“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.”