Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

“I don’t know,” I said, “but I swear it wasn’t me.”

I spent a few hours minding the shop, and it’s a good thing I don’t have to do that too often. Someone — I think it was Pascal — wrote something to the effect that all of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit alone in a room. I’m generally pretty good at sitting alone in a room, with or without the TV on, but that day I found it a trial. For one thing, I wanted to be out on the streets doing something. For another, people kept interrupting me, and to no purpose. They would call up, ask for Elaine, want to know when she would be coming back, and ring off without leaving a name. Or they would come to the door, stick their heads in, register a certain amount of dismay at seeing me instead of the lady of the house, and go somewhere else.

A couple of people did come in and browse, but I didn’t have to talk price with them, or make out charge card slips, because none of them tried to buy anything. One inquired about the price of several paintings — all the prices were clearly marked — and said that she would be back. That means about as much as saying “I’ll call you” to a woman after the two of you have seen a movie together. “People who keep shops,” Elaine had told me, “are more realistic than girls on dates. We know you won’t be back.”

I had time to read the papers. Marty McGraw’s column did indeed include Will’s latest letter. Without naming names, the anonymous author made it clear that the three men on his list were just a starting point. Many more of us were candidates for his next list, unless we saw the light and mended our ways. The letter struck me as tired and unconvincing. I had the feeling Will #2 didn’t even believe it himself.

TJ breezed in somewhere around the middle of the afternoon. He was wearing baggy jeans, with a down vest in hunter orange over his camo jacket. He was dressed for success, if your line of work happens to be street crime.

“Got to change,” he said, slipping past me to the back room. He came back wearing khakis and a button-down shirt. “Don’t want to scare the customers off,” he said, “but if I went downtown like this, I’da scared the dude off.”

“You found him?”

He nodded. “Says it’s the man he saw.”

“How sure is he?”

“Sure enough to swear to it, ‘cept he ain’t about to swear to nothin’. Told him he wouldn’t have to. That straight?”

“Probably. Can you take over now until Elaine gets back?”

“No problem. Where you goin’, Owen?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I don’t guess,” he said. “I detect. Where I detect you’s goin’ is Cleveland.”

I told him he was a good detective.

I’d already called from the shop to book the flight, and I walked over to Phyllis Bingham’s office to pick up the ticket, then back to the apartment to pack a bag with a clean shirt and a change of socks and underwear. I didn’t know how long this was going to take, but I figured to be away overnight no matter what.

Phyllis had me flying Continental out of Newark. I beat the rush hour traffic to the airport, and by the time we were on the ground in Cleveland most of the commuters were sitting down to dinner. There was a small group of people with hand-lettered cardboard signs waiting at the security gate, and one of the signs had my name on it. The kid holding it was tall and rangy, with close-cropped reddish-blond hair and a narrow face.

“I’m Matthew Scudder,” I said, “and you must be Jason Griffin. Your Uncle Tom said he’d try to reach you, and that you’d come if you had the time free.”

He grinned. “He told me I’d better have the time free. ‘Meet his plane and drive him out to Lakewood, and anywhere else he wants to go.’ Is that where you want to go first? This man’s house in Lakewood?”

I said it was, and we went to his car, a Japanese import a couple of years old. It sparkled, and I guessed that he’d taken it through a car wash on his way to the airport.

On the way, I asked him what he knew about the case. “Nothing,” he said.

“Tom didn’t tell you anything?”

“My uncle’s a need-to-know kind of guy,” he said. “He gave me a name and an address and told me to go take the guy’s picture without being obvious about it. I told him I might have to buy a telephoto lens.”

“I’ll reimburse you.”

He grinned. “‘Borrow one,’ he said. So that’s what I did. I parked across the street from Mr. Havemeyer’s house and waited for him to come home. When he did get home he drove straight into the garage. It’s an attached garage, which is unusual in that neighborhood. They’re mostly older homes there, but his is newer than the others and it’s got a carport-type garage. So he went on in without giving me a look at him, let alone a chance to zoom in and take his picture.”

“What did you do, wait for him to come out again?”

“No, because he’d probably leave the same way, right? Uncle Tom hadn’t told me how to cope with this sort of situation. As a matter of fact the only advice he gave me — well, can you guess what it was?”

“Bring a milk bottle.”

“He said a wide-mouthed jar. Same difference. I asked him what I was supposed to do with it, and he said after I sat there for a couple of hours the answer would come to me. At which point I figured out what the jar was for. You’ll never guess what he told me next.”

“What’s that?”

“‘When the jar fills up, empty it in the gutter.’ I said, like, pour it out in the gutter? No one’ll see you, he said, and it’ll wash away. I told him thanks for the wise counsel, but I probably would have figured out how to empty the jar on my own. He said after all the rookies he’s trained over the years he’s learned to leave nothing to chance.”

“He’s a wise man,” I said. “But I’m on your side. I have a feeling you’d have worked out the part about emptying the jar all by yourself.”

“Maybe, but on the other hand I have to admit I never would have thought to bring the jar in the first place. You don’t ever see them peeing in bottles in the movies.”

I agreed that you didn’t. “How’d you get the pictures?”

“There was this kid shooting baskets all by himself a few doors down the street. I told him I’d give him five bucks if he could ring the doorbell and get the man inside to come outside of his house. He went and rang it and ran off, and Mr. Havemeyer opened the door a crack and then shut it again. I snapped a picture but it wasn’t one of the ones I sent you because you couldn’t see anything. Anyway, I told the kid that wasn’t good enough, but if he did it again and got the guy to come out I’d pay him the five and another five on top of it.”

“And it worked.”

“He made it work. He went into his own house and got a paper bag about so big and filled it with crumpled newspaper. Then he put it on the stoop and set it on fire, and then he rang the bell again and pounded on the door and ran like a thief. Mr. Havemeyer opened the door a crack again, and then he rushed outside and started stomping and kicking at the burning bag.” He grinned. “It took me a minute to get focused because I was laughing too hard to hold the camera steady. It was pretty funny.”

“I can imagine.”

“It’s an old Halloween trick, actually.”

“As I recall,” I said, “there’s a surprise in the bag.”

“Well, yeah. Dog crap, so when you stomp out the fire you’re stepping in it. The kid skipped that part.”

“Just as well.”

“The pictures don’t show what he’s doing,” he said, “because with the lens I was right in tight on his face. But I have to laugh when I look at them, because his expression brings it all back.”