The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian Read online

  I made a sandwich and ate it and made another sandwich and started eating it, and some clown outside slammed on his brakes and hit his horn, and Ubi hopped onto the window ledge to investigate. I watched him stick his head through the bars, the tips of his whiskers just brushing the bars on either side, and I thought of Archie’s whiskers and found myself feeling uncommonly sorry for the poor cat. There were two people dead already and I was charged with one murder and might very well be charged with the other, and all I could think of was how forlorn Carolyn’s cat must be.

  I looked up a number, picked up the phone and dialed it. Denise Raphaelson answered on the third ring and I said, “This is Bernie, and we never had this conversation.”

  “Funny, I remember it as if it were yesterday.”

  “What do you know about an artist named Turnquist?”

  “That’s why you called? To find out what I know about an artist named Turnquist?”

  “That’s why. He’s probably crowding sixty, reddish hair and goatee, bad teeth, gets all his clothes from the Goodwill. Sort of a surly manner.”

  “Where is he? I think I’ll marry him.”

  Denise was a girlfriend of mine for a while, and then she rather abruptly became a girlfriend of Carolyn’s, and that didn’t last very long. She’s a painter, with a loft on West Broadway called the Narrowback Gallery where she lives and works. I said, “Actually, it’s a little late for that.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “You don’t want to know. Ever hear of him?”

  “I don’t think so. Turnquist. He got a first name?”

  “Probably. Most people do, except for Trevanian. Maybe Turnquist’s his first name and he doesn’t have a last name. There are a lot of people like that. Hildegarde. Twiggy.”

  “Liberace.”

  “That’s his last name.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Does Turnquist ring a bell?”

  “Doesn’t even knock softly. What kind of painter is he?”

  “A dead one.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Well, he’s in good company. Rembrandt, El Greco, Giotto, Bosch—all those guys are dead.”

  “We never had this conversation.”

  “What conversation?”

  I hung up and looked up Turnquist in the Manhattan book, and there was only one listing, a Michael Turnquist in the East Sixties. Things are never that easy, and he certainly hadn’t dressed to fit that address, but what the hell. I dialed the number and a man answered almost immediately.

  I said, “Michael Turnquist?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I must have the wrong number.”

  The hell with it. I picked up the phone again and dialed 911. When a woman answered I said, “There’s a dead body at a construction site on Washington Street,” and gave the precise address. She started to ask me something but I didn’t let her finish her sentence. “Sorry,” I said, “but I’m one of those people who just don’t want to get involved.”

  I was lost in something, possibly thought, when a key turned in one of the locks. The sound was repeated as someone opened the other two locks in turn, and I spent a couple of seconds trying to decide what I’d do if it wasn’t Carolyn. Suppose it was the Nazi, coming to swipe the other cat. I looked around for Ubi but didn’t see him, and then the door swung inward and I turned to look at Carolyn and Elspeth Peters.

  Except it wasn’t Elspeth Peters, and all it took was a second glance to make that clear to me. But I could see why my henchperson had taken a second glance at the Peters woman, because the resemblance was pronounced.

  I could also see why she’d taken more than a couple glances at this woman, who obviously had to be Alison the tax planner. She was at least as attractive as Elspeth Peters, and the airy quality of Ms. Peters that went so well with old-timey lady poets and secondhand books was replaced in Alison by an earthy intensity. Carolyn introduced us—“Alison, this is Bernie Rhodenbarr. Bernie, this is Alison Warren”—and Alison established her credentials as a political and economic lesbian with a firm no-nonsense handshake.

  “I didn’t expect you,” Carolyn said.

  “Well, I stopped in to use the shower.”

  “Right, you were running.”

  “Oh, you’re a runner?” Alison said.

  We got a little mileage out of that, so to speak, and Carolyn put some coffee on, and Alison sat down on the couch and Ubi turned up and sat in her lap. I went over to the stove, where Carolyn was fussing with the coffee.

  “Isn’t she nice?” she whispered.

  “She’s terrific,” I whispered back. “Get rid of her.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why, for Christ’s sake?”

  “We’re going to the museum. The Hewlett.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “Look, I just got her here. She’s all settled in with a cat on her lap. The least I can do is give her a cup of coffee.”

  “Okay,” I said, still whispering. “I’ll split now. Get away as soon as you can and meet me in front of the Hewlett.”

  When I handed over my two singles and two quarters, the attendant at the Hewlett was nice enough to point out that the gallery would be closing in less than an hour. I told him that was all right and accepted my lapel pin in return. The whole exchange brought the late Mr. Turnquist to life for me, and I remembered the fierce animation with which he’d lectured to us about art. I suppose I’d depersonalized the man in order to drag his body across town and dump him, and I guess it had been necessary, but now I saw him again as a person—quirky and abrasive and vividly human—and I felt sorry he was dead and sorrier that I’d used him after death as a prop in a macabre farce.

  The feeling was a dismal one and I shook it off as I made my way to the upstairs gallery where the Mondrian was on display. I entered with a perfunctory nod at the uniformed guard. I half expected to find a blank spot on the wall where Composition with Color had lately hung, or another painting altogether, but Mondrian was right where he belonged and I was glad to see him again.

  Half an hour later a voice at my elbow said, “Well, it’s good, Bernie, but I don’t think it would fool many people. It’s hard to make a pencil sketch look like an oil painting. What are you doing?”

  “Sketching the painting,” I said, without looking up from my notebook. “I’m guessing at the measurements.”

  “What are the initials for? Oh, the colors, right?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The guy downstairs didn’t want to take my money. The place is gonna close any minute. What I did, I gave him a dollar. Are we gonna steal the painting, Bernie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh. When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how we’re gonna do it, either.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “By drawing in your notebook?”

  “Shit,” I said, and closed the notebook with a snap. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m sorry, Bern. I didn’t mean to hassle you.”

  “It’s okay. Let’s get out of here.”

  We found a bar called Gloryosky’s a couple of blocks up Madison. Soft lighting, deep carpet, chrome and black formica, and some Little Orphan Annie murals on the walls. About half the patrons were gulping their first après-work drinks while the rest looked as though they hadn’t made it back from lunch. Everybody was thanking God that it was Friday.

  “This is nice,” Carolyn said as we settled into a booth. “Dim lights, gaiety, laughter, the clink of ice cubes and a Peggy Lee record on the jukebox. I could be happy here, Bernie.”

  “Cute waitress, too.”

  “I noticed. This joint has it all over the Bum Rap. It’s a shame it’s so far from
the store.” The waitress appeared and leaned forward impressively. Carolyn gave her a full-tilt smile and ordered a martini, very cold, very dry, and very soon. I asked for Coca-Cola and lemon. The waitress smiled and departed.

  “Why?” Carolyn demanded.

  “Pardon?”

  “Why Coke with lemon?”

  “It cuts some of the sugary taste.”

  “Why Coke in the first place?”

  I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’m not in the mood for Perrier. Plus I figure I can use a little sugar rush and a caffeine hit.”

  “Bern, are you being willfully obtuse?”

  “Huh? Oh. Why no booze?”

  “Right.”

  I shrugged again. “No particular reason.”

  “You’re gonna try breaking into the museum? That’s crazy.”

  “I know, and I’m not going to try. But whatever I do I’ve got a complicated evening coming up and I guess I want to be at the top of my form. Such as it is.”

  “Myself, I figure I’m better with a couple of drinks.”

  “Maybe you are.”

  “Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t survive another ten minutes without one. Ah, here we are,” she said, as our drinks appeared. “You can tell him to start mixing up another of these,” she told the waitress, “because I wouldn’t want to get too far out in front of him.”

  “Another round.”

  “Just another martini,” she said. “He’s got to sip that. Didn’t your mother ever tell you? Never gulp anything fizzy.”

  I squeezed the lemon into the Coke, stirred and sipped. “She’s got a great laugh,” Carolyn said. “I like a girl with a nice sense of humor.”

  “And a nice set of—”

  “Those too. There’s a lot to be said for curves, even if your buddy Mondrian didn’t believe in them. Straight lines and primary colors. You think he was a genius?”

  “Probably.”

  “Whatever genius is. As far as having something to hang on the wall, I’m a lot happier with my Chagall litho.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “What is?”

  “Before,” I said. “Standing in front of the painting, I was thinking how great it would look in my apartment.”

  “Where?”

  “Over the couch. Sort of centered over the couch.”

  “Oh yeah?” She closed her eyes, trying to picture it. “The painting we just saw? Or the one you saw in Onderdonk’s apartment?”

  “Well, the one we just saw. But the other was the same idea and the same general proportions, so it would do, too.”

  “Over the couch.”

  “Right.”

  “You know, it might look kind of nice in your place,” she said. “Once all this mess is cleared away, you know what you’ll have to do?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Something like one-to-ten.”

  “One-to-ten?”

  “Years.”

  “Oh,” she said, and dismissed the entire penal system with an airy wave of her hand. “I’m serious, Bern. Once everything’s cleared up, you can sit down and paint yourself a Mondrian and hang it over the couch.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I mean it. Face it, Bern. What old Piet did back there doesn’t look all that hard to do. Okay, he was a genius because he thought of it first, and his proportions and colors were brilliant and perfect and fit into some philosophical system, whatever it was, but so what? If all you’re looking to do is make a copy for your own place, how hard could it be to follow his measurements and copy his colors and just paint it? I mean there’s no drawing involved, there’s no shading, there’s no changes in texture. It’s just a white canvas with black lines and patches of color. You wouldn’t have to spend ten years at the Art Students League to do that, would you?”

  “What a thought,” I said. “It’s probably harder than it looks.”

  “Everything’s harder than it looks. Grooming a Shih Tzu’s harder than it looks, but you don’t have to be a genius. Where’s that sketch you made? Couldn’t you follow the dimensions and paint it on canvas?”

  “I can paint a wall with a roller. That’s about it.”

  “Why’d you make the sketch?”

  “Because there’s too many paintings,” I said, “and unless they’re side by side I couldn’t tell them apart, Mondrian being Mondrian, and I thought a sketch might be useful for identification purposes. If I ever see any picture besides the one in the Hewlett. I couldn’t do it.”

  “Couldn’t do what?”

  “Paint a fake Mondrian. I wouldn’t know what to do. All the black bands are straight like a knife edge. How would you manage that?”

  “I suppose you’d need a steady hand.”

  “There must be more to it than that. And I wouldn’t know how to buy paints, let alone mix colors.”

  “You could learn.”

  “An artist could do it,” I said.

  “Sure. If you knew the technique, and—”

  “It’s a shame we didn’t get to Turnquist before he died. He was an artist and he admired Mondrian.”

  “Well, he’s not the only artist in New York City. If you want a Mondrian for over the couch and you don’t want to try painting it yourself, I’m sure you could find someone to—”

  “I’m not talking about a Mondrian for my apartment.”

  “You’re not? Oh.”

  “Right.”

  “You mean—”

  “Right.”

  “Where’s the waitress, dammit? A person could die of thirst around here.”

  “She’s coming.”

  “Good. I don’t think it’ll work, Bern. I was talking about making something that’d look good over your couch, not something that would fool experts. Besides, where would we find an artist we could trust?”

  “Good point.”

  The waitress arrived, setting a fresh martini in front of Carolyn and having a look at my Coke, which was still half full. Or half empty, if you’re a pessimist.

  “That’s perfect,” Carolyn told her. “I bet you used to be a nurse, didn’t you?”

  “That’s nothing,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but I just know you won’t tell anyone. The bartender used to be a brain surgeon.”

  “He hasn’t lost his touch. It’s a good thing I’ve got Blue Cross.”

  The waitress did her exit-laughing number, taking Carolyn’s eyes with her. “She’s cute,” said my partner in crime.

  “A shame she’s not an artist.”

  “Clever repartee, a great personality, and a nifty set of wheels. You figure she’s gay?”

  “Hope does spring eternal, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Gay or straight,” I said, “what we really need is an artist.”

  The whole room seemed to go silent, as if someone had just mentioned E. F. Hutton. Except that other conversations were still going on. It’s just that we stopped hearing them. Carolyn and I both froze, then turned our eyes slowly to meet one another’s exophthalmic gazes. After a long moment we spoke as if in a single voice.

  “Denise,” we said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hold this,” Denise Raphaelson said. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I stretched a canvas. Who bothers nowadays? You buy a stretched canvas and save yourself the aggravation. Of course I don’t usually get customers who specify the size they want in centimeters.”

  “It’s becoming a metric universe.”

  “Well, you know what I always say. Give ’em a gram and they’ll take a kilo. This should be close, Bernie, and anybody who takes a yardstick to this beauty will already have six other ways to tell it’s not the real thing. But the measurements’ll be very close. Maybe it’ll be a couple millimeters off. Remember that cigarette that advertised it was a silly millimeter longer?”

  “I remember.”

  “I wonder whatever happened to it.”

  “Somebody probably smo
ked it.”

  Denise was smoking one of her own, or letting it burn unattended in a scallop shell she used as an ashtray. We were at her place and we were stretching a canvas. We meant Denise and me. Carolyn had not accompanied me.

  Denise is long limbed and slender, with dark brown curly hair and fair skin lightly dusted with freckles. She is a painter, and she does well enough at it to support herself and her son Jared, with the occasional assistance of a child-support check from Jared’s father. Her work is abstract, very vivid, very intense, very energetic. You might not like her canvases but you’d be hard put to ignore them.

  And, come to think of it, you could say much the same of their creator. Denise and I had kept occasional company over a couple of years, sharing a fondness for ethnic food and thoughtful jazz and snappy repartee. Our one area of disagreement was Carolyn, whom she affected to despise. Then one day Denise and Carolyn commenced to have an affair. That didn’t take too long to run its course, and once it was over Carolyn didn’t see Denise anymore, and neither did I.

  I could say I don’t understand women, but what’s so remarkable about that? Nobody does.

  “This is gesso,” Denise explained. “We want a smooth canvas so we put this on. Here, take the brush. That’s right. A nice even coat. It’s all in the wrist, Bernie.”

  “What does this do?”

  “It dries. It’s acrylic gesso so it’ll dry in a hurry. Then you sand it.”

  “I sand it?”

  “With sandpaper. Lightly. Then you do another coat of the gesso and sand it again, and a third coat and sand it again.”

  “And you on the opposite shore will be?”

  “That’s it. Ready to ride and spread the alarm through every something village and farm.”

  “Every Middlesex village and farm,” I said, which was the way Longfellow had put it. Middlesex sort of hung in the air between us. “It comes from Middle Saxons,” I said. “According to where they settled in England. Essex was the East Saxons, Sussex was the South Saxons, and—”

  “Leave it alone.”

  “All right.”

  “‘Every bisexual village and farm.’ I suppose No Sex was the North Saxons, huh?”