36

Fred picked up some cold champagne and had it with him when he got in. Molly wasn’t home. He stuck the Heade, give or take a Vermeer, in Molly’s bedroom closet. He called Clay and reported their success, wincing at the graceful way Clayton accepted the inevitable.

“You see,” Clay told him, “it is as I thought. We budgeted sufficient money for the project.”

“I’ll bring it in now if you want,” Fred offered. “I imagine you’re anxious to have it in hand.”

Clayton said, “True, Fred, but I am gaining something from my period of enforced contemplation. With Proust’s assistance I have learned to relish anticipation. There is no hurry, Fred. No hurry at all.”

“I thought you’d want to test our theory,” Fred said.

“There will be time enough,” Clay replied.

Fred knew what the trouble was: Clayton had got cold feet. He’d hover on the edge of his great discovery (or disappointment) until Fred found a way to tip him in.

*   *   *

Fred had the kitchen clean when Molly appeared at the back door, carrying groceries and a bottle of champagne.

“Ha,” said Fred in greeting. “I beat you. Where are the children?”

“Ophelia called. She had a sudden attack of the aunts and wondered if she could take them out for supper, and to a Godzilla triple feature, and keep them overnight, and I said yes.”

They talked while Molly made Fred show her the Heade and then keep his promise to tell her everything. They opened her champagne first, and he poured, explaining his night with Smykal’s film.

“Poor boy,” Molly said. “Having to spend all night with naked female models. Are you going to show me the tape?”

“Come on,” Fred said, shocked and surprised. It wasn’t Molly’s kind of thing at all.

“Come on yourself,” Molly said. “I’ve seen people in their birthday suits before.”

They went back and forth on it until Molly said that if Fred didn’t stop protecting her, she was going to poke him with something sharp.

“I’m fooling, Fred,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it, okay? There’s nothing I’d rather spend my time not seeing. You are a Puritan at heart. Come sit beside me.”

She was on the couch. Fred went over.

They’d finished one bottle of champagne and started the second. Molly had thrown supper together while they were talking and got it set up in the living room.

“I feel bad for Russ, in a way,” Fred said, “even though he’s an awful kid, because he actually found the painting first. Smykal met him at Video King, told him he needed some advice getting started making videos, had him come over, and got him involved in the art photo scam. Russ saw the picture, figured out eventually what it was, and put the whole thing together, going through Finn, who was pimping, unwisely, for Mangan.

“In fact,” Fred went on, “Finn really had bought the painting. It was just his bad luck that Clay turned up when he did and Smykal started playing games.”

He stretched and yawned. He was tired. He hadn’t slept much.

“Now,” Fred said, “since we have the evening free, and since the kids won’t be home until morning, is there anything you’d like to do? I’ll give you a hint. I’m sleepy.”

“Go on to bed, then,” Molly said. “And don’t come looking to me for sex after all the dirty stories you’ve been telling me. I’ve had enough sex for one day.”

Fred started up the stairs. He could afford to be tired.

“Oh, honey?” he called.

“Yes?” Molly was in her kitchen cleaning up after their supper, like one of the Valkyries after a big feast.

“Clay gave me a bonus. I thought I’d put a bathroom in, with a good shower, in that room you call your dressing room, if you want. What do you think?”

“Sounds great,” Molly said. “Let’s talk about it later. I was thinking a study, but maybe a bathroom is better. It’s a lot of mess, but it’s a good idea. And a sweet idea, Fred. Thank you.”

She came out of the kitchen drying her hands and gave him a kiss. “That’s not sex,” she said. “Just a kind of hello.”

Fred went up, took off his shoes, and lay down on Molly’s bed.

Twenty-five thousand would buy a lot more than a bathroom—if you kept the bathroom simple. He could get a pool table for the guys in Charlestown.

Or, if Molly agreed, they could do the slow boat to China. No, he’d take them down the Nile at Christmas, Molly and the kids, on one of those excursion boats with the dancing girls. That would open the kids’ eyes.