The Burglar on the Prowl (24 page)

“I was aware of them,” he said. “There’s no end of things of which the observant man becomes aware. But I never heard a word on the subject from my nephew.” He looked over at Johnson, with something a few degrees cooler than avuncular affection. “My nephew. The son of my younger sister and the man she picked out all by herself and married.”

“He didn’t call you?”

“I guess he didn’t need anything,” Quattrone said. “He only calls when he needs something. Money, a lawyer. Something along those lines.”

“Uncle Mike—”

“Shut up, Billy.” To me he said, “You may have heard of a man named John Mullane.”

“The name’s familiar.”

“He’s also known as Whitey Mullane. You watch
America’s Most Wanted
?”

Religiously, hoping I won’t see myself on it. “Jersey City,” I said. “Or was it Newark? He ran rackets there for years, and at the same time he was working with the FBI. And now he’s running away from a murder indictment—”

“Four counts, plus other charges.”

“—and they update his profile every few months, and John Walsh says how we need to catch this coward, and they never do.”

“And they won’t,” Quattrone said, “as long as they go on looking for the face he doesn’t have anymore, thanks to our friend here.” A nod to Mapes. “The man’s an idiot, but he does good work. Whitey Mullane was like a father to me, I’ve known him since I was an altar boy, and I have to tell you, if I hadn’t seen the Before picture I wouldn’t have known the After picture was him.”

“You saw the pictures.”

“You know,” he said, “I don’t recall saying that. As I remember, I spoke a sentence with an ‘if’ in it.”

“So you did. Well, last Wednesday some men paid a call on the Rogovins, or the Lyles, or whatever we want to call them. They overpowered the doorman, left him immobile in the parcel room, and went upstairs, where the Lyles opened the door for them. Then the Lyles opened the safe for them, probably at gunpoint. I don’t know why the Lyles got themselves a heavy-duty Mosler safe. They didn’t need all that just to provide a short-term home for an outdated college textbook. My guess is it was in conjunction with another enterprise of theirs, and they’re dead, so it hardly matters.

“Because the visitors got the book, and in return for their cooperation the Lyles got two bullets in the back of the head. Meanwhile the doorman, wrapped up in duct tape, suffocated. Three people were dead, and the book was gone.

“And wouldn’t you know it, even while they were going about their business, the long arm of coincidence was reaching to take me by the collar. It turned itself into the long arm of the law, which I’d call a familiar quotation, even though Bartlett doesn’t seem to think so. Here’s the coincidence. On the night in question, I was taking the air in the same neighborhood where the Lyles lived and died.
Half a dozen different security cameras recorded my passing. It doesn’t matter why I was there, I had a perfect right to be there, but coincidentally enough I was once convicted of burglary, and my presence on the scene was enough to induce that gentleman there”—I nodded toward Ray, and they looked at him—“to place me under arrest. And that gentleman there”—I nodded at Wally—“secured my speedy release. But by then the word was out, and people had reason to think I might be involved.”

I looked at Michael Quattrone. “If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, do you think it might be possible for you to answer it?”

He smiled without moving his lips. “It might,” he said.

“If someone you knew pulled the home invasion on 34th Street,” I said, “and if the Lyles let them in and opened the safe for them, why did they have to shoot them?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “They didn’t.”

O
f course we’re speaking hypothetically,” Michael Quattrone said. His eyes swept the room, pausing on their way to make brief but significant eye contact with Ray Kirschmann and Wally Hemphill. “And, as we’ve been reminded, this is not a courtroom. No one’s taking down what’s being said, and I would hope no one’s wearing a wire, but even if there’s a record kept, we’re speaking hypothetically.”

“Of course.”

“In that case,” he said, “let’s suppose a certain person was to learn that an old friend of his had photos of his new face floating around, up for sale to the highest bidder. And suppose he found out where the photos were, and when the bidder was going to show up to finalize the transaction. And suppose he sent some friends of his to show up before the bidder, and shortstop the whole operation.”

“Taking the photos by force,” I said, “before the other party could arrive to pay for them.”

“Something like that,” he agreed. “Now, if anything like that happened, I imagine this certain person’s friends would have immobilized the doorman, so as to come and go unannounced. And I imagine the people in the apartment—you’ve been calling them the Lyles—”

“Or the Rogovins. As you prefer.”

“Let’s call them the Rogovins, then. It’s such a stereotype otherwise, isn’t it? Criminals with foreign-sounding names that end in a vowel. Like Lyle.” Once again he managed to smile without moving his lips. “Let’s say Mr. Rogovin heard a knock on the door and opened it, thinking he was about to get rich. A couple of guys came in, and as soon as they opened their mouths he knew they weren’t the men he was expecting. But what could he do about it? He opened the safe for them, and they took the book and the money.”

“Wait a minute,” Ray said. “What money?”

He chose his words carefully. “I would have to assume there would have been money,” he said. “Why lock a chemistry textbook in a safe? But if you already had a sum of money in there, you might as well put the book in with it.”

“How much money?”

“I can only estimate. Perhaps as much as twenty-one thousand dollars. Or as little as nineteen thousand.”

“In round numbers,” I said, “twenty thousand.”

“In round numbers. Perhaps the high bidder paid some earnest money in advance, to bind the transaction. Perhaps the money was the proceeds of some other enterprise. I’m sure the men who took it thought of it as a welcome if unexpected bonus.”

“My original question—”

“Was why did they kill the Rogovins. My answer was that they didn’t. They left them trussed with tape, which held them while they had a quick look around the apartment to see if it held anything else worth taking. It would also keep the Rogovins incapacitated while they quit the building and left the area. After that, what threat did the two of them represent? They could hardly file a police report. In any case, they didn’t know the identities of the men who robbed them. Killing them would just generate heat, and to no purpose.”

“And the doorman? He suffocated before the cops found him.”

“That was unfortunate,” Quattrone said. “It was an accident, and it should never have happened.” His eyes flicked ever so briefly toward the doorway, where one of his goons was looking at the floor with the fascination of someone who had never seen carpet before.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, “if the person responsible didn’t very much regret what happened.”

“Someone shot those two people,” I said. “They were all taped up, and they’d been shot in the head. If it wasn’t your hypothetical men—”

“It wasn’t.”

“—then who was it?”

“Bern?” I turned at Carolyn’s voice. “The high bidder,” she said. “He was on his way over, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “There was a second party of visitors to the apartment on East 34th Street. The doorman was still
hors de combat
, so all they had to do was walk in and go upstairs. They’d have found the door unlocked and the safe wide open and the occupants all taped up. Maybe they took the tape off one of their mouths long enough to get some questions answered. They wouldn’t have liked the answers, wouldn’t have been happy to go away without the book of photos, and without a chance of recovering the twenty grand they’d paid in front. Whether that was half in advance or payment in full, it was a big chunk of dough, and there was no way to get it back.”

I could feel eyes staring at me, and they were Georgi Blinsky’s. “You were the high bidder,” I told him. “You showed up to keep the appointment. When the Lyles couldn’t supply either the photographs or the money, you executed them and left.”

“You can prove nothing,” he said. “You have no evidence and no witnesses. When all of this was taking place, I was with large party at Georgian nightclub on Oriental Boulevard. Many people will swear to this.”

“I’m sure they will. Why kill them?”

He looked at me, as if he found the question disappointing. Then he said, “No book, no money. So? No witnesses, either. But I was with friends, in nightclub. I can prove this, and you can prove nothing.”

“The next thing that happened,” I said, “is that my apartment was broken into. It had already been searched by the police, but the men
who broke in probably didn’t know that. My doorman was trussed up and locked in the parcel room, the same as the Lyles’ doorman, so it seems safe to assume the same people were responsible.”

“I can see where you’d assume that,” Michael Quattrone said.

“They tore the place apart. What do you suppose they were looking for?”

“The missing photos,” he said without hesitation. “Whoever sent them must have heard about these photos of a missing Russian, and none of the pictures in that chemistry textbook looked like they could have been that man. And there were pages missing from the book, as if somebody had torn them out. Four pages, which would work out to one set of four photos.”

“And you had a use for them?”

“A lot of people wanted them. It’s human to want what everybody wants. Besides, who’s to say what else a person might find in a burglar’s apartment? It seemed worth a visit.”

And while they were there
, I said with my eyes,
your ham-handed thugs broke open my secret cupboard and took my money.

When you find money
, his eyes answered back,
you take it, and if I were you I’d be glad they left you the passports.

Funny how much information can be exchanged without a word being spoken…

“I’m having trouble following this,” Lacey Kavinoky said. “I mean, maybe I’m not supposed to follow it. I’m not sure what I’m doing here in the first place. But I thought the photographs were in the book. But I gather some pages were torn out. Those were the photos of this Russian? The Black Scourge of Riga?”

“That’s right.”

“Who tore them out? And why?”

“The Lyles,” I said. “They were Latvian patriots, after all. They might try to get some money for Kukarov’s photos, but they’d make sure they went to a good home—somebody who’d track the man down and bring him to justice.”

A nod from Grisek confirmed my supposition.

“So they removed those four pages,” I said, “and cut the photos free from the backing, and taped them to the pages of another book.”

“The one about the quarterback,” Ray Kirschmann said.

“You know,” I said, “you used that phrase once before, Ray, and I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about, so I let it pass. But now I get it, and
QB VII
isn’t about a quarterback.”

“It ain’t?”

“It’s a novel by Leon Uris, based on what he went through when some Nazi sued him for libel. The title is the name of the British courtroom where the trial took place.”

“Well, how’s anybody supposed to know that, Bernie? An’ who gives a rat’s ass, anyway? What I want to know is why didn’t the poor saps turn the book over to this Blintz guy so’s to keep from gettin’ shot? It was still there in the bookcase, right where anybody could find it.”

“Not just anybody,” I said. “It took a skilled professional, gifted with imagination and resourcefulness. You’re being too modest, Ray. When you told me how you went through every book in the bookcase until you found one with torn pages bearing telltale tape residue, it was clear what had happened. Somebody had found those photographs and spirited them away.”

This was all news to Ray, and I could see him working hard to adjust to new realities. Well, who told him to mention
QB VII
?

“It wouldn’t have saved them,” I said, moving along smoothly, “and they must have known that. And who’s to say they had a chance to raise the subject even if they wanted to?”

“So this guy took the book,” Lacey said, pointing at Quattrone, “and that guy murdered the man and woman,” she went on, nodding at Blinsky, “and the photos were still in the apartment. Right?”

“Hypothetically,” said Michael Quattrone.

“Hypothetically,” I agreed.

“Whatever,” she said. “But if somebody found them, and tore them out of the book, they aren’t there anymore. Right?”

“Right.”

“Okay,” she said, and flashed a smile at Carolyn. “I like to understand stuff. That’s all.”

I like to understand stuff, too, especially if I’m called upon to explain it. But sometimes you can start with the explanation and wait for the understanding to come along in its wake. That had worked once already—until Quattrone spoke, it hadn’t occurred to me that the Lyles could have had a second set of visitors after the first set made off with the book.

So I pressed on.

“Wednesday the Lyles were robbed and murdered,” I said, “and Thursday I got arrested and burglarized, and Friday morning coincidence once again hove into view. I got a phone call from a customer of mine, and perhaps he can tell us what he asked me for.”

“I guess it’s my turn,” Colby Riddle said. “I certainly thought my request was innocent enough. I’d called your bookstore, Bernie, and I asked if you had a particular book.”

“Not
Principles of Organic Chemistry,
I don’t suppose.”

“I’m afraid not. Nor
QB VII,
by the much lamented Mr. Uris. I asked for a book by Joseph Conrad.”

“I don’t suppose you remember the title?”

“
The Secret Agent.
You determined that you did, and said you’d set it aside for me. I said I’d come by and pick it up when I had the chance, and I suppose we exchanged further pleasantries, though perhaps we didn’t, as that’s as much as I can recall.”

“That may have been all there was,” I said, “because I didn’t know who you were.”

“Why didn’t you ask my name?”

“Because your voice was familiar, Colby, and you sounded as though you assumed I’d know who you were, and I didn’t want to appear boorish. I’d hardly had any sleep the night before, so I wasn’t at my best. I was sure I’d know you when you showed up.”

“And so you did, Bernie. But you didn’t have the book anymore.”

“Because I’d given it to a man named Valdi Berzins,” I said. “Mr. Grisek, I believe you may have known him.”

The Latvian nodded, looking unhappy. “A good man,” he said. “A fine man. A patriotist.”

“It was he to whom the Lyles had promised the Kukarov photos, wasn’t it?”

“He did not tell me the detailings,” Grisek said. His English was unaccented, but also unorthodox. “And always he looked on the side where the sun was. ‘The photos have been thieved,’ he told me, ‘so I will make my deal with the thief. And perhaps he is less of a thief than the man he took them from.’ You know this book,
The Power to Think Positive
?”

“That’s
The Power of Positive Thinking
,” I said, “by Norman Vincent Peale. A great bestseller in its day. I’ve got two or three copies in the store, and I suppose I ought to put them on the bargain table, but I somehow feel I owe it to the author to think that someone’ll come along and pay full price for it.”

“Valdi Berzins was positively thinking, Mr. Rhodenbarr. He went to your bookstore with money to pay for the book. And instead he was killed.”

I said I saw it happen, and one of the women said it must have been awful for me, and I said it was worse for Berzins. “He came into the shop and said I must have something for him. And I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then I remembered Colby Riddle’s phone call, although I still didn’t know who’d been on the other end of the phone. I knew it wasn’t Berzins, the voice was wrong, but he seemed so confident I would know what he wanted, and that was all I could think of. I said the book’s title, and that seemed to make him happy, and he sure didn’t argue about the price. He paid me a hundred times what I asked him for, evidently assuming that I was leaving off the word
hundred
to save time. I realized this just in time to run outside after him and watch him get killed. If there hadn’t been a parked car in the way, I might have been killed along with him.”

“Who killed him?” Grisek demanded. “Who killed my friend Berzins?”

“That’s a good question. Here’s another. Why did he assume I’d know what book he wanted? And, when I mentioned the book by name, why did it make him happy?”

“You said
The Secret Agent,
” Carolyn said, “and that was him. He thought you were recognizing him for what he was.”