The Puzzle King by Betsy Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

said Simon. “Five bucks and a penny for every one sold.”
    “I’ll come back tomorrow,” said the man.
    They shook hands.
    When the man came back the following day, Simon handed him the drawing. The man held it out in front of him and studied it for a long while. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out five dollars, and handed it to Simon. “I don’t hate this,” he said. He rolled up the drawing, careful not to crease it, and walked away.
    The man hadn’t told Simon his name; Simon hadn’t told him his.
    Maybe the man sold a thousand posters or maybe he sold two. Either way, Simon never received another penny for his drawing.
    Arthur Wade was the man who’d bought Simon’s picture. He’d come around again this past summer and asked people around Eldridge Street if they knew where he might find the kid who’d drawn all those pictures of the fighters on the sidewalk. Everyone told him the same thing. “Go find the
Spazierer
, he knows everything.”
    “What kind of name is that,
Spazierer
?” asked Arthur Wade, spitting out the syllables of the word for dramatic effect.
    “Spaz-i-er-er.”
They said it slowly and phonetically. “It means ‘the stroller’ in German.”
    “How will I know him?” asked Arthur Wade.
    “You’ll know him by the way the sun has made his skin nearly black,” they said. “You’ll know him because he walks up and down Eldridge Street all day. That’s what he does.”
    In a neighborhood filled with sallow people who worked indoors as many as eighteen hours a day, the
Spazierer
wasn’t hard to find. Stooped over and leaning against a bamboo cane, the spazierer slowly made his way from one end of the block to the other and back again, from seven-thirty in the morning until the sun wentdown each day. Some said he was a crazy old man who had nothing better to do with his time than to patrol the streets. No one ever asked him who he was or where he came from, nor could anyone ever remember how it happened that the women set out bowls of porridge for him in the morning and pots of boiled cabbage and potatoes at night. This was simply how it had always been.
    It was a steamy afternoon when Arthur Wade found the
Spazierer
making his way down the street. Despite the clinging humidity, the
Spazierer
wore a black cape and a black derby. His long white hair and white mustache glistened against his dark craggy skin. His legs were bowed and his eyes were so blue they were nearly silver. “You mean Rembrandt, don’t you?” he said, in answer to Arthur’s Wade’s question. “He lives over there.” He lifted his cane and pointed in the direction of 262. “What’s your business with him?”
    “My business with him is my business with him,” said Arthur Wade, who wasn’t given to explaining himself to anyone. As he headed toward 262, he heard the
Spazierer
’s footsteps behind him. “Listen, buster,” he said, jabbing a finger in the middle of Arthur Wade’s crisp white linen shirt. “I wouldn’t go knocking on strange doors if I was you.”
    Arthur Wade had a practical streak in him that outran his pugnacious one.
This peculiar old fellow could be useful
, he thought, brushing off the spot on his shirt where the
Spazierer
had just poked him. Best to play his cards right. “I’m looking to offer that kid a job,” he said in his raspy voice. “As my apprentice. I run a lithograph shop.” The old man shook his head, as if he were considering the offer for himself. “He’s not home now,” he said. “If you come back at six-thirty, he’ll be here.” He turned around and resumed his shuffling.
    At precisely 6:30, Arthur Wade knocked on the door at 262 Eldridge Street, and by 6:32, Simon had agreed to show up the next morning at the Arthur Wade Lithograph Shop on Lexington Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street. For the next fourteen months, Simon spent nearly every moment of his spare time at the shop, sometimes coming home as late as eleven at night. He loved being an