I turned again to Robert Naly who had a good head about business matters, a solid knowledge of the art market, and he had been completely honest whenever I had sought his advice. The former stockbroker recommended Armand Soulier, a successful entrepreneur on the La Butte Pinson for many years, as someone who might provide exactly what we wanted. Soulier operated a number of small business ventures from a small office on the Rue La Pitte, was well respected generally from what I had heard, and while most people considered him honest, no one was ready to swear on a Bible that he wouldn't dip his fingers into the till if he got a chance.
Naly said he was nobody to fool around with, a real tough guy with the appearance of a Roman gladiator: flattened nose, small sunken eyes shadowed with heavy brows, high cheek bones, large misshapen ears, and the bruised look of a pugilist the day after a tough fight. Soulier, despite his unlikely appearance, was a reasonably cultured man with a zest for art, and Utrillo paintings, in particular.
After the experience with Ansoli, I was in no mood to trust anybody, but aside from these reservations, there was no doubt in my mind that Soulier would have more expertise than Ansoli in dealing with the circuitous ways of the art world, and it was readily apparent, if I judged him correctly, that no one was going to outface him if a confrontation developed. He had established a reputation around the Montmartre for his aggressiveness, and this made the people he dealt with very careful about trying any tricks. Soulier, who wasn't afraid of the devil himself, once urinated on some expensive brocade tapestries as retribution for a dealer's selling him some fake Etruscan statuary. "I should have castrated the bastard," Soulier had been heard to say, "but he ran too fast!" Later, the antique dealer ended up in the hospital, fearfully beaten, but refusing to talk to the police because he was afraid that if he did, Soulier would repeat the performance. Another aspect was that this particular dealer didn't have that great a reputation with the police because of previous fraud and most people believed he got what was coming to him anyway.
Soulier got interested in Maurice when he traded a used bathtub for an Utrillo landscape of the Cafe Lapin Agile, an exchange which made a profound impression on him. He had decided, after studying the canvas, that art was a very important commodity, especially Utrillo paintings, and this was the reason he jumped at a chance to represent Maurice on the market when I offered the job to him.
The entrepreneur immediately divested himself of his other interests, rented a larger shop on the Rue Norvin which he believed was more accessible to interested buyers, and prepared himself for the wheelingand dealing of the art market. Most of Soulier's transactions, though, were consumated at some cafe rather than at his business address. His manner of doing business was simple; never more than twenty or thirty francs for a canvas, then a drink to seal the bargain.
The arrangement, for the moment, satisfied me; Soulier, obviously, was no fool; in addition, something I felt was extremely important, he had a sympathetic understanding of my son's problems. He was a clever fellow, possessed of a certain tact in his dealings with Maurice, a fact that made the arrangement work smoothly. As things went along without any explosions, Ansoli and his slippery tactics, faded from my mind. I felt relaxed over Maurice getting a good shake, and I was convinced Soulier was exactly the type of representative required to put an end to the chaotic conditions which had prevailed from the moment it was apparent that the public was willing to spend good money to buy my son's work. I have to admit I had one eye on what Utter and I could get out of the situation. We had made a lot of sacrifices over the years; we had suffered through crisis after crisis; and it was only justice, I believed, that we got something more than headaches for all our trouble.
Soulier was a type you run into on the La Butte Pinson, amusing, witty, at times, in a rough way, and when a little muscle was needed to rather than talk, he was ready to mix it up. Drinking, carousing around, telling and retelling earthy jokes in a broad Monmartre style, represented part of Soulier's complex character. The other part concerned his no-holds barred business acumen which surfaced when he dealt with people to gain a profit. This aspect of his personality was more rigid than you imagined; part of his routine; a facet of his procedure which convinced prospective buyers that they were putting something over on him. These disparate sides to his nature seemed at odds with each other, but in reality, they were not; Soulier knew what he was doing at all times, even during moments of extreme intoxication, which were fairly frequent.
No matter what his condition, he was able to calculate the mathematics of each deal to the franc, a talent which enabled him to approach negotiations with an extraordinary degree of confidence.
Soulier's first drink was taken at breakfast, with many drinks throughout the day and well into the night. The effect was hardly discernable, although it was Naly's opinion that the alcohol seemed to make his mind even more alert, that it gave his bargaining a kind of panache which made it appear really big-time like the attitudes of the salesmen at Bernheim-jeune and Durand-Ruel, a superior move in Soulier's mind, making the buyer ashamed not to go ahead with the transaction. Soulier never paid for single drinks, which he considered beneath his dignity, a demeaning experience, all right for the average drinker, but not for him. At the end of his drinking day, after the proprietor had served Soulier his evening meal and final drink, the total was tabulated. He never argued over the amount, the payment was immediate, very dignified, made in neatly folded banknotes. If some change was involved, Soulier gravely took out a brown leather purse, carefully piled the coins according to their values, returned the purse to his vest pocket, as he took a final last drag on his cigarette before returning to his rented room. There is no doubt of Soulier being head and shoulders above the typical Montmarttrois, a self-styled gentleman, one who paid his bills, and did it in a way which added a special touch, very classy, very savoir faire, and nice, when you saw it happen. Soulier's fondest hope was, as he became more knowledgeable about art, was to accidently uncover a work by a major French artist, a Renoir, Monet, or better, a Manet, who was his favorite. He was ecstatic one morning when he came across a Toulouse-Lautrec sketch of the Le Cirque Mendrano in an old book he had purchased at the bookstalls on the Seine. "It is a rough example," I told him, "but there is no doubt that it is the real thing!" I enjoyed status in his eyes because I had known many famous artists, posed for them, and considered them friends. He showed me off to prospective buyers of Utrillo paintings as: "An associate of Puvis de Chavannes, a colleague of Renoir, and model for Edgar Degas." This practice, on the part of Soulier was used shamelessly to impress others with his expertise. I wasn't necessary, though, to use this sort of salesmanship to sell Utrillos; Soulier knew this, but it gave him a lift personally to embellish the pitch; he enjoyed the posturing; and the occasional purchaser who was knowledgeable, usually winked at the nonsense he dished out, already sold on having a Sacre-Coeur for himself .... 
For the gentlemen who came from "banker's row," in the more luxurious section of Paris, Soulier raised his sights a little higher, beginning a sales monologue by saying: "When I met Cezanne for the first time, or, "I advised Bernheim-Jeune," or, "I told the Steins that the Dufy was a fake, but they wouldn't listen to me!" All pure affectation, a spiel seen by Soulier as fitting to his position, a necesary procedure to insure he made a sale. The real truth about all this play-acting was that his image was more important to him than whether or not he sold an Utrillo. He demonstrated this once when Tabarant, a critic, watched him prepare his inventory for a prospective customer. Soulier, aware of Tabarant's presence, raised his hands in fake exasperation, and pretending that he was only engaging in very casual talk, he said: "That chap Monet," hesitating for emphasis, and taking a deep drag on his cigarette, "put me on to some Daumier drawings the other day, but Durand-Ruel, God damn their luck, got there before I could get moving!"
Remarks like this, all grossly untrue, were Soulier's standard repertory in his sales technique, beautiful to hear, and adding a touch of style to the wheeling and dealing. His eloquence, calculated to influence possible buyers, fell completely flat with Maurice, who listened, eyes half closed, not having the slightest idea of what Soulier was talking about, his mind distant. Occasionally, he'd remove the reefer from his mouth, sip some wine, slump further down in his chair at the Cafe belle Gabrielle, and turn his watery stare to the Rue Leval, crowded with pedestrians. The exchange between them, as far as I could determine, was severely reduced by Maurice's limited ability to concentrate for more than a few seconds on anything as remote as the abstraction of art. Cash spoke to him; it alerted him to the need of having it, but once a sufficient amount was on hand, the subject, like everything else, was no more than a passing interest.
When Maurice drank with Soulier, it was a completely different matter, something which reached him without any trouble. Quantities of booze went down Soulier's throat, without, as I have said, any indication of intoxication. The squat, heavy body, slumped carelessly on a wooden bench in the Cafe Auberge du Clou one day when Maurice and I met him for a business conference, seemed immune to the flood of cognac, wine, and absinthe, poured into it. It was incredible that he could function at at full speed considering the alcohol in his system, but he never lowered his sights on what he was doing., and the moment Soulier smelled money, he was alert to every trick in the trade.
Soulier saw Maurice with his talent as an artist who could knock over the sophisticated Paris critics and produce a picture a day, as a dream come true, a ready made gold mine, a factory with unlimited potential. And even better, it was his good luck to come into the art market at a time when the demand for Utrillos had peaked. No one questioned any more whether Maurice had or had not arrived as a painter, because the accomplishment was already in the books. He was accepted by all except the rigidly academic reviewers, certain bourgeois interests who hated to see an upstart drunk make it big, and selective Church groups who termed it immoral to grant leniency to a man who had been convicted of serious crimes against society.
The main problem for Soulier, just as it had been for the other go-betweens, was how to handle Maurice, how to keep him viable, and how to divide the cash flow equitably. The latter was what interested me; Utter and I still scraped along on practically nothing, and no end was in sight. The critical problem of money warranted keeping a sharp eye on Soulier; when you got right down-to it, I didn't trust him anymore than the rest of them: the temptation, as the situation was set up was too much for someone like him--and I was determined, if something surfaced, not to let it get out of hand, as I had done with Ansoli. I respected Soulier's determination to get things on a businesslike basis, but I was wary of letting him think he owned us, that he could have his own way without someone monitoring his activities. Naly got a big kick out of the dialogue flying back and forth as the three of us jockeyed for position. The "Affair Utrillo," he observed, "had its comic side: two drunks and a female artist trying to make a go of it in the complicated art world!"
Soulier, who should have known better, became disturbed by the instability of his agreement with Maurice, which was ridiculous when you consider that things were actually going smoothly compared to what gone on before. It was even more bizarre that he should make the complaint now after his friends had all warned him that no one was going to get on for any length of time with Maurice. "Your're sticking your head in a noose," they warned, "he'll have you in the luny-bin before he finishes with you!" Soulier didn't need a picture to show him the difficulties of his task; he had seen Maurice in action; he knew he was tied to a comet's tail, but additionally, he knew there was money to be made and this was the clincher as far as he was concerned.
Soulier expected that Maurice could drink, sleep off the the alcohol, and get back to the business of turning out pictures. Soulier operated this way, it was his normal day to day routine, but Maurice was wasn't geared for this way of life, he couldn't function in a predictable fashion, and he never would be able to do so. Additionally, Maurice couldn't get the idea of a partnership in his head despite the hours Soulier had spent explaining what it meant. The dealer could talk his head off without convincing Maurice that an agreement between two people had responsibilities involved in it; that it was a violation of these responsibilities to do business outside of the arrangement. To Maurice, a deal was a deal, whether he made it with Soulier or some other person. The concept that he was limited in doing this, made no sense to him at all, he continued to negotiate outside deals, infuriating Soulier, who complained to me about it without getting any sympathy. I saw no reason for him to bitch about the situation; he was was doing damn well, and in the bargain, I believed, he was getting far more than his fair share of the profits.
When the exchanges between Maurice and Soulier reached a phyisical level, with the dealer holding my son by the throat, thrusting his aggressive jaw forward, smacking him a fdw times with his open hand, and at the same time shouting obscenities and threats, Maurice got sweet revenge by telling everybody that Soulier was unfair to him, that he was being cheated, and that it was not him but Soulier who was breaking the agreement. Soulier resented this because he had a very elevated idea of his character as a business man, "It's a man's reputation that counts," he was fond of saying, It money in the bank--you can't make out without it!" The arrangement limped along despite the chronic disagreements between the two, profits continued to be good, although Soulier swore he would never forgive Maurice for blackening a reputation which had been developed over many years of honest deal ing. "He," he shouted pointing his finger at Maurice, who sat drinking, a silly smile on his face, "has destroyed my good name!" Then Soulier, downing two glasses of absinthe to calm himself, added, the green liquor running in streaks down his chin, "I expect this sort of thing from my enemies: God knows I have my share, but not from those I consider to be my friends; what are things coming to ......
Of course nobody swallowed this kind of baloney from a phony character like Soulier; they were crazy if they did; ready to believe anything. The people listening to this twaddle in the Cafe Belle Gabrielle, just nodded their heads, stretched both hands out, thumbs toward the floor, and turned back to their drinking. Soulier's conscience applied only to others, overlooking his own deficiencies, and doing it while he boasted about his own uncertain virtues. "It wouldn't be so bad," Max Jacobs said, "if he took his halo off when he criticized other people, especially Maurice, who doesn't know what the hell is going on anyway!" Even Naly, who had recommended Soulier, was beginning to have second thoughts, saying that he was as slippery as Ansoli; a bummer who would steal your eye teeth if you didn't keep a sharp lookout every damn minute!" There was no doubt, Naly had concluded, that: "Maurice was coming up with the short end of the stick in his business relationship with the dealer." Frede Gerard who worked for Aristide Bruant at the Lapin Agile said that Soulier had been hauled into court by Bruant when some kitchen equipment he had sold the restaurant turned out to be stolen from the Moulin de la Galette, and besides, was defective. "He is a slippery con-artist," Frede told me. "If you think you're going to get a square deal for Maurice from him, you'd better have your head examined!"