Tales of the Witch (18 page)

B.J. stared at Joe blankly, until his brain cells cooled down and he could think. “You mean, Ziegfield’s Follies?”

“Yeah! Great, ain’t it?”

B.J. gulped. “They’re lucky he’s dead, or he’d sue.”

Joe howled with laughter.

Then B.J. explained what he wanted, and Joe didn’t feel like laughing any more.

“You lost your marbles, kid.” He shook his head in grave concern. “You need to talk to somebody. Get counseling.” He patted B.J. on the arm.

B.J. jerked his arm away. “You’re going to help me, or you’re going to the police with me now, either dragged or walking, I don’t care.” He panted furiously through his nose.

Joe began patting B.J.’s chest. B.J. pushed his hands away. “What’re you—”

“Oh, calm down.” He found B.J.’s glasses and put them back on B.J.’s nose. “Now you look more like yourself. You shouldn’t worry about impressing these guys. They don’t care if you got eyes on your elbows.” He took B.J.’s arm and continued making soothing conversation, and they left the place without B.J. immediately registering the fact.

Suddenly B.J. realized he was sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup truck. “I’m being kidnapped! You’re kidnapping me!”

“B.J., if I wanted to kidnap you, wouldn’t I ‘of knocked you out first or something? You’re screaming like a woman, for God’s sake. Just shut up.”

B.J. shut up.

“That’s better. I’m takin’ you to an expert.”

“Your expert art fence?”

“Naw, an expert fixer. Relax. She’ll get the bugs outta your brain for you. The price is right, too. She works for free.”

“Free?”

“Yeah. By the by, how many beers you had tonight?”

“Uh—I don’t remember.”

“Cripes. Then just shut up.”

B.J. shut up.

“Sit there, B.J., and don’t say nothing until she asks.” Joe pointed to a soft chair by the fireplace. When he was obeyed, he turned to Mrs. Risk.

“He’s a nice enough fella, or I wouldn’ta brought ’em. Sorry about his beered-up condition, but it’s kinda urgent. Do you want me to go or to wait?”

Mrs. Risk, a tall lean woman whose body was draped in a dark flowing material like a long dress, eyed him narrowly. “If you leave, how will Mr. Maxwell get home?”

’Course, his house ain’t an awful long walk from here. He lives in those apartments this side o’ Wyndham, by the school. The walk’d sober him some, too, before he gets home to that dragon of his.”

Mrs. Risk considered the by now extremely alarmed B.J. “He looks sober enough, Joe. Wait in the kitchen. Rachel left some butterscotch cookies on the counter.”

Joe brightened. He bent towards B.J., said confidingly, “Rachel, that’s a friend o’ Mrs. Risk’s, now there’s a gorgeous female! Puts them at Flo’s to shame!” He disappeared around the corner.

B.J. stared fixedly at the woman and squeezed his hands together so she wouldn’t notice their trembling. Her hair, as dark as her dress, hung like a silk curtain as she bent to pour tea from a pot that had been steeping on the hearth. Attractive for middle-age, he thought, but couldn’t quite figure which decade she belonged to. He looked around, searching for something, a homey detail, anything to reassure him. Her house was really a log cottage. Old, with plastered walls and low ceilings. As he inhaled the slightly tart fragrance, he suddenly felt himself relax. Then, mysteriously, the urge to talk overwhelmed him. He told her everything.

Afterward, he heaved a great sigh.

“Feel better?” asked Mrs. Risk, amused.

“NO,” B.J. said passionately. “I realize more than ever that I’ve done a really bad thing.”

“Yes, you have.”

Joe wandered into the room, brushing crumbs from his broad front. B.J.’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. He steals for a living, yet he’s a friend of yours? And you’re telling me I’ve done wrong? Who are you, anyway?”

Joe said, “Fine time to ask, after you spill your guts to the lady.”

B.J. reddened. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Joe roared with laughter. “You won’t be the last guy to say that where the Witch o’ Wyndham-by-the-Sea’s concerned!”

B.J. pursed his lips and peered up at her through his glasses. “That’s you?”

Mrs. Risk nodded.

“Well, I’ve heard of you, of course. But I don’t see…well, how can you help me?”

Joe grinned. “She’s done some things you’d have a hard time believing. Helped me, once’r twice. No shame in it.”

B.J. squirmed. “I wasn’t feeling shame, I—uh…”

Mrs. Risk raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps you’d already decided on a course of action?”

“Well.” He sat up straighter. “I thought Joe could tell me the name of his fence, and then I intended to ask the fence who his customer was…”

Joe’s eyes popped wide. “And you thought that a big-time art fence would just…TELL you? Not if you was James Bond, with the Marine Corps to back you up.” He wheezed in dismay. “Never mind the fact that if anybody revealed ANY info, me’n the fence’d both be out o’ business. The REAL problem is, this particular fence, see, ain’t a regular guy like you and me and Mrs. Risk, here.”

B.J. eyed Joe and Mrs. Risk, startled at the idea of considering either of them ‘regular’. “Yes, well—”

Joe shuddered. “Nooooo, B.J. He’d skin your privates just for findin’ ’im, let alone talkin’ to ’im. Mine’r crawlin’ up inside my guts right now at just the thought of it. He ain’t nobody to bother. That’s why we need Mrs. Risk, you moron!”

“I can do this MYSELF, YOU MORON!” B.J. leaped to his feet, but then swayed light-headedly. Joe grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Just let the lady talk, okay? Sorry I called you a moron. You don’t know no better, I realize that. Really. I’m sorry. Go on, Mrs. Risk. He’s ready to listen.”

Mrs. Risk considered B.J. carefully. “I don’t think you’re correct, Joe.”

She began to stride slowly back and forth in front of the two men. B.J. started to speak, only to be shaken roughly into silence by a stern Joe.

Finally, Mrs. Risk looked up. “Well, first, let’s discover who purchased your painting. There may be nothing I can do after all.”

She picked up a phone, and turning her back to the men, murmured during her call in a voice too low for them to make out the words.

Once again B.J. tried to speak.

“Shut up, will you?” snapped Joe.

B.J. snapped back, “You know, I’m getting sick and tired of being told to shut up!”

Joe nodded sympathetically. “I don’t blame you. Shut up anyway, just this one last time. Honest, you’ll be glad you did.”

Fuming, B.J. shut up.

Mrs. Risk turned around. She wrote an address on a piece of paper and handed it to B.J. “Here’s where your painting is hanging now.”

B.J.’s mouth dropped open. “Wha—how—”

She smiled gently. “I deduced who the fence must be by Joe’s fright, and from your description of the painting. Art fences specialize.”

“And you got him to tell you—after what Joe said he was like?”

She nodded. “Now, if you’d like to listen—”

B.J. jumped up. “Hey, thanks. Joe’s right. You’ve been a great help, but this’s all I need. I can handle things from here, myself…” Still muttering excitedly, he ran out the door.

As the door slammed behind him, Mrs. Risk looked at Joe. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Thought he had more sense, but the poor guy—he lives with such stress.” He shrugged. “You’re a sport, an’ I owe ya one. Hey, tell Rachel her cookies were outrageous, will ya?”

She nodded and showed Joe out.

Later that night, freshly showered and sober, B.J. told the taxi to let him out half a block from his destination, which turned out to be as close as the cab could get, anyway. The neighborhood was choked with parked cars, mostly of the luxury class.

As he approached the mansion on foot, he saw that a party was underway. At this late hour, most of the partygoers were already inside, and having a terrific evening, judging by the music and laughter.

B.J. paused next to a dark blue Rolls. He worried how rich and/or powerful the man might be who owned a house like this, but concluded finally that it didn’t matter. Whoever lived here had bought stolen property, and was undoubtedly a crook. B.J. flushed in the darkness. At least as big a crook as he himself was for selling it.

He shivered nervously and almost turned and ran. But instead, somehow he forced himself to slip in through the nearest side door. No one even glanced at him. He darted upstairs, deciding to begin his search in the bedrooms. That’s where he expected to find the fewest people, and his courage needed a rest. He also paused a moment to use the master bathroom facilities.

It was while zipping himself afterward that he spotted it in the bathroom mirror. He whipped around with a gasp. For a second, he thought he was hallucinating—after all, he’d been obsessed for weeks with his need to find it.

Then he gasped a second time. The steam from the shower and the tub—this was the way to treat a rare art treasure?! He had to get it out of here, no matter what else happened.

With indignation, he reached up and with both hands tried to lift the heavy painting away from the wall…and tugged in vain.

He frowned. Someone must’ve used bolts to attach it to the wall…then dimly he registered the thudding of running footsteps. It must’ve been wired it to a well-monitored alarm system, he realized with resignation. Within seconds, his arms were pinned tight by the grip of uniformed guards. Curious party guests followed and soon a crowd of spectators were peering into the bathroom at B.J. and his captors.

To B.J.’s surprise, he noticed the badges pinned to his guards’ chests were from the genuine police, not a hired security service. He gave the crowd of well-dressed witnesses a speculative glance and decided the time had arrived to confess. The thief couldn’t deny evidence screwed tight into the wall of his own private bathroom!

Just as he reached the part about Joe Alvione fencing the painting, an older gentleman thrust his way to the front of the spectators. To B.J.’s stupefaction, it was State Appellate Court Judge Arthur Parmdell…fuming as if he owned the place.

At first B.J. thought to ask for the judge’s help in apprehending this high society criminal. But then the peculiarity of the expression on Parmdell’s face began to filter through B.J.’s confusion. He gasped. “This is YOUR house! YOU bought this stolen painting!”

Judge Parmdell’s eyes popped open wide—much the same way B.J.’s had.

Then B.J. got mad. He started yelling about ‘integrity of public office’, and ‘receiving stolen goods’, and how he’d come to retrieve the painting, to make restitution.

The guards began howling at B.J. to shut up, shut up, but B.J. decided he wasn’t going to shut up any more for anyone and began yelling even louder…

The third time B.J. pronounced the words ‘stolen Old Master,’ the judge clutched his chest, croaked ‘MY SENATE CAMPAIGN!’ and fell into a heap on the cold marble floor.

One of the guards bent down, touched the judge’s chest, then stood up hastily, saying in a hushed tone, “He’s dead!”

The other guard gripped B.J.’s arm so tight that B.J. squeaked. To his horror, the first guard turned to him and growled into his face, “You killed the judge, you summbitch! You’re gonna fry!” B.J. fainted.

Later, B.J. emerged from unconsciousness to realize that he had been lying sprawled—beltless, watch-and-wedding-ringless, shoe lace-less, and with empty pockets—on a bare mattress thrown onto a steel shelf in the Wyndham lockup. He twisted to press his forehead against the artfully etched cement block wall and moaned, “Oh, Joyce, what will happen to me now?”

“Maxwell, you finally awake? Visitor,” called out the guard outside the barred door. B.J. looked up.

To his astonishment, it was Mrs. Risk. She stood looking patiently down at him, but said nothing. He stared back helplessly, remembering how he’d refused her help. Remembering how he’d run out into the darkness from her cottage, and how his efforts had killed the judge.

After a pause, he muttered, “I’m going to be charged for murder, aren’t I?”

“It’s called ‘arraignment.’”

“I—I’m sorry about the judge.”

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Maxwell. Here, I’ve brought someone to see you.”

“Another visitor?” He turned lifeless eyes back to the wall, uninterested.

She turned aside and up stepped Brian McKee, Mrs. Bachrach’s lawyer.

B.J. heard a nervous throat clearing and looked around. “Brian? I—I hadn’t thought about hiring a lawyer, but I guess I ought to. I’m guilty, you should know that.”

“Oh, I don’t do criminal cases, but uh—” Mrs. Risk prodded him with a sharp elbow. “I came to tell you—” he took a deep breath and flushed bright puce around his freckles. B.J. didn’t notice, his interest having been drawn again to the wall. He fumbled with his glasses, and discovered they’d been scratched sometime in the night. He wasn’t surprised.

“Mr. McKee has some information that you should hear, Mr. Maxwell,” put in Mrs. Risk crisply. “Please pay attention.”

Brian licked his lips. “I’m sorry you’re in here—for killing the judge and—uh. Anyway—the painting. I didn’t tell you because—why get you all upset over something that couldn’t be changed? I thought she’d already sold it, but Mrs. Risk says she gave it to you before her cruise. It’s. Well, B.J.,” he gulped, “she really liked you. I like you, too, I don’t care what you did.”

B.J. slowly rose from his bunk, eyes narrowing. He settled his glasses into place on his nose. “What are you trying to tell me?”

Brian backed away. “That, uh, you didn’t need to feel so guilty for selling that painting.”

Grasping the bars, B.J. mashed his face between them as far as his glasses allowed. “Oh, yeah? WHY NOT!”

“Because, uh, she left it—to you.”

“In her WILL?”

“Uh-huh.”

“BUT YOU DIDN’T TELL ME!”

“I know.” Brian looked like he might throw up any second.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”

Mrs. Risk gently moved Brain aside and stepped forward again. “Yeeeess. And then there’s the question of why you didn’t inform Mr. McKee that you had the painting in your possession, isn’t there, Mr. Maxwell?”

B.J. gaped at Mrs. Risk as if just realizing at that moment that she was there. He wilted. “I—because I—”