“Thanks.”

“But I know you were there and you musta got the paintin’. Maybe you heard somebody comin’ and that’s why you rushed and cut it outta the frame. Maybe you left the frame hangin’ on the wall an’ left Onderdonk tied up, and somebody else stuck the frame in the closet and killed him while they were at it.”

“Why would anybody do that?”

“Who knows what people’ll do? This is a crazy world with crazy people in it.”

“Amen.”

“The point is, I figure you got the Moondrain.”

“Mondrian. Not Moondrain. Mondrian.”

“What’s the difference? I could call him Pablo Fuckin’ Picasso and we’d still know who we were talkin’ about. I figure you got it, Bern, and if you haven’t got it I figure you can get it, and that’s why I’m here on my own time when I oughta be home with my feet up and the TV on.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there’s a reward,” he said. “The insurance company’s a bunch of cheap bastards, the reward’s only ten percent, but what’s ten percent of $350,000?”

“Thirty-five thousand dollars.”

“Bookstore goes under, Bern, you can always become an accountant. You’re gonna need some cash to get out from under this murder rap, right? Money for your lawyer, money for costs. The hell, everybody needs money, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have to go out stealin’ in the first place. So you come up with the paintin’ and I haul it in for the reward and we split.”

“How do we split?”

“ Bern, was I ever greedy? Fifty-fifty’s how we split an’ that way everybody’s happy. You wash my hand, I’ll scratch your back, you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“So we’re talkin’ seventeen-five apiece, and I’ll tell you, Bern, you’re not gonna beat that. All this publicity, a murder and all, you can’t run out and find a buyer for it. And forget about workin’ a deal where you sell it back to the insurance company, because these bastards set traps and all you’ll wind up with is your tit in a wringer. Of course maybe you stole it to order, maybe you got a customer waitin’, but can you take a chance with him? In the first place he could cross you, and in the second place you can take some of the pressure off your own self if the insurance company gets the picture back.”

“You’ve got it all worked out.”

“Well,” he said, “a man’s got to think for himself. Another thing is maybe you already fenced it, stole it to order and turned it over the same night.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Say, what’s she doin’ in there, Bernie?”

“Answering a call of nature, I suppose.”

“Yeah, well, I wish she’d shit or get off the pot. My back teeth are floatin’. What I was sayin’, if you already offed the Moondrain, what you got to do is steal it back.”

“From the person I sold it to?”

“Or from the person he sold it to, if it passed on down the line. I’m tellin’ you, Bernie, this case’ll quiet down a lot if the Moondrain gets recovered. That’ll tend to separate the burglary aspect from the murder aspect, and maybe it’ll get people lookin’ elsewhere than yourself for the killer.”

“It’ll also put half of thirty-five thousand dollars in your pocket, Ray.”

“And the other half in yours, and don’t forget it. What the hell happened to Carolyn? Maybe I better go see if she fell in.”

Whereupon my favorite dog groomer burst breathless into the room, hitching at the belt of her slacks with one hand, holding the other up with the palm facing toward us.

She said, “Bernie, there’s been a disaster. Ray, don’t go in there, don’t even think about it. Bernie, what I did, I flushed a bloody tampon. I thought it’d be all right, and everything blocked up and backed up and there’s shit all over the floor and it’s still running. I tried to clean up but I only made it worse. Bernie, can you help me? I’m afraid it’s gonna flood the whole store.”

“I was just leavin’,” Ray said, backing off. His face had a greenish tinge and he didn’t look happy. “ Bern, I’ll be in touch, right?”

“You don’t want to give us a hand?”

“Are you kiddin’?” he said. “Jesus!”

I was around the counter before he was out the door, and he wasn’t taking his time, either. I went through toward the back room and ducked into the john, and there was nothing on the floor but red and black vinyl tiles in a checkerboard pattern. They were quite dry, and about as clean as they generally are.

There was a man sitting on my toilet.

He didn’t look as though he belonged there. He was fully dressed, wearing gray sharkskin trousers with a gray glen-plaid suit jacket. His shirt was maroon and his shoes were a pair of scuffed old wingtips, somewhere between black and brown in hue. He had shaggy rust-brown hair and a red goatee, ill-trimmed and going to gray. His head was back and his jaw slack, showing tobacco-stained teeth that had never known an orthodontist’s care. His eyes, too, were open, and they were of the sort described as guileless blue.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said.

“You didn’t know he was in here?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s what I figured. You recognize him?”

“The artist,” I said. “The one who paid a dime at the Hewlett Collection. I forget his name.”

“Turner.”

“No, that’s another artist, but it’s close. The guard knew his name, called him by name. Turnquist.”

“That’s it. Bernie, where are you going?”

“I want to make sure there’s nobody in the store,” I said, “and I want to turn the bolt, and I want to change the sign from Open to Closed.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Oh,” she said. “Bernie?”

“What?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Oh, no question,” I said. “They don’t get much deader.”

“That’s what I thought. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Well, if you have to. But can’t you wait until I get him off the toilet?”

CHAPTER Fifteen

“You can rent ’em for only fifty bucks a month,” she said. “That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it? Comes to less than two dollars a day. What else can you get for less than two dollars a day?”

“Breakfast,” I said, “if you’re a careful shopper.”

“And a lousy tipper. The only thing is they got a one-month minimum. Even if we bring the thing back in an hour and a half, it’s the same fifty bucks.”

“We might not bring it back at all. How much of a deposit did you have to leave?”

“A hundred. Plus the first month’s rental, so I’m out a hundred and a half. But the hundred comes back when we return the thing. If we return the thing.”

We paused at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twelfth Street, waiting for the light to change. It changed and we headed across. At the opposite side Carolyn said, “Didn’t they pass a law? Aren’t there supposed to be access ramps at all corners?”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Well, do you call this a ramp? Look at this curb, will you? You could hang-glide off of it.”

“You push down on the handles,” I said, “and I’ll lift. Here we go.”

“Shit.”

“Easy does it.”

“Shit with chocolate sauce. I mean we can manage it, even a steep curb, but what’s a genuinely handicapped person out on his own supposed to do, will you tell me that?”

“You’ve been asking that question once a block.”

“Well, my consciousness is being raised every time we have to shlep this damned thing up another curb. It’s the kind of cause I could get worked up about. Show me a petition and I’ll sign it. Show me a parade and I’ll march. What’s so funny?”

“I was picturing the parade.”

“You’ve got a sick sense of humor, Bernie. Anyone ever tell you that? Help me push-I’m giving our friend here a bumpy ride.”

Not that our friend was apt to complain. He was the late Mr. Turnquist, of course, and the thing we were pushing, as you’ve probably figured out, was a wheelchair, leased from Pitterman Hospital and Surgical Supply on First Avenue between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets. Carolyn had gone there, rented the contraption, and brought it back in the trunk of a cab. I’d helped her get it into the bookstore, where we’d unfolded it and wrestled Turnquist into it.