A preliminary estimate of the loss was in excess of $400,000, an immense sum in those days. Experts suggested that the thieves surely had not stolen such items on speculation, because many were unique and all but impossible to fence. They must have had a client, a wealthy collector who wanted the pieces not for public display but for his private collection.
The assumption also had to be made that the crooks were closely tied with one or another anti-war organization. The protesters had descended on City College in a carefully coordinated surprise, but the bandits would have had to know about the event far enough ahead to scout the jade exhibition and to decide where to plant the bombs. They didn’t need to be planners of the demonstration, only privy to the secret schedule.
My initial impulse was to slip the newspaper into the middle of the trash in the kitchen waste can, bag the trash, and put it in the garbage can outside. If my mother saw the photograph of Miss Delvane looking like a supermodel, it could only hurt her. If she recognized Mr. Smaller in spite of his bandana, I couldn’t begin to imagine all the questions and speculations that might occur to her. Pretending to share her surprise and puzzlement, I would quickly come to a moment when she saw through my pretense, and all that I’d concealed from her might come tumbling out. The reasons for my secrecy had all seemed good and honorable at the time; but I didn’t have confidence that they would seem good and honorable—or entirely defensible—now.
If I ditched the Daily News, Grandpa Teddy would want to know what had happened to it, and I didn’t want to tell him it never came, didn’t want to start lying to him, as well. My grandfather had never seen Miss Delvane and perhaps he’d seen Mr. Smaller only once or twice, briefly and at a distance; he would recognize neither. My mother didn’t read the entire newspaper and often skipped stories involving violence, which depressed her.
I decided to trust my luck, let it to fate. I folded the paper, trying to make it appear untouched, and slipped it back into the thin plastic bag in which it had come when tossed into the front yard. I put it on the table beside my grandfather’s armchair.
Grandpa Teddy wasn’t playing in the hotel’s Deco dining room that night. It would be a long evening of suspense, waiting for my mother to chance upon the photograph. I decided to go to bed early and read a book, sort of hide out. Maybe if she discovered the photo when I wasn’t present, she would never mention it to me.
Anyway, the events of the day had worn me out. I would most likely fall asleep early, which was another way to hide.
58
Later, after dinner, Mom and Grandpa Teddy and I were clearing the dinette table when Amalia Pomerantz stopped by, sans Malcolm, with a proposal that I assumed my mother would reject after at most a half minute of consideration. Being seventeen and responsible, Amalia had for almost two years been taking the bus to other places in the city, safe places, to catch the matinee of a play, to explore a museum, to listen to a lecture, and that kind of thing. Her parents had no problem with her taking Malcolm along, and now that the geek saxophonist and I were becoming friends, she hoped that perhaps I would be allowed to join them on these expeditions.
Grandpa knew Amalia well and thought highly of her, trusted her to bring me back “unscratched and hardly tattered,” and he said as much to my mother, who looked dubious. I believe that what Amalia did then was without calculation, that she was merely being her sociable self when, as she talked entertainingly about a free folk concert in Riverside Commons that she’d seen two weeks earlier, she stoppered the kitchen sink, drew hot water, squirted liquid soap into it, and started to wash our dinner dishes. Pretty soon, as Amalia rinsed and racked the plates, my mother dried them, and they were talking and laughing as if they had known each other longer than I’d been alive.
By the time I headed to my bedroom and book, the issue had been settled. The following day, I would be going with Amalia and Malcolm to some fancy art museum to look at a bunch of paintings, which just the previous day would have made me want to barf; however, if Amalia thought it would be fun, all doubts I might have had were swept away.