“But who knows with crazy people? The thing is, they’re expecting us to do the impossible.”

“It’s not necessarily impossible,” I said. “Paintings walk out of museums all the time. In Italy museum theft is a whole industry, and even here you see something in the papers every couple of months. The Museum of Natural History seems to get hit every once in a while.”

“Then you think we can take it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then-”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I turned at the voice, and there was our artist friend, his ten cent lapel badge fastened to his thrift shop jacket, his yellow teeth bared in a fierce grin. We were once again standing in front of Composition with Color, and Turnquist’s eyes gleamed as he looked at the painting. “You can’t beat old Piet,” he said. “Sonofabitch could paint. Something, huh?”

“Something,” I agreed.

“Most of this is crap. Detritus, refuse. In a word, you should pardon the expression, shit. My apologies, madam.”

“It’s all right,” Carolyn assured him.

“The museum is the dustbin of the history of Art. Sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it? I made it up myself.”

“It has a ring to it.”

“Dustbin’s English for garbage can. English English, I mean to say. But the rest of this stuff, this is worse than garbage. Dreck, as some of my best friends would say.”

“Er.”

“Just a handful of good painters this century. Mondrian, of course. Picasso, maybe five percent of the time, when he wasn’t cocking around. But five percent of Picasso is plenty, huh?”

“Er.”

“Who else? Pollock. Frank Roth. Trossman. Clyfford Still. Darragh Park. Rothko, before he got so far down he forgot to use color. And others, a handful of others. But most of this-”

“Well,” I said.

“I know what you want to say. Who’s this old fart running off at the mouth? His jacket don’t even match his pants and he’s making judgments left and right, telling what’s Art and what’s garbage. That’s what you’re thinking, ain’t it?”