The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

by Lawrence Block

  “I could take a wild guess.”

  “I’m sure you could.”

  “J. McLendon Barlow.”

  That was news to her. She stared at me. I repeated the name and it still didn’t seem to mean anything to her. “That was the man who loaned it to the Vermillion Galleries,” I said, “and later on he donated it to the Hewlett Collection. Remember?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “The painting—my painting—was on loan from the collection of a Mr. Gordon Kyle Onderdonk.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “And I read newspapers, Mr. Rhodenbarr. That minor criminal career of yours doesn’t seem to have ceased with your entry into the book business. If the papers are to be believed, you were arrested for Mr. Onderdonk’s murder.”

  “I suppose that’s technically true.”

  “And now you’re out on bail?”

  “More or less.”

  “And you stole the painting from his apartment. My painting, my Mondrian.”

  “Everyone seems to think that,” I said, “but it’s not true. The painting’s gone, I’ll admit that, but I never laid a glove on it. There’s some sort of traveling exhibit coming up and Onderdonk was going to lend them his painting. He sent it out for reframing.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “He wouldn’t?”

  “The sponsors of the show would attend to that, if they felt the work needed reframing. I’m positive you took the painting.”

  “It was gone when I got there.”

  “That’s very difficult to believe.”

  “I had trouble believing it myself, Ms. Peters. I still have trouble, but I was there and saw for myself. Or didn’t see for myself, since there was nothing to see except an empty space where a picture had been.”

  “And Onderdonk told you he’d sent the picture out for framing?”

  “I didn’t ask him. He was dead.”

  “You killed him before you noticed the painting was gone?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to kill him because somebody beat me to it. And I didn’t know he was dead because I didn’t look in the closet for his body, because I didn’t know there was a body to look for.”

  “Someone else killed him.”

  “Well, I don’t think it was suicide. If it was, it’s the worst case of suicide I ever heard of.”

  She looked off into the middle distance and a couple of frown lines clouded her brow. “Whoever killed him,” she said, “took the painting.”

  “Could be.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The police think you did it.”

  “They probably know better,” I said. “At least the arresting officer does. He’s known me for years, he knows I don’t kill people. But they can prove I was in the apartment, so I’ll do for a suspect until they come up with a better one.”

  “And how will that come about?”

  I’d already thought of this. “Well, if I can figure out who did it, I suppose I could pass the word.”

  “So you’re trying to learn the identity of the killer.”

  “I’m just trying to get through the days one at a time,” I said, “but I’ll admit I’m keeping my eyes and ears open.”

  “When you find the killer, you’ll find the painting.”

  “It’s not when, it’s if. And even so, I may or may not find the painting at the same time.”

  “When you do, I want it.”

  “Well—”

  “It’s rightfully mine. You must realize that. And I mean to have it.”

  “You just expect me to hand it over to you?”

  “That would be the smartest thing you could do.”

  I stared at this delicate creature. “Good grief,” I said. “Was that a threat?”

  She didn’t draw her eyes away, and what big eyes they were. “I would have killed Onderdonk,” she said, “to get that painting.”

  “You’re really obsessed.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Listen, this may strike you as a wild idea, but have you ever thought about therapy? Obsessions just keep the focus off our real problems, you know, and if you could have the obsession lifted—”

  “When I have my hands on my painting, the obsession will be lifted.”

  “I see.”

  “I could be a good friend to you, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Or I could be a dangerous enemy.”

  “Suppose I did get the painting,” I said carefully.

  “Does that mean you already have it?”

  “No, it means what I just said. Suppose I get it. How do I get hold of you?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then opened her bag and took out a fine-line felt-tip pen and an envelope. She held the envelope upside-down and tore off a piece of its flap, returned the rest of the envelope to her purse, and wrote a telephone number on the scrap. Then she hesitated for another beat and wrote E. Peters beneath the number.

  “There,” she said, setting the slip on the counter beside the open art book. She capped her pen, put it back in her purse, and seemed about to say something when the door opened and the tinkling of bells announced a visitor.

  The visitor in turn announced herself. It was Carolyn, and she said, “Hey, Bern, I got another phone call and I thought—” Then Elspeth Peters turned to face Carolyn, and the two women looked at each other for a moment, and then Elspeth Peters walked past her and on out the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Don’t fall in love with her,” I told Carolyn. “She’s already in the grip of an obsession.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The way you stared at her. I figured you were falling in love, or perhaps in lust. Which is understandable, but—”

  “I thought I recognized her.”

  “Oh?”

  “I thought for a minute she was Alison.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Was she?”

  “No, of course not. I’d have said hello if she was.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why, Bern?”

  “Because she said her name was Elspeth Peters, and I don’t believe her. And she’s tied into the Mondrian business.”

  “So? Alison’s not, remember? Alison’s tied into me.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s a strong resemblance, but that’s all it is, a resemblance. How’s she tied in?”

  “She thinks she’s the painting’s rightful owner.”

  “Maybe she stole the cat.”

  “Not that painting. Onderdonk’s painting.”

  “Oh,” she said. “There’s too many paintings, you know that?”

  “There’s too much of everything. You just had a phone call, you started to say. From the Nazi?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been Peters. She was here with me.”

  “Right.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Well, she sort of put my mind at rest,” Carolyn said. “She said the cat was alive and well and nothing bad would happen to him as long as I cooperated. She said I didn’t have to worry about them cutting off an ear or a foot or anything, that the bit with the whiskers was to show they meant business but they wouldn’t hurt him or anything. And she said she knew the painting was going to be difficult to get but she was sure we could do it if we put our minds to it.”

  “It sounds as though she was trying to comfort you.”

  “Well, it worked, Bern. I feel a lot better about the cat. I still don’t know if I’m ever gonna see him again, but I’m not crazy the way I was. Talking with Alison about it last night helped a lot, and now the phone call. Just so I know nothing terrible’s gonna happen to the cat—”

  I barely heard the door, but I did look up and see him, and as he approached I sshhhed Carolyn, and she broke off in the middle of a sentence and turned to see why I was interrupting her.

  “Shit,” she said. “Hello, Ra
y.”

  “Hello, yourself,” said the best cop money can buy. “You know, you find out who your friends are in this business. Here’s a couple of people I know for years, and all I gotta do is walk in the room and one says sshhh and the other says shit. What’s gonna happen to the cat, Carolyn?”

  “Nothing,” she said. Years ago she’d heard somewhere that the best defense is a good offense, and she’d never forgotten it. “The real question is what’s gonna happen to Bernie if his so-called old friends keep arresting him every time he turns around. You ever hear of police harassment, Ray?”

  “Just be grateful I never heard of police brutality, Carolyn. Whyntcha take a hike, huh? Stretch your legs. They could use it.”

  “If you’re gonna do short jokes, Ray, I’ll do asshole jokes, and where’ll that leave you?”

  “Jesus, Bern,” he said. “Can’t you get her to act like a lady?”

  “I’ve been working at it. What do you want, Ray?”

  “About three minutes of conversation. Private conversation. If she wants to stick around, I suppose we could go in your back room.”

  “No, I’ll go,” Carolyn said. “I gotta use the bathroom anyway.”

  “Now that you mention it, so do I. No, you go ahead, Carolyn. Bernie an’ I’ll talk, so you take your time in there.” He waited until she had left the room, then laid a hand on the art book that Elspeth Peters had left on my counter. It was closed now, no longer open to the Mondrian reproduction. “Pictures,” he said. “Right?”

  “Very good, Ray.”

  “Like the one you lifted from Onderdonk’s place?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A guy named Mondrian,” he said, except he pronounced it Moon-drain. “Used to hang over the fireplace and covered by $350,000 insurance.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Far as they can tell so far, that’s the only thing that was stolen. Pretty good-sized paintin’, white background, black lines crisscrossin’, a little color here an’ there.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “Oh? No kiddin’.”

  “When I appraised his library. It was hanging over the fireplace.” I thought for a moment. “I think he said something about sending it out for framing.”

  “Yeah, it needed a new frame.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’ll tell you how it is, Bernie. The picture frame from the Moondrain was in the closet with Onderdonk’s body, all broken into pieces. There was the aluminum frame, pulled apart, and there was what they call the stretcher that the canvas is attached to, except it wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t? It wasn’t what?”

  “Attached. Somebody cut the paintin’ off the stretcher, but there was enough left so that a guy from the insurance company only had to take one look to know it was the Moondrain. To me it didn’t look like much. Just about an inch-wide strip of canvas all the way around, white with black dashes here and there like Morse code, and I think one strip of red. My guess is you rolled it and wore it out of the buildin’ under your clothes.”

  “I never touched it.”

  “Uh-huh. You musta been in some kind of rush to cut it out of the frame instead of takin’ the time to unfasten the staples. That way you coulda got the whole canvas. I don’t figure you killed him, Bern. I been thinkin’ about that, and I don’t think you did it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But I know you were there and you musta got the paintin’. Maybe you heard somebody comin’ and that’s why you rushed and cut it outta the frame. Maybe you left the frame hangin’ on the wall an’ left Onderdonk tied up, and somebody else stuck the frame in the closet and killed him while they were at it.”

  “Why would anybody do that?”

  “Who knows what people’ll do? This is a crazy world with crazy people in it.”

  “Amen.”

  “The point is, I figure you got the Moondrain.”

  “Mondrian. Not Moondrain. Mondrian.”

  “What’s the difference? I could call him Pablo Fuckin’ Picasso and we’d still know who we were talkin’ about. I figure you got it, Bern, and if you haven’t got it I figure you can get it, and that’s why I’m here on my own time when I oughta be home with my feet up and the TV on.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because there’s a reward,” he said. “The insurance company’s a bunch of cheap bastards, the reward’s only ten percent, but what’s ten percent of $350,000?”

  “Thirty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Bookstore goes under, Bern, you can always become an accountant. You’re gonna need some cash to get out from under this murder rap, right? Money for your lawyer, money for costs. The hell, everybody needs money, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have to go out stealin’ in the first place. So you come up with the paintin’ and I haul it in for the reward and we split.”

  “How do we split?”

  “Bern, was I ever greedy? Fifty-fifty’s how we split an’ that way everybody’s happy. You wash my hand, I’ll scratch your back, you know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “So we’re talkin’ seventeen-five apiece, and I’ll tell you, Bern, you’re not gonna beat that. All this publicity, a murder and all, you can’t run out and find a buyer for it. And forget about workin’ a deal where you sell it back to the insurance company, because these bastards set traps and all you’ll wind up with is your tit in a wringer. Of course maybe you stole it to order, maybe you got a customer waitin’, but can you take a chance with him? In the first place he could cross you, and in the second place you can take some of the pressure off your own self if the insurance company gets the picture back.”

  “You’ve got it all worked out.”

  “Well,” he said, “a man’s got to think for himself. Another thing is maybe you already fenced it, stole it to order and turned it over the same night.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Say, what’s she doin’ in there, Bernie?”

  “Answering a call of nature, I suppose.”

  “Yeah, well, I wish she’d shit or get off the pot. My back teeth are floatin’. What I was sayin’, if you already offed the Moondrain, what you got to do is steal it back.”

  “From the person I sold it to?”

  “Or from the person he sold it to, if it passed on down the line. I’m tellin’ you, Bernie, this case’ll quiet down a lot if the Moondrain gets recovered. That’ll tend to separate the burglary aspect from the murder aspect, and maybe it’ll get people lookin’ elsewhere than yourself for the killer.”

  “It’ll also put half of thirty-five thousand dollars in your pocket, Ray.”

  “And the other half in yours, and don’t forget it. What the hell happened to Carolyn? Maybe I better go see if she fell in.”

  Whereupon my favorite dog groomer burst breathless into the room, hitching at the belt of her slacks with one hand, holding the other up with the palm facing toward us.

  She said, “Bernie, there’s been a disaster. Ray, don’t go in there, don’t even think about it. Bernie, what I did, I flushed a bloody tampon. I thought it’d be all right, and everything blocked up and backed up and there’s shit all over the floor and it’s still running. I tried to clean up but I only made it worse. Bernie, can you help me? I’m afraid it’s gonna flood the whole store.”

  “I was just leavin’,” Ray said, backing off. His face had a greenish tinge and he didn’t look happy. “Bern, I’ll be in touch, right?”

  “You don’t want to give us a hand?”

  “Are you kiddin’?” he said. “Jesus!”

  I was around the counter before he was out the door, and he wasn’t taking his time, either. I went through toward the back room and ducked into the john, and there was nothing on the floor but red and black vinyl tiles in a checkerboard pattern. They were quite dry, and about as clean as they generally are.

  There was a man sitting on my toilet.

  He didn’t lo
ok as though he belonged there. He was fully dressed, wearing gray sharkskin trousers with a gray glen-plaid suit jacket. His shirt was maroon and his shoes were a pair of scuffed old wingtips, somewhere between black and brown in hue. He had shaggy rust-brown hair and a red goatee, ill-trimmed and going to gray. His head was back and his jaw slack, showing tobacco-stained teeth that had never known an orthodontist’s care. His eyes, too, were open, and they were of the sort described as guileless blue.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said.

  “You didn’t know he was in here?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I figured. You recognize him?”

  “The artist,” I said. “The one who paid a dime at the Hewlett Collection. I forget his name.”

  “Turner.”

  “No, that’s another artist, but it’s close. The guard knew his name, called him by name. Turnquist.”

  “That’s it. Bernie, where are you going?”

  “I want to make sure there’s nobody in the store,” I said, “and I want to turn the bolt, and I want to change the sign from Open to Closed.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Bernie?”

  “What?”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, no question,” I said. “They don’t get much deader.”

  “That’s what I thought. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Well, if you have to. But can’t you wait until I get him off the toilet?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You can rent ’em for only fifty bucks a month,” she said. “That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it? Comes to less than two dollars a day. What else can you get for less than two dollars a day?”

  “Breakfast,” I said, “if you’re a careful shopper.”

  “And a lousy tipper. The only thing is they got a one-month minimum. Even if we bring the thing back in an hour and a half, it’s the same fifty bucks.”

  “We might not bring it back at all. How much of a deposit did you have to leave?”

  “A hundred. Plus the first month’s rental, so I’m out a hundred and a half. But the hundred comes back when we return the thing. If we return the thing.”