False colors

by Powell, Richard, 1908-1999

  I left the office and headed for Nick Accardi's rooming house on South Twenty-second Street. That might be the most logical place to start looking for Nancy. Besides, I wouldn't mind catch-

  ing up with Accardi, if I could coax him to exchange a few words instead of punches. The guy might be in this mess deeper than he wanted to be, and might be willing to trade information for some help. When I reached the door of his room this time tire door was locked. I knocked and didn't get an answer. I returned to the first floor and located the landlady's door and knocked on it.

  She opened it a few inches and peered out and said, "We don't want none."

  I pulled out a ten-dollar bill and waved it at her. "A lot of people do, though," I said.

  She examined the bill to see if it had been issued by the Confederacy. "What's this for?" she asked.

  "I want to ask a couple of questions. Don't you remember me? I was with the girl who bought those paintings from you in Rittenhouse Square."

  "Oh, I remember. Had your face in the papers lately. Not what I would call a good likeness."

  "I'm looking for Nick."

  "Third floor, back."

  "He isn't in. Or anyway he doesn't answer."

  "I don't keep track of people's comings and goings. I'll tell that to the police or anybody."

  "What makes you think the police are involved in this?"

  "The stoiy in the paper today makes it look like Nick 'stole one of them paintings."

  "I'm not accusing him of it," I said. "I only want to talk to him. You can help if you will."

  She opened the door wider and peered out into the hall. "By yourself, are you?" she said. "All right. Come in."

  She led the way into one of those stiff little Philadelphia parlors which are only used for weddings and funerals. She sat down in one of the sheet-covered chairs and stared at me gloomily. I got the impression that she enjoyed the funerals more than the weddings.

  "How long is it," I said, "since you've seen Nick?"

  "Last time was the night I took them paintings to pay for

  the rent he owed. That was the night before the girl bought them."

  "Has he been back in his room since then?"

  "Like I told you, I don't keep track of my roomers."

  "I'm not trying to get him in trouble," I said. "I'm trying to help him get out of trouble."

  "I'd never of let you in if I didn't believe that. I like that boy Nick, except he's slow on the rent. I told you the truth. I ain't seen him since that night. But I know his footsteps. He went out early the next morning, and I ain't heard him come back."

  "Has anybody been looking for him lately?"

  She stared at me for a few moments, her eyes as blank as raisins in a pudding. Finally she said, "That girl of yours was here today. All I told her was I didn't know nothing about Nick."

  "Anybody else?"

  "Well, a couple times in the last two days there's been men looking for Nick. They didn't get nothing out of me. Don't ask me what they looked like. The hall is too dark to see good. All I know is they didn't act like cops."

  "Do you remember what you told us when the girl was buying the paintings?" I said. "You told us the previous night you heard a lot of shouting from Nick's room, and that you went up to tell him he was making too much noise. You found him standing in front of that queer looking painting."

  "I remember telling you."

  "How about telling me something else? Who had he been shouting at?"

  "You're a cute one, figuring that out."

  "It didn't take much figuring."

  "I don't know who the man was. Sort of a big man. He come running down the steps as I come up like he was afraid Nick would throw him down if he stayed."

  "Did you ask Nick what the argument was about?"

  "No. But while Nick was telling me that queer picture was the best thing he ever done, he said he had done it that morning and his visitor hadn't liked it at all."

  I picked my words carefully, and said, "Did you get the idea that the man had expected to buy the picture and that Nick had spoiled it for him?"

  "Not at the time I didn't. But now that you mention it, I wouldn't be surprised if that was right."

  "Do you think Nick deliberately spoiled it?"

  "I wouldn't be surprised."

  That fit a theory I had been working up. Nick completed the forged Van Gogh and then, in a burst of temper, picked up a lot of paint with his palette knife and slapped it on the canvas and plastered it around until every bit of the Van Gogh was covered. His visitor could have been a crooked dealer who had commissioned him to do the forgery. My theory didn't cover a very important point, though. It didn't tell me whether Nick had messed up the faked Van Gogh because he had a change of heart, or because he wasn't satisfied with the price. The evidence seemed to point toward the price angle, since Nick hadn't actually destroyed his forgery. But you couldn't tell. Maybe it had given him more satisfaction to throw paint at the thing than to cut it to ribbons.

  "Well, thanks a lot," I said. "Would you do me a favor, and maybe Nick too, by phoning me if you hear him come in?"

  "I might."

  I got a card from my wallet and wrote both the shop and apartment phone numbers on it. I pulled out another ten-dollar bill and handed her the card and money.

  She sighed and said, "I ain't gonna take the money. And I'm giving you back the other ten." She brought it out of a fold of her dress and gave it to me. "I guess I'm a fool," she grumbled, "but I like your face. I guess you find women trust you."

  "Thanks a lot," I said, "but you're so wrong."

  After leaving the place I walked into the center of town and hunted for books that contained prints of Van Gogh paintings. If I could find a reproduction of the one Nick had copied, I might get the title or the painting and the name of the owner. Whoever owned the painting was either in on the crooked deal,

  or knew nothing about it and would help me find out who else was involved.

  Just before five o'clock I found the thing. It was reproduced in full color in a book printed in Europe before the war. The painting was titled "Les Bles et Le Soleil"—"The Wheat and The Sun." Van Gogh had painted it at Aries in 1889. The book identified it as belonging in 1939 to an unnamed collector in Europe. Not very helpful. Anybody might own it now, and not many people might know who the owner was. Some collectors like a lot of publicity. Others dislike it, either because they don't want to attract thieves or because they don't want to attract their local personal property tax assessor. So I wasn't much better off than before.

  I went back to the shop. No message had come from Nick's landlady. I fixed dinner, and tried to figure whether the dealer for whom Nick had been working was Ludwig Lassiter. The guy had sold millions of dollars worth of paintings in his time. If he turned out to be a crook, a lot of people were going to wish that instead of collecting art they had gone in for match book covers.

  At eight o'clock I gave Nancy's home a ring. William answered the phone. "Hello, William," I said. "This is Peter Meadows again. Is Nancy back yet?"

  "No sir. Not yet."

  "Any messages for me?"

  "Only the ones I had earlier today, Mr. Meadows. However, there are still some you haven't heard yet. Would you care to ask a few questions at random and see if I have the answers?"

  "Would I like any of them, William?"

  "Frankly, sir, they all add up to the same thing. Miss Nancy has absolutely no time for you and is willing to spend hours proving it."

  "Thanks," I said. "Good night."

  I dug out a lot of catalogs of important art exhibitions and sales, and began making a list of valuable paintings that Ludwig Lassiter had handled at one time or another. Some day a list like that might be useful. While checking the catalogs I

  watched for "Les Bles et Le Soleil" but it didn't turn up. Finally the phone rang. I picked it up and said hello.

  A woman said softly, "I said I'd call you."

  "Oh yes. You're Nick's lan
dlady. Any news?"

  "Can you come over? Now?"

  "What's it about? Is he back? Is—"

  "And as I was saying," she broke in, this time in a loud clear voice, "you never know what the butcher is giving you these days. Ain't that right, Mrs. Janowitz?"

  I said, "The phone's in the hall, isn't it? You might be overheard."

  "You certainly said it, Mrs. Janowitz. You got to watch them butchers every minute."

  Something in her tone gave me a chill. "Has something gone wrong? Are you trying to tell me something with that word butchers?"

  "You might figure that, Mrs. Janowitz," she said hoarsely. "But things ain't as bad as they might be. Anyway not yet. If you would want to drop over we could have a nice talk."

  "I'll be right there," I said.

  It didn't take me fifteen minutes to get to her place. She had been watching for me, because as soon as I stepped into the first floor hall she opened her door and beckoned. There weren't any lights on in her apartment. I went in, and she closed the door. Her breath made a sharp hissing noise in the darkness.

  "You're too late," she said. "He's gone again. Not five minutes ago."

  "What was all the butcher talk about?"

  "When you was leaving here this afternoon I watched you through the front curtains. I happened to take notice of a car parked across the street. There was a man scrunched in the back seat so you couldn't hardly see him. He was watching this place. So I kept an eye on him. Maybe forty minutes ago I heard Nick come in. And right at that moment the man got out of the car and hurried to the drug store on the corner. They have phone booths there inside the front window, and he

  went in one and made a call. I figured for sure he was phoning somebody that Nick had come in."

  "Did you tell Nick?"

  "Yes, I told him. He acted like it was nothing to him but I seen he was worried. Then right after I called you, the phone rang and it was some man wanting Nick. I said I didn't think Nick was in but I'd look. That was to give Nick a chance to go to the phone or not. So I went upstairs again and told Nick and he come down and took the call. I tried to listen with my door open a crack but all he said was yeah and uh-huh and okay, except a couple of times he asked the man to repeat something and go slower. After Nick hung up he come to my door and asked to look through my front windows, and he peered up and down the street. Then he shrugged and went out. My heart almost went back on me. I thought he was going to get himself shot. But he got away all right."

  "You seem pretty sure somebody was gunning for him."

  "Look, mister," she said sharply, "it wasn't a cop watching from that car. A cop would either hide good or bust into Nick's room to lay for him. And who's gonna spend a lot of time spying on a kid like Nick unless they got it in for him?"

  "You don't know where he went or who called?"

  "Well now that's the question. You know how people fool around with pencils when they're on the phone? I keep a piece of oilcloth tacked up by the phone so people can't mark up the wallpaper. I can wash that off. Nick was scribbling on it, but there are a lot of other scribbles and to save me I couldn't tell you which is his or if it means anything."

  I went out and looked at the oilcloth. It held quite a collection of doodles. Somebody had beaten himself at two games of tick-tack-toe. The name Gracie had been written with a nice flourish and then crossed out slowly and maybe sadly. People had drawn squares and rectangles and stars. Somebody had sketched a girl's face and put a moustache on it. There were addresses and phone numbers. Among them was the name "Ritten-house Arms" and the word "Stairs" printed in block letters and underlined heavily, and the symbol 6B.

  "When did you wash this off last?" I asked.

  "Must have been yesterday morning."

  "And Nick wasn't back between that time and tonight?"

  "I don't think he was."

  "Thanks a lot," I said. "Maybe I know where he went."

  I left the house and headed for Rittenhouse Square. Of course I didn't know Nick's handwriting, but it wasn't likely that any of his neighbors had been invited to drop in at the Rittenhouse Arms, Apartment 6B. That was Kay Raymond's place, and she was probably choosy about her guests.

  At the Rittenhouse Arms I took the elevator to the sixth floor. I had no plans beyond ringing the bell of 6B and seeing what would happen after Kay came to the door. Maybe I could talk my way inside, maybe not. It was one of those things you had to play by ear. At 6B I had just lifted my hand to ring when I saw that the door wasn't quite shut. The carpeting inside was thick, and an edge of it held the door a little short of latching position. It had probably stayed ajar the same way during my visit the previous night. I put my ear to the opening, listened. There wasn't a sound. I don't know why it's so tempting to push open doors in a case like that. I eased it open, stepped in. Still not a sound. I padded down the little hallway to the living room. At the entrance I froze.

  Nick Accardi was kneeling in the center of the room. Beyond him Kay Raymond sprawled limply on the rug, a red housecoat flowing around her body like a stain. I looked for another red stain. There wasn't any. But I saw a purple bruise that circled her throat, and nearby a length of greenish-blue silk. The silk was coiled like a rattlesnake, and in a clever pair of hands it would be just as deadly.

  I hadn't made a sound but Nick's head jerked up suddenly. He swung around, saw me. One hand flicked to his hip pocket. If I was going to play this by ear I would have to learn some tricky notes, and learn them fast.

  He came up slowly and smoothly from his crouch, and his right hand seemed to float out of the hip pocket. As his hand moved there was a click and the steel of a switchblade knife glittered at me. I watched like a chicken in a pen.

  "What's the idea?" I said hoarsely. "There's a law against those knives in Philadelphia."

  It was such a stupid remark that Nick had to stop and think about it. "Yeah?" he said. "They tell me there's one against murder, too."

  Back in the army they had shown us some tricks of knife fighting. To disarm a guy with a knife you circled him with your right hand out, like a wrestler looking for a hold. You coaxed the guy to strike, parried, closed in, snapped a wrist lock on him. The way the instructors did it, we all felt sorry for the guy with the knife. The way I did it, we all felt sorry for me.

  At least I could play for a little time. "You're a prize fighter," I said. "What do you need a knife for?"

  "Guys don't always go down from one punch," Nick said softly, starting to drift toward me. "With this thing, they do."

  "They'll catch you, Nick. Knocking me off won't help. Somebody else knows both of us are here."

  He gave a laugh that sounded as if he had dropped a cup and saucer. "You don't have to tell me that. You got me framed right."

  "You got yourself framed right."

  "What you didn't figure on," Nick said, weaving a little nearer, "is I got here too fast. I ran. I keep in training that way. So you didn't have time to beat it."

  "Are you trying to say I did this?"

  "Sure. I got here too fast and you had to duck into a closet

  74

  or something, and I didn't think to look around after I found the dame. Just sneaking out, weren't you?"

  "I tell you I just walked in here. I—"

  "You decided to knock off a dame and pin it on me. That would teach me I should of played ball."

  "You'll never get away with that story."

  "You're telling me? I know that. I'm an ex-con. I got a bad name for losing my head. Nobody will believe me. The only tiling is, on account of me getting here so fast, you don't have me framed for murder. I've been pumping some air in the dame's lungs. She's alive."

  I made a startled movement. The knife feinted at me, pulled back. "Alive?"

  "Yeah, alive. I don't figure that does me much good. You probably jumped her in the dark. I don't guess she could clear me. So I'm still framed for attempted murder."

  "Take it easy a moment," I said desperately. "Let me th
ink about this."

  He was awfully close now. Almost in striking range. And I had to have a minute to think about his story. It didn't seem so screwy now. A couple of things fit into it. A man had telephoned Nick, not a woman. Nick had written down the address, so the place must be strange to him. Whoever telephoned him said to use the stairs, not the elevator, because Nick had printed the word stairs and underlined it. If the idea was to frame Nick, the fact that he sneaked up the stairway would make him look guilty. And that green-blue length of silk—would a violent guy like Nick use that for murder? He might choke somebody with his hands or beat them to a pulp or use a knife but—

  "Thinking won't do you any good," Nick said. "You want to make a run for the door, or should I let you have it right here?"

  "You just missed a murder charge! What do you want to walk into another for?"

  "I'm not doing any ten to twenty years on this rap. I'd just as soon it was murder. It'll be worth it to get you."

  "But you got the wrong guy," I gasped. "I was at your rooming house. Your landlady can tell you that. She told me about

  the phone call that brought you here. How would I know about that if-"

  "You ought to know about the call. You made it."

  He was weaving outside my guard, waiting for an opening. His eyes were black as bullet holes in a target. "I know more than just about the call," I said quickly. "You had a pencil. You made notes on that oilcloth by the phone. You wrote down Rittenhouse Arms and printed the word stairs and underlined it and you wrote the apartment number, 6B. Then you asked the landlady if you could look out through her windows and see if the street was clear. How would I know all that if I made the call?"

  The knife swayed gently back and forth, like a cobra waiting to strike. But his eyes blinked. They stopped looking so dull and cold. "That's pretty fancy," he said. "I always thought the dame who runs that joint was okay. But maybe you bought her off. Maybe she gave you a call right after I left. Maybe—"