“I expect short jokes from Ray, Bernie. I don’t expect them from you.”

“I was just trying to make a point.”

“You made it. I thought it would be more decent to leave him in the chair, that’s all. Forget I said anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

I got the wire off his wrists and ankles, unstrapped the belt from around his waist, and managed to stretch him out on his back on a reasonably uncluttered expanse of floor. I retrieved the cap and sunglasses and blanket.

Back on the street I said, “Hop on, Carolyn. I’ll give you a ride.”

“Huh?”

“Two people pushing an empty wheelchair are conspicuous. C’mon, get in the chair.”

“You get in it.”

“You weigh less than I do, and-”

“The hell with that noise. You’re taller than I am and you’re a man, so if one of us has to play Turnquist you’re a natural choice for the role. Get in the chair, Bern, and put on the cap and the glasses.” She tucked the blanket around me and the mildew smell wafted to my nostrils. With a sly grin, my henchperson released the handbrake. “Hang on,” she said. “And fasten your seat belt. Short jokes, huh? We may hit a few air pockets along the way.”

CHAPTER Sixteen

Back at the store, I checked the premises for bodies, living or dead, before I did anything else. I didn’t find any, nor did I happen on any clues as to how Turnquist had gotten into my store or how he’d happened to join his ancestors in that great atelier on high. Carolyn wheeled the chair into the back room and I helped her fold it. “I’ll take it back in a cab,” she said, “but first I want some coffee.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Not from the felafel joint.”

“Don’t worry.”

When I got back with two coffees she said the phone had rung in my absence. “I was gonna answer it,” she said, “and then I didn’t.”

“Probably wise.”

“This coffee’s much better. You know what we oughta do? In either your place or my place we oughta have one of those machines, nice fresh coffee all day long. One of those electric drip things.”

“Or even a hotplate and a Chemex pot.”

“Yeah. Of course you’d be pouring coffee for customers all day long, and you’d never get rid of Kirschmann. He’d be a permanent guest. I really grossed him out, didn’t I?”

“He couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

“Well, that was the idea. I figured the more disgusting I made it, the faster he’d split. I was trying to wait him out, you know, figuring he might leave if I stayed out of the room long enough, but it looked as though he wasn’t gonna cave without peeing, so-”

“I almost left myself. He’s not the only one you grossed out.”

“Oh, right. You didn’t know I was faking it.”

“Of course not. I didn’t know there was a dead man in there.”

“Maybe I went into too much detail.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, and the phone rang.

I picked it up and Wally Hemphill said, “You’re a hard man to get hold of, Bernie. I was thinking you’d jumped bail.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know anybody in Costa Rica.”

“Oh, a guy like you would make friends anywhere. Listen, what do you know about this Mondrian?”

“I know he was Dutch,” I said. “Born in 1872 in Amberfoot or something like that. He began, you may recall, as a painter of naturalistic landscapes. As he found his own style he grew artistically and his work became increasingly abstract. By 1917-”

“What’s this, a museum lecture? There’s a painting missing from Onderdonk’s apartment worth close to half a million dollars.”

“I know.”

“You get it?”

“No.”

“It might be useful if you could come up with it. Give us a bargaining chip.”

“Suppose I gave them Judge Crater,” I said, “or a cure for cancer.”

“You really haven’t got the painting?”

“No.”

“Who got it?”

“Probably the person who killed him.”

“You didn’t kill anybody and you didn’t take anything.”

“Right.”

“You were just there to leave fingerprints.”

“Evidently.”

“Nuts. Where do you go from here, Bernie?”

“Around in circles,” I said.

I got off the phone and went in back, with Carolyn trailing after me. There’s a sort of cupboard next to the desk, filled with things I haven’t gotten around to throwing out, and I keep a sweat shirt and some other running gear there. I opened it, took inventory, and removed my shirt.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Getting undressed,” I said, unbelting my pants. “What’s it look like?”

“Jesus,” she said, turning her back on me. “If this is a subtle pass, I pass on it. In the first place I’m gay and in the second place we’re best friends and in the third place-”

“I’m going for a run, Carolyn.”

“Oh. With Wally?”

“Without Wally. A nice lope around Washington Square until my mind clears up. There’s nothing in it now but false starts and loose ends. People keep coming out of the woodwork asking me for a painting I never even had my hands on. They all want me to have it. Kirschmann smells a reward and Wally smells a fat fee and I don’t know what all the other people smell. Oil paint, probably. I’ll run and work the kinks out of my mind and maybe all of this will start to make sense to me.”

“And what about me? What’ll I do while you’re doing your Alberto Salazar impression?”

“You could take the wheelchair back.”

“Yeah, I have to do that sooner or later, don’t I? Bern? I wonder if any of the people who saw you in the wheelchair will recognize you jogging around Washington Square.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“Listen,” she said, “anybody says anything, just tell ’em you’ve been to Lourdes.”

Washington Square Park is a rectangle, and the sidewalk around it measures just about five-eighths of a mile, which in turn is just about a kilometer. It’s flat if you’re walking, but when you run there’s a slight slope evident, and if you run counterclockwise, as almost everybody does, you feel the incline as you run east along the southern border of the park. I felt it a lot on the first lap, with my legs still a little achy from the previous day’s ordeal in Central Park, but after that it didn’t bother me.

I was wearing blue nylon shorts and a ribbed yellow tank top and burgundy running shoes, and there was a moment when I found myself wondering whether Mondrian would have liked my outfit. Scarlet shoes would have suited him better, I decided. Or vermillion, like the galleries.

I took it very slow and easy. A lot of people passed me, but I didn’t care if old ladies with aluminum walkers whizzed by me. I just put one wine-colored foot after the other, and somewhere around the fourth lap my mind started to float, and I suppose I ran three more laps after that but I wasn’t keeping score.

I didn’t think about Mondrian or his paintings or all the crazy people who wanted them. I didn’t really think about anything, and after my close to four miles I picked up the plastic bag of stuff I’d left with one of the chessplayers at the park’s southwest corner. I thanked him and trotted west to Arbor Court.

Carolyn wasn’t home, so I used the tools I’d brought along to let myself into her building and then her apartment. The vestibule lock was candy but the others were not, and I wondered what curious villain had picked those locks without leaving a hint of his presence, and why he couldn’t use the same talents to hook the Mondrian out of the Hewlett Collection all by his own self.

I got in, locked up, stripped and showered, the last-named act being the reason I’d come to Arbor Court. I dried off and put on the clothes I’d been wearing earlier and hung my sopping shorts and tank top over the shower curtain rod. Then I looked in the fridge for a beer, made a face when I failed to find one, and fixed some iced tea from a mix. It tasted like what you would expect.