Stone Quarry

'I took a case.'

'Up there?' Now, surprise. 'I thought you—'

'It's a long story,' I said, even though as I said it I realized it wasn't; or at least, not the way that's usually meant. 'I got a call from someone up here; that's why I came up. Can you work on it?'

'Um, sure.' Her tone told me she wanted to ask more, maybe hear the long story, but she answered the question I'd asked. 'What do you need?'

I told her about the burglary, what was stolen. I didn't say from whom. She whistled low. 'Six Eva Nouvels? My god, they must be worth a fortune.'

'Maybe two million, together,' I agreed. 'Could be more: they're unknown, uncatalogued.'

'How unknown?'

'The client says completely. I don't know. But right now I'm not thinking anyone came looking for them. It was probably just a break-in, kids. They may even have junked the paintings by now, just kept the stuff that looked valuable to them.'

'That's a cheerful thought.'

'I'm going to try some other things, but if nothing turns up it may be worth a trip to the county dump. But just in case, I want you to look around down there. I don't think anyone will try to sell those paintings in New York; they'd ship them out to Europe, maybe Japan. If that's happening I want to stop them.'

'What were they doing in a storeroom? Six paintings that valuable?'

' That's where the client kept them.'

'Okay, funny guy. And who's the client?'

' I can't tell you.'

She skipped half a beat. 'You can't tell me?'

'Now,' I said. 'From here. Over the phone.'

'Oh.' That single word held a dubious note, as though my explanation was logical but not convincing. 'Are there other things you're not telling me?'

'Yes,' I said. 'But when I tell them to you, you hang up on me.'

'For which not a woman in America could blame me. What do I do if I find a trail? Are the police in on this?'

'No, and that's important. I don't want anyone who doesn't know these paintings exist to find out from us.'

'Top-secret paintings stuck in a storeroom by a top- secret client in the middle of nowhere. And I thought it was all trees and cows and guys who shoot at Bambi up there. Silly me.'

'I'll call you later,' I told her. 'If anything turns up, you can try the cell phone, but you might not get through up here.'

'I'm surprised you even took it with you.'

'You told me I had to carry one. I always do what you tell me.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Uh-huh. Well, anyway, if you can't get through, try this number.' I gave her the number of the phone I was at. 'Ask for Tony. Leave a time and a place I can call you. Hey, and Lydia?'

'Yes?'

'Tell your mother I'm a nice guy.'

'I never lie to my mother. Talk to you later.'

She hung up. I took out another quarter, dialed Obermeyer's garage—the number was carved into the wood- work—and asked for Jimmy. A voice muffled by food told me he hadn't come in yet. 'You got a problem?'

'Lots,' I answered. 'If you see him, tell him Bill Smith is looking for him, okay?'

'Sure.' The voice slurped a drink, went on. 'If you see him, tell him I'm all backed up here, and where the hell is he?'

'Sure.'

There were loud crunching sounds. I hung up.

The vinyl-covered phone book was chained to the shelf under the phone. I flipped it open to the Yellow Pages in the back, found Antique Shops, pages of them. Schoharie was studded with these places. Most of them were no more than someone's front room or disused garage, where chipped china and molding books shared space with broken-legged tables and chairs with torn upholstery. But a few shops were bigger or more choosy about their merchandise. It was still possible to come across the kind of finds up here that had long since vanished from areas closer to the city or more attractive to tourists. The past was one of the few things people up here had to sell.

Jimmy could have pointed me in the right direction.

He'd have protested innocence, or maybe with me he wouldn't have bothered; but he'd know where to find a fence for the sort of things Eve Colgate had lost. Without him it was a crapshoot, so I fed quarters into the phone and started from A. With everyone who answered I used the same line. A teapot, I said I needed, describing vaguely a silver teapot Eve Colgate had described to me in great detail. For my wife, I said, for our anniversary. She liked that kind of thing, I didn't know anything about it, myself.

At the end of half an hour I had four promising places, all within an hour's drive of Eve Colgate's farm.

I brought my empty glass back to Tony at the bar. The T-shirts were gone; the place was empty.