Black Cat Weekly #17

SHANKS GETS MUGGED, by Robert Lopresti-1

SHANKS GETS MUGGED,

by Robert Lopresti

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

short stories authors and editors in the mystery

field, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

Someone was shining a bright light in Leopold Longshanks’s eyes and asking him foolish questions.

“Who’s the president, sir?”

“Millard Fillmore.”

The paramedic lowered his flashlight, the better to stare at him. “Who?”

Shanks sighed. A dark street in downtown Madison was no place for a quiz on American history. “Look, I know the president, and what city we’re in, and even the day of the week. I lost my wallet, not my wits.”

“This is just standard procedure, Mr. Longshanks. When we find a man lying in the gutter—”

“He knocked me down, that’s all. I would have stood up as soon as I caught my breath.”

“Especially a man of your age—”

Shanks made a face, which made his head hurt more. “What does my age have to do with it? A man turns fifty and suddenly it’s as if he’s from an alien species. I start getting these magazines I never subscribed to, and offers to take discounts, like I’m a charity case—”

“Sir? Are you sure we can’t give you a ride to the hospital?”

“Just give me a lift home. And you—” he said to the policeman who stood nearby, looking bored. “Remember that description I gave you. Especially the sneakers. White high-tops with two wolves on the side—”

“Dos Lobos,” said the cop. “Very popular among gang members this year. Must be a thousand pairs in this county alone.”

“But how many of them have green and red paint spatters all over them? My God, did you even write that down?”

And then Cora’s car came speeding up. She had been dragged away from her bridge game by a terrifying phone call from the paramedics. He was sure to hear about that later. “Shanks, are you all right? They said your head was bashed in!”

“Slight exaggeration, my dear. The mugger knocked me down, and I banged my head. I’m fine now.”

“He really should go to the hospital,” the paramedic told her.

“He won’t,” Cora assured him.

“Damned right,” said Shanks.

“Hospitals terrify him.”

“Now wait a minute!”

“I’m taking you home right now,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What were you doing downtown at this hour anyway?”

“Going for a walk to plot out a book. Which used to be safe in this town, even after dark.”

“These aren’t the good old days, darling. You should know better. A man of your age…”

“I wish people would stop saying that. At my age a writer is just reaching his creative peak.”

“Get in the car, Shanks. We have to go home and start making phone calls.”

“Phone calls?” He stared at her. “I get mugged and you want to alert the media?”

Cora shook her head irritably as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “He took your wallet, right? That means we have to cancel our credit cards and probably half a dozen other things they can figure out from the dozens of receipts and checks you usually carry around in that thing.”

She was right, of course. Which gave him something else to be mad about.

* * * *

Shanks spent the entire next day wrestling with the paperwork that accompanied a mugging. Talk about adding insult to injury. Going to the DMV for a new driver’s license was just one of the pleasures.

Then Cora made him go to his doctor, “just to make sure.”

Dr. Krebs was unimpressed by the lump on his head. “It’s the lump in your gut you ought to be worrying about, Shanks. You need to exercise and lose some weight. A man of your age…”

* * * *

By the day after that, things had returned to relatively normal and Shanks could get back to work. The only problem with that plan was that his latest novel idea had curled up and died in his hands. Worse, this was the third time in a row that had happened. And this left him with nothing to do but sit in his home office and brood.

He called the cops, mostly to confirm what he already knew: investigating a mugging without injury was so low on their to-do list that nothing short of the perpetrator strolling into the police station with a signed confession was likely to get their attention.

And then, back to brooding. It wasn’t the money, damn it. It wasn’t even the inconvenience of replacing credit cards and so on. It was the principle.

The kid had pointed a knife at him and demanded his wallet. No, let’s be honest. He had said, “Give me your wallet, old man.” And that stung too.

Shanks scowled at the computer screen, where his next novel didn’t seem to be developing.

All right, he thought. If you can’t write just now, what else can you do?

* * * *

“You know,” he told Cora at dinner that night, “I’ve been thinking, and I decided you’re right.”

She stared at him. “Well, let me get a pencil.”

“What for?”

“I want to mark this day on the calendar. Celebrate it every year.”

“Very funny.”

“So, what exactly am I right about?”

“You were complaining that there isn’t room in this house for two novelists. We keep bumping into each other, interrupting when we’re on the phone, and so on.”

Cora frowned. “I vaguely remember saying something like that a few months ago, back when you were thinking of writing a novel about an opera singer and insisted on blasting the stereo at full volume for inspiration. And now you decide I was right?”

“Your wisdom takes time to absorb.”

“No doubt. So, who’s moving out?”

“I thought I’d try renting a little office, maybe over in Morristown. Just for a few months, to give it a try. What do you say?”

His wife looked thoughtful. “Why not?”

“Really?” He had expected more resistance.

“Sure.” She smiled sweetly. “The change might be good for you.”

Ah. Cora thought he was trying a new way to break out of his writing slump. Well, fine. That was a lot easier than explaining what he really had in mind.

* * * *

Back when Shanks was younger and foolish enough to take advice from a brother-in-law, Cora’s brother Bob had convinced him to set himself up as a business. This was supposed to have tax advantages once Hollywood started buying Shanks’s books and pouring down a flood of money. Hollywood cash continued to be somewhere between a drought and a light mist, but he still had the paperwork for a company name.

He used that name to sign up for a small second-floor office in Morristown, a few miles from home. The landlord supplied a desk and a couple of chairs, so all that he needed to bring from home was his computer and a file cabinet.

Then came the important part: decorating. Before Cora morphed into a novelist, she had run an art gallery for a while, and she still had an extra room full of paintings she had purchased from starving artists—most of whom deserved starvation in Shanks’s opinion. With her permission he took some of the more bizarre paintings to his new office. Then he picked up some art magazines at the newsstand.

And finally he wrote an ad to go in the local newspaper:

FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR REWARD

To the owner of a pair of

White high-top Dos Lobos sneakers

Spattered with paint

Seen in Morris County on April 3.

April third had been the day before the mugging. The ad ended with his company name and the office phone number.

The ad appeared on Sunday. On Monday the phone calls started. As Shanks expected he received calls from a number of people who would be happy to paint their sneakers any color he wanted in return for five large, and most of them were quite irritated that that didn’t feed the bulldog.

One pilgrim seemed determined to call back with every possible combination of colors until he hit on the winner, so Shanks had to pull out his back-up ploy. “Where in Morris County would those sneakers have been seen on April third?”

Uh. The caller had no idea what the right answer was.

Shanks didn’t know either; it was a bluff. But it successfully chased off a few phonies.

On Tuesday morning a woman called. Her voice was young and hesitant. She said her name was Brook. “Why do you want to know about those sneakers?”

This was promising. If he had been writing the scene, that was just the sort of dialogue he would have created. “It’s for an art project,” he explained. “But let’s make sure we’re discussing the right sneakers. What color is the paint?”

“Red and green. What sort of art project?”

“It’s too complicated to explain on the phone. Why don’t you bring them in and we’ll discuss it?”

“They’re not mine. Don’t you know whether it was a man or woman who was wearing them?”

“Sorry. I assumed you were calling for boyfriend or a relative. He can come in too.”

* * * *

Shanks had considered the possibility that the mugger might recognize him, but he concluded it was unlikely. On the mean streets of Madison he had been wearing a raincoat and a soft hat, and the mugger had only seen him for a few seconds under a streetlight. Granted, the bad guy could have spent many happy hours memorizing the picture on Shanks’s driver’s license, but why would he bother? Shanks had decided to introduce himself as Mr. Lipton, the name of the previous office tenant, which was still visible on the door.

On the other hand, Shanks was pretty sure he would recognize the mugger. And the man who came in with the girl named Brook was definitely not him. Paul, as he introduced himself, was the right age, early twenties, but too thin and short, and his greasy hair was too long and light.

He was wearing Dos Lobos sneakers, but they were black high-tops, with nary a paint drip in sight.

It was hard for Shanks to guess Brook’s age. She might have been eighteen but had added a few years to her appearance with makeup and perhaps through hard living.

“You serious about the five hundred bucks?” Paul asked.

“For the right pair of sneakers. Have a seat. Can I get you a coffee? Tea?”

Paul shook his head. Brook, sounding rather surprised with herself, asked for a tea.

“You see,” said Shanks. “I’m an agent for a number of artists.” He gestured at the strange spangled and shiny canvases on the walls. “I put that ad in at the request of a client of mine who wants to remain anonymous for now. He is an artist, a really talented fellow, who works mostly with conceptual and performance art. Are you familiar with the genre?”

His guests shook their heads. Paul was frowning; Brook was wide-eyed.

“Well, you can read about it some of these magazines.” He pointed to a few issues he had spread open on the table. They featured articles about one budding genius who shaved his head and sold the bag full of hair for $10,000, and another who simply stood in front of an empty gallery and shouted obscenities at people who came to see the art.

Shanks figured that compared to those alleged Rembrandts the project he was about to describe would seem like Norman Rockwell.

“This is art?” asked Paul, showing better taste than Shanks would have given him credit for.

He laughed. “The people who pay for it seem to think so. Now, it happens that my client fell in love on April third, and he decided to make an art project out of everything related to that experience. He has kept the clothes he was wearing, and that his new sweetheart was wearing, and the menu from the restaurant—”

“And that’s art?” Paul repeated.

“I think it’s sweet,” said Brook.

Shanks smiled at her approvingly. “Well, it happens that one of the first things my client and his new love chatted about was a pair of sneakers they had both noticed. So, naturally he wants to add them to the assemblage.”

“And he’s going to sell this stuff?” said Paul skeptically.