A Fatal Frame of Mind

Chapter Fourteen

“When a problem looks unsolvable,”Shawn said, “it just means that we’re not looking at it the right way.”

Despite Kitteredge’s insistence that the guise of museum docent provided a cloak of invisibility to rival the one elves hand out to ring-bearing hobbits, Gus and Shawn had felt that the European painting galleries were too well attended to make a safe hiding place. After a quick study of the museum map, they located the one spot in the institution that no one would ever walk into intentionally. And indeed, the Oceanic Arts and Crafts gallery was as deserted as any movie theater showing the second half of Funny People.

Had Gus been in more of a cultural mood he might have stopped to consider the unfairness of this. It was true that a lot of the Micronesian wood carvings all began to look alike very quickly, but some of the Melanesian works carried a sexual charge that Fragonard could only have dreamed of achieving. Granted, erotic sculptures of fertility goddesses would never replace Cinemax After Dark, but Gus was surprised not to see more teenage boys loitering around down here.

But right now, culture was the last thing on anyone’s minds. Even Kitteredge, who had started a brief discussion on the destruction of traditional art forms in the Oceanic cultures after World War II when they first entered the gallery, quickly wrapped it up as they began to focus on the difficulty of the task before them.

“The problem is that we have to get into a gallery that’s under constant guard by an armed police officer,” Gus said. “Is there another way to look at that?”

“There’s always another way,” Shawn said. “For instance, we could say that the core problem is that you haven’t come up with a solution.”

“Me?” Gus said. “What about you?”

“I don’t want to hog all the glory,” Shawn said. “Especially since you were the one Professor Kitteredge asked for help.”

“I’m willing to give up some glory,” Gus said. “In fact, you can have it all. So solve.”

“I can’t yet,” Shawn said. “Because we haven’t come up with the right way to ask the question. Once we do that, the answer will be obvious.”

“So what is the right question?” Gus said.

“That is,” Shawn said. “And now that you’ve asked it, the answer should be obvious to you. So go ahead and answer.”

The only answer that Gus could come up with seemed inappropriate to use in a museum frequented by families, even if none of them happened to be in this gallery. “What if we set some papers on fire so the alarm went off?” Gus said.

“Then steel doors would slam down on every gallery, and all the air would be sucked out to put out the fire and protect the art,” Shawn said.

“That wouldn’t happen,” Gus said.

“It did when Pierce Brosnan tried it,” Shawn said.

“First of all, you’re not Pierce Brosnan,” Gus said.

“I could be,” Shawn said. “I am wearing a tuxedo.”

“And second, that was a movie,” Gus said. “No museum is going to have steel doors that slam down on galleries if there’s a fire. What if there are people inside? They could suffocate or burn to death.”

“They’re extras,” Shawn said. “No one cares about them.”

“Until their survivors sue,” Gus said.

Gus knew there had to be a way to get past that cop. He simply had to visualize it. He cast his gaze around the gallery until his eye fell on a carved wooden figure about a foot high. It sat in a Plexiglas box standing on a narrow pillar. A card in front of the display case described it as a Melanesian fertility symbol from the early 1600s.

“Okay,” Gus said, “let’s say this is the cop.”

Shawn looked at the little figure, and then at the enormous priapus jutting out from its midsection. “If that’s the cop, he won’t need his gun to stop us,” he said. “He won’t even need a nightstick.”

“Is this helping?” Gus said.

“It’s helping pass the time,” Shawn said.

“We don’t want to pass time,” Gus said. “Time is not our friend.”

“Maybe not to you,” Shawn said. “But I’ve always felt that Pierce Brosnan was a much more compelling actor once he got a little age on his face.”

Gus fought back an image of what he could do with that Melanesian fertility symbol and tried to refocus on the problem.

“Okay,” Gus said, “we’re saying that this is the cop-and that’s all we’re saying on the subject. Our one goal here is to figure out how we can make him move away from the gallery he’s guarding.”

Shawn stared at the wooden figure. Then his face lit up in a smile. “I’ve got it.”

“Yes?” Kitteredge said.

“I said I had the answer,” Shawn said. “Not that I feel like sharing it. Because just standing here chatting with you could be considered a felony, seeing as how you’re wanted for a bunch of terrible crimes. So before we go any further down the road to helping you, I think you owe us an explanation.”

Gus was about to jump in to defend his professor, but before he could speak he realized that Shawn was right.

Kitteredge looked from Shawn to Gus and saw the determination on their faces. “You’re right,” he said. “By helping me, you may have put yourself in terrible danger, and not just from the police. You need to know about the Cabal.”