The Book of Illumination by Mary Ann Winkowski

opposite me and shrugged a funny shrug, a gesture that said,
Hey, I’m good
.
    “We’re, uh …we’re workingwith a fellow,” he said.
    “What kind of
fellow?”
    He gave me a look.
    “The kind I shouldn’t ask any questions about?”
    “Right you are. Lad’s been in and out of Cedar Junction for years. Real slick operator. Been at the art game, one way or another, all his life. Probably knows where the Gardner pieces are, or knows somebody who knows. Anyway, a month or two back, we caught him in a sting—bloody fool; he’d only been out of jail a few weeks. But I suppose he was broke.” Declan paused, obviously trying to figure out how little he could tell me. “For a certain … sum, he was able to procure a painting for one of our lads.”
    “Procure, as in
steal
?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “No, but he works with the guys that do. The painting was from a home out in Weston, real high-profile case, so he’s in a fairly tight spot right now. He’s looking at serious time, unless he—”
    “Cooperates?”
    Declan got up, took two mugs out of the cabinet, and placed one in front of me. He shook a pint of half-and-half and, determining that it was almost empty, located another in the back of the refrigerator. He poured my coffee and casually slipped a plate under my doughnut.
    “He’ll lend a hand. No choice, poor sod.”
    “That’s really great,” I said. “Thanks.”
    Declan nodded and had a sip of his coffee, black, the way he always takes it. I poured half-and-half into mine, swished it around, and had a sip.
    “We had some luck, too,” I said.
    “
Luck?”
He grinned. “Your opinion is that I was just lucky?”
    I ignored him. “The woman across the hall ran into a guy on Sylvia’s landing. He was just coming out of her place.”
    “No kidding.”
    “We got a description and everything.”
    Declan grabbed a pen from the table behind him and the sports section of the
Globe
from a chair. He jotted down the physical particulars I described, penning his notes on a full-page ad the
Globe
had taken out for itself in its own paper. He promised to pay a visit to Carlotta that afternoon, then sat back and sighed.
    “Well done,” he said.
    “Don’t act so surprised.”
    At last, I took a bite of my doughnut. It was heavenly. The volume of cream was generous to the point of obscenity, and only one thing would have made my pleasure more complete: not tohave Declan watching me eat it. Which might be the only time in my life I have ever thought,
God, I wish he wasn’t here
.
    I wiped my mouth. “Are you just going to watch me eat this?”
    “I thought I might.” He was deadpan.
    “Aren’t you having one?”
    “I’m watching my figure.”
    “I see.”
    From the volume of the hooting and squealing outside, where the kids were no doubt wreaking muddy havoc with the hose, I judged that my time alone with Declan would soon be ending. The wet, dirty, joyful hysteria we were overhearing couldn’t go on much longer without dissolving into a crisis of tears and bitter recriminations.
    The morning sun had thrown a wide swath of rainbow against the far wall. I glanced around, trying to locate a prism or a crystal that would have split the light that way, creating this glimpse of such fleeting and singular beauty, but I couldn’t. I pointed it out to Declan, and he smiled.

    Two hours later, I was sitting across from Sylvia at a cozy upstairs table in Café Algiers in Harvard Square. I had called to tell her of Declan’s progress as soon as I got home, and she answered immediately, as though she had been sitting by the phone. She’d finally been able to make contact with Sam. As we’d suspected, he’d been invited by all his British colleagues and friends at Harvard to join in the weekend’s festivities. He couldn’t get out of attending a morning lecture on the plays of Denis Johnston, several of whose original typescripts were among Lady Barnes’s gifts to Houghton Library, but he