“Have mercy, will you please, Mr. Chapman? I’m supposed to be lying here very still. Don’t make me get up and have to hurt you.”

We spent the next half hour telling Mercer what we had learned from Don Cannon and Preston Mattox. “Who do you like in all this?” he asked.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing and nobody is like what you’d think they’d be. Me, I always thought the international art world was for the elegant and elite. Classy, calm, sedate, cultured. I’m tellin’ you, there are more lowlifes in this business than all the Hannibal Lecter wanna-bes in the world.”

“Between the fakes and the frauds, and centuries of thefts and misrepresentations, I can’t imagine now how anyone sets a value that can be trusted on any painting,” I added. It was odd that for so many of the people we had encountered, their passions had become obsessions, and their lives as illusory as their art.

Mike reached for the clicker and raised the volume again. “Okay, the Final Jeopardy topic is Sports. Way to go. I’m in for fifty dollars. Partners, Mercer?” Mike gave him a thumbs-up and got a wink in response. “Get your money up, Coop.”

I opened my pocketbook and reached in to dig around. Even though I had just taken another handbag from the apartment late last night to replace the one that I had lost in the shooting, I had already filled it with more than any reasonable person would cart around. The heavy wallet, laden with a checkbook, credit cards, business cards, and assorted notes, had sunk to the bottom of the deep tote. On Mercer’s tray table I unloaded house keys, car keys, office keys, and Jake’s apartment keys. A lipstick case and blusher came out next. Handkerchief, pens, hairbrush, Post-it pads, and my official badge piled on top.

“How the hell do you ever find anything in there? It’s really one of life’s great mysteries.

“Okay, the answer is: First major league athlete to play all nine positions in the same baseball season. You got sixty seconds, blondie. Mercer and I got this one locked up… What the hell is that?”

As I pulled out my wallet, with it came a small plastic bag that had snagged on its clasp, holding an old-fashioned razor and set of double-edge platinum blades, along with a toothbrush and tube of paste.

“I brought a little supply kit for Mercer. Jake has dozens of those travel cases so he can just pack them and go when he gets sent on assignment. Thought maybe you’d be able to use some of this stuff while you’re here,” I said, holding it up so Mercer could see.

He pointed to his drawer and told me that his dad had brought him everything he needed, so I replaced all my belongings in the bag.

“Enough with the Clara Barton imitation. You either give us a name or just drop the money in my pocket.”

I had no idea that anyone had ever accomplished that feat. I took out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to Mike, at the same time as I said, “Who was Whitey Ford?” As far as I was concerned, if it hadn’t been done by a Yankee, then it hadn’t ever happened.

Trebek was just consoling the three contestants, none of whom had delivered the correct answer. Before he revealed it on the game board, Mike announced, “Oakland. Who is Bert Campaneris?”

The television echoed the same question: “Who is Bert Campaneris?”

“I can’t believe you knew that.”

He’d pocketed the cash before I finished the sentence. “You don’t mind if I don’t spend it on flowers or candy, do you, m’man? I got some informants who need a little monkey grease to make ’em sing to me.”

The phone rang and I picked it up. “Could I speak with Detective Chapman?”

I stepped back and Mike squeezed around the side of the bed and took the receiver. “K.D.? Whaddaya got?” Mike raised his left shoulder to hold the phone in place against his ear while he reached into his pocket for a pen and paper. He listened to Jimmy Halloran for several minutes, occasionally punctuating the conversation with a ‘When?’ or a ‘Who?’ while I held a straw to Mercer’s lips and helped him drink some of the water that the nurse had directed him to finish. “No, it’s not everything,” Mike said before hanging up, “but it’s not a bad start. Thanks.”

Mike began his narrative for us. “Anthony Bailor. Gainesville, Florida. He’s forty-two years old now, but back when he was eighteen, he burglarized an apartment. Raped a college student who was living there. Knifepoint. Also I.D.’d in three other cases in town within six months.”

“And did less than twenty years?” I asked.

“Three of the victims were too scared to press charges. Hey, it was almost twenty-five years ago. Nothing unusual about that back then.”

It was only within the last ten to fifteen years that victims of sexual assault were treated with any dignity in the courtroom. The bad laws that had prevented women from having access to the system had begun to be revised throughout the seventies, but public attitudes about this category of crime had been even slower to change. For centuries, rape was the only crime for which the victim was blamed, and the stigma that attached itself to women who had been forced to experience such an intimate violation kept many of them from seeking justice.

“What didn’t show on his sheet was his youth record. Again, Florida. Did time in a juvenile facility, also for rape. Carjacked a woman in a supermarket parking lot.”

“So we got a sexual predator on our hands.”

“Served his felony sentence in Raiford. They got a prison there, Coop, makes Attica look like a beauty school. Bailor did hard time. Real hard time. I’m talking chain gangs and leg irons. Must’ve been one of the first guys to get himself into the DNA data bank. Even though they didn’t exist when he was convicted, by the time he was eligible for parole, no one was let out until his genetic fingerprint was on file.”

Mike looked back at his pad and flipped the page. “When he got out of jail, he moved right out of Florida. Can’t say as I blame him. If you’re gonna foul up again, might as well come north to one of our country club prisons. Be my guest, Mr. Bailor. I love New York.

“Ready for the larceny arrest?” Mike asked. “The original charge was grand larceny, but he pleaded out to possession of stolen property. That’s how come he did so little time. Prosecutor had to drop the top count and take the lesser plea ’cause the theft actually occurred in Massachusetts. Anton Bailey was stopped on the New York State Thruway for speeding. When they searched his car, the troopers found a couple of oil paintings. Valuable ones. Seems Anton hadn’t saved his sales receipts.”

“Massachusetts? From the Gardner?”

“Nope. Right state, wrong museum. Something called the Mead Art Museum, in Amherst. Couldn’t pin the actual burglary on Anton. His alibi back in Buffalo held up pretty well. So all they had him for was possession of the goods. They even offered him a deal of no jail time if he gave up his accomplice. But he hung tough. Shit, after the stretch he did in Florida, he must have done this sentence standing on his head.”

It was an interesting development. Somewhere along the way, Bailor had connected with art criminals and had perhaps lent his break-in talent to their undertakings. A simple calculation confirmed that he was still in a Florida prison when the Gardner theft had occurred, but he must have more recently marketed his skills to this murky underground world of thieves.

“Do you think he knew Omar Sheffield before they wound up in the same cell?”

“No sign of that yet. We’ll have to talk to some of the other prisoners. So far, what K.D. got is only from the paperwork in the warden’s files. Could be just dumb luck. Omar’s doing his usual scam. Tells Anton about Denise Caxton, maybe even shows him the clippings from the Law Journal about the Caxton divorce, which lists every one of their assets and describes all of their dealings in the art business. Anton has bigger plans. Passes off the information to…”