The Recycled Citizen (17 page)

“I know, and guard it with my life.”

“The hell with that.” Max put down the little black notebook in which he kept his jottings long enough to give her a hug, a gentle one in respect for her condition. “But it could mean a nice chunk of cash for the building fund if Dolph lets us sell the painting for him.”

“I’m sure he will. Dolph doesn’t care a rap for art, and Mary’s much more interested in doing things for other people than in feathering her own nest. I’ll put the painting in that tote bag Aunt Appie embroidered for me. It’s hideous enough to put anybody off the track.”

“Good thinking. Okay, I’ll make an appointment for you.”

Max went to the telephone and Sarah to her closet, wondering what one wore to have an Inness authenticated. When she went into the shower, Max called Brooks.

“Hi, Zorro. Boston Blackie here. Would you care to join me in a brief excursion? Provided the little woman doesn’t want you to pick daisies for the table or anything?”

“Daisies are out of season and the household is back to full strength,” his favorite accomplice replied crisply. “What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we might kidnap somebody.”

“Splendid suggestion. I might point out that your former bedroom is at present, unoccupied and that Charles’s new role is that of a prison guard.”

“Right on! Yours will be that of a respectable middle-aged member of the Kelling family.”

“Piece of cake. When do you want me?”

“As soon as you see a cab pull away from here with Sarah in it. She has a ten-thirty appointment at the art museum, so I’m calling the taxi for ten, on the flimsy pretext of heavy traffic.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Max broke the connection and was talking French to Pepe Ginsberg in a nonchalant and guileless manner when Sarah came out, wearing her green jumper with a cream-colored silk shirt and Granny Kay’s bluebird pin. She had a pretty shrewd idea she was being got rid of and a sound hunch as to why, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Besides, one didn’t get to authenticate an Inness every day. According to Aunt Apple’s daughter-in-law, Vare, the experience should provide subliminal aesthetic enrichment to her unborn. Vare had dutifully carted her own embryos, one after the other, to places of culture and edification. Jesse, Woodson, James and Frank were already efficient saboteurs and masters of criminal cunning, but they showed few signs of being attuned to the higher vibrations. Perhaps Vare had looked at too many Goya prints. Surely the gentle Inness wouldn’t hurt a baby.

Sarah had been coming to the Museum of Fine Arts ever since she could remember. Her girlhood dream had been to study painting here. That hadn’t worked out, but she had been allowed a private drawing teacher from the time she was ten until she was fifteen. Miss Pefton had been herself a Museum School graduate long ago and had often brought her here for gallery talks. Sarah tended sometimes to think of the place in terms not of its magnificent collections but of its long galleries, and herself traipsing through them at the heels of a brisk docent, carrying not only her own folding stool but also Miss Pefton’s, as her teacher had been well advanced in years. She’d died not long after Sarah married Alexander. Sarah had gone to the funeral by herself because Alexander had been doing something with his mother. It was just as well. She’d cried, and Alexander would have been embarrassed.

Keeping tight hold of her hideous tote bag, she paid off her taxi, explained herself to the receptionist and was directed to the proper curator’s office. Now that she was Mrs. Max Bittersohn, she was welcomed there on quite a different basis than when she’d been a Kelling. Sarah found quite a little reception committee on hand to greet her and her tote bag. She was treated to coffee and delightful little pastries. She was given a lengthy technical description of Inness’s painting methods, about which she already knew a fair amount thanks to Miss Pefton and her gallery walks. She even got to see the X. rays.

The consensus after much scrutiny was that she did indeed have a perfectly splendid little Inness there, and what did she propose to do with it? She replied that she was only the errand girl and got invited to lunch. While she was eating Brie and French bread and a crunchy Macoun apple, Max and Brooks were kidnapping Annie Bickens.

It wasn’t hard, actually. Max had already learned from Mary that Annie wasn’t scheduled to help at the center today. That meant she’d be out collecting salvage, and where she collected mostly was up on Washington Street near the big five-and-ten, because she could usually panhandle the price of a milk shake at the lunch bar. SCRC members weren’t supposed to beg, but Annie had a way of doing it without appearing to. According to Joan, people simply walked up and gave her money. Annie couldn’t bear to hurt their feelings by turning down donations, not when she had a milk shake habit to support.

Milk shakes did seem an odd passion for somebody who’d spent most of her life serving cocktails and highballs, but milk shakes were what Annie craved, and milk shakes, the conspirators were determined, she should have.

Max wasn’t wearing a hat, but Brooks had on his gray-green felt with the ruddy turnstone feather in the band. As they approached their quarry he raised it politely.

“Mrs. Bickens? We were hoping to find you here. I’m Dolph Kelling’s Cousin Brooks, and this is my cousin Sarah’s husband, Max Bittersohn.”

“We’ve met,” said Max at his most cosmopolitan. “At the SCRC on Tuesday morning. I owe you a cup of coffee, come to think of it. Perhaps you’d care to stop in here” and have something with us. They make a great milk shake.”

Annie gave him the smile she’d probably saved for big tippers back at the Broken Zipper. “Yeah, I know.” She was the first one to the lunch counter.

The place wasn’t crowded just then; they were able to get three stools together down at the far end, where they could talk in a certain amount of privacy. Annie ordered her milk shake and a huge pastry with green frosting on it. Brooks took root beer and a doughnut, neither of which ever appeared at the boardinghouse table. Max said in a somewhat God-help-us voice that he’d just have coffee.

They chatted of this and that. Max and Brooks displayed a lively interest in the daily doings of the center, with special reference to its members’ comings and goings. Max touched on the auction and the work they’d been doing to get ready for it. Harry Burr was being a great help, he told her. The Broken Zipper wasn’t mentioned, though, until Max had paid the check and Annie had swiped a few packets of sugar from force of habit.

It was Annie herself who got down to business. “Okay, boys, what’s this all about?”

“That’s a most pertinent question and we’ll be happy to answer it,” Brooks replied, “but not here, please. Mrs. Kelling is expecting us.”

“Jeez,” Annie whined, “I just came from the center a little while ago. Do we have to walk all the way back there again?”

“No we don’t.”

Even though they weren’t all that far from Tulip Street as the crow flew, although in fact crows were seldom seen around Tulip Street, Max had decided it would be an excellent idea to get Annie into a small, enclosed space as quickly as possible.

“We’ll take a cab,” he assured her. “We can grab one up by the Parker House.”

They did, but when Max gave the address, Annie yelped. “Hey, what’s the idea? You said Mrs. Kelling wanted me.”

“I’m sorry,” Brooks apologized. “Perhaps I didn’t make it clear that I was talking about my wife, Mrs. Theonia Kelling. You know, the one who made all those brownies for the funeral. Oh look, they’re taking away the swan boats.”

Brooks knew a great deal about the swan boats, those pedal-powered pleasure craft from which generations of Boston children, including Sarah and Brooks and even Dolph Kelling, had tossed popcorn to the mallards that came quacking in convoy. He told it all, giving Annie no chance to put a word in edgewise until they’d got her out of the cab and into the house.

Theonia was in truth waiting to greet Annie Bickens. She’d taken no risk of being identified as the crone in the black coat who’d shown up at the center yesterday. Although it was still morning and she had by no means completed her domestic duties, she’d put on an elegant burgundy wool dress with one of the opulent lace collars she favored. Her sleek leather pumps and stockings were burgundy too. There were pearls in her ears and a diamond brooch in the shape of a miniature Samurai sword, part of Uncle Lucifer’s legacy, pinned to her lace.

Annie was overawed by so much elegance, but Theonia gave her no time to freeze up. “Mrs. Bickens, how kind of you to come. Brooks darling, do take Mrs. Bickens’s bag and jacket. Did these beastly men offer you any refreshment, or did they whisk you directly here?”

“I had a milk shake,” Annie managed to blurt.

“We stopped for a bite uptown,” Brooks amplified.. “What time were you planning lunch?”

“Half past twelve, if that’s convenient.”

“But I didn’t mean to stay,” Annie protested. “He said you wanted to talk to me.”

“And so I do, Mrs. Bickens. We all do, about something desperately important in which we very much hope you can help us. Why don’t we all go into the library where we can be comfortable?”

“Or downstairs,” Max suggested, “where we can be private.”

Theonia inclined her majestic head. “Certainly, if you prefer. Let me take your arm, Mrs. Bickens. The stairs can be a trifle confusing if you’re not used to them. Would you mind coming out through the back?”

Annie was clearly beginning to mind quite a lot, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do about it with a woman twice her size at her elbow, the agile Brooks leading the way and the gallant but formidable Max Bittersohn right behind. Theonia kept that light but firm grip on her arm all the way down, although the stairway was well lighted and there was a sturdy golden oak banister to hang on to.

She might have felt like a prisoner being shown to her cell, but the room into which they led her was surprisingly attractive with a scrubbed brick floor, white painted walls, simple furniture in bright colors, and plants growing on the high windowsills. Max smiled.

“This used to be my room, Mrs. Bickens.”

“Huh? You live here too?”

“I did, until I married my landlady. Sarah and I moved next door, and Brooks and Theonia took over here. This is a pretty complicated family. Like the SCRC. I don’t know whether you’re aware of the fact, but things are getting complicated there too. That’s why we need to talk to you.”

“I didn’t do nothing!”

“Nobody’s accusing you, we just hope you can help us find out who did.”

“Did what?”

“Murdered Chet Arthur, among other things.”

“That was muggers.”

“You don’t think mugging counts?”

“Well, it’s not like as if they knew who he was. When you say murder, it sounds more personal, like.”

“We think they did know who he was. Here, Mrs. Bickens, you’d better sit down.”

M
AX STEERED ANNIE TO
a blue-slipcovered armchair that had been brought in from the old Ireson’s Landing house for his own use and drew a red-painted wooden chair up close to it. Brooks and Theonia sat on the bed, which had been perked up with red cushions to look like a studio couch. Annie wet her lips, moving her eyes from one to the other.

“Is it about the will? All I done was sign where Chet told me, honest. Joan signed it too!”

“Relax, Annie,” said Max. “You don’t mind if I call you Annie? No, it’s not about the will. Except that you weren’t quite accurate when you said you didn’t read it, were you?”

“So what if I wasn’t? A person’s got a right to know what she’s signing, hasn’t she? What do you think I am, some kind of a jerk?”

“Not at all. I only wondered what you thought of it.”

“I thought it was weird, if you want to know. I mean, here’s this guy out on the streets picking up beer cans for a living, and he’s making this will like he’s some kind of a millionaire.”

“So you and Joan had a big laugh over it, right?”

“Nah, I didn’t tell her. See, Chet said we weren’t supposed to read it, just sign. Joan wouldn’t have thought it was right. She’s always at me about you shouldn’t do this and you shouldn’t do that. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Joanie’s my best friend, but she can be kind of a pain sometimes. I just didn’t want her getting on my case about something that didn’t mean anything, see.”

“But you did tell somebody?”

Annie shrugged, a feeble effort compared to Bill Jones’s. “Well, what the hell? I mean, it was pretty funny, right?”

Max wasn’t laughing. “Whom did you tell, Annie?”

“Nobody special. Just Bulgy.”

“Bulgy who?”

“Like I said, just Bulgy. If he’s got another name, I never heard it.”

Theonia cut in. “I believe what Cousin Max means is, in what connection do you know this Bulgy? Is he a particular friend of yours?”

“I don’t know, I guess so. See, I knew him from the Zipper. He was there when I first started. He was just always around, you know what I mean?”

“Where is Bulgy now?”

“Oh, he’s still there, him and Dan. They’re the only two left that I worked with. Dan’s one of the day bartenders. He used to be on nights but he couldn’t take it no more so he switched. I don’t know the guy who took Dan’s place nights. Jeff, his name is.”

“What about Harry Burr?” asked Max.

“Harry tell you he’s working at the Zipper?” Annie sounded surprised.

“Did you get him the job?” Max countered.

“Sort of, I guess. See, I’m in there one day an’ Dan’s bitching because the night guy that’s supposed to help Jeff called in sick. So that meant Dan was going to have to work the night shift, too, ’cause they didn’t know anybody else they could get at short notice, see. So what the hey, Dan’s a friend of mine, so I told him about Harry.”

“Harry used to be a bartender?”

“No, Harry was a minister, only he believes in what he calls hands-on religion. Like when he wanted to preach about the evils of drink, he figured he ought to get some experience first. He didn’t want to start boozing it up himself because he figured the church wouldn’t stand for it and neither would his stomach, so he got a part-time job tending bar.”