend and the million we could sell it for. Is that a profit or what?!!"

"Louise, I don't like this. It's crooked! It's why I got out of the advertising business in the first place. I don't want to spend the rest of my life cheating people."

"Ridiculous!" Louise snorted. "What do you think we're doing with butter churns and lobster traps? Why only last week Gladys Brewster Phipps bought what she thought was a stuffed alligator planter from us. You and I both know it was papier-mache."

Jasper Jones was silently pacing in front of the Monet. He had placed a smaller, colorful Picasso next to it. Together, they made an irresistible combination.

"Look at that, Fred," Louise was almost beside herself. "If that isn't an honest-to-goodness Picasso!" In a voice louder than it had to be, she announced, "We'll take them both Mr. Jones...the Monet and the Picasso," she hastily added, "and we'll pay in cash if that's all right with you."

"Cash will be an excellent choice, madam. Quite acceptable and untraceable as well, may I add."

With Fred's grudging compliance, the pictures were bubble wrapped. He carried the larger Monet, and Louise, with great care, carried the smaller Picasso.

The return trip to Connecticut was stressful to Fred. Louise, however, could see nothing but profit ahead. It lay temptingly, just beyond every turn of the road. Fred was silent, but she bubbled with enthusiasm.

"We just don't guarantee anything, see. That's the beauty of it, right...and if push comes to shove, we take a minimum mark-up, but once in a while we'll get lucky, and somebody's going to talk themselves into a Monet or a Picasso or whatever." Fred stared glumly ahead. "Damn it, Fred, will you lighten up!"

"I watched Jones when he wrapped the pictures. Did you notice the canvasses are stapled to new stretchers...huh, Louise? You think Monet or whatever had access to a staple gun? What about the price tags on the stretchers...huh, Louise...$4.98 Glick's Art Supplies?"

"No problem. We bought them rolled up, see. A lot of paintings are brought in from overseas that way. We tell them they were rolled up and smuggled into the States by a wealthy Arab oil millionaire. Honestly Fred, you're making ....."

Missing Connecticut Couple
Found in Great Barrington

4/15 (AP) Frederick and Louise Snapp, of Upper Stepney, Conn. were killed in a one-car collision on State Route 7 Wednesday afternoon. Driver and passenger were pronounced dead at the scene by trooper Les Dickett. Their van contained a small collection of antiques and two oil paintings of undetermined value...