The Burglar In The Closet (13 page)

Ahead of us, a UPS van had traffic tied up. Some of the other drivers around us were using their horns to ventilate their feelings. But Ray was in no hurry.

I said, "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Well, what the hell, Bernie. Here we are, just you and me and a traffic jam, so let's us get down to carpet tacks. The way I figure it, you decided the Sheldrake dame looked like an easy score. Maybe you kept your ears open when you were gettin' your teeth drilled, or maybe you got hipped by the nurse that you been havin' a romance with, one way or another, but you decided to drop over to Gramercy and open a couple of locks and see what was loose. Now maybe you were in and out before Sheldrake came callin', but then how would you know you needed an alibi? No, I'll tell you the way I figure it. You got there and opened the door and found her with her heart stopped. You took a minute to fill your pockets with pretty things and then you got the hell out, and on the way home you stopped at the Garden and picked a stub off the floor. Then first thing the next mornin' you hopped over to Sheldrake's office to keep in touch with what was happenin' and make sure your own neck wasn't on the block."

"What makes you think something was stolen?"

"The dead woman had more jewelry than Cartier's window. There's nothin' in the apartment but prizes out of Cracker Jack boxes. I don't figure it walked away."

"Maybe she kept it in a bank vault."

"Nobody keeps it all in a bank vault."

"Maybe Sheldrake took it."

"Sure. He remembered to turn the place inside out and carry off all the jewels but he was so absentminded that he left his whatchacallit, his scalpel, he left it in her heart. I don't think so."

"Maybe the cops took it."

"The investigatin' officers?" He clucked his tongue at me. "Bernie, I'm surprised at you. You think a couple of guys checkin' out a homicide are gonna stop to rob the dead?"

"It's been known to happen."

"Honestly? I think it's a hell of a thing. But it didn't happen this time because the downstairs neighbor was on hand when they cracked the Sheldrake woman's door. You don't steal when somebody's watchin' you. I'm surprised you didn't know that."

"Well, you don't go ahead and commit a burglary if you have to step over a corpse to get to the jewels, Ray. And I'm surprised
you
didn't know
that.
"

"Maybe."

"More than maybe."

He gave his head a dogged shake. "Nope," he said. "Maybe's as far as I'd go on that one. Because you know what you got? You got the guts of a burglar, Bernie. I remember how cool you were when me and that crud Loren Kramer walked in on you over in the East Sixties, and there's a dead body in the bedroom and you're actin' like the apartment's empty."

"That's because I didn't
know
there was a body in the bedroom. Remember?"

He shrugged. "Same difference. You got the guts of a burglar and all bets are off. Why else would you fix yourself an alibi?"

"Maybe I actually went to the fights, Ray. Ever think of that?"

"Not for very long."

"And maybe I set up an alibi-which I
didn't
because I really
was
at the fights-"

"Yeah, yeah."

"-because I was working some other job. I'm not that crazy about jewels. They're getting tougher and tougher to sell, the fences are turning vicious, you know that. Maybe I was out lifting somebody's coin collection and I established an alibi just as a matter of course, because I know you people always come knocking on my door when a coin collection walks out of its owner's house."

"I didn't hear nothin' about a coin collection stolen the other night."

"Maybe the owner was out of town. Maybe he hasn't missed it yet."

"And maybe what you robbed was a kid's piggy bank and he's too busy cryin' to tell the cops about it."

"Maybe."

"Maybe shit don't stink, Bernie. I think you got the Sheldrake woman's jewels."

"I don't."

"Well, you gotta say that. That don't mean I gotta believe it."

"It's the truth."

"Yeah, sure. You spent the night with Sheldrake's nurse because you didn't have no better place to stay. I believe everything you tell me, Bernie. That's why I'm still in a blue uniform."

I didn't answer him and he didn't say anything more. We drove around for a while. The UPS truck had long since gotten out of the way and we were drifting in the stream of traffic, turning now and then, taking a leisurely ride around the streets of midtown Manhattan. If all you noticed was the weather, then you might have mistaken it for a nice fall day.

I said, "Ray?"

"Yeah, Bern?"

"There's something you want?"

"There always is. There's this book, they ran a hunk of it in the
Post. Looking Out for Number One.
Here's a whole book tellin' people to be selfish and let the other guy watch out for his own ass. Imagine anybody has to buy a book to learn what we all grew up knowin'."

"What is it you want, Ray?"

"You care for a smoke, Bernie? Oh, hell, you already told me you quit. It bother you if I smoke?"

"I can stand it."

He lit a cigarette. "Those jewels," he said. "Sheldrake's jewels that you took from her apartment."

"I didn't get them."

"Well, let's suppose you did. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Well," he said, "I never been greedy, Bern. All I want is half."

Chapter Eleven

Spyder's Parlor was dark and empty. The chairs perched on top of the tables. The stools had been inverted and set up on the bar. A menu in the window indicated that they opened for lunch during the week, but today was Saturday and they wouldn't turn the lights on until mid-afternoon. I stayed with Lexington a block or two uptown to a hole in the wall where the counterman mugged and winked and called his female patrons dear and darling and sweets. They ate it up. I ate up a sandwich, cream cheese on date-nut bread, and drank two cups of so-so coffee.

Grabow, Grabow, Grabow. In a hotel lobby I went through the Manhattan telephone directory and came up with eight Grabows plus two who spelled it without the final letter. I bought dimes from the cashier and tried all ten numbers. Six of them didn't answer. The other four didn't know anything about any artist named Grabow. One woman said her husband's brother was a painter, exteriors and interiors, but he lived upstate in Orchard Park. "It's a suburb of Buffalo," she said. "Anyway he didn't change his name, it's still Grabowski. I don't suppose that helps you."

I told her I didn't see how it could but thanked her anyway. I started to leave the hotel and then something registered in my mind and I went back to the directory and started calling Grabowskis. It would have been cute if it worked but of course it didn't, it just cost me a lot of dimes, and I called all seventeen Grabowskis and reached I don't know how many, fourteen or fifteen, and of course none of them painted anything, pictures or interiors or exteriors, none of them even colored in coloring books or painted by number, and that was the end of that particular blind alley.

The nearest bank was a block east on Third Avenue. I bought a roll of dimes-you can still get fifty of them for five dollars, it's one of the few remaining bargains-and I carried all fifty of them to another hotel lobby. I passed some outdoor phone booths on the way but they don't have phone books anymore. I don't know why. I called Spyder's Parlor to make sure it was still closed and it was. I hauled out the Yellow Pages and looked up Attorneys. See Lawyers, said the book, so I did. I don't know what I expected to find. There were eighteen pages of lawyers and plenty of them were named John, but so what? I couldn't see any reason to call any of them. I sort of flipped through the listings, hoping something would strike me, and a listing for a firm called Carson, Kidder and Diehl made me flip to the
V
's. I called Carson Verrill, Craig's personal attorney, and managed to get through to him. He hadn't heard anything since he'd referred Craig to Errol Blankenship and he wanted to know who I was and what I wanted. I told him I was a dentist myself and a personal friend of Craig's. I didn't bother inventing a name and he didn't press the point.

I called Errol Blankenship. He was out, I was told, and would I care to leave a name and a number?

Grabow, Grabow, Grabow. The listing for artists filled a couple of pages. No Grabow. I looked under art galleries to see if he happened to own his own gallery. If he did, he'd named it something other than Grabow.

I invested a dime and called Narrowback Gallery, on West Broadway in SoHo. A woman with a sort of scratchy voice answered the phone just when I was about to give up and try somebody else. I said, "Perhaps you'll be able to help me. I saw a painting about a month ago and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. The thing is, I don't know anything about the artist."

"I see. Let me light a cigarette. There. Now let's see, you saw a painting here at our gallery?"

"No."

"No? Where did you see it?"

Where indeed? "At an apartment. A friend of a friend, and it turns out they bought it at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show a year ago, or maybe it was the year before. It's all sort of vague."

"I see."

She did? Remarkable. "The only thing I know is the artist's name," I said. "Grabow."

"Grabow?"

"Grabow," I agreed, and spelled it.

"Is that a first name or a last name?"

"It's what he signed on the bottom of the canvas," I said. "For all I know it's his cat's name, but I suppose it's his last name."

"And you want to find him?"

"Right, I don't know anything about art-"

"But I'll bet you know what you like."

"Sometimes. I don't like that many paintings, but I liked this one, so much so that I can't get it out of my mind. The owners say they don't want to sell it, and then it occurred to me that I could find the artist and see what else he's done, but how would I go about it? He's not in the phone book, Grabow that is, and I don't know how to get hold of him."

"So you called us."

"Right."

"I wish you could have waited until late in the day. No, don't apologize, I should be up by now anyway. Are you just going through the book and calling every gallery you can find? Because you must own stock in the phone company."

"No, I-"

"Or maybe you're rich. Are you rich?"

"Not particularly."

"'Cause if you're rich, or even semi-rich, I could show you no end of pretty pictures even if Mr. Grabow didn't paint them. Or Ms. Grabow. Why don't you come on down and see what we've got?"

"Er."

"Because we haven't got any Grabows in stock, I'm afraid. We've got a terrific selection of oils and acrylics by Denise Raphaelson. Some of her drawings as well. But you probably never heard of her."

"Well, I-"

"However, you're talking to her. Impressed?"

"Certainly."

"Really? I can't imagine why. I don't think I ever heard of a painter named Grabow. Do you have any idea how many millions of artists there are in this city? Not literally millions, but tons of 'em. Are you calling all the galleries?"

"No," I said, and when she failed to interrupt me I added, "You're the first one I called, actually."

"Honest? To what do I owe the honor?"

"I sort of liked the name. Narrowback Gallery."

"I picked it because this loft has a weird shape to it. It skinnies down as you move toward the rear. I was beginning to regret not calling it the Denise Raphaelson Gallery, what the hell, free advertising and all, but calling it Narrowback finally paid off. I got myself a phone call. What kind of stuff does Grabow paint?"

How the hell did I know? "Sort of modern," I said.

"That's a surprise. I figured he was a sixteenth-century Flemish master."

"Well, abstract," I said. "Sort of geometric."

"Hard-line stuff?"

What did that mean? "Right," I said.

"Jesus, that's what everybody's doing. Don't ask me why. You really like that stuff? I mean, once you get past the fact that it's interesting shapes and colors, then what have you got? As far as I'm concerned it's waiting-room art. You know what I mean by that?"

"No," I said, mystified.

"I mean you can hang it in a waiting room or a lobby and it's great, it won't offend anybody, it goes nice with the decor and it makes everybody happy, but what
is
it? I don't mean because it's not representational, I mean artistically, what the fuck is it? I mean if you want to hang it in a dentist's office that's sensational, and maybe you're a dentist and I just put my foot in my mouth. Are you a dentist?"

"Christ, no."

"You sound like you're the direct opposite of a dentist, whatever that could be. Maybe you knock people's teeth out. I'm a little flaky this morning, or is it afternoon already? Jesus, it is, isn't it?"