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Claude Kendrick, owner of the Kendrick Gallery, back from his August vacation, sat at his desk making plans for another prosperous season.

The heat and the humidity that turned Paradise City, the billionaires’ playground, into a dead city was now in the past. September had arrived, and the city was coming alive with the rich, the jet-set and the tourists.

Recognized as a character in the city, Kendrick was a tall, enormously fat queer who resembled a dolphin without, it had been said, the amiable expression of a dolphin. There were times when he resembled a man-eating shark.

Although immaculately dressed at all times, Kendrick, bald as an egg, wore an ill-fitting orange-coloured wig and pale pink lipstick. When he met a lady client on the street, he would raise his wig as if it were a hat. In spite of his enormous bulk and his eccentricities, he was considered in the art world as an expert in antiques, jewellery and modern paintings. His Gallery was known and patronised by the world’s collectors. What was not known was that Kendrick was one of the most important and active fences in the United States, and was in constant touch with all the expert art thieves where art treasures were to be found.

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