The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - By Lawrence Block Page 0,71

for me.”

“Is there something you want me to do for you?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“Miss Petrosian? ‘I sing of sorrow / I sing of weeping / I have no sorrow. / I only borrow—’”

“Who is this?”

“‘I only borrow / From some tomorrow / Where it lies sleeping / Enough of sorrow / To sing of weeping.’ It’s Mary Carolyn Davies, Miss Petrosian. Your old favorite.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand? It’s a nice straightforward poem, it seems to me. The poet’s saying that she draws against a store of future miseries in order to write about a depth of emotion she hasn’t yet experienced.”

“Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

“The same. I have your painting, Miss Petrosian, and you have only to come and collect it.”

“You have—”

“The Mondrian. It’s yours for a thousand dollars. I know that’s no money, a ridiculous sum, but I have to get out of town fast and I need every cent I can raise.”

“I can’t get to the bank until Monday and—”

“Bring what cash you can and a check for the balance. Get a pencil and write down the address and time. And don’t be early or late, Miss Petrosian, or you can forget all about the painting.”

“All right. Mr. Rhodenbarr? How did you find me?”

“You wrote down your name and number for me. Don’t you remember?”

“But the number—”

“Turned out to be that of a Korean fruit store on Amsterdam Avenue. I was disappointed, Miss Petrosian, but not surprised.”

“But—”

“But you’re listed in the book, Miss Petrosian. The Manhattan phone book, the white pages. I can’t be the first person to have called the fact to your attention.”

“No, but—but I didn’t give you my name.”

“You said Elspeth Peters.”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, with all due respect, Miss Petrosian, I wasn’t fooled. The way you hesitated when you gave your name, and then the wrong number, well, it was a dead giveaway.”

“But how on earth did you know my real name?”

“A bit of deduction. When amateurs select an alias, they almost always keep the same initials. And they very frequently choose as a last name some form of modified first name. Jackson, Richards, Johnson. Or Peters. I guessed that your real name began with a P, and that it very likely had the same root as Peters. Something about your features suggested further that you might be of Armenian descent. I pulled out the phone book, turned to the P-e-t’s, and looked for an Armenian-sounding name with the initial E.”

“But that’s extraordinary.”

“The extraordinary is only the ordinary, Miss Petrosian, with the addition of a little extra. That’s not mine, by the way. A grade-school teacher of mine used to say that. Isabel Josephson was her name, and as far as I know it was not an alias.”

“I’m only a quarter Armenian. And I’m said to take after my mother’s side of the family.”

“I’d say there’s a distinct Armenian cast to your features. But perhaps I just had one of those psychic flashes people are subject to now and then. It hardly matters. You want that painting, don’t you?”

“Of course I want it.”

“Then write this down….”

“Mr. Danforth? My name is Rhodenbarr, Bernard Grimes Rhodenbarr. I apologize for the lateness of the call, but I think you’ll excuse the intrusion when you’ve heard what I have to say. I have a couple of things to tell you, sir, and a question or two to ask you, and an invitation to extend….”

Phone calls, phone calls, phone calls. By the time I was done my ears ached from taking their turns pressed against the receiver. If Gordon Onderdonk knew what I was doing with his message units, he’d turn over in his drawer.

When I was finished I made another cup of coffee and found a Milky Way bar in the freezer and a package of Ry-Krisp in a cupboard. It made a curious meal.

I ate it anyway, went back to the living room and killed a little time. It was late but not late enough. Finally it was late enough, and I let myself out of Onderdonk’s apartment, leaving the door unlocked. I walked all the way down to the fifth floor, smiling as I passed the sleeping Ms. DeGrasse on Fifteen, sighing as I passed the Applings on Eleven, shaking my head as I passed Leona Tremaine on Nine. I had a bad moment getting through the fire door lock on Five. I don’t know why. It was the same simple proposition as all the other fire door locks, but perhaps my fingers were stiff from dialing the telephone. I