Quest

by Richard Ben Sapir

  “Fine. Arthur, this is so exciting. I’ve located the country it was made in.”

  “Good, and I’ll speak with you tomorrow, thank you,” said Artie.

  “Who was that?” asked Trudy.

  “Business.”

  “That woman you befriended out of the kindness of the Arthur Modelstein heart?”

  “She phoned me. I did not phone her. There is no guilt in owning a telephone,” said Arthur Modelstein, innocent.

  “She felt free to call.”

  “She’s a crazy lady. She feels free to do anything. You want to meet her? You want to hear what I’m going to say to her tomorrow? You want to know what I’m going to say?”

  “No, Artie. I trust you. I just don’t want to trust you for the wrong reasons, that’s all.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Artie.

  “You know.”

  “For the nondestructive, nonmanipulative, nonentangling relationship that you asked for, Trudy, this is none of the above,” said Artie.

  “You still know what I mean,” said Trudy.

  He did. But he knew she couldn’t nail him on it.

  In the morning, he saw that she had finished his coffee and left a note saying he needed more and that the conversation they had started the night before was not finished.

  At 10:00 A.M., to the second, Claire Andrews’s phone call arrived and posed an immediate decision for the evening to Detective Modelstein. On the one hand, there was to be a confrontation with Trudy at his apartment that night, or, on the other hand, there was the beautiful young woman with the fresh summer smile and enchanting innocence and yet-to-be-explored blouse and body, talking about her place, a wall, which she was using to track down a historical piece, and a mattress.

  “I just have a mattress in the place; otherwise, I would invite you up.”

  “That’s all right,” said Artie.

  “There’s no pots, pans, silverware.”

  “I’ll bring pizza and wine.”

  “I owe you a dinner.”

  “I’ll bring it,” said Artie. He did not trust her with food. He trusted no one from America’s heartland with food. She might bring a bologna and mayonnaise pizza for all he knew. He trusted only Italians, Greeks, and other Jews to eat well. Everyone else had suspect taste, including the blacks, who for Artie were absolutely interchangeable with southern whites. He had seen black detectives order breakfast. He had watched a blotch of butter melting in white paste. He had been told with a big grin that they were grits. Southern whites ate that way, too. Artie had not finished his breakfast but had settled later for a danish on the run.

  And of course most of the Irish were the worst of all. He was always sure their mothers learned to cook by reading the back of Betty Crocker boxes.

  He decided not to tell her the good news but save it for the evening. He was sure Geoffrey Battissen was going to crack. If ever he had anyone who was ready to make a deal, it was Battissen. He had been there twice: the first time, he was told to leave, and the second time was even better.

  Geoffrey Battissen threatened to bring a lawsuit if Detective Modelstein ever returned to the Battissen Galleries. So that morning Artie returned and Battissen refused to see him, leaving a customer and running back to his office. His red-headed assistant, as though ordered, blocked the way. A loud click came from the back of the gallery. Battissen had locked his door.

  To avoid Detective Modelstein by locking himself in his office was like trying to get rid of a fund appeal by sending money. It was the one thing that would give some kind of handle, because once Battissen refused to be questioned he could be arrested as a material witness. And from that Artie might be able to break him into turning on everyone else, if there were someone else. There at least had to be a buyer, or possibly the art dealer still had the cellar, this despite Feldman’s curious warning or prophecy that great stones mysteriously never stayed with the small fries.

  “Look,” said Artie to the red-headed assistant who had been left to block him. “I’m going to give you one more chance. If he won’t talk to me, I am going to arrest him as a material witness. Now I’ve got nothing against your boss. But I’ve got a complaint that could lead to a grand larceny conviction. If this lady he took the cellar from doesn’t drop charges, we’re going to be dealing lawyers, grand larceny, and some heavy jail time. Tell him he’s in a new league. And if he wants to get out of this clean, tell him to make a deal with the lady from Ohio. Thirty grand won’t do it. She wants her property back. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t know,” said the assistant in a whisper appropriate to the refined atmosphere of the gallery. She smiled nervously and ran her tongue over her superglossed lips. Artie wondered if she were turned on by this.

  “Jail,” said Artie in a decibel that would have done justice to an elevated train. “Jail. Theft. Grand larceny. Criminal.”

  “All right. All right,” said the assistant.

  “I’m coming back tomorrow. No talk, arrest warrant. Jail.”

  “Yes. I heard. Thank you,” said the assistant.

  “I’m not talking about the forgeries around here. Jail.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  And for good measure, of course, Artie phoned from outside, getting Battissen on the line and delivering the threat again. Like a good poker player who knew when his bluff was working, Artie knew when someone was going to fold.

  No matter what Feldman said, Artie didn’t have to understand the process of great gems. He understood people. He would let the great stones take care of themselves. And he had put in too much of his day already on this cellar and the stones that he was almost certain were gone for good.

  Before he went to dinner with the lovely lady from Ohio, he got a tip on a sure collar. An old friend of his, part of his familiar world, had opened up another jewelry store, this one on Canal Street. He was an Iranian immigrant, named Mordechai Baluzzian, and Artie had been told Baluzzian was acting as a fence again.

  Not only was Baluzzian dealing hot goods, but he had the audacity to put in the front window a large pear-shaped diamond ring that was definitely hot goods.

  There was the normal cry from Baluzzian of persecution, and the normal hint of a bribe, the latter annoying Artie.

  “C’mon,” Artie said, and the man just smiled and hinted at a larger bribe.

  “I’ll collar you for that, c’mon. This one-karat flawless pear-shaped with the baguettes has got a report on it. It’s steaming,” said Artie, standing over a display rack of rings in the Canal Street jewelry store of Mordechai Baluzzian, who had more sale signs in his window than goods.

  “I purchase it from the most legitimate of dealers. The most legitimate,” said Baluzzian. He was a small dark man with delicate hands that seemed to do his weeping for him. He wore a three-piece gray-striped suit more appropriate for a boardroom than for this store on Canal Street.

  “We’ll run its gem prints,” said Artie.

  “I never saw the man before,” said Baluzzian, kissing his fingers as though making a holy vow.

  “C’mon, Mordechai. Why do you say these things?” said Artie.

  “If I were an Ashkenazi, you would look the other way.”

  “Mordechai.”

  “A nice emerald for your wife. Take it.”

  “I’m gonna break your head.”

  “I know of worse that the Ashkenazi do.”

  “Good. Tell me. You know I work with information. You give me something good on them, then we’re talking business, then we’re talking about some reduced charges.”

  “How can I? They are such criminals, Arthur, no one knows how they do it. No one.”

  “I’ve nailed a Hasid,” said Artie. “They’re not saints.”

  “One. In all your years, one. And then some retail store. You have never touched a dealer. Never. Never one of your sanctified diamond dealers. If they had dark skins, Arthur, it would have been more than one.”

  There was some truth in what Baluzzia
n said, but not much. Granted, the Ashkenazi did not deal with the Iranian Jews, but neither would they ever deal with Artie either, who was an Ashkenazi also. It was a closed business, and the reason so little fraud was engendered among dealers was that the rabbinical courts did not believe in punishments of a few years, but in terms of banishment forever. This Baluzzian did not wish to know.

  “Give me help. Give me information,” said Artie before booking Mordechai Baluzzian, whose hostility toward Ashkenazi did not extend to his selection of lawyers. This Ashkenazi lawyer was now trying to make a case against Artie on grounds that arresting Mordechai Baluzzian for the fourth time might be construed as harassment and prejudice. Just before he went over to the address in Queens Claire had given him, Artie made one more phone call to the Battissen Galleries. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and they had closed for the day, according to the answering service.

  At Battissen’s home, another answering service said he was not there. At both, Artie left a message that if Geoffrey Battissen did not get back to him by the morning he was going to have to swear out a warrant for his arrest as a material witness.

  Then he picked up a bottle of Chianti and a large sausage pizza with peppers and onions and drove out to Queens. Claire lived in a high rise off Queens Boulevard and overlooking the Long Island Expressway.

  Claire met him in a clean white suit and invited him into a spotless, furnitureless apartment. He had to put the pizza box on the stove top, and he poured the Chianti into a green coffee cup and a glass that apparently used to hold jelly. She had paper towels but no plates.

  “I’m going to swear out an arrest warrant for Geoffrey Battissen tomorrow,” said Artie. Claire clapped her hands and kissed him on the cheek. It felt good.

  “Not for theft but material witness. I think he may have had help. It’s too big a theft for someone like him. The word is he’s a petty chiseler, but he is not a big-league thief.”

  “Oh Arthur, this is just wonderful,” said Claire, drinking a toast of Chianti from the coffee cup. She had given the glass to him. She cradled the green cup like a flower and leaned against the stove. There was no place to sit.

  Artie felt strangely proud, like a little boy showing off in the classroom where Claire’s notebook belonged.

  “You see, if he had just been cooperative to a degree we wouldn’t have had anything. And I sense, you get a sixth sense about these things, that this is a man who is going to break. And when he breaks, he’ll break all over his friends.”

  “Do you think there are others?” she asked.

  “Well, the book on him is he’s weak. And he’s not in this league. I think you just may be getting a nice phone call from him. He’s ready to do something, I know it. I smell it,” said Artie.

  She opened the pizza box, to the sausage and onions and peppers, and laid a still warm slice on a paper towel and offered it to Artie like a bouquet.

  “I will never give up hope, you know. And neither should you.”

  “I guess maybe around you I can hope,” said Artie. As soon as the slice left her hand, it dripped and he had to dodge the red splatter, getting the dripping cheese precariously into his mouth. There was no place to put it down. It had to be eaten safe or worn. Somehow, in a white suit, Claire Andrews spilled nothing and took no larger bite than she could chew easily.

  “I guess you’re used to winning against odds, huh?” asked Artie. He felt awkward. Lust was easier to deal with.

  “I’m actually not even used to being on my own. I just do what I have to do, I guess. And it’s working out, isn’t it?”

  Artie desperately looked for more towels to keep the olive oil from running down his thumb into his sleeve.

  She talked about why she felt she had to do this, about her father’s lucky piece, about how she had suddenly discovered that the people back in Carney didn’t really think as highly of him now that he was dead.

  “Everyone believed he was dealing in stolen property just because I couldn’t get the receipt right away.”

  “I think you’re going to have to get some proof,” said Artie.

  “I will,” said Claire.

  “Good, because it will help if you have to take Battissen to court.”

  He tried to get the conversation away from her father because as long as it stayed on that sadness, he was never going to get to that mattress in the bedroom.

  “If I do dwell on Dad too much, will you stop me?”

  “Sure,” said Artie, who realized they were still talking about her father by agreeing not to bring him up again.

  He wanted to ask if she were a virgin. He wanted to ask if she ever committed any acts she was ashamed of. He wanted to bathe her in the red wine, get her out of that unsullied white suit she had worn a full day in New York without soiling. He wanted to ask her if she would like to roll around in olive oil with him. He wondered if any other part of her body besides the upper part of her chest had freckles. Probably her shoulders. He wanted to offer her a solemn promise to kiss every one of her freckles, anywhere it might be. He thought she might even laugh at that. He would. Trudy would. One didn’t ask about freckle kissing when one listened to sadness. One even felt bad for thinking about freckles when someone talked about a dead father, and caring, and fear, and taking life to herself for the first time. And being so honest about the damned thing.

  One kept saying “uh huh,” suspecting latent incestual impulses the way she kept talking about the man. But the more she talked about this place she could not return to the more he realized that even if Carney were not the dream town, it came close and this girl came closer.

  Why did she have to be so damned innocent, with those eyes that looked at him so trustingly? That said to him she thought he was a wonderful person, like some knight-errant somewhere. Artie remembered courtly love from an English survey course in his first semester at City College, before he dropped out. He seemed to remember a lack of sex with that.

  And this was not getting her out of those clothes and into bed. Dead fathers and a home she was not going back to were misty-day, walk-in-the-rain kind of conversations. He had to get into something new. Artie brought up the cellar. He could get off that subject easier than her father and her hometown.

  “One good thing about Battissen is he’s got an investment in his store. He’s got something to lose. He’s not some second-story bimbo on smack. We’ve got some leverage here.”

  “Of course,” said Claire.

  “Also, I haven’t heard any sounds of them. So maybe this thing isn’t broken down yet.”

  “Do stolen gems make sounds?” asked Claire.

  “I mean people will hear rumors. So yeah, they make sounds. Somebody will say he’s heard of a big red stone that he thinks is hot. And I’ll hear of it.” He did not tell her what Norman Feldman had said about the great stones being beyond the level of a New York City detective. With her in this kitchen, sharing the wine from make-do glasses, he felt there was no level beyond him.

  “Are they your friends?” she asked.

  “Some are in a way. Yeah. Some are. I just arrested a guy today I kind of like. It’s crazy, but he’s an immigrant and he doesn’t understand America yet. When he does maybe he’ll steal differently, but then maybe he won’t at all, you know. Maybe his son won’t.”

  “Do they tell you these things because they’re your friends?”

  “No. They tell me these things because it’s in their interest to do so. Because I’ll do them favors if I can, because they want to get even with someone, because an orderly market without criminals is better for everyone. Lots of reasons.”

  He felt her put a hand on his chest. He liked that. It was time for a move, but the move was to her living room. In a bare room, no furniture, not even a chair, she had marked up a wall and covered it with papers.

  She stood before it with the exhilaration of an Olympic athlete hearing her record time over a loudspeaker. She had the same wild eyes as when she first signed the complaint aga
inst Battissen.

  “This is it, Arthur,” she said, making fists of her hands as though she had a discovery so exciting she didn’t dare open them because it would fly away.

  He was sure the bedroom was through one of the doors around this bare white-walled room with the cheap white window shades and no lamp.

  “Nice,” he said.

  “This is the wall, Arthur.”

  “I see.”

  She opened her fists and gestured to marks at both ends of the wall. She had cut off time, she said. Even before she had narrowed everything down to two simple, probable centuries, she had removed infinity from her calculations by simple logic. What did Arthur think of that?

  “Yeah. Nice. Nice,” said Artie, wondering where was her simple little school notebook with all the innocent hope.

  More than that, she went on, she had pinpointed a place. The pinpoint was an entire country. It was circled by a ballpoint pen.

  Four pieces of paper in a crude drawing represented her memory of Dad’s cellar.

  “It was three A.M. and I knew I wasn’t going to remember the cellar any better than then, so I tore pages out of the very notebook I showed you that morning in front of your apartment and drew it as quickly as possible. So I wouldn’t confuse myself. Or hinder myself.”

  She smiled. With that mess on the wall, she was now claiming conquest of time and space. And she was actually thrilled about it. With all her beauty, with all the nice things she had to offer, Artie couldn’t accept this exhilaration at a messed-up wall. It was crazy. She was beautiful and sweet, and innocent, and crazy. And he had contributed to the madness. Conquering infinity?

  “Wonderful, isn’t it, when you think this is what we’ve done the first day,” she said.

  “Well, I just kind of do my job, you know. A dull sort of … dull … reality sort of thing. Time and space are for Einstein, you know.”

  “I’m not saying we have it now. But it’s a beginning. Look where we were just a few days ago. Do you see, Arthur? Do you see? Be honest.”

  “Look, the edge I have on Battissen doesn’t mean we’re going to get anything back. In fact, I don’t think we will, honestly. So he’ll break and maybe he’ll try to make some kind of deal. I maybe misled you with the excitement of the moment, you know. Instead of absolutely nothing, we have a little something now where we should have had nothing.”