by David Archer
“Sorry,” Ernie answered. “I guess I still have a lot to learn.” Howard, who knew perfectly good-and-well they had been had, could only roll his eyes and keep his thoughts to himself. When Ernie and Evelyn easily won the third and deciding game in the next hand, Arlene was practically in tears. Not only had Ernie Campanella once again gone out of his way to make her feel miserable, he had brought in a conniving bitch to help him with his dirty work. Arlene would never forget the evil look of triumph on Evelyn’s face as she stomped on her jack with the king she wasn’t supposed to have—that coupled with her boyfriend’s phony-baloney look of surprise. The angry lady decided she hated Evelyn as much as she hated Ernie, and that was plenty. If relations between Arlene Gomez and Ernie Campanella had taken two baby steps forward, they just took one giant stride back.
Nathaniel Jones had been a guard at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for twenty-eight years. It was easy work, under pleasant conditions, even if the pay was not all that great. It still beat his two tours of duty in Korea as a paratrooper. Even with all his seniority at the art museum, Nate Jones barely had two bucks to rub together at the end of every month. The people who ran the museum really should have paid him more, especially after he had been there a while. The guests were expected to be orderly, and almost all of them were. It was Nate’s strong instinct and experience that invariably tipped him off when a visitor was not looking to play by the rules. Most of them wanted to run their hands over the paintings, but some wanted to deface them, often by spray-painting the latest slogan for the latest cause onto a priceless masterpiece. Nate always seemed to be right there with a bright and courteous, “Can I help you find something, Sir?” That, coming from a six-foot two black man, was all it took.
That is not to say that Officer Jones was good for nothing but scaring off troublemakers. When he had the chance to engage with decent, friendly visitors, he was as much a docent as he was a guard. When Frank and Sadie had taken a tour of the museum, Nate was happy to answer their questions, including the difference between Manet and Monet.
“Oh, my, I feel terrible, taking up all of your time with these stupid questions,” Sadie offered toward the end of their lengthy conversation.
“Ma’am,” Officer Jones told her, “it’s been my experience that the only stupid question is the one you forgot to ask. Now, don’t you worry about a thing. It’s people like you and your husband who brighten up my day, not drag it down.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Jones; how gracious of you to say that,” Sadie smiled.
One morning, he saw a visitor who filled him with dread. This guy looked like he belonged anywhere but an art museum. He was taking a great deal of interest in their prize exhibit: “Sailor’s Delight.” Then it dawned on the guard—he didn’t want to touch it or deface it. Was he casing the joint? The dirty bastard was looking to steal it. Panic raced through Nate’s system as he wondered what to do.
Chapter 7
“This calls for a rousing chorus of our natural anthem…uh, I mean our national anthem,” Ernie proclaimed in the midst of the guys celebrating a rare double-header sweep by the last-place Phils. Even the expansion Montreal Expos had managed to climb over them in the standings, but today, the Phillies had made them look like a bunch of punks. After the Expos had fumbled away the first game with five errors, Lefty Carlton came along in game two and shut them out.
“Oh, for Christ sake, pipe down, willya?” Frank laughed. “You’ll get us thrown out of here for sure.”
“Where is your patriotism, Sir?” Ernie responded in as haughty a manner as his drunken state would allow. “Gentlemen, repeat after me,” he began singing. “Take me out with the ballgame, take me out to the crowd. Come on, sing you lousy commies, this is America!”
“Jeez, does he always get this crazy?” Sal Longo, a civilian friend who worked at his dad’s appliance store (and numbers drop), asked Ernie’s friend Greg.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Greg replied. “Fortunately, the Phils don’t win whole lot, so it’s not so bad. If we were Yankees fans, I bet his liver would be shot already.” Meanwhile, Ernie kept on singing.
“For if they don’t win it’s a shame…I can’t HEAR YOU!”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a man in full chauffer’s livery interrupted them. “The lady at the table by the portrait would like it very much if you could manage to make less noise. How about it fellows? Some people are trying to hold a conversation.”
Ernie stopped in mid-chorus and cocked his fist. Fortunately, Frank grabbed his arm before he could swing it.
“You jerkoff son of a bitch,” Ernie yelled at the chauffer, “who the hell do you think you are?” Meanwhile, their friend Sal had stolen a glance at the aforementioned lady at the table by the portrait. It was Elizabeth Gildemeister.
“Ernie, Ernie, my man, you gotta cool your jets, okay? Come on, Frank, lets you and I and Ernie step outside for a minute. I got a real hilarious joke you’ll want to hear,” Then, turning to the chauffer, he said, “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding, Sir. I am very sorry for my friend’s confusion, I’m sure. Here’s a twenty for your trouble, okay?” Leaving Greg Martin to hold the fort, the other three stepped out the back door.
“Oh kay, what’s this big hilarious joke you got?” Ernie asked.
“Yeah, sure, here it is. Some drunken wop kept shootin’ his mouth off at some old broad, until finally she hired some goons to literally shoot his mouth off. Get it?”
“I’m not sure,” Ernie told Sal. “Could you run that by me again?”
“Yeah, here it is in a slightly more retarded form. That old lady may not look it, but she is, like, totally connected to Angelo Bruno. You keep pissin’ her off and you’ll end up at the bottom of the river with a pair of cement shoes.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Frank said. “Let’s get Greg, pay up and get outa this neighborhood before we all end up wearing cement shoes.”
Ernie may have been falling-down drunk, but even seven years later, he still remembered the incident.
On the other hand, Elizabeth Gildemeister had completely forgotten her unpleasant confrontation with young Mr. Campanella. Today, she had something a lot more stressful to occupy the entirety of her mind.
“Mrs. Gildemeister, I hope you know how much it pains me to say this,” her expert appraiser Oscar van Loon began. “We have checked and double-checked this painting, used every tool at our disposal, and now I’m afraid I am quite certain. Your painting is a forgery.”
“Impossible! Did you even bother to check with the curator?”
“Yes, yes I did,” van Loon replied, “and he said the painting of ‘Sailor’s Delight’ you loaned them was genuine. I can only imagine that somebody somehow managed to switch your original with this fake.”
“You have got to be kidding!” she protested in vain. “I mean, how could such a thing happen? It’s not like I gave the piece to some smelly hippie for a sidewalk art show. This is the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for goodness sake!”
“Well, at least we can take heart that the museum has insurance. No doubt you will be compensated for your loss.”
“And then what am I to do, frame the insurance check and hang it where my painting was? I have all the money I’ll ever need already. What I no longer have, if your lugubrious testimony is to be believed, is perhaps the greatest painting in the history of American art.”
“Yes, and believe me—”
“Get out of my sight.”
Chapter 8
“What do you mean you lost track of him?” Jonathan Sanderson snapped. “It was your job to get this done, clear to the end. Now, I’m out 75 grand with nothing to show for it but an angry wife.” It had been close to six weeks and they had not heard another word from Mickey Firenze.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sanderson, and you may rest assured, I shall do all in my power to find this fellow,” Sanderson’s assistant, Paul Morris, promised him.
“Yeah, and when you do, ask the thieving bastard why he t
ook my money and then did nothing whatsoever to earn it.”
“I wouldn’t get too discouraged, Sir,” Morris offered. “As I’m sure you can imagine, it is no easy matter to steal a prized exhibit from a famous museum. He may still be in the planning stage. If it were me, I wouldn’t have a clue how to get started, although I think I could figure out a better way.”
“And what way is that?”
“Well, Sir, as we know, ‘Sailor’s Delight’ is not the property of the museum. It’s only on loan, and not for a great deal longer, if my information is correct. My play would be to wait until they give it back to the lady that owns it, then steal it from her. If you could only wait a few more months…”
“No can do. My wife is getting more and more impossible every day because I have not provided her with this thing she so desperately covets. Be thankful you’re not married, Morris.”
As he thought about the sweet little ragamuffin he had rescued, all those years ago, Sanderson could only shake his head in despair as he considered the scolding, aggravating harridan she had become. Oh, she still had her looks, but, in every other aspect, the bloom was absolutely and permanently off her rose. Why, he asked himself, yet another time, had he not made her sign a prenuptial agreement? They were still fairly new when the couple got married. Sanderson was certainly aware of them, but not so the young lady he had just proposed to.
It was during some spirited foreplay at his mansion that he tried to get the girl to calm down and listen to reason. Debbie Ann Perkins may not have known what a pre-nup was, but she knew whatever it was, it sounded like a bad deal. She did not have the legal skills to debate the matter with her fiancé, but she certainly had the skills to distract him.
“Wanna try something new, instead of all this legalistic mumbo-jumbo?” she asked him.
“Maybe; what do you have in mind?”
“How about this?” she began while pulling off her slacks and panties. “I’ll get down on my hands and knees and you can, you know, do that thing you asked me about.”
“Hell yes!” he quickly agreed. At that moment all thoughts of legal papers flew out of his mind. After he had finished and then taken a quick shower, he returned to find Debbie in her own bathrobe, still sobbing. Oh, Christ, now I’ve really gone and done it, he thought. But the situation turned out not to be as bleak as he had imagined. Okay, she told him, she supposed she could get used to it—maybe on their honeymoon, but not a single time, ever again, before.
As he thought of the fortune his wife could yank from him if he tried to divorce her, a bitter epiphany came to him. In the final reckoning, it was he, not she, who had truly been buggered.
The two lovely young ladies made unlikely lunch companions at the National Gallery cafeteria. Apart from their good looks and love of fine art, they seemed to have little in common. The older of the two lived just outside of Washington and liked to visit the museum, every so often, to see if anything new and exciting had come in. The younger one was on spring break from Drexel University. They had only met thirty minutes earlier, but had hit it off right away. As they continued discussing the world of fine art over their salads, they both came to quick and amiable agreement that they loved the American artist Winslow Homer and that “Sailor’s Delight,” perhaps his greatest painting ever, was nothing short of spectacular.
“What I wouldn’t give to own that piece,” the older one sighed. “Do you know who owns it?”
“No,” her new friend replied, “but I believe whoever does lives in Philadelphia, like me.”
“I don’t suppose he’s your next-door neighbor,” the older one added.
“Could be. As I said, I don’t know who owns the piece—just that he’s from Philly.”
“So, if you found out who the guy is, you could steal it for me, right? Not to be vulgar, but I’m filthy stinking rich. You could name your price.”
“Nice to know, I guess, but I don’t think I’d be much of a cat burglar, even if I could locate the place.” The two ladies joked for a few more minutes about an eventuality they were certain would never come about, then moved on to another topic.
“Yes, this is she,” Debbie answered the caller. “And may I ask who I’m speaking to?”
“Someone I hope you remember,” the caller answered. “We met for lunch at the National Gallery back in March of 1974.”
“Um…okay…”
“You may also recall we had a somewhat interesting conversation about a painting called ‘Sailor’s Delight.’ That ring a bell?”
“Yes, yes it does! Now I remember you—Ellen, right?”
“Yeah, right, this is Ellen,” the caller was quick to agree. Better this woman should know her by that name, when you thought about it.
“Yeah, so what about the painting? That is what you’re calling about, isn’t it?”
“It is. Tell me, do you still want it?”
Chapter 9
Ernie and Evelyn had long owed the Muellers a party, and, they figured, it was high time they paid the debt. Their modest wedding reception in the Unity Church Fellowship Hall hardly counted. Evelyn felt they could not indulge in the catered parties Frank and Sadie liked to throw, but they certainly could have them over for a nice dinner.
“Why, thank you, Evelyn, we’d be delighted,” Sadie said when Mrs. Campanella invited them over. “But, please, don’t go overboard, okay? Frank and I have simple tastes. No need to put on the dog for us.”
“Oh rats,” Evelyn joked. “I was going to make roast beagle with all the trimmings. How about spaghetti, then?”
“That would be wonderful, as long as it’s actual spaghetti and not those damn Spaghetti-O’s. These days, that’s the only thing Her Royal Majesty will eat without the obligatory tantrum.”
“Why not bring her along? She can get a taste of the real thing.”
“Maybe some other time when she’s a little older. Arlene will be happy watch her. I swear, she dotes on that child.”
Two days after Evelyn had extended the invitation and the day before Frank and Sadie came to visit, a major story rocked, not just the art scene in the city, but the whole city itself. Sometime while it was in the custody of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, its prized exhibit, on loan from a patron, “Sailor’s Delight,” had been stolen and switched with a forgery.
“So what do you guys think about the big art theft?” Sadie asked them shortly after they had arrived.
“I think it’s amazing someone could pull that off,” Frank offered.
“Good thing it’s not in either of our jurisdictions,” Ernie added. “Even I’d be stumped about this one.”
“I’m curious,” Sadie went on. What does the painting look like? Frank and I never got back to the Art Museum while they had it on loan. Any chance you have a picture of it in an art book.?”
“I can do better…or maybe worse than that.” Evelyn offered. ”Here’s a copy I made of it as a student, but I’m afraid it’s not very good.” Evelyn guided them toward the hallway, where the piece hung next to the bathroom door.”
“It looks very pretty to me,” Sadie said.
“Thank you for saying that, but even I have to admit, this was not my best work.”
“You want to see what she can do when she’s having a good day, check this out,” Ernie told them as he gestured toward Evelyn’s copy of “The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons,” by J.M.W. Turner. That one had been the permanent property of the Art Museum and was still very much in residence. Evelyn’s copy had been nearly flawless. Ernie, ever the proud new husband, showed them a few more masterpiece copies Evelyn had done in her student days. They seemed spectacular to the Muellers
“So if the one in the hall is such a clunker, why do you keep it around?” Frank asked at the end of the tour.
“Sentimental reasons,” Evelyn explained. “Ernie and I were just getting serious when I was painting it. I guess I was just too crazy in love to do a good job—or at least that’s what my teacher said, like, over and
over again.”
“Here’s something I hope I don’t have to say over and over again,” Ernie proclaimed. “Let’s eat.”
“Well, this is an unexpected treat,” Frank said, when he saw the spaghetti came with, not only meatballs but sausages. “I would have thought that you…um…you know…”
“Oh, please! Try to get this one to keep Kosher?” Evelyn laughed pointing an elbow toward her husband. “Talk about mission impossible.”
“Yeah,” Ernie added, pointing an elbow back at his wife, “and trying to get that one to keep it is no walk in the park either.”
“Yeah, I do have a suspicion,” Nate Jones told the police detective. “I saw some sinister-looking fellow lurking around the painting, and, from the look of him, he was up to no good. I went to check him out, like I normally do when a visitor doesn’t look right, and he just looks at me, all smiley-faced, and walks away. I bet he came back in the middle of the night and did his thing.”
“I don’t suppose you got this guy’s name, the detective said.
“Never had a chance to, but I bet I remember the face.” A little while later, Jones was going through mug books of all the local thieves, but no one came up. When the cops produced more books on suspected thieves beyond the immediate area, they found what Jones was looking for, halfway through the next book.
“That’s him, I’m sure of it. I’d recognize that thieving bastard anywhere,” Jones proclaimed as he laid a finger under the snapshot of Mickey Firenze. What Nate Jones and his very good friend Evelyn Klein knew that no one else did was that the police would have a mighty hard time locating Mr. Firenze and an even harder time getting him to talk.
“Can not!” Donnie McDougal protested.
“Can too!” Mike Barchewski insisted.
“Can not!” Donnie repeated. “That’s just a big lie that somebody made up for fools like you!”