The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "The little boy," I said. "Was he in the water, Richie? When you got here?"

  Richie was silent.

  Crandall said, "No."

  As quietly as the waves would let me, I said to Richie, "You wanted to save that kid."

  Crandall said, "He was out here. On the rocks out here."

  Richie said nothing, his eyes not leaving mine.

  "You heard he was lost," I said, still speaking to Richie. "That they needed a search party." Behind Richie I saw Ben approaching slowly, stepping carefully among the boulders. "You came right down."

  "I wanted to find him," Richie said. He looked away from me, at the water.

  "Larry Crandall's boy, and Frankie Rogers," I said. "You couldn't save them. You couldn't be the hero they needed. This was another chance. This kid needed a hero, too."

  Richie spoke. His eyes, like Crandall's, were on the sea. "I wanted to help. I wanted to save him. I came down here."

  "Looking for him."

  Richie nodded.

  "And he was here."

  He pointed to the end of the jetty. "Way out there, on the rocks. Just sitting."

  "So you went out there, where he was."

  Richie's arm dropped to his side. He didn't answer.

  "Did he fall in the water, Richie?" I asked.

  Richie said, "Fall?"

  Behind him, Ben moved closer. Looking to the sea, Richie watched a wave rise, then break.

  Larry Crandall said, "No."

  Slowly, very slowly, Richie shook his head. He also said, "No."

  Richie looked back at me, sudden bright hope in his eyes. "I jumped in," he said. "Right after I— right after he went in. I pulled him to shore."

  "To be his hero."

  "Yes."

  "But you couldn't save him."

  Eyes turned away again, the bright hope gone, a whisper: "No."

  "And he didn't fall."

  Richie stared at the sea, the waves pounding, rising and falling, always changing, always the same. "No."

  Ben stood with us now. Softly he said, "Richie."

  Richie turned his head, looked at Ben. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was rough; tears mixed with the salt spray that dampened his face. "I thought I could make it be different, this time. But I couldn't save him, Ben."

  "Come on." Ben put a hand on Richie's arm; his voice was hoarse, too.

  Richie gave Ben a long look, as though he didn't understand. Or maybe he was looking through him, didn't see him, didn't know he was there.

  Richie broke away from Ben. He dashed along the rocks. We ran after him, Ben and I, but on the wet rocks footing was bad. At the end of the jetty, where the boulders reached into the sea, Richie stood for a moment watching the waves. I shouted, "No!" but I couldn't stop him. He leaped high off the rocks. For a moment he was suspended in air; but unable to keep the height, he fell and was taken back by the sea.

  Donald E. Westlake

  Art & Craft

  DONALD E. WESTLAKE has long been known as one the crime field's true and enduring stars. And this holds sway whether he's writing comic capers, the brooding Richard Stark hardboiled novels, or the serious mainstream novels, such as his recent (and perhaps most affecting work), The Hook. He is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, an Academy Award nominee for his script for The Grifters, and a sometimes droll reviewer for the New York Times. "Art & Craft," first published in the August issue of Playboy, is an apt title for a master storyteller like Westlake.

  Art & Craft

  Donald E. Westlake

  The voice on the telephone at John Dortmunder's ear didn't so much ring a distant bell as sound a distant siren. "John," it rasped, "how ya doin'?"

  Better before this phone call, Dortmunder thought. Somebody I was in prison with, he figured, but who? He'd been in prison with so many people, back before he had learned how to fade into the shadows at crucial moments, like when the SWAT team arrives. And of all those cellmates, blockmates, tankmates, there hadn't been one of them who wasn't there for some very good reason. DNA would never stumble over innocence in that crowd; the best DNA could do for those guys was find their fathers, if that's what they wanted.

  This wasn't a group that went in for reunions, so why this phone call, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of October? "I'm doin' OK," Dortmunder answered, meaning, I got enough cash for me but not enough for you.

  "That makes two of us," the voice said. "In case you don't recognize me, this is Three Finger."

  "Oh," Dortmunder said.

  Three Finger Gillie possessed the usual 10 fingers but got his name because of a certain fighting technique. Fights in prison tend to be up close and personal, and also brief; Three Finger had a move with three fingers of his right hand guaranteed to make the other guy rethink his point of view in a hurry. Dortmunder had always stayed more than an arm's reach from Three Finger and saw no reason to change that policy. "I guess you're out, huh?" he said.

  Sounding surprised, Three Finger said, "You didn't read about me in the paper?"

  "Oh, too bad," Dortmunder said, because in their world the worst thing that could happen was to find your name in the paper. Indictment was bad enough, but to be indicted for something newsworthy was the worst.

  But Three Finger said, "Naw, John, this is good. This is what we call ink."

  "Ink."

  "You still got last Sunday's Times?" he asked.

  Astonished, Dortmunder said, "The New York Times?"

  "Sure, what else? 'Arts and Leisure,' page 14, check it out, and then we'll make a meet. How about tomorrow, four o'clock?"

  "A meet. You got something on?"

  "Believe it. You know Portobello?"

  "What is that, a town?"

  "Well, it's a mushroom, but it's also a terrific little cafe on Mercer Street. You ought to know it, John."

  "OK," Dortmunder said.

  "Four o'clock tomorrow."

  Keeping one's distance from Three Finger Gillie was always a good idea, but on the other hand he had Dortmunder's phone number, so he probably had his address as well, and he was known to be a guy who held a grudge. Squeezed it, in fact. "See you there," Dortmunder promised, and went away to see if he knew anybody who might own a last Sunday's New York Times.

  * * *

  The dry cleaner on Third Avenue had a copy.

  Life is very different for Martin Gillie these days. "A big improvement," he says in his gravelly voice, and laughs as he picks up his mocha cappuccino.

  And indeed life is much improved for this longtime state prison inmate with a history of violence. For years, Gillie was considered beyond any hope of rehabilitation, but then the nearly impossible came to pass. "Other guys find religion in the joint," he explains, "but I found art."

  It was a period of solitary confinement brought about by his assault on a fellow inmate that led Gillie to try his hand at drawing, first with stubs of pencils on magazine pages, then with crayons on typewriter paper, and, finally, when his work drew the appreciative attention of prison authorities, with oil on canvas.

  These last artworks, allegorical treatments of imaginary cityscapes, led to Gillie's appearance in several group shows. They also led to his parole (his having been turned down three previous times), and now his first solo show, in Soho's Waspail Gallery.

  Dortmunder read through to the end, disbelieving but forced to believe. The New York Times; the newspaper with a record, right? So it had to be true.

  "Thanks," he told the dry cleaner, and walked away, shaking his head.

  * * *

  Among the nymphs and ferns of Portobello, Three Finger Gillie looked like the creature that gives fairy tales their tension. A burly man with thick black hair that curled low on his forehead and lapped over his ears and collar, he also featured a single, wide block of black eyebrow like a weight holding his eyes down. These eyes were pale blue and squinty and not warm, and they peered suspiciously out from both sides of a bumpy nose shaped like a baseball
left out in the rain. The mouth, what there was of it, was thin and straight and without color. Dortmunder had never before seen this head above anything but prison denim, so it was a surprise to see it chunked down on top of a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and a maroon vinyl jacket with the zipper open. Dressed like this, Gillie mostly gave the impression he'd stolen his body from an off-duty cop.

  Looking at him, seated there, with a fancy coffee cup in front of him— mocha cappuccino? —Dortmunder remembered that other surprise, from the newspaper, that Three Finger had another front name. Martin. Crossing the half-empty restaurant, weighing the alternatives, he came to the conclusion no. Not a Martin. This was still a Three Finger.

  He didn't rise as Dortmunder approached, but patted his palm on the white marble table as if to say siddown. Dortmunder pulled out the delicate black wrought-iron chair, said, "You look the same, Three Finger," and sat.

  "And yet," Three Finger said, "on the inside I'm all changed. You're the same as ever outside and in, aren't you?"

  "Probably," Dortmunder agreed. "I read that thing in the paper."

  "Ink," Three Finger reminded him, and smiled, showing the same old hard, gray, uneven teeth. "It's publicity, John," he said, "that runs the art world. It don't matter, you could be a genius, you could be Da Vinci, you don't know how to publicize yourself, forget it."

  "I guess you must know, then," Dortmunder said.

  "Well, not enough," Three Finger admitted. "The show's been open since last Thursday, a whole week. I'm only up three weeks, we got two red dots."

  Dortmunder said, "Do that again," and here came the willowy waitress, wafting over with a menu that turned out to be eight pages of coffee. When Dortmunder found regular American, with cream and sugar— page five— she went away and Three Finger said, "Up, when I say I'm only up three weeks, I mean that's how long my show is, then they take my stuff down off the walls and put somebody else up. And when I say two red dots, the way they work it, when somebody buys a picture, they don't get to take it home right away, not till the show's over, so the gallery puts a red dot next to the name on the wall, everybody knows it's sold. In a week, I got two red dots."

  "And that's not so good, huh?"

  "I got 43 canvases up there, John." Three Finger said. "This racket is supposed to keep me out of jewelry stores after hours. I gotta have more than two red dots."

  "Gee, I wish you well," Dortmunder said.

  "Well, you can do better than that," Three Finger told him. "That's why I called you."

  Here it comes, Dortmunder thought. He wants me to buy a painting. I never thought anybody I knew in the whole world would ever want me to buy a painting. How do I get out of this?

  But what Three Finger said next was another surprise: "What you can do for me, you can rip me off."

  "Ha-ha," Dortmunder said.

  "No, listen to me, John," Three Finger said. Leaning close over the marble table, dangerously within arm's reach, lowering his voice and peering intensely out of those icy eyes, he said, "This world we're in, John, this is a world of irony."

  Dortmunder had been lost since yesterday, when he'd read the piece in the newspaper, and nothing that was happening today was making him any more found. "Oh, yeah?" he said.

  Three Finger lifted both hands above his head— Dortmunder flinched, but only a little— and made quotation signs. "Everything's in quotes," he said. "Everybody's taking a step back, looking the situation over, being cool."

  "Uh-huh," Dortmunder said.

  "Now, I got some ink," Three Finger went on. "I already got some, but it isn't enough. The ex-con is an artist, this has some ironic interest in it, but what we got here, we got a situation where everybody's got some ironic interest in them, everybody's got some edge, some attitude. I gotta call attention to myself. More ironic than thou, you see what I mean?"

  "Sure," Dortmunder lied.

  "So, what if the ex-con artist gets robbed?" Three Finger wanted to know. "The gallery gets burgled, you see what I mean?"

  "Not entirely," Dortmunder admitted.

  "A burglary doesn't get into the papers," Three Finger pointed out. "A burglary isn't news. A burglary is just another fact of life, like a fender bender."

  "Sure."

  "But if you give it that ironic edge," Three Finger said, low and passionate, "then it's the edge that gets in the paper, gets on TV. That's what gets me on the talk shows. Not the ex-con turned artist, that isn't enough. Not some penny-ante burglary, nobody cares. But the ex-con turned artist gets ripped off, his old life returns to bite him on the ass, what he used to be rises up and slaps him on the face. Now you've got your irony. Now I can get this sheepish kinda grin on my face, and I can say, 'Gee, Oprah, I guess in a funny way this is the dues I'm paying,' and I got 43 red dots on the wall, you see what I mean?"

  "Maybe," Dortmunder allowed, but it was hard to think this way. Publicity was to him pretty much what fire was to the Scarecrow in Oz. There was no way that he could possibly look on public exposure as a good thing. But if that's where Three Finger was right now, reversing a lifetime of ingrained behavior, shifting from a skulk to a strut, fine.

  However, that left one question, so Dortmunder asked it: "What's in it for me?"

  Three Finger looked surprised. "The insurance money," he said.

  "What, you get it and you split it with me?"

  "No, no, art theft doesn't work like that." Three Finger reached into the inside pocket of his jacket— Dortmunder flinched, but barely— and brought out a business card. Sliding it across the marble table, he said, "This is the agent for the gallery's insurance company. The way it works, you go in, you grab as many as you want— leave the red dot ones alone, that's all I ask— then you call the agent, you dicker a fee to return the stuff. Somewhere between maybe 10 and 25 percent."

  "And I just walk back in with these paintings," Dortmunder said, "and nobody arrests me."

  "You don't walk back in," Three Finger told him. "Come on, John, you're a pro, that's why I called you. It's like a kidnapping, you do it the same way. You can figure that part out. The insurance company wants to pay you because they'd have to pay the gallery a whole lot more."

  Dortmunder said, "And what's the split?"

  "Nothing, John," Three Finger said. "The money's all yours. Don't worry, I'll make out. You hit that gallery in the next week, I get ink. Believe me, where I am now, ink is better than money."

  "Then you're in some funny place," Dortmunder told him.

  "It's a lot better than where I used to be, John," Three Finger said.

  Dortmunder picked up the business card and looked at it, and the willowy waitress brought him coffee in a round mauve cup the size of Elmira, so he put the card in his pocket. When she went away, he said, "I'll think about it." Because what else would he do?

  "You could go there today," Three Finger said. "Not with me, you know."

  "Sure."

  "You case the joint, if it looks good, you do it. The place closes at seven, you do it between eight and midnight, any night at all. I'm guaranteed to be with a crowd, so nobody thinks I ripped myself off for the publicity stunt."

  Three Finger reached into his jacket again— Dortmunder did not flinch a bit— and brought out a postcard with a shiny picture on one side. Sliding it across the table, he said, "This is like my calling card these days. The gallery address is on the other side."

  It was a reproduction of a painting, one of Three Finger's, had to be. Dortmunder picked it up by the edges because the picture covered the whole area, and looked at a nighttime street scene. A side street, with a bar and some brick tenements and parked cars. It wasn't dark, but the light was a little weird, streetlights and bar lights and lights in windows, all a little too green or a little too blue. No people showed anywhere along the street or in the windows, but you just had a feeling there were people there, barely out of sight, hiding maybe in a doorway, behind a car. It wasn't a neighborhood you'd want to stay in.

  "Keep it," Three Fing
er said. "I got a stack of 'em."

  Dortmunder pocketed the card, thinking he'd show it to his faithful companion this evening and she'd tell him what to think about it. "I'll give the place the double-O," he promised.

  "I can't ask more," Three Finger assured him.

  * * *

  The neighborhood had been full of lofts and warehouses and light manufacturing. Then commerce left, went over to New Jersey or out to the island, and the artists moved in, for the large spaces at low rents. But the artists made it trendy, so the real estate people moved in, changed the name to Soho, which in London does not mean South of Houston Street, and the rents went through the roof. The artists had to move out, but they left their paintings behind, in the new galleries. Parts of Soho still look pretty much like before, but some of it has been touristed up so much it doesn't look like New York City at all. It looks like Charlotte Amalie, on a dimmer.