Alive in Shape and Color

by Lawrence Block

  The Monster was never caught. Or if he was, he was never connected with Micheline’s case. Other than that one conversation with my mother, when I told her that I knew the Monster had taken her, no one ever spoke to me about it. There was no kind lady cop asking me to draw her a picture of the Monster, no spunky school psychiatrist committed to helping me find language that the adults would understand. It was 1971. Life went on.

  Helene and Pete moved away pretty soon after Micheline disappeared. Eventually, my mom told me that she’d heard they split up, that Helene had gone back to France. I studied in Paris my junior year of college. I spent the whole time I was there hoping to find Helene, but not really looking for her, thinking that I’d run into her on the Metro or in a café, afraid of what would happen if I did. I wanted to see her so I could apologize, and so she could tell me that it wasn’t my fault. I found her obituary on the internet a few years ago. It turned out she’d died in 1982, more than a year before I went to France.

  The defense attorney spent the most time talking about confessions. There would be evidence, he said, that the defendant had confessed, to various people at various times. He asked why a person might confess to a crime he didn’t commit. The defendant, who he said had an IQ of sixty-seven, and had been diagnosed with psychotic hallucinations, had confessed to the cops after seven hours of interrogation, most of which was not recorded. He’d been in prison for the last four years, awaiting trial.

  The defense attorney said that there had been no witnesses to the alleged kidnapping, and he asked the jurors what they could imagine might have happened instead. What other explanation besides kidnapping could there be for Milo’s disappearance? People answered that he could have run away, or maybe he got lost. Were they saying that Micheline might have run away? No way. She wouldn’t have done that. Or that Helene had done something to hurt her? That was impossible.

  The defense attorney finished a few minutes before five and we were told to be back at ten the next morning. It had been a grueling day, and all I’d done was watch and listen. I just wanted to go home and get in bed, to stop thinking, stop remembering.

  DAY FOUR

  The judge thanked us for our continued patience and explained that not getting chosen to serve on this jury did not mean anything other than that the attorneys did not happen to agree that you were right for this particular case. He told us what was going to happen next. The clerk was going to read the names of those people in the group of sixteen who would be members of the jury. “Please stand if the clerk calls your name. Everyone else, remain seated.” I noticed that it was that same clerk from that first morning in the big room downstairs. Maybe he’d been there in the room with us all along. “Seat number three, Alicia Mason.” She stood up. “Seat number fourteen, Roberto Diaz”. He stood up. We waited for the clerk to call the next name. Silence.

  It took a minute for us to realize that that was it. That after all that, they had chosen two people. This was going to take forever.

  The judge told the fourteen people who were being let go what they needed to do, and then they swore in the two people who made it. After that, the two were told to go with the court officer to exchange contact information. The judge told them to plan to be back next Monday.

  From where I was sitting, in the third row behind the defense table, I could see the back of the defendant’s shaved head, the roll of fat at the base of his skull. He was eighteen years old when Milo disappeared, thirty-eight years ago. He worked at the deli where Milo was going to stop to buy a snack for his lunch. He had a history of drug use and domestic violence. He’d fucking confessed. It would be so easy to convict him. But what if he hadn’t done it? They said he’d been interrogated for seven hours before he gave his confession. And it was apparently pretty clear that he was mentally ill. He had an IQ of sixty-seven. I didn’t know what a normal IQ score might be, but sixty-seven didn’t sound good. Did he have the intelligence of an eight-year-old? When I was eight, I told my mother that the Monster from the Red House had taken Micheline.

  The clerk was turning the crank, picking sixteen new names from the barrel. Just like before, he would read the name, and then spell it, first then last. It had become background noise, easy to ignore. I looked over and saw that they’d already filled nine seats when I wasn’t paying attention. I closed my eyes. This experience was going to be brutal for everyone involved. Don’t pick me, don’t pick me, don’t pick me. I had thought in the beginning that this was going to be my opportunity to make things right for Micheline. But I could see that there would be no good outcome here. Don’t pick me, don’t pick me, don’t pick me. The reality was that no one would ever know what had really happened. And maybe that was okay. How was knowing what happened going to help anyone? Maybe closure was overrated. Maybe that was the reason I was there, that was what I was meant to learn. I had heard enough. I didn’t need to listen anymore. I reached down to get my book from my bag on the floor.

  “For seat number eleven, Veronica Ellis. V-E-R-O-N-I-C-A E-L-L-I-S.”

  The judge’s questions went a little bit faster. We knew by now what to expect. He finished with the lady next to me, Ms. Rosalia, at about ten to one, and the judge said we would break a little early for lunch, that we should be back at 2:15. I found an empty bench in the sun in the park next to the courthouse. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

  Had I or a close friend or family member been the victim of a crime? I didn’t know what the right answer was. I could say no. It was forty-five years ago. We were children. I didn’t know what had happened. I wasn’t a witness; I had never been questioned; I had no personal knowledge of the case or the investigation. It was ancient history. I hadn’t even thought about it in years. Not until all of this.

  This wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t have been up to me. It should be up to the attorneys to figure it out. They were the ones getting paid for this, not me. I decided then that it was out of my hands. I had sworn to tell the truth, so I would. Had I or a close friend or family member been the victim of a crime? I would say yes. When the judge asked me if I had described it on my questionnaire, I would say no. When the judge asked if I wanted to speak with them privately about it, I would say yes. I would tell them that I had known Micheline Grady. Maybe they would be familiar with the case, maybe not. Whatever questions they asked, I would answer. Let it be someone else’s problem.

  I sat on the bench until ten after two. I went inside, through the security line, and up to the courtroom. The court officer directed those of us who had been in the jury box to go back to our same seats. We waited for the people in the audience, the people not yet chosen or released, to get settled.

  “Good afternoon. Ms. Ellis, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where in Manhattan do you live?”

  “On the Upper East Side.”

  “Where are you from originally?”

  “New Jersey.”

  “How long have you been living on the Upper East Side?”

  “About twenty-eight years.”

  “How much school did you complete?”

  “I have a master’s degree.”

  “In what field?”

  “Finance. I have an MBA.”

  “And are you currently working?”

  “I am.”

  “What type of work do you do?”

  “I’m in banking. I work in the treasury department of a bank.”

  “We spoke about that. Required redundancy, right?”

  “Yes. That was me.”

  “With whom do you share your home?”

  “I live alone.”

  “Have you or a close friend or family member been the victim of a crime?”

  My heart was pounding. I wondered if Ms. Rosalia could hear it from seat number ten.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Will it affect your ability to be impartial in this case?”

  Wait, what? Go back. That wasn’t what he was supposed to ask me.

 
; “Umm, no. I don’t think so. I mean, no. It won’t.”

  He was supposed to ask if I had described it on my questionnaire. What am I—?

  “Do you have any close friends or family in law enforcement?”

  “No.”

  Wasn’t someone going to say something? Was anyone even paying attention? I looked over at the attorneys sitting at their tables. Someone should say something.

  “Do you know anyone who has been charged or convicted of a crime?”

  “No.”

  “And what do you like to do in your spare time?”

  “I, umm—I practice yoga. I like to read and watch TV. I do crossword puzzles.”

  “Very good. Thank you, Ms. Ellis. Next is Mr. Colon?”

  Previously a television director, union organizer, theater technician, and law student, LEE CHILD was fired and on the dole when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a best-selling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to win worldwide acclaim. The Midnight Line, the twenty-second Reacher novel, was published in November 2017.

  The hero of his series, Jack Reacher, besides being fictional, is a kindhearted soul who allows Lee lots of spare time for reading, listening to music, and watching Yankees and Aston Villa games.

  Lee was born in England but now lives in New York City and leaves the island of Manhattan only when required to by forces beyond his control. Visit Lee online at www.LeeChild.com for more information about the novels, short stories, and the movies Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back starring Tom Cruise. Lee can also be found on Facebook.com/LeeChildOfficial, Twitter.com/LeeChildReacher and YouTube.com/LeeChildJackReacher.

  Bouquet of Chrysanthemums by Auguste Renoir

  PIERRE, LUCIEN, AND ME

  BY LEE CHILD

  I survived my first heart attack. But as soon as I was well enough to sit up in bed, the doctor came back and told me I was sure to have a second. Only a matter of time, he said. The first episode had been indicative of a serious underlying weakness. Which it had just made worse. Could be days. Or weeks. Months at most. He said from now on I should consider myself an invalid.

  I said, “This is 1928, for fuck’s sake. They got people talking on the radio from far away. Don’t you have a pill for it?”

  No pill, he said. Nothing to be done. Maybe see a show. And maybe write some letters. He told me what people regretted most were the things they didn’t say. Then he left. Then I left. Now I have been home four days. Doing nothing. Just waiting for the second episode. Days away, or weeks, or months. I have no way of knowing.

  I haven’t been to see a show. Not yet. I have to admit it’s tempting. Sometimes I wonder if the doctor had more in mind than entertainment. I can imagine choosing a brand-new musical, full of color and spectacle and riotous excitement, with a huge finale, whereupon all of us in the audience would jump to our feet for a standing ovation, and I would feel the clamp in my chest, and fall to the floor like an empty raincoat slipping off an upturned seat. I would die there while the oblivious crowd stamped and cheered all around me. My last hours would be full of singing and dancing. Not a bad way to go. But knowing my luck it would happen too soon. Some earlier stimulus would trigger it. Maybe coming up out of the subway. On the steep iron-bound stairs to the Forty-Second Street sidewalk. I would fall and slip back a yard, in the wet and the dirt and the grit, and people would look away and step around me, like I was a regular bum. Or I might make it to the theater, and die on the stairs to the balcony. I no longer have the money for an orchestra seat. Or I might make it to the gods, clinging to the stair rail, out of breath, my heart thumping, and then keel over while the band was still tuning up. The last thing I would hear would be the keening of violin strings all aiming for concert pitch. Not good. And it might spoil things for everyone else. The performance might be canceled.

  So in words I have always used, but which are now increasingly meaningless, a show is something I might do later.

  I haven’t written any letters either. I know what the doctor was getting at. Maybe the last word you had with someone was a hard word. Maybe you never took the time to say, Hey, you’re a real good friend, you know that? But I would plead innocent to those charges. I’m a straightforward guy. Usually I talk a lot. People know what I think. We all had good times together. I don’t want to spoil them by sending out some kind of a morbid goodbye message.

  So why would anyone write letters?

  Maybe they feel guilty about something.

  Which I don’t. Mostly. Hardly at all. I would never claim a blameless life, but I played by the rules. The field was level. They were crooks too. So I never laid awake at night. Still don’t. I have no big thing to put right. No small thing either. Nothing on my mind.

  Except maybe, just possibly, if you pushed me really hard, I might say the Porterfield kid. He’s on my mind a little bit. Even though it was purely business as usual. A fool and his money. Young Porterfield was plenty of one and had plenty of the other. He was the son of what the scandal sheets used to call a Pittsburgh titan. The old guy turned his steel fortune into an even bigger oil fortune, and made all his children millionaires. They all built mansions up and down Fifth Avenue. They all wanted stuff on their walls. Dumb fucks, all of them. Except mine, who was a sweet dumb fuck.

  I first met him nine years ago, late in 1919. Renoir had just died in France. It came over the telegraph. I was working at the Metropolitan Museum at the time, but only on the loading dock. Nothing glamorous, but I was hoping to work my way up. I knew some stuff, even back then. I was rooming with an Italian guy named Angelo, who wanted to be a nightclub performer. Meantime he was waiting tables at a chophouse near the stock exchange. One lunchtime a quartet of rich guys showed up. Fur collars, leather boots. Millions and millions of dollars, right there on the hoof. All young, like princes. Angelo overheard one of them say it was better to buy art while the artist was still alive, because the price would rise sharply when he was dead. It always did. Market forces. Supply and demand. Plus enhanced mystique and status. In response a second guy said in that case they’d all missed the boat on Renoir. The guy had seen the news ticker. But a third guy, who turned out to be Porterfield, said maybe there was still time. Maybe the market wouldn’t react overnight. Maybe there would be a grace period, before prices went up.

  Then for some dumb reason Angelo buttonholed Porterfield on his way out and said he roomed with a guy who worked for the Metropolitan Museum, and knew a lot about Renoir, and was an expert at finding paintings in unlikely places.

  When Angelo told me that night I asked him, “Why the fuck did you say that?”

  “Because we’re friends,” he said. “Because we’re going places. You’d do the same for me. If you overheard a guy looking for a singer, you’d tell him about me, right? You help me, I help you. Up the ladder we go. Because of our talents. And luck. Like today. The rich man was talking about art, and you work at the Metropolitan Museum. Which part of that was not true?”

  “I unload wagons,” I said. “Crates are all I see.”

  “You’re starting at the bottom. You’re working your way up. Which ain’t easy. We all know that. So you should skip the stairs and take the elevator whenever you can. The chance doesn’t come often. This guy is the perfect mark.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  “You know about Renoir.”

  “Not enough.”

  “Yes enough,” Angelo said. “You know the movement. You have a good eye.”

  Which was generous. But also slightly true, I supposed. I had seen reproductions in the newspaper. Mostly I liked older stuff, but I always tried to keep up. I could tell a Manet from a Monet.

  Angelo said, “What’s the worst fucking thing that could happen?”

  And sure enough, the next morning a messenger from the museum’s mail room came out into the cold to find me and give me a note. It was a nice-looking item, on heavy stock, in a thick envelope. It was from Porterfield. He was inviting me to come ov
er at my earliest convenience, to discuss an important proposition.

  His place was ten blocks south, on Fifth, accessed through bronze gates that probably came from some ancient palace in Florence, Italy. Shipped over in a big-bellied boat, maybe along with the right kind of workers. I was shown to a library. Porterfield came in five minutes later. He was twenty-two at the time, full of pep and energy, with a big dumb smile on his big pink face. He reminded me of a puppy my cousin once had. Big feet, slipping and sliding, always eager. We waited for a man to bring us coffee, and then Porterfield told me about his grace-period theory. He said he had always liked Renoir, and he wanted one. Or two, or three. It would mean a lot to him. He wanted me to go to France and see what I could find. His budget was generous. He would give me letters of introduction for the local banks. I would be his purchasing agent. He would send me second-class on the first steamship out. He would meet all my legitimate expenses. He talked and talked. I listened and listened. I figured he was about 80 percent the same as any other rich jerk in town, with too much bare wallpaper in his dining room. But I got the feeling some small part of him really liked Renoir. Maybe as more than an investment.

  Eventually he stopped talking, and for some dumb reason I said, “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll leave right away.”

  Six days later I was in Paris.

  It was hopeless. I knew nothing and no one. I went to galleries like a regular customer, but Renoir prices were already sky-high. There was no grace period. The first guy in the chophouse had been right. Not Porterfield. But I felt duty bound, so I kept at it. I picked up gossip. Some dealers were worried Renoir’s kids would flood the market with canvases found in his studio. Apparently they were stacked six deep against the walls. The studio was in a place called Cagnes-sur-Mer, which was in the hills behind Cannes, which was a small fishing port way in the south. On the Mediterranean Sea. A person could get to Cannes by train, and then probably a donkey cart could take him onward.