The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - By Lawrence Block Page 0,78
he left evidence behind to make you assume he’d cut the painting from its mounting.”
“And that painting over the fireplace—”
“Is your painting, Mr. Reeves. With the stretcher reassembled and the canvas reattached to it. Mr. Lewes, would you care to examine it?”
Lewes was on his way before I’d finished my sentence. He whipped out a magnifying glass, took a look, and drew back his head almost at once.
“Why, this is painted with acrylics!” he said, as if he’d found a mouse turd on his plate. “Mondrian never used acrylics. Mondrian used oils.”
“Of course he did,” said Reeves. “I told you that wasn’t ours.”
“Mr. Reeves? Examine the painting.”
He walked over, looked at it. “Acrylics,” he agreed. “And not ours. What did I tell you? Now—”
“Take it off the wall and look at it, Mr. Reeves.”
He did so, and it was painful to watch the play of expression across the man’s face. He looked like a banker who’d foreclosed on what turned out to be swampland. “My God,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“Our stretcher,” he said. “Our stamp incused in the wood. That painting was hanging in the Hewlett where thousands of eyes looked at it every day and nobody ever noticed it was a fucking acrylic copy.” He turned, glared furiously at Barlow. “You damned cad,” he said. “You filthy murdering bounder. You fucking counterfeit.”
“It’s a trick,” Barlow protested. “This burglar pulls fake rabbits out of fake hats and you fools are impressed. What’s the matter with you, Reeves? Can’t you see you’re being flimflammed?”
“I was flimflammed by you,” Reeves said, glowering. “You son of a bitch.”
Reeves took a step toward Barlow, and Ray Kirschmann was suddenly on his feet, with a hand on the curator’s forearm. “Easy,” he said.
“When this is all over,” Barlow said, “I’ll bring charges against you, Rhodenbarr. I think any court would call this criminal libel.”
“That’s really a frightening prospect,” I said, “to someone who’s currently wanted for two murders. But I’ll keep it in mind. You won’t be pressing any charges, though, Mr. Barlow. You’ll be upstate pressing license plates.”
“You’ve got no evidence of anything.”
“You had easy access to this apartment. You and your wife live on the fifth floor. You didn’t have the problem of getting in and out of a high-security building.”
“A lot of people live here. That doesn’t make any of us murderers.”
“It doesn’t,” I agreed, “but it makes it easy to search your apartment.” I nodded at Ray, and he in turn nodded at Officer Rockland, who went to the door and opened it. In marched a pair of uniformed officers carrying yet another Mondrian. It looked for all the world just like the one Lloyd Lewes had just damned as an acrylic fake.
“The genuine article,” I said. “It almost glows when it’s in the same room with a copy, doesn’t it? You might have carved up the painting you palmed off on Onderdonk, but you took good care of this one, didn’t you? It’s the real thing, the painting Piet Mondrian gave to his friend Haig Petrosian.”
“And we had a warrant,” Ray said, “in case you were wondering. Where’d you boys find this?”
“In a closet,” one said, “in the apartment you said on the fifth floor.”
Lloyd Lewes was already holding his glass to the canvas. “Well, this is more like it,” he said. “It’s not acrylic. It’s oil paint. And it certainly looks to be genuine. Quite a different thing from that, that specimen over there.”
“Now there’s been some mistake,” Barlow said. “Listen to me. There’s been some mistake.”
“We also found this,” the cop said. “In the medicine cabinet. No label, but I tasted it, and if it ain’t chloral hydrate it’s a better fake than the painting.”
“Now that’s impossible,” Barlow said. “That’s impossible.” And I thought he was going to explain why it was impossible, that he’d flushed all the extra chloral hydrate down the john, but he caught himself in time. Listen, you can’t have everything.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Ray Kirschmann told him, but I’m not going to go through all that again. Miranda-Escobedo’s a good or a bad thing, depending on whether or not you’re a cop, but who wants to put it down word for word all the time?
Chapter Twenty-Four
After a few urgent words to his wife, something about which lawyer to call and where to reach him, two of the uniformed police officers led J. McLendon Barlow off in handcuffs. Francis Rockland stayed behind, and so did Ray Kirschmann.