Oliver Bleeck: Brass Go-Between

The choice was simple enough. I could either answer the knock at the door or draw to a three-card diamond flush, a foolhardy act usually associated with those who maintain an abiding faith in elves, political platforms, and money-back guarantees. The door and whoever was behind it, even the Avon lady, seemed by far the more promising, so I threw in my hand, opened the door, and was only slightly disappointed when the knocker turned out to be Myron Greene, the lawyer, who announced, a little too loudly, I thought, that he needed to speak to me in private.

The game was at my place that Saturday, five-card stud and draw, and it was to go on all day and into the night. There were five of us and we had started at ten-thirty in the morning and by midafternoon when Myron Greene, the lawyer, knocked at the door, I was almost six hundred dollars ahead. I was living on the ninth floor of the Adelphi on East 46th and the only private place was the bathroom so we went in there. I closed the door, sat on the edge of the tub, and let Myron Greene have the one thing that resembled a chair. He lowered the lid and sat down, crossed his plump legs, took off his glasses, polished them with a silk tie that was fashionably wide, and breathed as he always did, a little asthmatically.

“You’re not answering your mail,” he said.

“I’m not even reading it.”

“You’re not answering your phone either.”

“The desk is taking messages. I pick them up once a day.”

“I left four messages yesterday. Urgent ones.”

“I forgot to check yesterday.”

“I had to drive all the way in from Darien,” Myron Greene said, and there was reproof and even petulance in his voice.

“Couldn’t it have waited till Monday?” I said. “I start answering the phone again on Monday.”

“No,” Myron Greene said, “it couldn’t wait. You have to be there on Monday.”

I could never bring myself to refer to Myron Greene as my lawyer and that wasn’t because I didn’t like him or his fees weren’t high enough. It was just that Myron Greene didn’t fit a carefully preconceived notion of what my lawyer should be. This notion had my lawyer as a seedy, garrulous old goat with rheumy eyes, a rusty alpaca suit on his back, a string tie at his throat and larceny in his heart who operated out of a dingy walk-up office that he shared with a bail bondsman down near City Hall. Tufts of gray hair also grew out of his ears.

By contrast Myron Greene was a sleek, overweight thirty-five who dressed several daring (for him) sartorial degrees to the left of Brooks Brothers, had offices on Madison, a home in Darien, and clients, but for me, with six- and seven-figure bank accounts or Inc. behind their names and branch offices in Houston and Los Angeles. I was always vaguely disappointed when I talked to Myron Greene. I kept hoping to find a spot of gravy on a lapel or an unnoticed blob of mayonnaise on a tie, but I never did, and consequently Myron Greene remained the lawyer.

“Where do I have to be Monday?” I said.

“Washington.”

“Why?”

“A shield,” Myron Greene said. “It’s missing.”

“From where?”

“A museum. The Coulter.”

“Why me?”

“They asked for you.”

“The museum?”

“No,” Myron Greene said. “The other side. The thieves.”

“How much?”

“A quarter of a million.”

“What is it, gold?”

“No. It’s brass.”

“Usual terms?”

He nodded. “Ten percent.”

“Do I need it?”

Myron Greene crossed his legs the other way, fingered one slightly peaked lapel of his eight-button, double-breasted cavalry twill jacket, and smiled at me with white, remarkably even teeth that had had a dentist’s careful attention four times a year for the past thirty-two years. “Your wife,” he said.

“My ex-wife.”

“Her lawyer called.”

“And?”

“Your son starts to school next month. The call was to remind me that your support payments go up two hundred a month.”

“Well, two hundred a month should pay for his eleven o’clock milk and cookies. I wouldn’t want him to have to brown-bag it.”

“It’s a special school,” Myron Greene said.

“The fancy private one that she was always talking about?”

“That’s it.”

“What’s wrong with a public kindergarten?” I said.

Myron Greene smiled again. “Your son’s 164 IQ and your ex-wife.”

“Mostly my ex-wife.”

“Mostly.”

“I heard she was getting married.”

“Not for a while,” he said. “Not until May. When school’s out.”

“If the payments go up two hundred a month, that’ll make it an even thousand — right?”

“Right.”

“Then I need the money.”

Myron Greene nodded and carefully smoothed a hand over his brown hair that just escaped being too long — too long for an uptown lawyer anyway. The length of his hair was like the clothes he wore and the Excalibur he drove. They served to hint, but only hint, at what he knew the real Myron Greene to be — the one who, were it not for the house in Darien, the cottage in Kennebunkport, the wife (his first), the three kids (two boys and a girl), the firm, and the clients — especially the clients — would be out there where it’s really at, his mind and imagination unfettered, his sex life rich and varied, and his soul his own and in perfect step with the sound of that different drummer. That’s the real reason why I was Myron Greene’s client: he mistakenly thought that I knew the drummer by his first name.

“Tell me some more about the shield,” I said.

Myron Greene reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out an envelope. “I dictated it yesterday after I couldn’t reach you,” he said, and tapped the envelope against the yellow American Standard lavatory. “I didn’t know if you would be here. If you weren’t, I was going to slip it under the door.”

“You want to tell me about it now that I’m here?”

He looked at his watch, a gold chronometer which I was sure could tell him what time it was in Shanghai. “I don’t have much time now.”

“Neither do I.”

Myron Greene sniffed at that. Anyone who played cards in the middle of the afternoon had all the time there was.

“Briefly,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “Briefly. But it’s all in here.” He quit tapping the envelope against the lavatory and handed it to me.

“I’ll read it when the game breaks up.”

“If you can spare the time.” Myron Greene wasn’t very good at sarcasm.

“Briefly,” I said again.

“All right. Three days ago — that would be Thursday, wouldn’t it?”

“Thursday.”

“On Thursday the Coulter Museum in Washington opened a two-month-long exhibition of African art. It’s been on tour for almost a year — Rome, Frankfurt, Paris, London, and Moscow. Washington’s the final exhibition. The same night that it opened, Thursday night, the prize piece was stolen. Just one piece. It’s a brass shield about a yard in diameter and about seven or eight hundred years old. Or older. Anyway it’s invaluable and whoever stole it wants $250,000 to return it and they want you to handle the negotiations. That’s why the museum people got in touch with me; that’s why I tried to reach you. The museum is agreeable to the price.” Myron Greene stood up and glanced at his watch again. “Now I am late.” He made a vague gesture toward the envelope that I held. “It’s all in there.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll read it after the game.”

“Are you ahead?” he asked, and I knew he wanted me to say no.