“Big purse,” Tilda said, holding it up. “Is Betty a ditz because I was such a mess in the closet?”

“You were not a mess in the closet,” Davy said. “You were Vilma in the closet. If I need somebody to jump my bones, I’ll call you Vilma. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to come up this afternoon. If I call you Betty and say we’ve been together a year, you put a hundred-dollar bill in the mark’s hand and then you look for a second hundred.”

“The mark?”

“Pay attention,” Davy said sternly. “If I say we’ve been together one year…”

“I put a hundred in the mark’s hand and then start digging for a second hundred,” Tilda said.

“Right, if I say we’ve been together for two years…”

“I give her two hundred,” Tilda said.

“Good girl.”

“Why?”

“Because once she has the money in her hand, it’s going to be really hard to give it back. If you hand it over while you’re looking for the second bill, she’ll take it automatically and we’ll have her.”

“We can’t just offer her the money?”

“Yes,” Davy said. “We can. That’s what I will do. If that doesn’t work, you come up.”

“Okay.” Tilda looked a little uneasy. “One. Betty. Ditz. Money.”

“Two is I look at my watch. You come up and tell me we’re running late and we have to go.”

Tilda nodded. “Am I nice?”

“Take your cue from me. If I call you Veronica and act like I’m afraid of you, be a bitch.” Tilda sighed. “If I call you Betty and snarl, you grovel. We’re putting a time lock on the deal, and if the mark doesn’t hurry up, he’ll lose it.”

“Time lock. Okay. What’s three?”

“I put my hands behind my back, and you come up and be the enemy.”

“The enemy,” Tilda said.

“If I can’t get the mark on my own, I’m going to have to give him a reason to bond with me,” Davy said. “The fastest way to do that is for the mark and me to confront an enemy together. That’s you.”

“Okay,” Tilda said. “What do I do?”

“Take your cue from me again. If I call you Veronica and cringe, say I couldn’t get the painting, whatever, bitch me out. Say you knew I couldn’t do it. Bully me.”

“And that works how?” Tilda said, frowning at him.

“If the person at the door lives with a bully, he’ll side with me. Now if the person at the door is the bully, I’ll call you Betty and you come up whining.”

“I didn’t whine in the closet.”

“No, you didn’t. Be as annoying as you can be without challenging me. Put me in a position where the guy at the door thinks I should be bullying you. Whine that we don’t need the dumb painting, that we should be spending that money on you.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Tilda sat frowning for a minute and then nodded. “So Betty’s a ditz, and Veronica’s a bitch, and Vilma’s a slut. I had no idea you thought so much of me.”

“You’re not concentrating, Matilda,” Davy said. “I’m going to try to work it so that you don’t have to come up at all. It’s better if we can just buy the damn things. And no matter how we do it, the fewer recognizable faces associated with this mess, the better.” He looked into her pale blue eyes and lost his train of thought for a minute. “You are memorable, Celeste.”

“Oh,” Tilda said. “I can fix that, Ralph. Wait a minute.”

She got out of the car, and Davy slid down in his seat and thought, Now what? When she still wasn’t back fifteen minutes later, he opened the door to go find her and there she was.

She’d slicked her curls down into a smooth bob and taken off her glasses. She was wearing a pink sweater that fit very well and a green dotted scarf around her neck and she looked neat and respectable and sort of Yuppie and completely unlike herself.

“I’m impressed,” Davy said. “What did you do?”

Tilda slid back into the front seat. “Mousse, eye makeup, dark contacts, Eve’s sweater, scarf, and skirt. Now can I go up to the door with you?”

“No,” Davy said. “You still stay in the car. But I am really impressed.” And turned on. Hello, Vilma.

“Easy,” Tilda said, and picked up her bag and pulled out the first card. “Let’s go see Mrs. Susan Frost. She has a lovely Scarlet of butterflies for which she paid five hundred dollars. She’s in Gahanna. Take 670 east.”

TWENTY MINUTES later, Davy pulled up in front of a tidy little ranch house in Gahanna. “Okay. Got the money?”

Tilda opened her billfold and picked out ten very crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Simon isn’t a counterfeiter, is he?”

“No,” Davy said. “He doesn’t have that much concentration. Why?”

“Because these are his,” Tilda said. “From your rent.”

“His rent,” Davy said. “I haven’t seen that room since he got here. Give me five of them in case I can do this without you.”

“It’s a painting of butterflies,” Tilda said, handing over the bills. “You sure you don’t want me to come up with you?”

“Nope.” Davy opened the door. “Stay in the car and watch me. If you come up, I’m your husband Steve.”

“Okay,” Tilda said, clearly humoring him.

A tight-lipped woman about Gwennie’s age answered the door, and Davy smiled at her and discarded the idea of asking for donations of paintings. This one would want money and she’d gouge them for all she could get. “Mrs. Frost?”

“Yes,” she said suspiciously.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Steve Foster. You don’t know me but my wife’s aunt used to visit you here with a friend.” He shook his head. “I can’t remember the friend’s name.”

“So?” Mrs. Frost said.

“I’m sorry, I’m telling this so badly.” Davy stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled at her, his best I’m-an-idiot smile. “I guess I’m nervous.”

“What is it you want?” she said, but her mouth relaxed a little.

“My wife’s aunt’s coming into town today,” Davy said, going earnest on her. “It’s her sixtieth birthday and she’s been really good to Betty, and, when she was here years ago, she saw this butterfly painting, and she told Betty all about it, a big checkerboard sky and lots of beautiful butterflies. She said she looked at it the whole visit and she used to dream about it at night. She really loved it.”

“I think I remember her,” Mrs. Frost said, the suspicion easing from her face a little. “Was her friend Bernadette Lowell?”

“Maybe,” Davy said, watching her face, smiling. “That sounds about right. Betty would really like to buy that painting for her aunt, but she’s really shy, that’s Betty down in the car…” He turned and waved at Tilda. “It would make her so happy, and it’d make me so happy to make her so happy-”

“I don’t even know what happened to that painting,” Mrs. Frost said, distracted, looking behind him.

“Hi,” Tilda said, coming to stand beside him, smiling and confident, and he put his arm around her.

“Don’t be shy, Betty,” he said, and Tilda hunched her shoulders under his arm. “Mrs. Frost isn’t even sure she has the painting. She hasn’t seen it in a year-”

“Oh, but we’ll pay for it,” Tilda said, looking slightly goony as she dug in her bag. “I know we’re interrupting you-” She came up with a hundred-dollar bill and Mrs. Frost’s eyes swiveled right to it. “That’s not enough.” She jabbed it at Mrs. Frost, who took it, and then went back to her bag. “I’m so sorry, I know I have the other one in here…”

“Hey.” Davy squeezed her shoulder a little. “She’s not even sure she has it. Maybe-”

The vague look on Mrs. Frost’s face had sheared off into avarice as she looked at the hundred in her hand. “Let me look upstairs in the attic,” she said and was gone, taking the money with her.

“I know it’s here somewhere,” Tilda said, her head practically in her bag.

“It’s okay, honey.” Davy patted her shoulder and wondered how she knew to stay in character when he hadn’t told her to. Maybe he’d been wrong about Tilda. Maybe Michael Dempsey could have turned her into a crook. Damn good thing she hadn’t been born a Dempsey. “Don’t worry, she’s looking for it,” he said and Tilda turned her face to his and smiled, as open as the sun, and he tightened his arm around her and was even more grateful that she hadn’t been born a Dempsey.