Thieves' Dozen

These last artworks, allegorical treatments of imaginary cityscapes, led to Gillie's appearance in several group shows. They also led to his parole (his having been turned down three previous times), and now his first solo show, in Soho's Waspail Gallery.

Dortmunder read through to the end, disbelieving but forced to believe. The New York Times; the newspaper with a record, right? So it had to be true.

"Thanks," he told the dry cleaner, and walked away, shaking his head.

Among the nymphs and ferns of Portobello, Three Finger Gillie looked like the creature that gives fairy tales their tension. A burly man with thick black hair that curled low on his forehead and lapped over his ears and collar, he also featured a single, wide block of black eyebrow like a weight holding his eyes down. These eyes were pale blue and squinty and not warm, and they

peered suspiciously out from both sides of a bumpy nose shaped like a baseball left out in the rain. The mouth, what there was of it, was thin and straight and without color. Dortmunder had never before seen this head above anything but prison denim, so it was a surprise to see it chunked down on top of a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and a maroon vinyl jacket with the zipper open. Dressed like this, Gillie mostly gave the impression he'd stolen his body from an off-duty cop.

Looking at him, seated there, with a fancy coffee cup in front of him-mocha cappuccino?-Dortmunder remembered that other surprise, from the newspaper, that Three Finger had another front name. Martin. Crossing the half-empty restaurant, weighing the alternatives, he came to the conclusion no. Not a Martin. This was still a Three Finger.

He didn't rise as Dortmunder approached, but patted his palm on the white marble table as if to say siddown. Dortmunder pulled out the delicate black wrought-iron chair, said, "You look the same, Three Finger," and sat.

"And yet," Three Finger said, "on the inside I'm all changed. You're the same as ever outside and in, aren't you?"

"Probably," Dortmunder agreed. "I read that thing in the paper."

"Ink," Three Finger reminded him, and smiled, showing the same old hard, gray, uneven teeth. "It's publicity, John," he said, "that runs the art world. It don't matter, you could be a genius, you could be Da Vinci, you don't know how to publicize yourself, forget it."

"I guess you must know, then," Dortmunder said.

"Well, not enough," Three Finger admitted. "The show's been open since last Thursday, a whole week. I'm only up three weeks, we got two red dots."

Dortmunder said, "Do that again," and here came the willowy waitress, wafting over with a menu that turned out to be eight pages of coffee. When Dortmunder found regular American, with cream and sugar-page five-she went away and Three Finger said, "Up, when I say I'm only up three weeks, I mean that's how long my show is, then they take my stuff down off the walls and put somebody else up. And when I say two red dots, the way they work it, when somebody buys a picture, they don't get to take it home right away, not till the show's over, so the gallery puts a red dot next to the name on the wall, everybody knows it's sold. In a week, I got two red dots."

"And that's not so good, huh?"

"I got 43 canvases up there, John," Three Finger said. "This racket is supposed to keep me out of jewelry stores after hours. I gotta have more than two red dots."

"Gee, I wish you well," Dortmunder said.

"Well, you can do better than that," Three Finger told him. "That's why I called you."

Here it comes, Dortmunder thought. He wants me to buy a painting. I never thought anybody I knew in the whole world would ever want me to buy a painting. How do I get out of this?

But what Three Finger said next was another surprise: "What you can do for me, you can rip me off."

"Ha-ha," Dortmunder said.

"No, listen to me, John," Three Finger said. Leaning close over the marble table, dangerously within arm's reach, lowering his voice and peering intensely out of those icy eyes, he said, "This world we're in, John, this is a world of irony."

Dortmunder had been lost since yesterday, when he'd read the piece in the newspaper, and nothing that was happening today was making him any more found. "Oh, yeah?" he said.

Three Finger lifted both hands above his head-Dortmunder flinched, but only a little-and made quotation signs. "Everything's in quotes," he said. "Everybody's taking a step back, looking the situation over, being cool."

"Uh-huh," Dortmunder said.

"Now, I got some ink," Three Finger went on. "I already got

some, but it isn't enough. The ex-con is an artist, this has some ironic interest in it, but what we got here, we got a situation where everybody's got some ironic interest in them, everybody's got some edge, some attitude. I gotta call attention to myself. More ironic than thou, you see what I mean?"

"Sure," Dortmunder lied.

"So, what if the ex-con artist gets robbed?" Three Finger wanted to know. "The gallery gets burgled, you see what I mean?"

"Not entirely," Dortmunder admitted.

"A burglary doesn't get into the papers," Three Finger pointed out. "A burglary isn't news. A burglary is just another fact of life, like a fender bender."

"Sure."

"But if you give it that ironic edge," Three Finger said, low and passionate, "then it's the edge that gets in the paper gets on TV That's what gets me on the talk shows. Not the ex-con turned artist, that isn't enough. Not some pe

"Maybe," Dortmunder allowed, but it was hard to think this way. Publicity was to him pretty much what fire was to the Scarecrow in Oz. There was no way that he could possibly look on public exposure as a good thing. But if that's where Three Finger was right now, reversing a lifetime of ingrained behavior, shifting from a skulk to a strut, fine.

However, that left one question, so Dortmunder asked it: "What's in it for me?"

Three Finger looked surprised. "The insurance money," he said.

"What, you get it and you split it with me?"

"No, no, art theft doesn't work like that." Three Finger reached into the inside pocket of his jacket-Dortmunder flinched, but barely-and brought out a business card. Sliding it across the marble table, he said, "This is the agent for the gallery's insurance company. The way it works, you go in, you grab as many as you want-leave the red dot ones alone, that's all I ask-then you call the agent, you dicker a fee to return the stuff. Somewhere between maybe 10 and 25 percent."

"And I just walk back in with these paintings," Dortmunder said, "and nobody arrests me."

"You don't walk back in," Three Finger told him. "Come on, John, you're a pro, that's why I called you. It's like a kidnapping, you do it the same way. You can figure that part out. The insurance company wants to pay you because they'd have to pay the gallery a whole lot more."

Dortmunder said, "And what's the split?"

"Nothing, John," Three Finger said. "The money's all yours. Don't worry, I'll make out. You hit that gallery in the next week, I get ink. Believe me, where I am now, ink is better than money."

"Then you're in some fu

"It's a lot better than where I used to be, John," Three Finger said.

Dortmunder picked up the business card and looked at it, and the willowy waitress brought him coffee in a round mauve cup the size of Elmira, so he put the card in his pocket. When she went away, he said, "I'll think about it." Because what else would he do?