Of Mice and Murderers

by John Stockmyer

  What he was also coming to understand was that his sense of virtue barely applied to art theft, if at all.

  Sitting there on the black, plastic-padded bench, Z had a difficult time believing the person who stole the painting had harmed anyone, the possible exception being big, dumb, old, ugly guys like Big Bob Zapolska.

  The one remaining bright spot in the floundering Monet case was that the painting was so important the thief who took it would treasure it. (Cutting the painting from the frame would cause the "Boulevard" little damage; after recovery, restorers would soon make the painting as good as new. While most people didn't know it, large parts of many paintings on display in the world's galleries were, in actuality, the re-paintings of nameless "restorers" throughout time. Susan had told him that.)

  On the plus side, Z could see a number of good things happening because the "Boulevard" had been pirated. First, for the criminal, of course. Whoever lifted the Monet would have the unequaled pleasure of having it for a time, of looking at it as long as he wished.

  Eventually satiated with the painting's beauty, the crook would offer (for a substantial sum) to return the canvas to the gallery. (No way a painting that famous could be fenced to a third party.)

  Just another example of high-class criminals getting away with their crimes. Prosecution, was for blacks who, made desperate by ghetto lives, robbed the corner liquor store.

  The Nelson would also benefit from the painting being pinched. After the Monet's triumphant return, people who'd never heard of Impressionists would flock to the gallery to see the "Boulevard."

  Then, too, the painting's theft would add to the legend of the "Boulevard," a romantic past increasing a painting's value.

  The only loss would be the ransom paid by the company that insured the gallery: an amount far less than the actual value of the Monet.

  Thinking straight, had anyone ever seen an insurance company lose money? To the contrary, the insurer would gain so much publicity from the theft that a sane man could suspect the company of being implicated in the heist! Besides which, in Z's book, insurance companies were the country's richest robbers of the poor. (Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with banks and S and L's.) If Robin Hood were alive today, his target would surely be insurance companies! (That's what Z's Mom had always thought, particularly after the insurance company had defaulted on his father's policy!)

  How long Bob Zapolska sat there -- his mood darkening by degrees -- he didn't know; long enough for three guards to gather at his back; long enough to hear them whispering. (He supposed it was unusual for someone to stare so long at a blank space on the wall. Then again, these could be the guards who'd noticed him before, the ones who'd reported his description to the K.C. cops.)

  Time to move on.

  Backtracking through Parker-Grant, limping down the broad stairs, Z turned left to cross the back of the Nelson, the gallery's east wing housing European paintings.

  Rather than concentrating on what he was seeing, though, he'd begun to think about what would happen if he stole a painting. (And he didn't have a doubt that he could do it -- and get away with it.) Art galleries were between the famous rock and the equally notorious hard place when it came to safeguarding their collections. Adequate protection systems interfered with the viewing pleasure of patrons. That being the case, since galleries were designed to give pleasure to gallery-goers .....

  Thinking about how he might steal a painting, the best way was to do what the thief had done: hide himself in the gallery at closing time, plenty of nooks to take cover in, the Nelson a warren of small rooms flanking the gallery's halls.

  After the Nelson was closed for the night, Z would emerge.

  Copying the M.O. of the thief, he'd cut a small picture out of its frame. Except, in Z's case, he would stash the painting somewhere -- along with himself -- overnight.

  In the sleepy mid-afternoon of the following day, he'd roll up the picture, emerge from his hidey-hole, "retire" to a restroom stall, slip the painting inside his shirt, wrap the canvas around his body, button up, emerge from the john and walk out the front door.

  Thinking about how easy it would be to steal a painting -- picking up speed as he entered one European room after the other -- Z grew more excited.

  Brushing past other gallery-goers, ignoring their disapproving looks, he began to search for the cubbyhole he'd need; a space above a room's false ceiling; a ventilator shaft connected to the gallery's public restroom.

  He could hide both himself and a canvas in one of the huge wooden 18th-century wardrobes on display. No one ever looked in them because:

  A. you were not supposed to touch the cabinets, to say nothing of opening the cabinets' doors!

  B. nothing was on display inside the wardrobe.

  He could crawl under a bed in one of the three, roped-off colonial chambers -- displays decorated to simulate rooms in early, middle, and late colonial American homes.

  If he were a midget, he could tuck himself inside the canopied Japanese bed in the gallery's oriental wing.

  A giant would fit behind the out-sized wood statue of Buddha at the darkened end of the "Indian temple."

  Or he could duck through one of those doors marked Personnel Only to find who knew what inaccessible spot in the building's bowels.

  A plus would be that the disappearance of a second painting would be attributed to the "guard" who took the "Boulevard," the thief assumed to have brazenly returned to the gallery for more loot.

  The person no one would suspect would be Big Bob Z, especially since he'd been "given-up" as a "possibility" in the theft of the first painting.

  The more Z thought about grabbing a work of art, the more excited he got -- owning any of the gallery's treasures putting lowly Bob Zapolska in a class with kings! Later, should he need big money to hold on to Susan, all he had to do was return the painting and collect the inevitable (no questions asked) reward. As a private investigator, he could return the painting in the open, claiming he'd been chosen as an agent for the anonymous thief, a thief "unknown" even to him.

  The trouble with these plans was ... they conflicted with the iron-hard code of rules he'd made for himself to follow, particularly, the provision preventing him from stealing ... anything ... ever ... unless absolutely necessary.

  With his remembered honor came a sense of guilt for even considering such a crime. Moreover, with the guilt came .... what? The feeling that, if he did take a painting, he'd be looking behind him for the rest of his sorry life, the feeling he was having ... even now ... of being followed?

  He peered over his shoulder; saw nothing but an elderly man, stopped as Z was, the man turning to shuffle into a side room of Tibetan artifacts. Had Z seen that old gentleman before? Was the man following him? Could the Gallery have put in additional security disguised as museum patrons?

  Unlikely. It was more probable that the only thing trailing Z was regret for even thinking about stealing from the Nelson.

  So much for his Gallery experience.

  Winding back to the Nelson's front entrance, trying to keep from limping when passing other more "arty" people, getting his coat from check-in, putting it on, he pushed his way out the heavy bronze entrance doors.

  Easing down the front steps, then along the circular "river rock" walk that led to the sunken parking area, Z located his car and dragged himself behind the wheel.

  Backing out, having to angle as sharply as a front-wheel drive car could to keep from hitting a yellow school bus nosed in behind him, straightening, he urged the car to chug off for the exit ... and almost flattened someone darting out in front of him!

  Surprisingly enough, it was the old guy he'd seen in the gallery.

  Brakes on in time, Z waved the fellow across, the man shambling forward, his head bowed against what little wind there was on that comparatively warm winter's day.

  Where had that spry old gent come from? Surely, he hadn't passed Z in the gallery's halls, yet, here he was, waving one hand behind him as a t
hank you for being allowed to live.

  Spry was not the word for it. The fellow should run the hundred meters --- in the over-eighties category of the Senior Olympics. (Thinking about it, always the detective, never satisfied until he tied up loose ends, he figured the old guy had taken one of the Nelson's gentle elevators to beat him to the parking lot.)

  The oldster shuffling out of sight, checking all directions, Z started up again, bumping out on the street at last.

  Turning left, then left again at the Art Institute, he took a right on 47th.

  Another right beyond the Plaza business area and he was slotted into the noontime rush, northbound on the Southwest Traffic way.

  There, drifting along in the right of three lanes of heavy traffic, he had time to sell himself on the idea that, though he might have toyed with the possibility of theft, he could never have stolen anything from the gallery.

  Certainly, his self-knowledge told him, never a lesser work than the "Boulevard des Capucines"!

  * * * * *

  Chapter 17

  Z was awake in the dark of night! Something was wrong. Some ... sound .... Popping noises ...

  It was then that he smelled smoke, began to cough, to gag, to try desperately to catch his breath!

  Now that he'd opened his eyes, they were burning, tearing.

  Reflexively, he struggled out from under the sheet and dropped to the floor where the air was clearer. Holding his breath, crawling on his hands and knees over the cool slick linoleum, he made it around the end of the bed, through the narrow space between the bed and dresser and into the bathroom. Reaching up, he got a water tap in the basin turned on; found a towel on the low rack; shoved it up and under the running water.

  It took ten fluttery heartbeats before he could drag the soaking towel down to floor level and wring it out, Z quickly wrapping the sodden cloth around his nose and mouth, tying the ends behind his head so he had the use of his hands again.

  Only then, his lungs dissolving into asphyxia, did he risk a tiny tortured breath.

  To find that his system ... worked! A little -- the wet towel filtering out enough smoke so he could take shallow breaths once more.

  Keeping his head jammed to the oxygen-rich floor, he backed from the bathroom and belly-crawled across the bedroom floor, then through the short hall into the living room.

  There, as he'd feared, the smoke was heavier, an oily kind of reek, thick, sooty. ... But no flames. Not even ... heat.

  Getting as much water-filtered air into his lungs as he could by sipping in a long, slow breath, Z hauled himself to his feet and fumbled on the living room ceiling lamp, the light making little headway against the black smoke.

  Still, no actual fire.

  At least, not in the apartment, the air... cool ... the floor ... cool.

  Quickly blinded by the room's roiling vapor, Z picked his way to the front door, where, slowly leaking out his last oxygen-starved breath, he got the door unlocked, jerked it open, and threw himself into the yard.

  Stumbling, staggering out of the boiling pea-soup cloud that followed him into the midnight dark, he clawed the wet towel down around his neck and sucked in a lung full of clean winter air.

  Coughed it out. Breathed deep again.

  Coughed some more ....

  Breathed/coughed. Breathed/coughed. Breathed/coughed ... until he felt better, at least good enough to realize his naked body was ... freezing.

  Though tears still stung his eyes, by blinking rapidly, he could see fuzzy images again; looked back to see dark plumes of vapor continuing to roll out his apartment door.

  In spite of being naked, he had to warn the other tenants that the place was on fire.

  And yet ... the house didn't seem to be on fire.

  All was quiet.

  No flames. No lights except the one in his own living room.

  Drawing a deep breath, slipping the towel over his lower face -- leaving the door wide open to let smoke continue to billow from his apartment -- he limped back inside to discover that the source of the poisonous cloud was his fireplace. Somehow, the fire that Z had let die out before going to bed had rekindled during the night to smoke up the place.

  Had he done a dumb thing like close the damper? ..... No. He never shut the damper. Letting a nickel's worth of warm air leak out the metal chimney during the night was a small price to pay for not having to remember to open the fireplace damper next morning.

  Hurrying through the smog that continued to boil out of the fireplace, still on the breath of fresh air he'd gasped in outside, he hobbled to the bedroom to jerk up the window sash in an attempt to make cross-ventilation, the frigid air that came through the window beginning to blow the bedroom free of all but sooty wisps that floated near the ceiling.

  Able to think again, he limped into the bathroom.

  Shivering, standing in the puddle of cold water he'd wrung from the towel, he turned off the tap that, in the emergency, he'd left running.

  Untying the face towel, able to breath directly if he took his time, Z left the bathroom.

  His first panic subsiding, careful to balance himself to keep his wet feet from slipping on the slick floor, he crossed the bedroom to snap on the light.

  Tossing the life-saving towel on the floor beside the bed, he turned to get his robe from the open closet. Put it on, through force of habit, clicked off the light.

  His feet dried off enough to reduce the danger of slipping, he edged into the living room to find that, except for black spirals of vapor still rolling from the fireplace, most of the smoke had made its way through the open door.

  Limping to the sink in the kitchenette, continually brushing tears from his eyes so he could see, he filled a couple of old jelly jars with water, brought them back to the living room, and streamed the water over the smoldering fire.

  One more jar of water ... and the fire was ... out.

  A strange fire. Like nothing he'd seen.

  Another minute to let more of the smoke clear, and Z went over to shut the front door.

  Returning to the fireplace, he examined the damper handle to find it open -- as it always was.

  It was only then, after settling down even more, that he became aware of ... the strange odor of the smoke, something quite different from the perfumed smell of burning wood. Nor was he inhaling the rich scent of roasting peanut butter on blazing crusts of bread.

  Where had he smelled that odor? Somewhere. Recently ... the smell reminding him of old basements or of oily rags.

  Bending down to look in the fireplace box, Z did find what looked like charred rags ... except laced with ... goo? This sticky substance, apparently, that was the source of the smoke.

  The question was, how did that ... whatever it was ... get in Z's fireplace? Not to mention how it caught fire, to say nothing of why the smoke didn't go up the chimney like smoke from any kind of fire!

  No need to hire a detective to tell him something was very wrong here; nor did it take his full powers of deduction to conclude that the solution to the mystery of the smoking fireplace lay, not in the living room, but ... on the roof. (No one had been in the living room; the door had been locked, delaying him when he was desperate to get out.)

  First, though, Z had to return to the bedroom to stick his bare feet in his shoes.

  Back in the living room, he got his heavy overcoat from the closet and pulled it on over his robe, buttoned up the coat, got his regular winter gloves out of his overcoat pockets, and slipped them on.

  Going to the kitchen drawer for his flashlight, he was finally ready.

  The early panic over, more cautious now, he snapped off the living room ceiling light so he could peer outside without being seen by anyone ... out there.

  Seeing no one, he cracked open the door to spent some time peeking out, giving close attention to the side yard that separated his apartment house from the similar house next door.

  But saw nothing and no one, Z unhappy that most of the snow that had amplified last we
ek's moonlight was gone.

  In spite of shadows so dark they could hide Godzilla, he felt sure there was little danger that anyone was out there. Why? Because he'd already been outside, logic saying that, if someone had been waiting to waylay him, the attacker would have jumped him the first time Z stumbled out; before Z's eyes cleared enough to see; while he was coughing -- naked -- defenseless.

  Big Bob Zapolska cursed! Any competent detective would have thought of the possibility of being ambushed. ... Except, maybe, someone who's life hung on a seconds worth of air. (No sense beating himself up for being forced to take his only option.)

  Z, his own guinea pig in the demonstration that there was nothing to fear outside, he opened the door and slipped out.

  A quiet, peaceful night, Z at last convinced that the only person under threat -- in the house -- on the block -- in the entire city, for all he knew -- had been ... him. (For the person who wishes to feel special, Z could recommend a narrow escape from assassination!)

  He was outside for a reason. ... Yes. To climb up on the roof.

  No need to get the termite weakened ladder hung on the inside wall of the garage when he could repeat what he'd done when installing the fireplace: climb the stout rose trellis beside his door.

  And climb he did, moving carefully, over and around the interwoven rose cane -- only stabbing himself once on a winter-hardened thorn. Was soon standing on the flat one-story roof.

  Flashlight switched on, he crunched across the frozen tar paper roof to reach the roof's center, where he squatted beside the dull metal cylinder that was the top of the fireplace chimney.

  Playing the light at the chimney's four-foot pipe, Z saw ... nothing ... everything as it should be, the chimney top crowned with a circular "pointed hat" of metal to keep rain from falling directly down the pipe into the firebox, the chimney's smoke slots tucked under the "cap."

  Taking off one glove, reaching under the metal hood, he gingerly poked a finger into a vent slot ... discovering that the opening was clogged with something ... sticky.