DOWNSTAIRS IN the gallery, Pippy Shannon sang “He Is,” the phone rang, and Gwen discovered to her disgust that the answer to M, “sweetheart,” was “tootsy wootsy.” “Goodnight Gallery,” she said, still frowning at the puzzle book.
“Gwen? This is Mason Phipps.”
“Oh.” Gwen shut the puzzle book and tried to sound bright and innocent. “Hello.”
“I wanted to thank you for last night.”
“Oh, my pleasure,” Gwen lied. “Really. Like old times.”
“I’d like to show my gratitude by taking you to a late lunch tomorrow,” Mason said. “You can get away from the gallery on Sunday, can’t you?”
I’ll never get away from the gallery. “I don’t know—”
“I would truly appreciate it if you’d join me, say about two?”
Gwen thought she heard some vulnerability in his voice. The poor man was living with Clea. That could leave anybody flayed and bleeding.
But he’d want to talk about Tony, On the other hand, if she didn’t eat lunch with him, she’d be eating it with a Double-Crostic. “Tell me an eight-letter word for ‘capable of sin’ and I’ll go.”
“All right,” Mason said, sounding taken aback. “Any other clues?”
“Begins with P, ends in E.”
“Give me a minute,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice, and she thought, This is a nice guy. I should go to lunch.
“It couldn’t possibly be ‘peccable,’ could it?” he said finally.
“Peccable?”
“You know, as in ‘impeccable,’ only the opposite?”
Gwen opened the crostic book. “Hang on.” She filled in the letters and then transferred them to the quote squares. “I’ll be damned.”
“That’s it?” Mason said.
“I’ll also be having lunch with you,” Gwen said, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “I can’t believe you got that. Because I was never going to.”
“I was motivated,” Mason said, the smile in his voice growing bigger.
“You are my hero,” she said.
They talked about Double-Crostics for a while, and he thanked her again for the night before, and when she finally hung up the phone, she was looking forward to seeing him again. I wonder if that’s a date, she thought.
It’s just lunch. But Clea isn’t coming along. I wonder . . .
The door opened as Pippy did her big finish, and Gwen saw Ford Brown, now forever a cowboy in her mind with the soundtrack to match: Do not forsake me, oh, my darling. “Oh,” she said to him, trying to ignore the music in her head. “Is everything all right upstairs?”
“It’s fine.” He looked around the gallery. “Nice place.”
Gwen looked around at the dingy walls and cracked window and dull wood floors. “Uh-huh.”
His lips twitched in that not-grin again. “I was being polite.”
“That only works when there’s some possibility it might be true,” Gwen said, wondering what he was up to. She hadn’t known him long, but she knew he was being abnormally chatty.
“So why isn’t it?” He wandered past the Finsters, his hands in his pockets.
“What? Nice?” Gwen shrugged. “No money.”
Ford stopped at the cracked window. “Wouldn’t take that much.”
“Are you a contractor?” Gwen said.
“You could say that.” Ford turned back to her. “I was heading for lunch. What’s your favorite restaurant?”
“Lunch,” Gwen said.
Ford nodded patiently. “You tell me where the best place to eat is, I’ll pay you back by bringing you lunch.”
“Do I look hungry or something?” Gwen said. “Because you’re the second guy who’s offered to feed me in fifteen minutes.”
“People eat,” Ford said. “Usually about this time. Even in Florida.”
“Imagine that. I figured you all lived on the fruit in the drinks with the little umbrellas.”
“What is it with you and the umbrellas?” Ford said.
“Just looking for a way out of the rain.” Gwen went back to her Double-Crostic. “Try the Fire House. Great seafood. You’ll feel right at home.”
An hour later he brought her back a piña colada with an umbrella in it. “Extra fruit,” he said when he put it on the counter. Then he went upstairs.
“Damn,” Gwen said, surprised, and tasted it.
It was delicious.
❖ ❖ ❖
WHEN DAVY and Tilda got into Jeff’s car that afternoon, Davy said, “Here’s the way this goes. When we get there, I go to the door. You watch me. You will stay in the car, unless I do one of three things, then you come up with me.”
“Three things,” Tilda said.
“If I motion you up and call you Betty,” Davy said, “be a ditz. I’m the one in charge, I’ll patronize you a little bit while you search through your purse.”
“Big purse,” Tilda said, holding it up. “Is Betty a ditz because I was such a mess in the closet?”
“You were not a mess in the closet,” Davy said. “You were Vilma in the closet. If I need somebody to jump my bones, I’ll call you Vilma. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to come up this afternoon. If I call you Betty and say we’ve been together a year, you put a hundred-dollar bill in the mark’s hand and then you look for a second hundred.”
“The mark?”
“Pay attention,” Davy said sternly. “If I say we’ve been together one year...”
“I put a hundred in the mark’s hand and then start digging for a second hundred,” Tilda said.
“Right, if I say we’ve been together for two years ...”
“I give her two hundred,” Tilda said.
“Good girl.”
“Why?”
“Because once she has the money in her hand, it’s going to be really hard to give it back. If you hand it over while you’re looking for the second bill, she’ll take it automatically and we’ll have her.”
“We can’t just offer her the money?”
“Yes,” Davy said. “We can. That’s what I will do. If that doesn’t work, you come up.”
“Okay.” Tilda looked a little uneasy. “One. Betty. Ditz. Money.”
“Two is I look at my watch. You come up and tell me we’re running late and we have to go.”
Tilda nodded. “Am I nice?”
“Take your cue from me. If I call you Veronica and act like I’m afraid of you, be a bitch.” Tilda sighed. “If I call you Betty and snarl, you grovel. We’re putting a time lock on the deal, and if the mark doesn’t hurry up, he’ll lose it.”
“Time lock. Okay. What’s three?”
“I put my hands behind my back, and you come up and be the enemy.”
“The enemy,” Tilda said.
“If I can’t get the mark on my own, I’m going to have to give him a reason to bond with me,” Davy said. “The fastest way to do that is for the mark and me to confront an enemy together. That’s you.”
“Okay,” Tilda said. “What do I do?”
“Take your cue from me again. If I call you Veronica and cringe, say I couldn’t get the painting, whatever, bitch me out. Say you knew I couldn’t do it. Bully me.”
“And that works how?” Tilda said, frowning at him.
“If the person at the door lives with a bully, he’ll side with me. Now if the person at the door is the bully, I’ll call you Betty and you come up whining.”
“I didn’t whine in the closet.”
“No, you didn’t. Be as annoying as you can be without challenging me. Put me in a position where the guy at the door thinks I should be bullying you. Whine that we don’t need the dumb painting, that we should be spending that money on you.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Tilda sat frowning for a minute and then nodded. “So Betty’s a ditz, and Veronica’s a bitch, and Vilma’s a slut. I had no idea you thought so much of me.”
“You’re not concentrating, Matilda,” Davy said. “I’m going to try
to work it so that you don’t have to come up at all. It’s better if we can just buy the damn things. And no matter how we do it, the fewer recognizable faces associated with this mess, the better.” He looked into her pale blue eyes and lost his train of thought for a minute. “You are memorable, Celeste.”
“Oh,” Tilda said. “I can fix that, Ralph. Wait a minute.”
She got out of the car, and Davy slid down in his seat and thought, Now what? When she still wasn’t back fifteen minutes later, he opened the door to go find her and there she was.
She’d slicked her curls down into a smooth bob and taken off her glasses. She was wearing a pink sweater that fit very well and a green dotted scarf around her neck and she looked neat and respectable and sort of Yuppie and completely unlike herself.
“I’m impressed,” Davy said. “What did you do?”
Tilda slid back into the front seat. “Mousse, eye makeup, dark contacts, Eve’s sweater, scarf, and skirt. Now can I go up to the door with you?”
“No,” Davy said. “You still stay in the car. But I am really impressed.” And turned on. Hello, Vilma.
“Easy,” Tilda said, and picked up her bag and pulled out the first card. “Let’s go see Mrs. Susan Frost. She has a lovely Scarlet of butterflies for which she paid five hundred dollars. She’s in Gahanna. Take 670 east.”
TWENTY MINUTES later, Davy pulled up in front of a tidy little ranch house in Gahanna. “Okay. Got the money?”
Tilda opened her billfold and picked out ten very crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Simon isn’t a counterfeiter, is he?”
“No,” Davy said. “He doesn’t have that much concentration. Why?”
“Because these are his,” Tilda said. “From your rent.”
“His rent,” Davy said. “I haven’t seen that room since he got here. Give me five of them in case I can do this without you.”
“It’s a painting of butterflies,” Tilda said, handing over the bills. “You sure you don’t want me to come up with you?”
“Nope.” Davy opened the door. “Stay in the car and watch me. If you come up, I’m your husband Steve.”
“Okay,” Tilda said, clearly humoring him.
A tight-lipped woman about Gwennie’s age answered the door, and Davy smiled at her and discarded the idea of asking for donations of paintings. This one would want money and she’d gouge them for all she could get. “Mrs. Frost?”
“Yes,” she said suspiciously.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Steve Foster. You don’t know me but my wife’s aunt used to visit you here with a friend.” He shook his head. “I can’t remember the friend’s name.”
“So?” Mrs. Frost said.
“I’m sorry, I’m telling this so badly.” Davy stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled at her, his best I’m-an-idiot smile. “I guess I’m nervous.”
“What is it you want?” she said, but her mouth relaxed a little.
“My wife’s aunt’s coming into town today,” Davy said, going earnest on her. “It’s her sixtieth birthday and she’s been really good to Betty, and, when she was here years ago, she saw this butterfly painting, and she told Betty all about it, a big checkerboard sky and lots of beautiful butterflies. She said she looked at it the whole visit and she used to dream about it at night. She really loved it.”
“I think I remember her,” Mrs. Frost said, the suspicion easing from her face a little. “Was her friend Bernadette Lowell?”
“Maybe,” Davy said, watching her face, smiling. “That sounds about right. Betty would really like to buy that painting for her aunt, but she’s really shy, that’s Betty down in the car...” He turned and waved at Tilda. “It would make her so happy, and it’d make me so happy to make her so happy—”
“I don’t even know what happened to that painting,” Mrs. Frost said, distracted, looking behind him.
“Hi,” Tilda said, coming to stand beside him, smiling and confident, and he put his arm around her.
“Don’t be shy, Betty,” he said, and Tilda hunched her shoulders under his arm. “Mrs. Frost isn’t even sure she has the painting. She hasn’t seen it in a year—”
“Oh, but we’ll pay for it,” Tilda said, looking slightly goony as she dug in her bag. “I know we’re interrupting you—” She came up with a hundred-dollar bill and Mrs. Frost’s eyes swiveled right to it. “That’s not enough.” She jabbed it at Mrs. Frost, who took it, and then went back to her bag. “I’m so sorry, I know I have the other one in here...”
“Hey.” Davy squeezed her shoulder a little. “She’s not even sure she has it. Maybe—”
The vague look on Mrs. Frost’s face had sheared off into avarice as she looked at the hundred in her hand. “Let me look upstairs in the attic,” she said and was gone, taking the money with her.
“I know it’s here somewhere,” Tilda said, her head practically in her bag.
“It’s okay, honey.” Davy patted her shoulder and wondered how she knew to stay in character when he hadn’t told her to. Maybe he’d been wrong about Tilda. Maybe Michael Dempsey could have turned her into a crook. Damn good thing she hadn’t been born a Dempsey. “Don’t worry, she’s looking for it,” he said and Tilda turned her face to his and smiled, as open as the sun, and he tightened his arm around her and was even more grateful that she hadn’t been born a Dempsey.
“Oh, I hope she finds it.” Tilda dug in her bag again. “Wait, here it is.” She held up another hundred.
“That’s good,” Davy said. “You hold on to it and try to calm down.”
They sat down on the top step and Tilda talked about her aunt and how happy she’d be to see the painting, and Davy left his arm around her and let the sun seep into his bones and thought, Damn, I’m happy.
“This it?” Mrs. Frost said from behind them about fifteen minutes later, and Davy looked up to see a dusty eighteen-inch painting, full of the wickedest-looking butterflies he’d ever seen.
“That’s it!” Tilda sprang up. “Oh, that’s exactly the way Aunt Gwen described it. Oh, this is so wonderful. And look...” She held the second hundred out. “I found the other hundred.” She pressed it into Mrs. Frost’s hand.
“You know, we paid over a thousand dollars for this painting,” Mrs. Frost lied through her teeth.
“Oh.” Tilda looked devastated as she turned to face him. “Steve, we can’t...”
“Well, now, wait a minute, honey,” Davy said, and got out his wallet. He counted out a twenty, a ten, and four ones. “We can go up to two thirty-four,” he said, offering Mrs. Frost the bills. He looked apologetically at Tilda. “We can just eat at home instead of taking Aunt Gwen out to Bob Evans. Your cooking’s better than eating out anyway.”
“Oh, Steve,” Tilda said, putting her head down. Davy could have sworn she blushed.
“Okay,” Mrs. Frost said, taking the bills out of his hand, probably to get the two of them off her front porch before they got any ickier. “Here you go.”
“Oh, thank you!” Tilda said, grabbing the painting. “Oh, my aunt is going to be—”
Mrs. Frost shut the door in her face.
“—so happy,” Tilda finished, still sweetness and light.
“Come on, honey,” Davy said, taking her arm. “Let’s go get Aunt Gwen.”
When they were in the car, Tilda said, “She did not pay a thousand dollars for this.”
“That’s okay. Neither did you.” Davy handed the five hundreds she’d given him back to her and started the engine. “About those butterflies.”
“Boy.” Tilda angled the painting to catch some of the sunlight from the window. “I haven’t seen this for fifteen years.”
“Scarlet must have been a little annoyed when she painted them,” Davy said, pulling out into the street. “They look like they could strip a cow faster than piranha.”
“Oh.” Tilda looked at them closer. “They are sort of edgy, aren’t they? Well, Scarlet had issues.”
“You still want to try the next one right away?” Davy sa
id.
“No,” Tilda said. “My heart should be out of my throat by tomorrow. That is possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”
Davy looked over at her, surprised. “I couldn’t tell. You were really good.”
“Really?” Tilda said.
“Quite an actress.”
“That’s Gwennie,” Tilda said, looking back at the butterflies. “Eve and I could both do Lady Macbeth in kindergarten. Nadine could do it even earlier. You should hear ‘All the perfumes of Arabia’ with a lisp. She was so cute.”
“Yeah.” Davy stole a glance at her profile as she studied the painting. “Runs in the family.”
She turned to him. “You were damn good yourself. Gwennie couldn’t do a character better. You were amazing.”
You haven’t seen anything yet, Velma, Davy thought.
“I really am grateful,” she told him.
“My pleasure,” he said and kept his eyes on the road.
❖ ❖ ❖
TILDA HAD braced herself for another pass that night, but Davy left with Simon to do God knew what and she felt oddly bereft. They should have celebrated or something. Nadine showed up shortly after they were gone, on her way to sing with Burton’s band, and handed over Steve, who had a bleeding gash across his nose.
“What happened?” Tilda said, appalled.
“He met Ariadne on the way up the stairs,” Nadine said, shaking her head at him.
“And she attacked you, poor baby?” Tilda cuddled Steve’s little furry body.
“No,” Nadine said. “He jumped her and tried to, uh, well, hump her.”
Tilda stopped cuddling to look into his beady, clueless eyes. “Steve, she’s a cat.”
“And he’s a guy,” Nadine said. “Which reminds me, I’m late to meet Burton. Where’s Davy?”
“He and Simon went out,” Tilda said, still not sure what to do about Steve. “They’ll be back soon.”
When Louise got home at midnight, Steve’s nose was better, and Simon and Davy were still gone, but five minutes later, they turned up, as if on cue. “That was lucky,” Tilda said as Simon and Louise faded upstairs. “Lucky, my ass,” Davy said. “He had one eye on the clock all night. She must have told him when she was getting off work.” He went upstairs then, and when she followed an hour later with Steve, he was fast asleep, looking like a fallen angel in her bed.