Hit List

Seven

At home, he paged through one of his stamp albums. Many of his fellow hobbyists were topical or thematic philatelists, collecting stamps not of a particular country or time period but united by what they portrayed. Stamps showing trains, say, or butterflies, or penguins. A doctor might choose stamps with a medical connection, while a musician could seek out stamps showing musical instruments, or those with portraits of the great composers. Or you could collect rabbit stamps for no more abiding reason than that you just plain liked to look at rabbits.

Art on stamps was an increasingly popular topic. Early on, when postage stamps were commonly of a single color, reproducing a great painting on a scrap of paper was easier said than done. A monochromatic miniature of the Mona Lisa might be recognizable for what it was, but it lacked a certain something.

Those early stamps, skillfully engraved and beautifully printed, were to Keller’s mind far more attractive than what they turned out these days, when virtually every stamp from every country was printed in full color, and any stamp-issuing entity could spew out gemlike reproductions of the world’s art treasures. Collectors made such endeavors profitable, and, unlike animation art from Disney or Warner Brothers, the works of Rembrandt and Rubens were unprotected by trademark or copyright. Anyone could copy them, and many did.

Keller’s 1952 cutoff date put most of the world’s art stamps out of his reach. But some countries had issued such stamps back in the old one-color days, more out of pride in their artistic heritage than in a grab for the collector’s dollar. The French were particularly eager to show off their culture, portraying writers and painters and composers at the slightest provocation, and Keller looked now at a set of French semipostals that gave you a real sense of the artists’ power.

And of course there was the Spanish set honoring Goya. One of the stamps showed his nude portrait of the Duchess of Alba. The painting had caused a stir when first displayed, and, years later, the stamp had proven every bit as stirring to a generation of young male philatelists. Keller remembered owning the stamp decades ago, and scrutinizing it through a pocket magnifier, wishing fervently that the stamp were larger and the glass stronger.

In the current issue of Linn’s, as in almost every issue, there was a spirited exchange in the letters column on the best way to attract youngsters to the hobby. Evidently boys and girls were less strongly drawn to philately in a world full of computers and Nintendo and MTV. If kids stopped collecting stamps, where would the next generation of adult collectors come from?

Keller, having considered the question, had decided that he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was add to his own collection, and he didn’t really give a damn how many other men and women were working on theirs. Without new collectors joining the fold, stamps might eventually decline in value, but he didn’t care about that, either. He wasn’t going to sell his collection, and what difference did it make what became of it upon his death? If he couldn’t take it with him, then somebody else could figure out what to do with it.

But others clearly did care about the hobby’s future. The U.S. Post Office evidently saw a very profitable sideline threatened, and had responded by issuing stamps designed specifically to appeal to the young collector. When Keller was a boy, stamps showed great American writers and inventors and statesmen, people he mostly hadn’t heard of, and in the course of collecting their images he had in fact learned a great deal about them, and about the history in which they’d played a part.

Nowadays, stamp collecting was a great way for young Americans to learn about Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

Keller thought it over and decided they were doing it wrong. He’d collected avidly as a boy not because stamp collecting was designed for kids but because it was something undeniably grown-up that he could enjoy. If it had felt like kid stuff he wouldn’t have had any part of it.

Would a stamp with Bugs Bunny’s picture on it have prompted a young Keller to whip out his magnifying glass for a closer look?

Not a chance. If they wanted to get the kids interested, he thought, let them start putting naked ladies on them.

He called Dot first thing in the morning. “I hope it’s not too early,” he said.

“Five minutes ago you’d have been interrupting my breakfast,” she told him. “Now all you’re interrupting is the washing up, and that’s fine with me.”

“I was wondering,” he said. “About the client.”

“Refresh my memory, Keller. Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

“Suppose you were to call whoever called you,” he said. “Suppose you ask how the client feels about mushrooms.”

“You going into the catering business, Keller?”

“Innocent bystanders,” he said. “Drug dealers call them mushrooms because they just sort of pop up and get caught in the crossfire.”

“That’s charming. When did you take to hanging out with drug dealers?”

“I read an article in the paper.”

“That’s where you get your figures of speech, Keller? From newspaper articles?”

He drew a breath. “What I’m getting at,” he said, “is suppose something happened to a guy in Brooklyn, and his wife and kid got in the way.”

“Oh, I see where you’re going.”

“And the art gallery’s another possibility, but there too you might have people around.”

“So I should run it past my guy so he can get in a huddle with the client.”

“Right.”

“And I report back to you, and then what? Don’t tell me the job gets done and we can all move on.”

“Sure,” he said. “What else?”

Keller sat in front of the Hopper poster, taking it in. If you wanted to hang something on the wall, you couldn’t beat a poster. Ten or twenty bucks plus framing and you had a real piece of art in your living room.

On the other hand, how many posters could you hang before you ran out of wall space? No, if you were going to collect art in a small apartment, stamps were the way to go. One album, a few inches of shelf space, and you could put together a tiny Louvre all your own.

He could go either way. He could start a topical collection, art on stamps, or he could look for a few more posters that hit him the way Hopper’s did.

He put on a tie and jacket and got on a crosstown bus.

It was ridiculous, he thought, walking from the bus stop to the gallery. The painting he liked best, #19 on the laminated price list, was one of the larger ones, and the price they were asking was $12,000. It would be nice to be able to look at it whenever he felt like it, but he could walk over to Central Park anytime he wanted and look at thousands of trees. He could get as close as he wanted and it wouldn’t cost him a dime.

The same Vassar graduate sat behind the desk, reading the same Jane Smiley novel and waiting for her Wall Street prince to come. She nodded at Keller without moving her head-he wasn’t sure how she managed that-and went back to her book while he crossed the room to the painting.

And there it was, as vivid and powerful as ever. He felt himself drawn into the picture, sucked into the trunk and up the branches. He let himself sink into the canvas. This had never happened to him before and he wondered if it happened to other people. He stayed in front of the painting for a long time, knowing that there was no question of passing it up. He had the money, he could spend it on a painting if he wanted.

He’d tell the girl he wanted to buy it, and they’d take his name and perhaps a deposit-he wasn’t sure how that part worked. Then they’d record it as sold, and when the show came down at the end of the month he’d pay the balance and take it home.

And have it framed? It was minimally framed now with flat strips of dark wood, and that worked okay, but he suspected a professional framer could improve on it. Something simple, though. Something that enclosed the painting without drawing attention to itself. Those carved and gilded frames looked great around a portrait of a codger with muttonchop whiskers, but they were all wrong for something like this, and-

There was a red dot on the wall beside the painting.

He stared at it, and it was there, all right, next to the number 19. He extended a forefinger, as if to flick the dot away, then let his hand fall to his side.

Well, he’d left it too long. Remembering to look before he leapt, he’d hesitated, and was lost.

And so was the painting, lost to him.

Disappointment washed over him, along with a paradoxical sense of relief. He wouldn’t have to part with twelve thousand dollars, wouldn’t have to seek out a framer, wouldn’t have to pick a spot and hammer a nail into the wall.

But, dammit to hell, he wouldn’t own the painting.

Of course there were others. This was the one he’d picked, the old tree trying to get through one more winter, but the choice hadn’t been all that clear-cut, because he’d responded strongly to all of Declan Niswander’s work. If he couldn’t have his favorite, well, it wasn’t the end of the world. How hard would it be to find one he liked almost as well?

Not hard at all, as it turned out. But it would be equally impossible to buy any of the other works, no matter how much he liked them, because every single painting in the gallery had been given the red dot treatment.

He stared at the desk until the girl looked up from her book. “Everything’s been sold,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

“It’s great for you people,” he said, “and I suppose it’s great for Mr. Niswander, but it’s not so great for me.”

“You were in yesterday afternoon, weren’t you?”

“And I should have bought the painting then, but I wanted to sleep on it. And now it’s too late.”

“Things happen overnight in this business,” she said. “I always heard that, and here’s an example. When I went home last night there were only two paintings sold, the ones that were purchased the night of the opening. And when I came in this morning there were so many red dots I thought the walls had measles.”

“Well,” he said, “at least I’ve got the rest of the month to look at the paintings. Who bought them, anyway?”

“I wasn’t here. Look, suppose I get Mr. Buell? Maybe he can help you.”

She went away and Keller returned to Niswander’s trees, trying not to notice the plague of red dots. Then a man appeared, the willowy young chap who’d introduced Niswander at the opening. Up close, Keller could see that Regis Buell wasn’t really as young as he appeared. He looked like an aging boy, and Keller wondered if he might have had a face-lift.

“Regis Buell,” he said. “Jenna informs me we’ve disappointed you by selling out to the bare walls.”

“I’m the one with the bare walls,” Keller told him.

Buell laughed politely. “What painting was it? That you had your heart set on.”

“Number nineteen.”

“The old horse chestnut? A splendid choice. You have a good eye. But I have to say they’re all good choices.”

“And they’ve already been chosen. Who bought them?”

“Ah,” Buell said, and clasped his hands. “Mystery buyers.”

“More than one?”

“Several, and I’m afraid I can’t disclose any of their names.”

“And they all came through at the same time? I was here yesterday and there were only two paintings sold.”

“Yes, just the two.”

“And today they’re all gone.”

“Ah. Well, I had a private showing last night, after we’d officially closed. And, as a matter of fact, some of the work was already sold when you saw it yesterday. The red dots weren’t in place yet, but several paintings had in fact been spoken for.” He smiled winningly. “I don’t believe Jenna told me your name.”

“I never gave it to her,” Keller said. “It’s Forrest.”

Buell smiled prettily, and Keller immediately regretted the name. “Mr. Forrest,” Buell said. “No wonder you respond to trees.”

“Well,” Keller said.

“You know, there’s always the chance a purchaser will change his mind.”

“And back out of the deal?”

“Or consent to an immediate resale, especially if he’s offered an incentive.”

“You mean if he can make a profit?”

“It happens all the time. If you wanted to make an offer, on the horse chestnut or indeed any of the works, I could relay it and see what response it receives.” And how much of an incentive would it take? Buell thought it would have to be substantial. “The man’s a private buyer, not a dealer, so he wasn’t planning on this, but who doesn’t like to turn a quick profit? The prospect of a ten percent gain wouldn’t move him, but if he could double his money, well, that might be a difficult temptation to resist.”

“In other words, offer him twenty-four thousand?”

Buell gnawed on a fingernail. “May I make a suggestion? Round it up to twenty-five. It’s a far more impressive number.”

“It’s impressive,” Keller allowed.

“And I daresay you’re impressed with it yourself, having expected to take home the painting for twelve. Still, you could pay twenty-five or even thirty-five thousand for that painting and still come out well ahead.”

“You really think so?”

“Absolutely.” Regis Buell leaned in close, let his voice drop. “Look how rapidly the entire show sold out. Declan Niswander’s price is about to shoot through the roof. If you were to ask my advice, I’d tell you to offer the twenty-five and go higher if you have to. And, if the buyer were to ask my advice, I’d have to tell him not to sell.” He smiled conspiratorially. “But he may not ask. Would you like me to sound him out?”

Keller said he’d have to think about it.

“First I had to reach the guy,” Dot said, “and then he had to reach his guy, and then he had to get back to me.”

“It’s always something,” Keller said.

“The questions surprised him, but he came back with answers. The client thinks Williamsburg ’s perfect, and he doesn’t care how many people come to the party. If you want to make an omelet you’ve got to break some eggs, and you might as well cap a few mushrooms while you’re at it.”

“And if the wife’s around-“

“Fine with him. Remember how he wanted it dramatic? I guess that comes under the heading of drama.” She cleared her throat. “Other hand, Keller, it doesn’t sound much like your kind of thing.”

“No, it doesn’t. What about the gallery? He have anything to say about that?”

“He didn’t like the idea.”

“What didn’t he like about it? Never mind, I don’t want an answer.”

“Then you’re not going to get one,” she said. “What do you think of that?”

Monday morning he went over his bid sheet, then addressed an envelope to a dealer in Hanford, Oklahoma. Lately the ads were full of Internet auctions. You could buy and sell online, and when your stamps came you could use special philatelic software to design your album pages and other software to maintain an inventory of your holdings.

Keller didn’t have a computer and didn’t want one. He figured he was spending enough money already.

He mailed the letter on the way to Grand Central and caught a train to White Plains. When he got to Taunton Place Dot opened the door for him and he followed her to the kitchen. The TV was on, tuned to a game show, but the sound was off.

“You took me by surprise,” she said. “What’s wrong, Keller? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I, uh, phoned.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know that. You phoned and I said come on up. Oh, that explains the look. You thought I’d forgotten our phone conversation. You figured I was starting to go ga-ga, just like the late lamented. No, I think I’ve got a few more years yet before my brain turns to jelly. All I meant was I didn’t hear your cab drive up. Or pull away, either, as far as that goes. What did you do, make him drop you at the corner?”

“No, I-“

“Remember when he had everybody doing that? He got it in his head it drew attention, people coming here all the time, so everybody had to walk a block or two, and that really drew attention. Did you walk a block or two?”

“I walked from the station.”

“All the way from the station?”

“It’s a nice day.”

“It’s never that nice,” she said. “You must have been in a big hurry to see me.”

“If I’d been in a hurry, I’d have taken a cab.”

“Keller, I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.”

“For all the good it did me. Let me look at you. I guess it’s not much fun, working in your own city. Bright side, you’re not dead or in jail. You think there’s a chance of wrapping this up while that’s still true of both of us?”

“It’s all settled.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not the sarcastic one,” he said. “I handled it over the weekend. It’s all taken care of.”

“Account closed.”

“Yes.”

“End of story.”

“Right.”

“You never said a word on the phone, and you always do.”

“I’m usually calling from out of town. I figured I’d be here soon enough, I’d tell you in person.”

“And you usually seem, oh, what’s the word I want? Triumphant? Not bursting into song necessarily, and maybe even a little reserved, but like you’re the cat bringing in the dead mouse. Pleased with yourself.”

“I’m pleased.”

“Any minute now you’re going to do handsprings. I can tell.”

“Well, it was complicated,” he said, “and it took a while. And when it was done I didn’t get to pack up and go home.”

“Nothing to pack. And you were already home. How’d you do it?”

“The subway.”

“Is that how you got out to Williamsburg? Oh, the subway’s how you did it.”

“An oncoming train.”

“And a body on the tracks. ‘Did he jump or was he pushed?’ You know what’s funny? So many times they want an accident, and it’s not always possible to stage it so it gets past forensics. But this guy wanted a big splash, and what you gave him is something that’ll go in the books as an accident.” She frowned. “Although when a whole subway train runs over you, ‘big splash’ is not an entirely inappropriate phrase.”

“The client won’t complain.”

“I don’t even care if he does,” she said, “because we’re not working for him again, or for anybody else in New York. So I’d just as soon he doesn’t ask us.”

“He won’t.”

She gave him a sharp look. “There’s something you’re trying to tell me,” she said, “and I have a horrible idea I know what it is. Am I right?”

“How do I know?”

“Keller, do I have to send the money back?”

“No.”

“And when can I expect the rest of it? I can’t, can I?”

“No.”

“Because the client’s had trouble writing checks ever since he took the A train.”

“It wasn’t the A train.”

“Keller, I don’t care if it was the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe.” She sighed heavily. “You might as well tell me all about it.”

Where to start? “I figured out who the client was.”

“And a good thing, too, or you wouldn’t have known who to kill.”

“It was the gallery owner,” he said, and explained how Niswander had changed allegiances. “Galleries get fifty percent of sales. Buell had worked hard and spent a lot of money building Niswander up, and now the guy was going with somebody else, and on top of that he was telling his friends and patrons not to buy anything from his last show with Buell. They should wait and spend their money with the new dealer.”

“So Buell was angry,” she said, “but angry enough to kill? And it’s not as if you work for minimum wage. He was throwing good money after bad.”

“What he was throwing was bread upon the waters. Do you know what happens when an artist dies?”

“They give him an enema,” she said, “and bury him in a matchbox.”

“His price goes up. They know he’s not going to flood the market with new pictures, and that he doesn’t have his best work ahead of him. So there’s a scramble for what he managed to complete before his death.”

“So every artist is worth more dead than alive?”

“No,” he said, “but Niswander is a rising star, just beginning to hit his stride. That’s why Buell was so upset at the prospect of losing him. And, if Niswander happened to be murdered in some dramatic fashion, that would give things a major boost.”

“But what would Buell get out of it? He was losing Niswander after the show, and didn’t you tell me everything in the show was already sold?”

He nodded. “Niswander told everybody not to buy. And Buell sold out the entire show overnight.”

“Got it. He sold them to himself.”

“Plastered the walls with red dots the minute his assistant went home for the night. Four hundred thousand dollars is what the prices added up to, but he would have only had to pay half of that to Niswander. And, if the artist happened to be dead, he could probably take his sweet time settling with the estate.”

“And if Mrs. Niswander got killed, too, he might never get called to account. No wonder he didn’t care how many mushrooms wound up in the omelet.”

“More publicity, too. Artist, Whole Family Slain in Brooklyn Rampage. More hype for the Niswander mystique.”

“And he’d be sitting on forty paintings, with the price set to go through the roof.” She frowned. “That’s a pretty extreme thing, killing off your own artists so you can make more money on them. I don’t know much about ethics in the gallery business, but I’d call that pretty low.”

“Most people would.”

“On the other hand,” she said, “did you happen to notice what kind of a house we’re in?”

“Victorian, isn’t it? I don’t know a whole lot about architecture.”

“I’m talking metaphorically, Keller, and that makes it a glass house, and what do you think we shouldn’t do?”

“Throw stones?”

“Especially at our own clients.”

“I know.”

“Because they tend to be moral lepers, but what the hell do you expect? Albert Schweitzer never hired a hit man, and neither did the guy in the loincloth, and-“

“The guy in the loincloth?”

“They made a movie about him. He was little and he talked funny and at the end he got shot. You know who I mean.”

“It sounds like Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar,” he said, “but are you sure he never hired a hit man? Because it seems to me-“

“Christ almighty,” she said. “Gandhi, all right? Mahatma Gandhi, from India. Okay?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Edward G. Robinson,” she said. “Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar. When the hell did Edward G. Robinson ever wear a loincloth?”

“I was wondering about the loincloth.”

“Jesus, Keller. Where was I?”

“They never hired a hit man.”

“Schweitzer and Gandhi. Well, they never did. You don’t have to be a good human being to be a good client. All you have to do is play straight with us and pay what you owe. Which Regis Buell might or might not have done, but how will we ever know?”

“I really liked Niswander’s paintings, Dot.”

“Look, I’ll take your word for it he’s the real thing. What the hell, Buell must have thought so himself. That’s what made him worth killing.”

“It’s not just that he’s good. I responded to his work.”

“You wanted to hang him on your wall.”

“Dot, I wanted to climb right up into one of his trees and hide in the branches. A man who can paint something that does that to me, how can I kill him?”

“We could have resigned the account.”

“So? Then someone else does it.”

“At least the blood’s not on your hands.”

“The man’s just as dead. He’s not going to be painting any more trees. What do I care about blood on my hands?”

She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “Look, what’s done is done, and I’m not even going to say you were wrong to do it. What do I know about right and wrong? I’m in the same glass house, Keller. I’m not going to be heaving boulders at you.”

“But?”

“But this isn’t the first time one of our clients purchased the agricultural real estate.”

“Huh? Oh, bought the farm.”

“ Acre by acre.”

“There was that cutie pie in Iowa, played games with us and tried to screw us out of the final payment.”

“And the one in Washington, had you convinced your orders came straight from the White House. Forget those two, Keller. They had it coming.”

“And one other time,” he admitted, “when two clowns each hired us to do the other. And he”-his eyes rose to the ceiling-“said yes to both jobs. What choice did I have? How could I do the job without tagging a client?”

“The way I remember it, you tagged them both.”

“All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And maybe it was. You know, a lot of people must have had it in for Regis Buell. It’s a shame you couldn’t get one of them to hire you, because this way there was no money in killing him.”

“No.”

“In fact,” she said, “his death means we don’t get paid for Niswander. Who’s still alive and well, so why should we?”

“On the other hand, we got half in front from Buell and he’s not going to ask for it back.”

“He’s not, and half a loaf is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Look at it one way, it was money I should have sent back at the beginning, and now I don’t have to.”

“And it’s all yours,” he said.

“How do you figure that?”

“I screwed up,” he said. “No way I’m entitled to my share. So you keep it all, and you wind up the same as if I did the job and we collected the second payment and split down the middle. You look puzzled, Dot. All of half is half of all.”

“ ‘All of half is half of all.’ You know who you sound like, Keller? The Three Musketeers.”

“It’s true, though, and-“

“It’s crap,” she said. “Keller, you and I are the Two Musketeers, get it? You earned your share when you made sure Buell didn’t miss his train.”

“I don’t know, Dot.”

“I do. Knock knock.”

“Huh?”

“Weren’t you ever a kid, Keller? Come on. Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“ Sharon.”

“Huh?”

“Keller, play the game.”

“ Sharon who?”

“ Sharon share alike. We each did something we shouldn’t have done, and we both came out of it okay. But I’ll make you a deal, Keller. You stop killing our clients and I’ll stop accepting jobs in New York. Deal?”

“Deal. Only…”

“Only what?”

“Well, you can still book local assignments. Just don’t book them for me.”

“Assuming I can find someone from out of town that I can work with.”

“You’ve already got somebody.”

“Used to.”

“Just because his phone’s out doesn’t mean he’s gone for good.”

“In this case it does,” she said. “Seeing as he’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“I made a few calls,” she said, “and I checked with people who checked with other people. A little over a month ago the police kicked his door in after a neighbor complained about the smell.”

“I don’t suppose it was clogged drains.”

“They found him in bed. Except for the decomposition, you’d have thought he was sleeping. Which he was, I guess. He went to sleep and never woke up.”

“Heart attack?”

“I guess. Nobody showed me the death certificate.”

“How old?”

“Somebody said but I forget. Younger than either of us, I remember that much.”

“Jesus.”

“Maybe he used drugs, Keller.”

“In this business? You screw around with drugs and you don’t last.”

“Well,” she said, “he didn’t. And don’t tell me there aren’t plenty of guys who use something when they’re not working. Or even when they are. Not everyone lives as clean as you, Keller.”

“Maybe he had a congenital heart condition.”

“Maybe. People die, Keller, and not all of them get a hand from a helpful guy like yourself. Far as that goes, people fall in front of subway trains.”

“Or jump.”

“Or jump. They don’t all get pushed.” She got to her feet. “But let me get your share of the fee from one who did, and you can go home. Say, what about that tree you fell in love with? What happens to it now?”

“Niswander will get it back, along with the rest of his paintings, since the mystery buyers represented by all those little red dots will fail to materialize. And I guess his new dealer will offer it for sale sooner or later.”

“At a much higher price.”

“Not necessarily, since the artist is still alive.”

“So he is. Will you buy it?”

“I don’t know. I really like the painting, I liked all of his paintings.”

“But?”

He frowned. “But I’m not sure I want to get into all that, Dot. The whole art scene. I think maybe I’m better off sticking with stamps.”

She pinched his cheek. “Perfect,” she said. “You know what they say, Keller. You stick to your stamps and your stamps will stick to you.”