Lawrence Block - The Burglar In The Closet

I told her I didn’t see how it could but thanked her anyway. I started to leave the hotel and then something registered in my mind and I went back to the directory and started calling Grabowskis. It would have been cute if it worked but of course it didn’t, it just cost me a lot of dimes, and I called all seventeen Grabowskis and reached I don’t know how many, fourteen or fifteen, and of course none of them painted anything, pictures or interiors or exteriors, none of them even colored in coloring books or painted by number, and that was the end of that particular blind alley.

The nearest bank was a block east on Third Avenue. I bought a roll of dimes-you can still get fifty of them for five dollars, it’s one of the few remaining bargains-and I carried all fifty of them to another hotel lobby. I passed some outdoor phone booths on the way but they don’t have phone books anymore. I don’t know why. I called Spyder’s Parlor to make sure it was still closed and it was. I hauled out the Yellow Pages and looked up Attorneys. See Lawyers, said the book, so I did. I don’t know what I expected to find. There were eighteen pages of lawyers and plenty of them were named John, but so what? I couldn’t see any reason to call any of them. I sort of flipped through the listings, hoping something would strike me, and a listing for a firm called Carson, Kidder and Diehl made me flip to the V ’s. I called Carson Verrill, Craig’s personal attorney, and managed to get through to him. He hadn’t heard anything since he’d referred Craig to Errol Blankenship and he wanted to know who I was and what I wanted. I told him I was a dentist myself and a personal friend of Craig’s. I didn’t bother inventing a name and he didn’t press the point.

I called Errol Blankenship. He was out, I was told, and would I care to leave a name and a number?

Grabow, Grabow, Grabow. The listing for artists filled a couple of pages. No Grabow. I looked under art galleries to see if he happened to own his own gallery. If he did, he’d named it something other than Grabow.

I invested a dime and called Narrowback Gallery, on West Broadway in SoHo. A woman with a sort of scratchy voice answered the phone just when I was about to give up and try somebody else. I said, “Perhaps you’ll be able to help me. I saw a painting about a month ago and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. The thing is, I don’t know anything about the artist.”

“I see. Let me light a cigarette. There. Now let’s see, you saw a painting here at our gallery?”

“No.”

“No? Where did you see it?”

Where indeed? “At an apartment. A friend of a friend, and it turns out they bought it at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show a year ago, or maybe it was the year before. It’s all sort of vague.”

“I see.”

She did? Remarkable. “The only thing I know is the artist’s name,” I said. “Grabow.”

“Grabow?”

“Grabow,” I agreed, and spelled it.

“Is that a first name or a last name?”

“It’s what he signed on the bottom of the canvas,” I said. “For all I know it’s his cat’s name, but I suppose it’s his last name.”

“And you want to find him?”

“Right, I don’t know anything about art-”

“But I’ll bet you know what you like.”

“Sometimes. I don’t like that many paintings, but I liked this one, so much so that I can’t get it out of my mind. The owners say they don’t want to sell it, and then it occurred to me that I could find the artist and see what else he’s done, but how would I go about it? He’s not in the phone book, Grabow that is, and I don’t know how to get hold of him.”

“So you called us.”

“Right.”

“I wish you could have waited until late in the day. No, don’t apologize, I should be up by now anyway. Are you just going through the book and calling every gallery you can find? Because you must own stock in the phone company.”

“No, I-”

“Or maybe you’re rich. Are you rich?”

“Not particularly.”

“’Cause if you’re rich, or even semi-rich, I could show you no end of pretty pictures even if Mr. Grabow didn’t paint them. Or Ms. Grabow. Why don’t you come on down and see what we’ve got?”

“Er.”

“Because we haven’t got any Grabows in stock, I’m afraid. We’ve got a terrific selection of oils and acrylics by Denise Raphaelson. Some of her drawings as well. But you probably never heard of her.”

“Well, I-”

“However, you’re talking to her. Impressed?”

“Certainly.”

“Really? I can’t imagine why. I don’t think I ever heard of a painter named Grabow. Do you have any idea how many millions of artists there are in this city? Not literally millions, but tons of ’em. Are you calling all the galleries?”

“No,” I said, and when she failed to interrupt me I added, “You’re the first one I called, actually.”

“Honest? To what do I owe the honor?”

“I sort of liked the name. Narrowback Gallery.”

“I picked it because this loft has a weird shape to it. It skinnies down as you move toward the rear. I was beginning to regret not calling it the Denise Raphaelson Gallery, what the hell, free advertising and all, but calling it Narrowback finally paid off. I got myself a phone call. What kind of stuff does Grabow paint?”

How the hell did I know? “Sort of modern,” I said.

“That’s a surprise. I figured he was a sixteenth-century Flemish master.”

“Well, abstract,” I said. “Sort of geometric.”

“Hard-line stuff?”

What did that mean? “Right,” I said.

“Jesus, that’s what everybody’s doing. Don’t ask me why. You really like that stuff? I mean, once you get past the fact that it’s interesting shapes and colors, then what have you got? As far as I’m concerned it’s waiting-room art. You know what I mean by that?”

“No,” I said, mystified.

“I mean you can hang it in a waiting room or a lobby and it’s great, it won’t offend anybody, it goes nice with the décor and it makes everybody happy, but what is it? I don’t mean because it’s not representational, I mean artistically, what the fuck is it? I mean if you want to hang it in a dentist’s office that’s sensational, and maybe you’re a dentist and I just put my foot in my mouth. Are you a dentist?”

“Christ, no.”

“You sound like you’re the direct opposite of a dentist, whatever that could be. Maybe you knock people’s teeth out. I’m a little flaky this morning, or is it afternoon already? Jesus, it is, isn’t it?”

“Just barely.”

“Gag.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s how you can find your Grabow, though I don’t think you should bother, to tell you the truth. What I think you should do is buy something beautiful by the one and only Denise Raphaelson, but failing that you can try Gag. That’s initials, G-A-G, it’s Gotham Artists’ Guild. They’re a reference service, you go there and they have slides of everybody’s work in their files, plus they have everything indexed by artists’ names, and they can tell you what gallery handles an artist’s work or how to get in touch with him directly if he doesn’t have any gallery affiliation. They’re located somewhere in midtown, I think in the East Fifties. Gotham Artists’ Guild.”

“I think I love you.”

“Honest? This is so sudden, sir. All I know about you is you’re not a dentist, which is a point in your favor, truth to tell. I bet you’re married.”

“I bet you’re wrong.”

“Yeah? Living with somebody, huh?”

“Nope.”

“You weigh three hundred pounds, you’re four-foot-six, and you’ve got warts.”

“Well, you’re wrong about the warts.”