The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (14 page)

“Cute waitress, too.”

“I noticed. This joint has it all over the Bum Rap. It’s a shame it’s so far from the store.” The waitress appeared and leaned forward impressively. Carolyn gave her a full-tilt smile and ordered a martini, very cold, very dry, and very soon. I asked for Coca-Cola and lemon. The waitress smiled and departed.

“Why?” Carolyn demanded.

“Pardon?”

“Why Coke with lemon?”

“It cuts some of the sugary taste.”

“Why Coke in the first place?”

I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’m not in the mood for Perrier. Plus I figure I can use a little sugar rush and a caffeine hit.”

“Bern, are you being willfully obtuse?”

“Huh? Oh. Why no booze?”

“Right.”

I shrugged again. “No particular reason.”

“You’re gonna try breaking into the museum? That’s crazy.”

“I know, and I’m not going to try. But whatever I do I’ve got a complicated evening coming up and I guess I want to be at the top of my form. Such as it is.”

“Myself, I figure I’m better with a couple of drinks.”

“Maybe you are.”

“Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t survive another ten minutes without one. Ah, here we are,” she said, as our drinks appeared. “You can tell him to start mixing up another of these,” she told the waitress, “because I wouldn’t want to get too far out in front of him.”

“Another round.”

“Just another martini,” she said. “He’s got to sip that. Didn’t your mother ever tell you? Never gulp anything fizzy.”

I squeezed the lemon into the Coke, stirred and sipped. “She’s got a great laugh,” Carolyn said. “I like a girl with a nice sense of humor.”

“And a nice set of—”

“Those too. There’s a lot to be said for curves, even if your buddy Mondrian didn’t believe in them. Straight lines and primary colors. You think he was a genius?”

“Probably.”

“Whatever genius is. As far as having something to hang on the wall, I’m a lot happier with my Chagall litho.”

“That’s funny.”

“What is?”

“Before,” I said. “Standing in front of the painting, I was thinking how great it would look in my apartment.”

“Where?”

“Over the couch. Sort of centered over the couch.”

“Oh yeah?” She closed her eyes, trying to picture it. “The painting we just saw? Or the one you saw in Onderdonk’s apartment?”

“Well, the one we just saw. But the other was the same idea and the same general proportions, so it would do, too.”

“Over the couch.”

“Right.”

“You know, it might look kind of nice in your place,” she said. “Once all this mess is cleared away, you know what you’ll have to do?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like one-to-ten.”

“One-to-ten?”

“Years.”

“Oh,” she said, and dismissed the entire penal system with an airy wave of her hand. “I’m serious, Bern. Once everything’s cleared up, you can sit down and paint yourself a Mondrian and hang it over the couch.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I mean it. Face it, Bern. What old Piet did back there doesn’t look all that hard to do. Okay, he was a genius because he thought of it first, and his proportions and colors were brilliant and perfect and fit into some philosophical system, whatever it was, but so what? If all you’re looking to do is make a copy for your own place, how hard could it be to follow his measurements and copy his colors and just paint it? I mean there’s no drawing involved, there’s no shading, there’s no changes in texture. It’s just a white canvas with black lines and patches of color. You wouldn’t have to spend ten years at the Art Students League to do that, would you?”

“What a thought,” I said. “It’s probably harder than it looks.”

“Everything’s harder than it looks. Grooming a Shih Tzu’s harder than it looks, but you don’t have to be a genius. Where’s that sketch you made? Couldn’t you follow the dimensions and paint it on canvas?”

“I can paint a wall with a roller. That’s about it.”

“Why’d you make the sketch?”

“Because there’s too many paintings,” I said, “and unless they’re side by side I couldn’t tell them apart, Mondrian being Mondrian, and I thought a sketch might be useful for identification purposes. If I ever see any picture besides the one in the Hewlett. I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?”

“Paint a fake Mondrian. I wouldn’t know what to do. All the black bands are straight like a knife edge. How would you manage that?”

“I suppose you’d need a steady hand.”

“There must be more to it than that. And I wouldn’t know how to buy paints, let alone mix colors.”

“You could learn.”

“An artist could do it,” I said.

“Sure. If you knew the technique, and—”

“It’s a shame we didn’t get to Turnquist before he died. He was an artist and he admired Mondrian.”

“Well, he’s not the only artist in New York City. If you want a Mondrian for over the couch and you don’t want to try painting it yourself, I’m sure you could find someone to—”

“I’m not talking about a Mondrian for my apartment.”

“You’re not? Oh.”

“Right.”

“You mean—”

“Right.”

“Where’s the waitress, dammit? A person could die of thirst around here.”

“She’s coming.”

“Good. I don’t think it’ll work, Bern. I was talking about making something that’d look good over your couch, not something that would fool experts. Besides, where would we find an artist we could trust?”

“Good point.”

The waitress arrived, setting a fresh martini in front of Carolyn and having a look at my Coke, which was still half full. Or half empty, if you’re a pessimist.

“That’s perfect,” Carolyn told her. “I bet you used to be a nurse, didn’t you?”

“That’s nothing,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a secret, but I just know you won’t tell anyone. The bartender used to be a brain surgeon.”

“He hasn’t lost his touch. It’s a good thing I’ve got Blue Cross.”

The waitress did her exit-laughing number, taking Carolyn’s eyes with her. “She’s cute,” said my partner in crime.

“A shame she’s not an artist.”

“Clever repartee, a great personality, and a nifty set of wheels. You figure she’s gay?”

“Hope does spring eternal, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Gay or straight,” I said, “what we really need is an artist.”

The whole room seemed to go silent, as if someone had just mentioned E. F. Hutton. Except that other conversations were still going on. It’s just that we stopped hearing them. Carolyn and I both froze, then turned our eyes slowly to meet one another’s exophthalmic gazes. After a long moment we spoke as if in a single voice.

“Denise,” we said.

“H
old this,” Denise Raphaelson said. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I stretched a canvas. Who bothers nowadays? You buy a stretched canvas and save yourself the aggravation. Of course I don’t usually get customers who specify the size they want in centimeters.”

“It’s becoming a metric universe.”

“Well, you know what I always say. Give ’em a gram and they’ll take a kilo. This should be close, Bernie, and anybody who takes a yardstick to this beauty will already have six other ways to tell it’s not the real thing. But the measurements’ll be very close. Maybe it’ll be a couple millimeters off. Remember that cigarette that advertised it was a silly millimeter longer?”

“I remember.”

“I wonder whatever happened to it.”

“Somebody probably smoked it.”

Denise was smoking one of her own, or letting it burn unattended in a scallop shell she used as an ashtray. We were at her place and we were stretching a canvas.
We
meant Denise and me. Carolyn had not accompanied me.

Denise is long limbed and slender, with dark brown curly hair and fair skin lightly dusted with freckles. She is a painter, and she does well enough at it to support herself and her son Jared, with the occasional assistance of a child-support check from Jared’s father. Her work is abstract, very vivid, very intense, very energetic. You might not like her canvases but you’d be hard put to ignore them.

And, come to think of it, you could say much the same of their creator. Denise and I had kept occasional company over a couple of years, sharing a fondness for ethnic food and thoughtful jazz and snappy repartee. Our one area of disagreement was Carolyn, whom she affected to despise. Then one day Denise and Carolyn commenced to have an affair. That didn’t take too long to run its course, and once it was over Carolyn didn’t see Denise anymore, and neither did I.

I could say I don’t understand women, but what’s so remarkable about that? Nobody does.

“This is gesso,” Denise explained. “We want a smooth canvas so we put this on. Here, take the brush. That’s right. A nice even coat. It’s all in the wrist, Bernie.”

“What does this do?”

“It dries. It’s acrylic gesso so it’ll dry in a hurry. Then you sand it.”

“I sand it?”

“With sandpaper. Lightly. Then you do another coat of the gesso and sand it again, and a third coat and sand it again.”

“And you on the opposite shore will be?”

“That’s it. Ready to ride and spread the alarm through every something village and farm.”

“Every Middlesex village and farm,” I said, which was the way Longfellow had put it.
Middlesex
sort of hung in the air between us. “It comes from Middle Saxons,” I said. “According to where they settled in England. Essex was the East Saxons, Sussex was the South Saxons, and—”

“Leave it alone.”

“All right.”

“‘Every bisexual village and farm.’ I suppose No Sex was the North Saxons, huh?”

“I thought we were going to leave it alone.”

“It’s like a scab, it’s irresistible. I’m going to see if I can’t find a book with the painting reproduced.
Composition with Color,
1942. God knows how many paintings he did with that title. There’s a minimalist I know on Harrison Street who calls everything he paints Composition #104. It’s his favorite number. If he ever amounts to anything, the art historians are going to go batshit trying to straighten it all out.”

I was sanding the third coat of gesso when she returned with a large book entitled
Mondrian and the Art of De Stijl.
She flipped it open to a page near the end, and there was the painting we’d seen in the Hewlett. “That’s it,” I said.

“How are the colors?”

“What do you mean? Aren’t they in the right place? I thought you took my sketch along.”

“Yes, and it’s a wonderful sketch. Burglary’s gain was the art world’s loss. Books of reproductions are never perfect, Bernie. The inks never duplicate the paint a hundred percent. How do these colors compare to what you saw in the painting?”

“Oh,” I said.

“Well?”

“I don’t have that kind of an eye, Denise. Or that kind of a memory. I think this looks about right.” I held the book at arm’s length, tilted it to catch the light. “The background’s darker than I remember it. It was whiter in—I want to say real life, but that’s not what I mean. You know what I mean.”

She nodded. “Mondrian used off-whites. He tinted his white with a little blue, a little red, a little yellow. I can probably make up something that looks sort of all right. I hope this isn’t going to have to fool an expert.”

“So do I.”

“Let me see how you did with the gesso. That’s not bad. I think what we want now is a coat or two of white, just to get that smooth canvas effect, and then a coat of tinted white, and then—I wish I could have like two weeks to work on this.”

“So do I.”

“I’m going to use acrylics, obviously. Liquid acrylics. He used oils but he didn’t have some lunatic at his elbow who wanted the finished painting in a matter of hours. Acrylics dry fast but they’re not oils and—”

“Denise?”

“What?”

“There’s no point making ourselves crazy. We’ll just give it our best shot. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got a few things to do, but I can come back after I do them.”

“I can handle this myself, Bernie. I don’t need help.”

“Well, I was thinking while I was putting the gesso on the canvas. There are a few things I can be doing at the same time.”

“Only one person can work on a canvas at a time.”

“I know that. See how this sounds to you.”

I told her what I had in mind. She listened and nodded, and when I finished she didn’t say anything but stopped to light a cigarette. She smoked it almost to the filter before she spoke.

“Sounds elaborate,” she said.

“I guess it is.”

“Complicated. I think I see what you’re getting at, but I’ve got the feeling I’m better off not knowing too much. Is that possible?”

“It’s possible.”

“I think I want music,” she said, and lit another cigarette and switched on her radio, which was tuned to one of the FM jazz stations. I recognized the record they were playing, a solo piano recording of Randy Weston’s.

“Brings back memories,” I said.

“Doesn’t it? Jared’s over at a friend’s house. He’ll be home within the hour. He can help.”

“Great.”

“I love the Hewlett Collection. Of course Jared has a fierce resentment against the place.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a kid. Kids aren’t allowed, remember?”

“Oh, right. Not even accompanied by an adult?”

“Not even accompanied by the front four of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nobody under sixteen, no exceptions, nohow.”

“That does seem a little high-handed,” I said. “How’s a kid supposed to develop an appreciation for art in this town?”

“Oh, it’s real tough, Bernie. Outside of the Met and the Modern and the Guggenheim and the Whitney and the Museum of Natural History and a couple of hundred private galleries, a young person in New York is completely bereft of cultural resources. It’s really hell.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were being sarcastic.”

“Me? Not in a million years.” She sucked on her cigarette. “I’ll tell you, it’s a pleasure to go in there and not have eight million kids bouncing off the walls. Or class groups, with some brain-damaged teacher explaining at eighty decibels what Matisse had in mind while thirty kids fidget around, bored out of their basketball sneakers. The Hewlett’s a museum for grownups and I love it.”

“But Jared doesn’t.”

“He will the day he turns sixteen. Meanwhile it has the lure of forbidden fruit. I think he must be convinced it’s the world’s storehouse of erotic art and that’s why he’s not allowed in it. What
I
like about the place, aside from the childless aspect and the quality of the collection, is the way the paintings are hung. Hanged? Hung?”

“Whatever.”

“Hung,” she said decisively. “Murderers are hanged, or they used to be. Paintings and male models are hung. There’s plenty of space between the paintings at the Hewlett. You can look at them one at a time.” She looked meaningfully at me. “What I’m trying to say,” she said, “is I have a special feeling for the place.”

“I understand.”

“Assure me once more that this is in a good cause.”

“You’ll be helping to ransom a cat and keep an antiquarian bookman out of jail.”

“Screw the bookman. Which cat is it? The Siamese?”

“You mean Burmese. Archie.”

“Right. The friendly one.”

“They’re both friendly. Archie’s just more outgoing.”

“Same difference.”

Randy Weston had given way to Chick Corea, and now that record had also ended and a young man with an untrained voice was bringing us the news. The first item had to do with progress in some arms-limitations talks, which may have had global importance but which I must admit I didn’t pay heed to, and then the little big mouth was telling us that an anonymous tip had led police to the body of a man identified as Edwin P. Turnquist in a West Village warehouse. Turnquist had been stabbed in the heart, probably with an icepick. He was an artist and a latter-day bohemian who’d hung out with the early Abstract Expressionists at the old Cedar Tavern, and who’d been living at the time of his death in an SRO rooming house in Chelsea.

That would have been plenty, but he wasn’t finished. Prime suspect in the case, he added, was one Bernard Rhodenbarr, a Manhattan bookseller with several arrests for burglary. Rhodenbarr was out on bail after having been charged with homicide in the death of Gordon Kyle Onderdonk just days ago at the fashionable and exclusive Charlemagne Apartments. Onderdonk was presumed to have been murdered in the course of a burglary, but Rhodenbarr’s motive for the murder of Turnquist had not yet been disclosed by police sources. “Perhaps,” the little twerp suggested, “Mr. Turnquist was a man who knew too much.”

I went over and turned off the radio, and the ensuing silence stretched out like the sands of the Sahara. It was broken at length by the flick of a Bic as Denise kindled yet another cigarette. Through a cloud of smoke she said, “The name Turnquist rings a muted bell.”

“I thought it might.”

“What was his first name—Edwin? I still never heard of him. Except in that conversation we never had.”

“Uh.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you, Bernie?”

“No.”

“Or that other man? Onderdonk?”

“No.”

“But you’re in this up to your eyeballs, aren’t you?”

“Up to my hairline.”

“And the police are looking for you.”

“So it would seem. It would be, uh, best if they didn’t find me. I used up all my cash posting a bond the other day. Not that any judge would let me out on bail this time around.”

“And if you’re in a cell on Rikers Island, how can you right wrongs and catch killers and liberate pussycats?”

“Right.”

“What do they call what I am? Accessory after the fact?”

I shook my head. “Unwitting accomplice. You never turned the radio on. If I get out of this, there won’t be any charges, Denise.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Er.”

“Forget I asked. How’s Carolyn holding up?”

“Carolyn? She’ll be okay.”

“Funny the turns human lives take.”

“Uh-huh.”

She tapped the canvas. “The one in the Hewlett’s not framed? Just a canvas on a stretcher?”

“Right. The design continues around the edge.”

“Well, he painted that way sometimes. Not always but sometimes. This whole business is crazy, Bernie. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“All the same,” she said, “it just might work.”