After a moment of silence, Kennedy threw the ball across the desk at Fletch.
Catching the ball, Fletch said, “Glunk.”
“Thought that would surprise you,” Kennedy said. “You see why I’m happy to talk to you this morning. A very strange circumstance indeed.”
“My, my. Who’d have thought it?”
“Aren’t people amazing? Well worth your collecting.”
“He wanted to become a monk?”
“Yes. So he said. A Roman Catholic monk. Spend the rest of his life reading Thomas Merton, or something. Matins and evensong. The whole bit.”
“He always wore black shoes.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Needless to say, we’ve had some staff meetings around here to discuss this whole Habeck business. No one has known what to think. Then, yesterday, when I was driving out to lunch, I heard on the car radio Habeck had been murdered. When he said last Wednesday that his life was over, he was more right than he knew.”
“If he wanted to give away five million dollars and go into the monastery, why didn’t he give the money to the monastery, or to the Church?”
“I asked him that. He said he was too old ever to fulfill a ministry. Furthermore, that he would have too much to learn. And, he wanted the peace and quiet of a monastery. He said he was tired of talking and arguing and pleading. Would you believe that?”
“So establishing a collection of religious art at the museum would do his public pleading for him?”
“I guess. He hoped such a collection would inspire religious feelings among contemporary people more than any sermons he could ever give, or ever wanted to give. If I understood him correctly.”
Fletch tossed the ball back to Kennedy in a high arc. “I don’t get it.”
“He said he’d have something more than a million dollars left over, and that money he would give to the monastery.”
“What about his wife? His kids? His grandchildren?”
“He didn’t mention them. Except to say no one cared a tin whistle for him. His words exactly.”
Kennedy tossed the baseball back to Fletch.
“The museum as church, uh?”
“A museum is partly a church. Maybe entirely a church.”
“So how did you leave it with him?”
“I was so startled, I suggested he think it over. I think I even dared suggest he talk it over with his wife, his children, his law partners.”
Fletch tossed the ball back in as high an arc as the room could take. “Curator as minister, eh?”
“Or shrink.” Kennedy caught the ball over the glass top of the desk. “And I told him we’d talk it over here. I indicated very strongly to him that I didn’t feel we could take his five million dollars with the restriction that it be spent solely on acquiring contemporary religious art. It wouldn’t be fair to him to accept money on conditions we couldn’t observe.” He tossed the ball back to Fletch. “If he could find some wording which would make the money available to us to use, with the understanding that we would acquire valid contemporary religious art when and if it becomes available, then maybe we could accept his money.”
Fletch arced the ball back at the curator. “And he, being a lawyer, was perfectly sure that he could develop such wording.”
“Probably. The story of his murder I read on the front page of your newspaper this morning said he intended to see your publisher regarding the announcement that he was giving five million dollars to something in the city.”
“The museum was what was mentioned to me.”
“Did you write that piece in this morning’s paper?”
“No. Biff Wilson.”
Kennedy tossed the ball into his glove. “It was a good piece.”
“It was okay,” Fletch said. “For an obituary.”
In the very small reception room of the Ben Franklyn Friend Service, the young-middle-aged, distinguished- looking woman gave Fletch the once-over from behind her small wooden desk.
“If you take your left here at the corner,” she said, pointing a manicured hand, “and left again in the middle of the block, you’ll find yourself in the alley.”
“Ecstatic!”
“Our delivery door is about halfway down, on the left.” Over her pink sweatsuit she wore a long rope of pearls. “The door is clearly marked.”
“Pure ecstasy!”
The woman frowned. “You are making a delivery, aren’t you?” She looked more the type to be sitting at a checkout desk in a public library.
“What am I delivering?” Fletch asked.
“Linens. Towels.”
“Me.”
“You?”
“Me. In all my parts. Head, shoulder, hips, and knee joints, right down to the ankles. And everything in between.” Fletch swallowed hard.
“Do you have an appointment?” She opened a desk calendar. “You’re just not the sort…”
“Sort of what?”
Her eyes confirmed that he was wearing a T-shirt, faded jeans, and very white, new sneakers. “… the sort we usually see.”
“I was welcomed by the museum dressed this way.”
“Your name?”
“Jaffe.”
“Ah, yes: Fletcher Jaffe.” She made a pencil check in the IN box beside his name.
“You’ve heard the name before?”
“We don’t pay that much attention to names.”
“Jaffe is a name to which you should pay attention.”
“That will be one hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Good! I’ll pay it!” He dropped seven twenties and a ten on the desk. “Make sure I get a receipt.”
She looked quizzically at him. “Our clients don’t usually ask for receipts.”
“I do.”
“I’ll make out a receipt for you before you leave.”
“Why not now?”
“Well, you might want to add on some extras.”
“Extra whats?”
The woman seemed embarrassed. “Tips. Whatever.”
“I see.”
“You’re not married, are you?”
Fletch shook his head. “No, ma’am. No one goes through my pockets.”
“Diseases?” Her eyes enlarged as she looked at him. “Are you willing to swear you have no diseases?”
“This place is harder to get into than a New England prep school.”
“I asked you about diseases.”
“Chicken pox.”
“Chicken pox!”
