“’Morning, mister,” Rachel Farmer said. “It was very good lasagna. We must have it again.”
Her voice was much softer on the telephone than when one spoke to her face to face. There was a kind of coo in her voice on the telephone.
Cook kept any responsive coo out of his voice. Off-duty hours were one thing. He said, “Good morning, Miss Farmer.” But he sat down again at his desk.
“I suppose you’re busy,” Rachel said. “Chasing people. No time for girl friends.”
“Well,” Cook said, “I am on duty, Miss Farmer.”
“Forgive me for living, mister.”
“Well …” Cook said. Well is always a useful word to bridge with. “This is an official telephone, Miss Farmer. I’m going on a job. Perhaps I could call back from—”
“I won’t be here. I’m a working girl. Got to be shouted at by painters, mister.”
“Do you have to call me mister?”
“I call everybody mister. Unless I call them sister, of course. Although sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, isn’t it? Tuesday, he mumbled a lot. I just remembered after you left. He was terribly grumpy about something. Of course, he usually mumbled a lot when he was working. Took his mind off what he was doing, I always thought.”
Cook pulled himself together as well as he could manage.
“Which mister are you talking about, Miss Farmer?”
“Shack Jones of course,” she said, tempering her tone to a shorn mind. “Tuesday. The day before he was supposed to have shot himself. He was in a thing when I was posing for him. Fuming. Talking to himself, really. Once I thought he was maybe talking to me, too, and I said, ‘What, mister?’ And he said, ‘Shut up, can’t you? And for God’s sake stand still.’ He was hard to get along with, most of the time. So I said, ‘If you have to keep it so damn cold in here, how can a girl keep from shivering?’ You see, I wasn’t wearing anything.”
Cook thought, irresistibly, of long bare legs. (“Regardless.”) He said, “What did he seem to be fuming about, Miss Farmer?”
“When I thought he might be talking to me. Because it was clearer than the rest, and louder, of course, he said ‘Best thing I’ve done for years. And a lot of Goddamn love seats.’ I said ‘What, mister?’ and he told me to shut up.”
Cook didn’t get it, and said he didn’t get it.
“A picture, of course, mister,” Rachel said. “What else? Mostly he talked about pictures. But this time he sounded mad.”
“At somebody?”
“I thought so. It sort of faded in and out. And of course, every now and then, he yelled at me to stand still, for God’s sake. But they all do that. Anyway, I was cold. Once he said something that sounded like, ‘Get away with it.’ As if somebody wasn’t going to. You know how people sound when they’re mad?”
“Yes. Any idea what he meant by love seats?”
“He sounded as if he didn’t like them. I don’t myself, really. Not long enough, you know.”
Tony Cook was a little afraid he did know.
“You thought he was angry about something?” Cook said, letting the shortness of love seats lie. “Or at somebody? More than he usually was? More—” he sought the word—“grumpy? As if something had come up that annoyed him?”
“Of course, mister. Why did you think I called you? Not that I didn’t enjoy last evening. I don’t say I didn’t.”
“So did I,” Cook said.
“I haven’t anything really on tonight,” she said. “That is, I have, but it’s nothing I can’t get out of. And it would mean going uptown. To one of those chichi places. It always does with him.”
She was, Cook thought, one hell of a witness. He was surprised by the irritation with her which crept in under the thought—by the degree of the irritation.
“Mad at somebody,” he said. “The best thing he’d done for years. Love seats. And somebody not getting away with something.”
“You don’t listen very well, do you, mister? Of course, he kept rubbing his face. That may have annoyed him, I guess. Made him grumpy.”
“Rubbing?”
“As if it itched,” she said. “Don’t beards itch when you shave them off? I mean where they were? The one he shaved off after he popped back from Spain.”
“I never wore a beard,” Cook heard himself say. “Will you be home this afternoon, Miss Farmer?”
“On official business?”
“For a telephone call. About going to a place that isn’t chichi.”
“Around three, I think,” Rachel Farmer said. “He’ll be grumpy, probably. But that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Cook felt rather grumpy himself as he took a subway uptown to Thirty-third Street. Mostly he was grumpy because he felt that Rachel Farmer had been on the verge of saying something coherent. But a little he was grumpy because he wondered who the hell was the “him” she talked about. Not that it was any of his business. His business was in stores which contained art galleries.
The street floor of the first store he went to was crowded. Most of those hurrying through it, or loitering through it, or standing with impatience at counters, were women. Here and there was a docile man who gave the impression of clinging in bewilderment to apron strings. There was an information desk and Cook waited at it, feeling docile and bewildered. When it was his turn he got, “Furniture, Seventh Floor. Elevators in the rear.” He went to the rear; he went up, jostled in the car by women. (And one docile man.) He emerged into acres of furniture. Signs said: “Sleep Shop,” “Living Room, Contemporary,” “Living Room, Traditional,” “For Outdoor Living.” No sign said “Art Gallery.” Cook wandered for a time among sofas and deeply upholstered chairs. He found a clerk and found his way.
The art gallery was in a distant corner, as if tucked there by afterthought. There was nobody in it, at first. Cook looked at pictures on the walls. They made a good deal more sense than the ones he had seen in Shackleford Jones’s studio. You could tell what they were about, for the most part. One picture, which Cook rather liked, was about a horse in a pasture. He could tell with no difficulty at all that it was about a horse.
A spruce young man came to him and said, “Can I help you, sir?” without any conviction in his voice.
Cook wanted to see whoever was in charge; whoever was head of the department. That would be Mr. Bingham. Mr. Bingham, unfortunately, was in the executive offices, in conference. If there was something the spruce young man could do?
“Mr. Bingham,” Cook said. “Police business.” He said it like a policeman, and the spruce young man said, “Goodness!” He was afraid Mr. Bingham —
Cook took his badge out of a pocket and held it toward the spruce young man. “I suppose,” the spruce young man said, “I could try to reach Mr. Bingham on the—”
A rather heavy and considerably older man came into the gallery room and the clerk said, “Here he is now,” with relief in his voice, and then, “Mr. Bingham. This gen—a police officer would like to see you.”
Bingham’s broad face showed surprise and then, Cook thought, a hint of uneasiness. He beckoned and walked over to a desk in a corner of the room and sat behind it and motioned toward a chair, which Cook moved so that he faced the desk. Bingham, whose voice was appropriately heavy and a little husky, said, “How can I help you, officer?”
Cook told him how. At the mention of Jones’s name, Bingham made appropriate sounds of regret, using tongue and teeth, and producing something like “tchk.” It was a great pity about Mr. Jones. There had been a real talent there. Not, of course, to everyone’s taste.
The store had never bought any of Shackleford Jones’s paintings. Not precisely the sort of paintings most customers would go for. “Our clientele wants the representational,” he said, and looked at Cook with some doubt. Cook nodded his head. “For a hundred dollars, if possible,” Bingham said. “Something quite understandable. Preferably in blue, for some reason. Although yellow is quite popular just now.”
“You were nev
er offered a painting by Mr. Jones?”
Now that was another matter. It was, come to think of it—Bingham paused for a moment, coming to think of it—an interesting coincidence. He looked at the ceiling.
“A month or two ago,” he said. “In April, I think it was, a man telephoned me. Knew who I was, incidentally. Asked for me by name. Identified himself as Shackleford Jones. Of course, I knew the name. He wanted to know whether we would be interested in looking at some of his work. Said he had several small things which he would sell for quite reasonable prices. I asked him what he thought a reasonable price and he said that he would let one of them go for seven hundred and fifty.”
Bingham had been reluctant, but he had said “No,” and that he was sorry.
“A Shack Jones would have lent a cachet to the gallery,” Bingham told Detective Cook. “But it wouldn’t have sold. Not at the price we’d have had to ask. Probably not at any price, really. Modern art is for special tastes. I was, frankly, astonished that he would offer work to us. The Museum of Modern Art. Yes. Of course. They have at least one of his, I believe.”
“You were puzzled that he offered you pictures?”
“Astonished, as I said. Puzzled—well, not entirely. I supposed he needed ready cash. Quick cash. To be honest with you, a good many painters do. Even men who are accepted. Who normally sell through established dealers.”
“Did you happen to know Mr. Jones?”
“Only by reputation. If you mean, did I recognize his voice, no. But I had no reason to think that it was not Jones who called. He was—seemed to be—knowledgeable. Except, obviously, about the prices we could afford to pay, and make a profit.”
Cook took a Sixth Avenue bus uptown and left it in the Fifties and walked to Fifth. He went to three stores on Fifth, and to two on Fifty-seventh and to one on Lexington.
Buyers for all of the galleries had been telephoned by a man who identified himself as Jones and offered to sell pictures. Four had not been interested. Two had considered and promised to call back. One of them, after consideration, had not called. One had, at the number he had been given. He had not been answered. He had checked in the Manhattan directory and found the number under, “Jones, Shackleford (bus.).” There was another listing, “Jones, Shackleford (res.).” One buyer had made an appointment to go to Jones’s studio and look at the pictures offered.
“Hell of a time finding the place,” a wiry man named Askew told Cook. “And a hell of a place when I did find it. And all my trouble for nothing.”
It had been for nothing because, when he found the door to the studio, there was a sign on it. The sign read: “Go Away.” He had knocked on the door and got no answer and had obeyed the sign’s injunction.
This had been about a month before, Askew thought. First or second week in May.
The other galleries had been called, like Bingham, in April.
His doorbell-ringing took Tony Cook all the morning and a little of the afternoon. He went back to Twentieth Street and Shapiro was not there. He had probably gone to lunch. Cook went to the most likely nearby restaurant; the one most of them used. Shapiro was sitting at a corner table and looking, in the dimness of the room, as morose as usual. He was eating a hot roast beef sandwich and drinking beer. He motioned toward a chair and Cook sat in it and motioned toward the sandwich and said, “Any good?”
“No worse than usual,” Shapiro told him.
A waiter came and Cook ordered a hot roast beef sandwich and a bottle of Michelob. The waiter said, “Nope. Sorry, sergeant.” And, “Making out all right, captain?” to Shapiro. Promotions were quick in Jack’s Chop House.
Cook said that Miller’s High Life would be fine, and told Shapiro where the bell-ringing had got him. He also, after hesitating momentarily, told him of Rachel Farmer’s telephone call.
“It was always a man who called the galleries,” Shapiro said. “Presumably Jones himself. That’s interesting, isn’t it, Tony? Most of them in April, the most recent about a month ago. Remember what Mrs. Dedek told us?”
Anthony Cook remembered.
“Of course,” Shapiro said, “people aren’t always very exact about time. But it would make quite a spread, wouldn’t it? Between three weeks and two months or thereabouts.”
Cook swallowed hot roast beef sandwich and said, “It certainly would.”
“Jones set great store by that beard of his, apparently,” Shapiro said. “Thought everybody knew him by it. And apparently a good many people did. May have thought that with his beard shaved off nobody would recognize him.”
Cook agreed there was that.
“Could be he was around a time before he let anybody know he was,” Shapiro said, speaking primarily to his almost empty beer glass. “Disguised by the absence of a beard.” He looked at Tony Cook and said, “Seem reasonable?”
“Not very,” Cook said. “Because why?”
He was told that that was a good point.
“Called everybody but Bryant and Washburn, apparently,” Shapiro said. “Wonder why he didn’t call them, don’t you, Tony?”
Cook sipped beer and said he did.
“All the art galleries you went to this morning,” Shapiro said, “were connected with furniture departments? Adjuncts of the furniture departments?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the setup at Bryant and Washburn’s, too,” Shapiro said. “Have to walk between and around a lot of sofas and chairs to get to it.”
“Same with all of them,” Cook said.
“When we’ve finished lunch,” Shapiro said, “you might make that call to Miss Farmer. She might get back earlier than she thought. You might ask her if she can fix the time Jones came back from Spain. Come closer to it than Mrs. Dedek seems to have. Oh—and if Jones ever said anything to her about a painting he called ‘The Melting Clown.’ When he was mumbling while he worked and she posed for him.”
The portfolio of drawings was an awkward thing to lug. Dorian was somewhat annoyed with herself. She should have called the messenger service early, instead of spending the morning choosing the sketches—the impertinent drawings for institutional advertisements, the cartoons for magazines—which she wanted to show. When, with a dozen selected and put together in the portfolio, she had called the messenger service its response had been, in effect, “Huh?”
It was Saturday afternoon, the messenger service reminded her. It was a Saturday afternoon, moreover, in mid-June. Everything was pretty much closed up, including places which needed messenger service. And it was a day off for most of the messengers. They would, of course, do their best. Roy Expediters always did their best. But they couldn’t really guarantee anything about time. If Mrs. Weigand had called earlier —
“Forget it,” Dorian told Roy Expediters and hung up and called the garage for the Buick. She lugged the portfolio down a corridor and into an elevator.
She waited on the sidewalk for the arrival of the Buick and waited for some minutes. (The garage also had mentioned that it was Saturday afternoon and that it was, resultingly, understaffed.) The doorman—not George; George was off on summer Saturdays—helped her lodge the portfolio in the Buick.
She drove across town and found the traffic sparse. One reason for this, it became evident in East Seventy-ninth Street, was that a large percentage of the city’s cars were spending the day against the city’s curbs. She found a place for the Buick a block from the Dedek Galleries, and wrestled the portfolio out of the car and lugged it back. She got it to the door of the Dedek Galleries and found the door locked.
She should, obviously, have telephoned first. But Myra Dedek had been firm about delivery of the drawings that day and had, by implication, left the whole of the day available. Dorian peered through the glass of the window. The main display room was lighted, but at first it seemed empty.
Then, a little dimly, she saw Weldon Williams walk into the room from the rear. He was not dressed to receive patrons; he wore slacks and what appeared to be a sweat shirt. Dorian tapped
knuckles on the glass. Williams began to take a picture down from a wall, deep in the room. Dorian got a quarter from her coin purse and rapped with that. The edge of the quarter made a sharp, clear sound on the glass.
Williams heard the sound. He turned from the wall and faced the door and made a gesture with his right hand. The gesture was not of welcome, but of dismissal. Dorian rapped again with the coin and Williams shrugged his shoulders, a little overdoing it. He mouthed a word, and a little overdid that, too. But the word clearly was “Closed.” Dorian rapped again. He turned back and lifted hands toward the picture he was taking from the wall, and Dorian, annoyed by then with everything, rapped sharply and continued to rap. Williams raised both hands in a gesture of hopelessness and turned from the distant wall and walked toward the door. When he reached it, he looked through the glass at Dorian and began to shake his head. But he stopped that after a single shake and reached for the doorknob.
He was sorry; they were closed—closed, in fact, for the summer. He was just tidying up; putting pictures in the vault. If he had known it was Mrs. Weigand …
She pointed toward the portfolio, which was propped against her hip.
“I know you’re closing,” she told Weldon Williams. “Mrs. Dedek wanted these before you did. For a show in September. So, take them and tell Mrs. Dedek—”
But he had moved by then. He picked up the portfolio and stepped around Dorian to let her go ahead of him into the gallery. She said, “There’s no need for me to …” but by then she had gone into the big, cool room, and Weldon Williams had closed the door after them.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “After the trouble you must have gone to. So many things to do when we’re closing up. She did say you were sending the sketches up. And how co-operative you were. And—it just went out of my mind. I can’t tell you how sorry I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dorian said. “They’re here now. Tell Mrs. Dedek—”
“She’ll want to see you,” Williams said. “And look at what you’ve brought us. I’m certain she will. If you’ll just come along up.”
Murder For Art’s Sake Page 17