Free Catalogue Raisonne by Mike Barnes Page B

Hammerites – Hammeroids, we also called ourselves – to imagine we were outclassed by Toronto, and then to make it true. Robert appeared to consider it judiciously. Where his sister was concerned, he seemed to gain a bit in focus and attention.
    â€œNo,” he puffed, “not in her case. Not exactly. I mean, it’s true she’s got a nasty temper, and half the time it gets directed at herself. Why, I don’t really know. But not about her art. She honestly believes she’s better than anyone she met at art school – which, entre nous , I think is a very moot point.”
    â€œWell then, entre nous” – Robert grinned yellowly at my imitation – “what’s the problem?”
    He was flitting now, fooling with his cigarette package and lighter. “She once said she had to decide how she was superior,” he muttered, not even listening to himself, clicking the Ronson top open and shut, “and then what to do about it.” The edge of his thumb caught the flint wheel, and he started at the spurt of blue flame. “Personally, I think she’s more than a little depressed.”

    â€œEn prise,” I said. Finally working in a knight to fork his rook and queen, though at a side risk to myself that I trusted Robert wouldn’t see. I was a terrible player too, it was pathetic how long this was taking me.
    Robert leaned over close to the board and stared at it intently for about twenty seconds, giving every impression of actually thinking about it, then said, “Einstein said he owed all of his most important insights to his thought experiments.”

    â€œDid he?” There was a thought experiment awaiting us on the board, but it was an unpleasant one.
    â€œHe said relativity occurred to him when he imagined the streetcar he was riding on travelling at the speed of light.”
    â€œThere must’ve been a little more to it than that.”
    â€œIndeed.” Robert mashed out his half-smoked cigarette and began the ritual retrieval and lighting of another. Thumbing the old gold Ronson. Settling into it. Settling down. “But one can’t underestimate the genesis of an idea. The seed.”
    â€œOkay. What do you want to sprout?”
    â€œYour go.”
    The chess game was over, though officially it might drag on forever.
    â€œI still like the idea of ripping off the gallery,” I said. It was painful, almost physically so, to think how far our brand of thought experiment diverged from Einstein’s.
    Robert puffed: Randy Quaid miscast in “Thief”. “And you still think security’s no obstacle?”
    â€œPlease. Didn’t you hear Hans?”
    He grinned. “My ears are still ringing.”
    â€œWell then. All of these security measures – such as they are – are designed to prevent an outside job. There’s nothing to stop someone inside from walking out with anything they want.”
    â€œYes, but it would be obvious who had taken it.” Robert tilted his head and then made one of those comments he made from time to time, which, even if it elaborated a point that didn’t need it, reminded you that he had a sharp mind and might yet get down to using it. He was twenty-two; there was time. “Suspicion is like a funnel,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many possibilities you stuff in the top, only a couple will fit through the hole at the bottom.”
    â€œExactly. So that’s why you do it on a Sunday. 5:05, right after closing. That gives you until Tuesday morning until anyone notices. If you pick one on the far side of a panel, and depending on who’s on the floor, maybe Tuesday afternoon. Even Wednesday. By then you’re in Buenos Aries. Or Bangkok, under Cleo Carlsson’s younger sister.”
    â€œChrist!”
    â€œAh. But remember?” He didn’t. Buenos Aries, or the sister, had
blotted it out. “Stealing a painting is