"No."

"On the other hand, several of our members have been murdered, and there have been other deaths that could conceivably have been murder, although the authorities didn't classify them as such. I mentioned Alan Watson, stabbed in a mugging."

"And the fellow inChelsea who was killed by a sexual partner," I said, and scanned my memory for the name. "Carl Uhl?"

"That's right. And then of course there was Boyd Shipton."

"Boyd Shipton the painter?"

"Yes."

"He was a member of your club?"

He nodded. "At our initial meeting he said that the most interesting fact he could tell us about himself was that he'd painted a wall of his apartment to look like exposed brick. He was a trainee on Wall Street at the time, and he made it sound as though painting was just a pastime for him. Later, after he'd quit his job and made his first gallery connection, he admitted he'd been afraid to let on just how important it was to him."

"He became very successful."

"Extremely successful, with an oceanfront house inEast Hampton and a state-of-the-art loft in Tribeca. You know, I've often wondered what became of that faux-brick wall Boyd painted. He slapped a couple of coats of flat white wall paint on it before he moved, so that the landlord wouldn't have a fit. Well, whoever's living there now has an original Boyd Shipton trompe-l'oeil mural under God knows how many layers of Dutch Boy latex. I suppose it could be restored, if anyone knew where to look for it."

"I remember when he was killed," I said. "Five years ago, wasn't it?"

"Six in October. He and his wife had come into the city for a friend's opening and went out to dinner afterward. When they returned to their loft downtown they evidently walked in on a burglary in progress."