Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

“Did whatsername, Andrea, did she know he was in the closet?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“She was pretty cool, wasn’t she? She’s in an apartment with a dead guy in the closet and a burglar walks in on her and what does she do? Rolls around on the oriental rug with him.”

“It was an Aubusson.”

“My mistake. What do we do now, Bern? Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t tell the police about Andrea.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t tell them anything. It’s not as if she could give me an alibi. I could try telling them that I was in the Appling apartment while somebody was killing Onderdonk, but where would that get me? Just charged with another burglary, and even if I showed them the stamps I couldn’t prove I hadn’t killed Onderdonk before or after I performed philately on Appling’s collection. Anyway, I don’t know her name or where she lives.”

“You don’t think her name’s Andrea?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You could run an ad in the Voice .”

“I could.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I, oh, I sort of liked her, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s good. You wouldn’t want to caper on the carpet with someone you hated.”

“Yeah. The thing is, I sort of thought I might get together with her again. Of course she’s a married woman and there’s no future in that sort of thing, but I thought-”

“You had romantic feelings.”

“Well, yeah, Carolyn, I guess I did.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“It isn’t?”

“Of course not. I have them myself. Alison came over last night. We met for a drink, and then I explained I didn’t want to miss an important phone call so we went back to my place. The phone call I was talking about was about the cat, but it never came, and we just sat around and listened to music and talked.”

“Did you get lucky?”

“ Bern, I didn’t even try. It was just sort of peaceful and cozy, you know what I mean? You know how standoffish Ubi can be, and he’s especially whacko with Archie gone, but he came over and curled up in her lap. I told her about Archie.”

“That he was missing?”

“That he’d been kidnapped. The whole thing. I couldn’t help it, Bernie. I had to talk about it.”

“It’s okay.”

“Romance,” she said. “It’s what makes the world go round, isn’t it, Bern?”

“So they say.”

“You and Andrea, me and Alison.”

“Andrea’s about five-foot-six,” I said. “Slender, narrow at the waist. Dark hair to her shoulders, and she was wearing it in pigtails when I saw her.”

“Alison’s slim, too, but she’s not that tall. I’d say five-four. And her hair’s light brown and short, and she doesn’t wear any lipstick or nail polish.”

“She wouldn’t, not if she’s a political and economic lesbian. Andrea wears nail polish. I can’t remember about the lipstick.”

“Why are we comparing descriptions of our obsessions, Bern?”

“I just had this dumb idea and I wanted to make sure it was a dumb idea.”

“You thought they were the same girl.”

“I said it was a dumb idea.”

“You’re just afraid to let yourself have romantic feelings, that’s all. You haven’t been involved with anybody that way in a long time.”

“I guess.”

“Years from now,” she said, “when you and Andrea are old and gray, nodding off together before the fire, you’ll look back on these days and laugh quietly together. And neither of you will have to ask the other why you’re laughing, because you’ll just know without a word’s being spoken.”

“Years from now,” I said, “you and I will be having coffee somewhere, and one of us will puke, and without a word’s being spoken the other’ll immediately think of this conversation.”

“And this lousy coffee,” said Carolyn.

When I got back to my shop the phone was ringing, but by the time I got inside it had stopped. I thought I’d just pulled the door shut, letting the springlock secure it, but evidently I’d taken the time to lock it with the key because now I had to unlock it with the key, and that gave my caller the extra few seconds needed to hang up before I could reach the phone. I said the things one says at such times, improbable observations on the ancestry, sexual practices and dietary habits of whoever it was, and then I bent down to pick a dollar bill off the floor. A scrap of paper beside it bore a penciled notation that the payment was for three books from the bargain table.

That happens sometimes. No one has yet been so honest as to include the extra pennies for sales tax, and if that ever happens I may find myself shamed out of crime altogether. I put the dollar in my pocket and settled in behind the counter.

The phone rang again. I said, “Barnegat Books, good morning,” and a man’s voice, gruff and unfamiliar, said, “I want the painting.”

“This is a bookstore,” I said.

“Let’s not play games. You have the Mondrian and I want it. I’ll pay you a fair price.”

“I’m sure you will,” I said, “because you sound like a fair guy, but there’s something you’re wrong about. I haven’t got what you’re looking for.”

“Suit yourself. Do yourself a favor, eh? Don’t sell it to anyone else without first offering it to me.”

“That sounds reasonable,” I said, “but I don’t know how to reach you. I don’t even know who you are.”

“But I know who you are,” he said. “And I know how to reach you. ”

Had I been threatened? I was pondering the point when the phone clicked in my ear. I hung up and reviewed the conversation, searching for some clue of my caller’s identity. If there was one present, I couldn’t spot it. I guess I got a little bit lost in thought, because a moment or two down the line I looked up to see a woman approaching the counter and I hadn’t even heard the door open to let her into the store.

She was slender and birdlike, with large brown eyes and short brown hair, and I recognized her at once but couldn’t place her right away. She had a book in one hand, an oversized art book, and she placed the other hand on my counter and said, “Mr. Rhodenbarr? ‘ Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.’”

I’d heard the voice before. When? Over the phone? No.

“Ms. Smith of the Third Oregon,” I said. “That’s not Mary Carolyn Davies you’re quoting.”

“Indeed it’s not. It’s Edna St. Vincent Millay. The line came to mind when I looked at this.”

She placed the book on the counter. It was a survey volume covering modern art from the Impressionists to the current anarchy, and it was open now to a color plate which showed a geometrical abstract painting. Vertical and horizontal black bands divided an off-white canvas into squares and rectangles, several of which were painted in primary colors.

“The absolute beauty of pure geometry,” she said. “Or perhaps I mean the pure beauty of absolute geometry. Right angles and primary colors.”

“Mondrian, isn’t it?”

“Piet Mondrian. Do you know much about the man and his work, Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

“I know he was Dutch.”

“Indeed he was. Born in 1872 in Amersfoort. He began, you may recall, as a painter of naturalistic landscapes. As he found his own style, as he grew artistically, his work became increasingly abstract. By 1917 he had joined with Theo van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck and others to found a movement called De Stijl. It was an article of faith for Mondrian that the right angle was everything, that vertical and horizontal lines intersected space in such a way as to make an important philosophical statement.”