Mystery on Museum Mile Page 5

  “What about a Taser?” I said after he shot down the sharp blades idea. “Don’t I need protection?” I tried to persuade him with a hopeful and winning smile. A smile that even my mom can’t say no to.

  Detective Bovano is not my mother.

  He started to laugh, jowls shaking like Jell-O. “I’m gonna give an eleven-year-old a piece? That’s funny. That’s hilarious. No way, kid. You’re a tourist. An artist. You’re in, you observe, you’re out. You watch them, we’ll watch you. It’s that simple.”

  End of discussion.

  So they gave me an iPod. Except it isn’t for music. I’m plugged in like I’m listening to a song, but there’s no music and the screen is blank. Its face actually contains a camera and a tiny microphone, recording me and my surroundings while I do my thing. An ear bud sits in my ear in case I need instructions. And every twenty minutes I’m supposed to whisper “All clear” into my sleeve, but pretend to be wiping my nose or scratching my chin.

  The police are parked in a van just outside the museum, monitoring everything.

  The iPod is more like an “i-Pod-I-see-you,” or in text messaging, “iPod-I-C-U.” I’ve decided to call it an IPODICU, pronounced iPod-eh-Q. I’m going to work on patenting the name. Detective Bovano was not impressed when I mentioned it to him on the car ride over, throwing a scowl and a grumble my way. I think he’s warming to me.

  They send me to Museum Mile.

  Also known as Fifth Avenue, it’s the chunk of road that runs along Central Park East. It doesn’t seem like anything special as you approach: gray buildings mirroring the grassy hills of the park, a busy New York street like any other. Suddenly you stumble onto the steps of the enormous Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then the Guggenheim. The Frick (not a swear word, but a European art museum). The Whitney. World-famous giants on their own, together they are an impressive collection. Housing around eleven museums total, Museum Mile is an art lover’s dream. And a thief’s.

  The museums have state-of-the-art security systems, complete with thermal monitoring, recorded surveillance, and facial recognition software. But Bovano said the computers keep making false positives, errors that are costly and time-consuming. And the thieves we’re hunting are known to drastically change their appearances with high-tech disguises and even plastic surgery. Which is where I come in.

  Because of my photographic memory, I’m kind of like a supercomputer, a human data system that can reason and think, as well as churn through information at top speed. The cops believe I’ll be able to see through a clever disguise, to look beyond a shortened nose or a new jaw line, compare the face to a photo in my mind, and see the perp for who he or she really is.

  Let’s hope they’re right.

  I’m at the Met today and although it’s just a practice run, I’m nervous, I’ll admit it. The police have planted a few cops in disguise from the precinct— I’ve already seen a guy from Narcotics stroll by in a fake beard—but there’s so much going on that I’m having a hard time concentrating.

  I have an art canvas propped up on an easel, and I’m trying to copy a painting by Monet that’s hanging up on the other side of the room. I dab pinks and blues onto the sheet every few minutes, but I’m not truly focusing because I’m busy surveying the room. I only need to seem like I’m an art student. I have a tray of special pastel crayons because they don’t let people use real paint inside the museum. Pastels are not my favorite drawing tool. I need some charcoal.

  Every once in a while Detective Bovano’s face appears on the IPODICU screen, his voice filling my ear, spluttering away and hissing instructions, which causes me to startle and drop my crayons. The museum guard is not too keen on that mess, believe me.

  Maybe I’m overthinking it, but right now I wish I had Jonah’s brain, because something tells me he’d be much more organized about the whole thing.

  My father is not helping matters.

  He’s my chaperone, but somehow I’m the one worried about him. He’s supposed to keep a low profile, but instead looks like a tourist who escaped from an asylum, decked out in ridiculous garb including a Statue of Liberty foam crown and a large camera that hangs from his neck, partially covering his pink (yes, pink!) T-shirt that says I ❤ NEW YORK. I vow to draw a picture of him when I get home, to show my mother what I’m up against.

  I try to ignore him. It’s not easy. He is sitting on a bench by some impressionist paintings and suddenly gets a case of the giggles. His laughter starts low and rumbling as he hides his face in his hands. Quickly it escalates into loud chuckles that make his belly/camera/pink shirt jiggle and his crown fall off. He’s a disaster among masterpieces from the nineteenth century.

  And now I am laughing and I just dropped my stupid pastels again and this is simply not working. I walk over to the Monet to pretend to inspect it, mostly so I can compose myself. Leave it to my dad to mess up my first job. The painting is soothing: light-colored streaks of blues, greens, and pinks, water and sky that blend into each other’s reflections.

  When I turn back, my canvas is gone. Dad’s wiping tears from his eyes from laughing so hard, but stops when he sees my confusion. His gaze shifts to the empty spot where the canvas is supposed to be. What just happened?

  Bovano’s disgusted face comes into view on the IPODICU:

  “I think we’re done for today. I’ll expect your sketches by tomorrow.”

  I walk back to pack up my stuff, sans canvas. I think someone just stole my artwork not ten feet from where I had my back turned. Some police detective I am.

  “Sorry, son,” Dad says as we head for the museum exit. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this police . . . er . . . tourist work.” His eyes dart around to see if anyone has overheard, as if the second he says the word police, men with machine guns are going to drop from the ceiling. No one is within fifty feet of us.

  “You see? I’ve blown our cover already!” he says.

  “We’re all right, Dad.” I grab his arm to drag him out of there. It’s like pulling a marble statue. He’s not going to move until he decides to move. Which he finally does.

  The sketches that Bovano wants are of the cops in disguise that I saw stroll by today. Five in all. I draw until ten p.m., then climb into bed, pretty pleased with my stack of pictures. Not that Bovano will actually thank me or compliment me on a job well done. After what happened with the stolen canvas and the giggling dad, I’m sure he’ll have about fifty negative things to say about my performance. And my father’s as well.

  Chapter 12

  Assignment

  February 1

  New topic in art class this week: the self-portrait. Every artist in the history of mankind has done one. Even kindergartners do them. There are millions out there. Faces upon faces, the painter using the model that is most available: himself.

  We’re set up at large tables in the classroom, each with our own eight-by-eleven-inch mirror. A sketchpad and charcoal lie neatly in front of me. Given my current police job, this should be easy.

  “Do my tonsils look big?” Jonah asks, studying his mouth in the mirror. Tap, tappity, tap, tap. His fingers drum on the wooden surface between us. He leans over to look into my mirror, as if anything’s going to be different, and sticks his tongue out like he’s at the doctor’s office. “Ahhhh.” His breath smells like turkey and mustard.

  “Jonah. Personal space.” I shove him over to his side of the table for the millionth time and grab my mirror, turning my back to him and scooting my chair to the corner of the desk, hopefully out of his reach. Okay, time to sketch. The only thing I see is my enormous glasses. Not so much a self-portrait as a picture of dorkiness. I take them off, squinting at my reflection. Do I have my mother’s eyes? Hard to say from my severely nearsighted perspective. They’re either buried behind the eyewear or scrunched into slits as I squint to draw them properly.

  The rest is pretty straightforward: a small nose, full mouth, decently smooth skin although who knows what will happen there when puberty hits, and rou
ndish cheeks. No startling Egyptian cheekbones for me. My smile is my best feature, or so I’m told, which ironically I get from my dad. Straight teeth and a wide grin. Maybe I’ll grow a mustache like him later in life. He did attract my mother, after all.

  I decide to do the portrait smiling. I need all the help I can get.

  An eerie feeling sweeps goose bumps across my neck. I realize Jonah’s stopped moving. I put my glasses on and glance back at him in alarm, wondering if he’s gone into some sort of spastic shock, his brain circuits finally fried. He’s watching me with a studious expression. Then he glances around the room to make sure no one’s listening.

  “How’s it going?” he whispers, his blue eyes loaded with meaning. Asking about the case. He’s so still, so quiet, that I’m tempted to snap a picture of him on my cell phone to show my parents. See, Mom? He can be calm when he needs to be.

  I shrug. “The same. No information yet.”

  “You’ll tell me as soon as you know something, right? We have to solve this. You have to come back to Senate next year.”

  I smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.” My voice is strained with forced cheer. We have no information, nothing to help solve the case. I don’t even know what the case is. Pathetic.

  His answering smile is small and sad. I told him last week about how my dad lost his job and now my parents can’t afford the school. Worst conversation ever.

  “We’ll solve it,” he agrees. The tapping starts up again. He clears his throat and pulls my mirror into his work area. “Ahhhhh,” he says, fogging up the glass. “Are you sure you don’t see anything white in my throat? I’m noting some pus in the back left corner. And the tonsils are definitely swollen.”

  I snatch the mirror from him and remove my glasses, studying my face once more. I position my hand over the paper, ready to draw.

  “Hey, why do you keep taking your glasses off?” he asks. “You’re blind as a bat. You can’t draw without them, Edmund. And your glasses are a part of you. It has to be an accurate self-portrait. I’m going to draw my tonsils. Very art nouveau. Are you even listening to me? Edmund! Edmund!”

  I roll my eyes and ignore him, but inside I’m relieved. Things are back to normal. At least for today.

  February 2

  In the end my mother gets the chaperone job.

  She has decided that she can read the paper and do Internet business from her iPad on a museum bench while keeping an eye on me, thereby assuring that no one kidnaps me or sets me on fire or whatever other scary scenario is playing out in her mom brain. Plus she likes being in art museums, and my dad needs to start his job search. It’s a win-win.

  We aren’t going to tell her about the stolen canvas, because she would freak out and make me quit. I reviewed the museum tape with Bovano; it appears that some random guy just lifted the canvas and left. The police have decided that it’s unimportant and we should just carry on, business as usual.

  Detective Bovano is in love with my mother, of course.

  “Call me Frank,” he says when they first meet at the station.

  Frank? Are you kidding me? Even my dad calls him Detective Bovano.

  “Nice to meet you, Frank.” She smiles at him as he shakes her hand for waaay too long. I’m telling you, the woman casts a spell on everyone she meets. Even Jonah is gaga for her, which is just plain gross and clearly against the code of the best friend.

  Bovano muscles me into his office by the arm, leaving my mother out in the main area with a cup of tea that he personally fetched for her. I resist rolling my eyes.

  “You passed the practice run,” he says as he deposits me in the chair in front of his desk. “I have your assignment.” He circles the desk and rummages through one of the drawers.

  This is it: my assignment! Will he give me folders to read through, or even boxes of all the notes he’s made from the past few years of working on the case? I can barely sit still.

  He pulls out a small scrap of paper and hands it to me.

  “This is it?” I don’t mask the annoyance in my tone. The man is infuriating. This entire situation stinks like a bad pastrami sub with rotten cheese.

  He gives me a curt nod. “That’s it.”

  I stare at the bleak paragraph, my supposed “debriefing,” a minuscule blurb that could have been written by a third-grader:

  We are looking for a group of suspected art thieves. They have a leader, a blond man. He and the others have been difficult to catch on surveillance. You need to identify these men, and anyone else suspicious who catches your attention.

  “But there’s no information here,” I say, stating the obvious.

  He answers me with a sneer. “What, you expect me to hand you over the files? Give you the keys to the office? That’s all the detail you need,” he says, gesturing to the paper in my hand. “Plus these pictures.”

  He whips out three photos, one of a bald guy who I imagine is the man my father met in the alley, one of a blond man with a trimmed beard, and one of an older man with crazy fluffed-out hair. Bovano holds up the pictures for a split second, then plunks them into a drawer.

  “Detective, wait, I—”

  “Did you see the photos? Did they pass through your field of vision? Yes? Then they’re in your brain. According to you.”

  It’s a direct challenge. Why does this man loathe me so much? I nod glumly. They’re in there. But I didn’t catch the names. Bovano covered up the writing in the lower left-hand corner with his thumb. On purpose, no doubt. “You know this man, of course,” he says, pulling out the picture I drew of the guy with the knife. The one my dad calls Marco.

  “Yes,” I mutter.

  “All right, then,” Bovano says, standing up. “Those are the most recent pictures we have of the suspects. Your job is to find them. We start tomorrow. Be ready.”

  I glance over my shoulder as he ushers me out of the office, focusing on the bulletin board behind his desk where the real materials dangle. Names, city maps, possible crime sites . . .

  I go home and draw the three men that he showed me, staring at their faces as if they’ll speak to me from the page and give me the answers I’m looking for. I need more to go on. How am I supposed to solve this case if I don’t have any details?

  Chapter 13

  February Blues

  February

  For the next few weeks, they send me to two places: the Neue Galerie and the Jewish Museum, both on Museum Mile. Three, sometimes four times a week, back to the same rooms next to the same stuff.

  The Jewish Museum, the Neue.

  The Neue, the Jewish Museum.

  The Neue (pronounced noy-ya) is a collection of Austrian and German art housed in an enormous old mansion with winding staircases. It has a maze of rooms on three separate floors, some filled with famous paintings, some with traveling exhibits, and some with wall-to-wall crystal dishes and vases. The police keep positioning me in the crystal rooms, forcing me to draw goblet upon goblet, which makes my head want to explode. I’m a faces guy, not a dishware artist. Who stands in a kitchen and sketches cups for hours a week? Apparently I do.

  The Jewish Museum isn’t much better. As the name suggests, it houses All Things Jewish, and although there are interesting paintings and neat exhibits (Curious George, Houdini . . . a lot of cool Jews out there) I am stuck in the collectibles room, where people send in their antiques and everybody oohs and aahs. Menorahs are more interesting to draw, with their swooping lines and intricate ornamentation, but after the fiftieth one, I’m losing my mind.

  Jonah thinks it’s a riot and claims I’ll be more Jewish than he is by the end of the month.

  I am baffled as to what the police are doing. All this time and money to spy on furniture? Who’s going to steal this stuff? I know I sound like my dad, but I’m beginning to believe that the taxpayers’ money is being wasted. And honestly, between you and me, who cares? You want the cup? Take it. There are a lot more out there.

  I hate to say it, but this is turnin
g into the most boring job ever. Not that I have much to compare it to since it’s my only job ever. The clock is ticking, I haven’t seen any action, and I’m sick of drawing faces, cups, and menorahs, which stinks because I used to love drawing. I added up the hours I’ve worked so far, multiplied it by minimum wage, and came up with $326.25. I think Senate costs a little bit more.

  To top it off, school is tedious because the snow is brown and hard outside and it’s way too cold to go out and attempt to kick a ball or shoot hoops. We’d break our ankles on the ice or get frostbite from the wind for sure. So instead we’re trapped inside doing puzzles or reading comics while Jonah slowly drives us insane by motoring his mouth at mach ten. That kid needs to be run outside like a colt.

  February 26

  Speaking of Jonah, he calls on Saturday night. I press pause on the DVD player and pick up the phone. “Hey,” I say.

  “I’m bored,” he says. “What are you doing?”

  I sigh and stretch my neck. I’ve been sitting in the same position for hours. “The usual.”

  Bovano came up with the brilliant idea of having me watch surveillance recordings of the museums, specifically times when there are extra big crowds and thieves might be hiding in the masses. So now I get to watch black-and-white footage of the cups and menorahs from the comfort of my own living room. It’s as fun as it sounds.

  “Can I come over?” he asks. “Maybe I could help.”

  “Uh . . .” He’ll be way too distracting. As it is, I can hear a weird hollow noise in the background, like he’s tapping on a bass drum with a pencil. His parents bought him a drum set two years ago to “channel his energy.” They’ve both developed nervous twitches ever since, and startle at loud noises like bomb survivors.