The Burglar in the Rye

by Lawrence Block

  Because I’d smelled the gunpowder. “I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “I must have heard it.”

  “Well, you heard wrong. But even if she was shot, it wasn’t you that shot her, on account of we gave you a paraffin test last night an’ you passed it with flyin’ colors.” He tugged at his lower lip. “Of course you coulda worn gloves. Remember how you always used to wear those rubber gloves with the palms cut out for ventilation? Another trademark of yours, like locking up after the horse is stolen.”

  “I know Bernie,” Carolyn said, “and I’ll tell you this right now, Ray. He didn’t steal a horse.”

  He gave her a look. “Those rubber gloves wouldn’t help you beat a paraffin test,” he went on, “’cause you’d wind up with nitrate particles on your palms. But nowadays you wear those disposable gloves, made of that plastic film.” A smile began to form on his lips. “Except you weren’t wearing any gloves last night, Bern. Were you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You left a print.”

  How? I distinctly remembered sliding my hands into my Pliofilm gloves before I turned the bolt to lock myself in Andrea Landau’s chambers. And, gloved, I’d promptly wiped the knob and the surfaces of door and jamb I might have touched. The gloves had stayed on my hands until I was out of the apartment altogether. I was on the fire escape, a floor below the crime scene, before I took them off.

  “Ain’t you gonna ask where, Bern?”

  “I would,” I said, “but I have the feeling you’ll tell me anyway.”

  “On one of the envelopes.”

  “Oh,” I said, and frowned. “On one of what envelopes?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I thought so.”

  “You thought what?”

  “That you didn’t even know you left ’em behind. Two purple envelopes, both of ’em addressed to Anthea Landau. What kind of a name is Anthea, anyway?”

  “A girl’s name,” Carolyn said.

  “Well, so’s Carolyn, and what’s that prove? They were the same envelopes the letters came in, Bern, an’ they got dusted for prints, same as everything else on the scene, an’ one of ’em had prints all over it. Some of ’em were smudged, an’ plenty of ’em were hers, but one of ’em was clear as a crystal, an’ guess whose it was?”

  “Something tells me it was mine.”

  “You didn’t worry about handling it,” he said, “because you figured on taking it with you, along with the rest of the letters. But I guess you dropped it. Don’t look so down in the mouth, Bern. It puts you on the scene, but I already knew you were there, so it’s no big deal.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You had the stack of letters. They musta been in an envelope or a file folder, and that’d be what, an inch thick? Two inches? Goat Ear didn’t mention you holdin’ nothin’, so your hands were empty, but that’s because your shirt was full.”

  “My shirt?”

  “Under your shirt, that’d be my guess as to where you put the letters. That’d get you past Goat Ear, but a trained observer would spot it, so you had to stash the stuff before you hit the lobby, since you know somebody’s been murdered, and you realize you might get spotted.”

  “By a trained observer.”

  “Or anyone who happens to recognize you for the encourageable burglar you are.”

  “Incorrigible.”

  “You said it. But you didn’t dump the stuff in your room, Bern, an’ you didn’t get out of the hotel with it, an’ what’s that leave?”

  “Since you don’t believe I never had it in the first place—”

  “Not on your life, Bern.”

  “—then I must have stashed it somewhere in the hotel.”

  “Uh-huh. Another room’d be my guess, an’ if I was a young hothead I’d be goin’ room to room, movin’ furniture an’ pullin’ up the carpet.”

  “But you’re older and wiser.”

  “You got the idea, Bern. Why make waves when we both get a chance here to do ourselves some good? What you gotta do is tell me where you stashed the stuff, an’ I’ll go in myself an’ get it, an’ we’ll wait and see.”

  “We’ll wait and see what?”

  “How to cash in. That’s gonna be the tricky part. The way I hear it, nobody knows what the letters are worth. An’ they ain’t worth much unless they can be sold right out in the open. You steal a rare book or a valuable coin or a painting, you got these crackpot collectors who’ll pay through the nose for it and keep it where nobody ever gets a peek at it. But your college libraries are the big buyers for letters like this Gulliver wrote, an’ they won’t pay big bucks for something unless they get to brag that they got it.”

  “They want the publicity.”

  “Like an old guy with a young girlfriend. Half the fun is showin’ her off to his buddies, especially since that’s about all he can still do. So this is the kind of deal where you sell the loot back to the insurance company.”

  “Well, in that case…”

  “Except it ain’t insured. Landau wouldn’t take out a floater policy on all her old letters, an’ they wouldn’t be covered by Sotheby’s insurance because Sotheby’s didn’t have ’em yet. An’ Landau can’t ransom ’em back, because she’s dead, an’ unless there’s a new will nobody knows about, the estate goes to the Authors Guild for handouts to writers who are up against it, which I guess plenty of ’em are most of the time.”

  “It’s this society of ours, Ray. We don’t value the arts sufficiently.”

  “Yeah, we all of us oughta be ashamed. Thing is, Bern, somebody’s gonna offer a reward, or some other way’ll open up to make a quiet dollar. An’ we’ll split.”

  “Fifty-fifty,” I said.

  “Only way to avoid hard feelings, Bernie. Half for you an’ half for me. Keep it all as even as Steven.”

  “It seems fair.”

  “Damn right it does. So? We got a deal?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “But I’m going to have to retrieve the letters myself.”

  “How? Your picture’s all over the papers, Bern. You’ll never get past the front desk. Lemme get ’em. I can walk in like I own the place.”

  “Just lend me your badge,” I said, “and I can do the same.”

  “Very funny.”

  “The letters are in a safe place,” I said, “and nobody’s going to disturb them. I’ll get to them as soon as I can, but there’s no hurry. And they’d be difficult for you to get to, Ray, even if you knew where they were.”

  “That don’t make sense, Bern.”

  “Ray,” I said, “I could tell you everything I know about those letters and you couldn’t find them. Trust me.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “you’re as good at hidin’ stuff as you are at findin’ it. Only thing is I hope you didn’t hide it right there in Landau’s apartment.”

  “How could I do that? You must have searched the place from top to bottom.”

  “We did,” he said, “and your room, too. Includin’ the bear.”

  “The bear? Paddington Bear?”

  “In your room, sittin’ on top of the fireplace.”

  “And you thought he might have a two-inch-thick file of correspondence? Did he hide it under his little red jacket?”

  He shook his head. “Not the letters. But he coulda been holdin’ the burglar’s tools, or even the gun, if it was a little one.”

  Carolyn said, “Is that a gun in your paw, or are you just glad to see me? Ray, did you and your buddies cut open Bernie’s bear? Because if you did I think he’s got the makings of a pretty good lawsuit.”

  “An’ a complaint to the SPCA,” Ray said, “but all we did was x-ray him, so put your mind at rest. All in all it was a pretty thorough search, Bernie, your room an’ hers, but it ain’t like searching for narcotics, where you can go in with dogs. How’s a dog gonna help you find letters from a particular person?”

  “Maybe you could let him sniff a sample of Gully Fairborn’s handwriting.”

  “Or a purple envelop
e. I know how cute you are, an’ I had a couple of uniforms go through her files lookin’ for anything purple. Perfect place to hide ’em, just stick ’em in the wrong file.”

  “Like ‘The Purloined Letter,’” Carolyn said.

  “Whatever. Purloin or sirloin, they came up empty. But we didn’t rip the desk apart, or the refrigerator door, so you coulda double-dipped back into Landau’s place an’ found some tricky spot to leave everything. Only thing, the apartment’s sealed off now as a crime scene. You can’t get in.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Good,” he said. “So it’s somewhere else, somewhere you can get to.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “An’ where I can’t.”

  “Not without creating a disruption,” I said, “and attracting more attention than you’d be comfortable with.”

  “An’ who wants that?” He shrugged. “Okay, Bern. We’ll play it your way for now. Take your time, but not too much of it, huh? There’s a lot of heat, what with a dame bumped off who’s supposed to be kind of prominent, even if nobody I know ever heard of her. You wouldn’t happen to know who knocked her off, would you?”

  “If all this has been an elaborate buildup…”

  “Naw, I know you didn’t kill her. But you beat us to the crime scene, so you might have seen somethin’ that gave you an idea. An’ even if you didn’t, you got a knack for steppin’ on your dick an’ coming up smellin’ like a daffodil. One minute you’re under arrest, an’ the next minute you’re tellin’ a roomful of people who the real killer is.”

  “Well, I’m glad this room’s not full of people,” I said, “because for a change I’d be tongue-tied.”

  “That straight, Bern?”

  “Absolutely. I haven’t got a clue.”

  “But you might come up with somethin’,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the first time. If you do, you know where to bring it.”

  “Sure, Ray. We’re partners.”

  “You bet we are, Bernie. We generally do all right together, don’t we? An’ I got a good feelin’ about this one. I think we’re gonna come out of it lookin’ real good.” He paused at the door. “Been a pleasure, Carolyn. You hardly said a word.”

  “I never had a chance, Ray.”

  “Maybe that’s the answer. You’re a lot less of a pain in the neck when you don’t open your mouth.”

  “Gee,” she said, “I wonder if it’d work for you?”

  “See? The minute you got that mouth runnin’ you’re as bad as ever. But when you zip it up you’re okay. You know what? You look different.”

  “Huh?”

  “You look different,” he said. “Most of the time you look like a dog gettin’ ready to bite somebody.”

  “And now I look like a poodle that’s just had a wash and set.”

  “More like a fluffy little cocker spaniel,” he said. “Softer an’ gentler, you know?” He opened the door. “Whatever you’re doin’, keep doin’ it. That’s my advice.”

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  “Whatever you’re doin’,” she growled, “keep doin’ it. Words of advice from the founder of the Raymond Kirschmann Charm School.”

  “You know Ray.”

  “I do,” she said, “and I never cease to regret it. Daffodils don’t have any odor, Bern, so how are you gonna come out smelling like one? That rat.”

  “Because of what he said about daffodils?”

  “Because of what he said about me. He noticed, Bern. He doesn’t know what he noticed, but he noticed it all the same.”

  “It’s the longer hair,” I said.

  “That’s just part of it. It’s the clothes, too. Look at this blouse.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Could you wear it?”

  “Well,” I said, “no, not really. But I’m a guy, Carolyn.”

  “And it’s too feminine, right?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It’s happening, Bern. I’m turning femme. Look at my nails, will you?”

  “What’s the matter with them?”

  “Just look at them.”

  “So?”

  “They look the same to you?”

  “They’re trimmed short,” I said, “and there’s no polish on them, at least as far as I can see. Unless you’ve got some of that colorless polish on to protect them.” She shook her head. “Then as far as I can tell,” I said, “they’re the same.”

  “Right.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem,” she said, “is inside.”

  “Under the nails?”

  “Under the skin, Bern. They’re the same as ever, but for the first time ever they don’t look right. To me, I mean. They look short.”

  “They are short. Same as always.”

  “Up to now,” she said, “they didn’t look short to me. They just looked right. Now I look at them, and they look too short. Unattractively short.”

  “Oh.”

  “Like they ought to be longer.”

  “Oh.”

  “Like my hair.”

  “Oh.”

  “You see what’s happening, Bern?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “It’s Erica,” she said. “She’s turning me into a Barbie Doll. What’s next, will you tell me that? Painted toenails? Pierced ears? Bern, you’ll be sleeping with a teddy and I’ll be sleeping in one. Rats.”

  “Well, you still use strong language.”

  “For now. Next thing you know I’ll be saying ‘Mice.’ Bern, I thought you didn’t take the letters.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “How’d you get your prints on the envelope?”

  “That’s how I found out Landau’s room number. Remember? I pretended to find an envelope with her name on it…”

  “And the clerk put it in her box. You just happened to pick a purple envelope?”

  “I wanted something distinctive. I knew Fairborn always used purple envelopes, and, well…”

  “What was in the envelope?”

  “Just a piece of blank paper.”

  “Purple paper?”

  “What else?”

  “What were you trying to do, give her a heart attack? She gets the letter, she thinks it’s from him, and then it’s blank. If I were her, I’d figure I just got a death threat from a man of few words.”

  “What I sort of figured,” I said, “is she wouldn’t get the envelope until I’d gotten away with the letters, and then she’d think Fairborn was going nyah nyah nyah at her.”

  “That’s what you figured, huh?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “And this was on Perrier, right?”

  “Carolyn…”

  “So you really don’t know where they are?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Did you talk to the woman who started the whole thing?”

  “Alice Cottrell?” I reached for the phone. “I tried her earlier, but she didn’t answer…. Still no answer.”

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to reach you.”

  “So am I, now that you mention it. I’ll try her again later.”

  “And your partnership with Ray…”

  “Is a fifty-fifty deal,” I said. “Every bit as even as Steven. But we don’t have anything to sell, and the best offer so far is from a guy who’ll reimburse me for the cost of making photocopies. So there’s not going to be anything to divide. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless I’m wrong,” I said. “We’ll see. I wonder what Marty wants.”

  I was still wondering after she headed back to the Poodle Factory, but I had a stream of visitors to keep me distracted. First through the door was Mary Mason, who I swear buys books from me as an excuse to visit my cat. She made her usual fuss over him, and as usual he took it as his due. Then he hopped onto a high shelf and curled up next to a boxed volume of the letters of Thomas Love Peacock, which I’m afraid I’ll own as long as I own the s
tore. I sold Miss Mason reading copies of two or three mysteries—cozies, you’ll be astonished to learn—and while I was ringing the sale a man came in on crutches and wanted to know how to find Grace Church.

  It’s just around the corner on Broadway, and a lot easier to get to than Lourdes. I pointed him in the right direction. He hobbled off, and in came my friend with the long face and the tan beret and the silver beard, smiling wistfully and smelling pleasantly of whiskey. He found his way to the poetry section and got down to the serious business of browsing.

  A young woman in bib overalls wanted to know what time it was, and I told her, and a Senegalese, very tall and impossibly thin, wanted to sell me some Rolex watches and Prada handbags. They were, he assured me, genuine fakes, and represented an excellent business opportunity for me. I explained that I was running a bookshop, and consequently dealt exclusively in printed matter, and he went off shaking his head at my lack of enterprise and business acumen. I shook my own head, though I’m not sure what at, and tried Alice Cottrell’s number again. No answer.

  I made another call, this one to Mowgli. He’s a Columbia dropout, a former druggie with just enough brain cells left to make a living as a book scout. I’ve bought quite a few books from him, and he’s bought a few from me, when he’s spotted something badly under-priced on my shelves. When he’s not otherwise occupied he’ll fill in for me behind the counter, and I was hoping he could do that today, while I met with Marty Gilmartin. But he didn’t answer, either.

  I went back to Redmond O’Hanlon, hoping to be reminded that there were worse jungles than the one I lived in, and the next person to interrupt me was a fat fellow with an underslung jaw and a head of tightly curled brown hair. He looked like a bulldog with a permanent.

  “Rhodenbarr,” he said, and shoved a card at me. Hilliard Moffett, it read. Collector. And beneath that was an address consisting of a post office box in Bellingham, Washington, along with phone and fax numbers and an e-mail address.

  Collectors can drive you crazy. They’re all a little bit nuts, but the antiquarian book business wouldn’t exist without them, because they buy more books than anybody else. They buy books they’ve already read, and other books they never intend to read. They don’t really have time to read, anyway. They’re too busy poring over book catalogs and rummaging through thrift shops and yard sales and, yes, stores like mine.