Lawrence Block - Deadly Honeymoon

The personal papers included a slew of IOU’s, around a dozen of them representing money owed to Corelli, debts canceled now by his death. They ranged from thirty-five dollars to one for an even thousand, with most of them running around a hundred. There were four rather stiff letters from the sister in Boston, written neatly in dark-blue ink, telling him about her husband and her children and her house and asking him how business was going. There were irritatingly obscure little bits of memoranda — telephone numbers, addresses, names, none linked to anything in particular, each of them standing alone on its own sheet of paper: “Room 417 Barbizon Plaza”; “Henrich, 45 @ 7 1/2= $337.50”; “Flowers for Joanie” — a few tickets on losing horses that had run at Aqueduct, at Belmont, at Roosevelt.

In the address book, there were more than fifty entries, most of them tersely inscribed with initials or just a first name or just a last name. There were seventeen girls listed only by first name and telephone number, no address, no last name. Maurie Lublin was listed by last name alone, with a phone number and no address.

Several slips of paper contained just numbers — columns of figures, isolated numbers, bits of addition and subtraction. The number 65,000 came up on several sheets, twice with a dollar sign: $65,000.

Dave said, “Sixty-five thousand dollars. That must be what he owed.”

“To Lublin?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know whether he stole it or owed it. Lee and the other one didn’t find that money, so he didn’t take it with him. If he had it, and he was running away, wouldn’t he have taken the money with him? I think he must have owed it to Lublin and then couldn’t pay. He left town in a hurry, not as though he had planned it or anything. I think he owed the money and planned on paying it, and then he couldn’t pay it and he panicked and ran. And they found him.”

“And killed him.”

“Yes.”

She sat next to him on the bed. The gun was between them, and she looked down at it and said, “Guns scare me.”

“Pick it up.”

“Why?”

“Pick it up.” She did. He showed her how to hold it and made her curl her index finger around the trigger. “Aim at the doorknob,” he said.

She aimed. He sighted along the barrel and showed her how her aim was off, and taught her how to line up a target. He took the gun from her and spilled out the shells, clearing all five chambers. Then he made her aim at the doorknob and squeeze the trigger to get the feel of the gun. After she practiced for a few minutes he took the gun from her and loaded it again.

He said, “There’s only one way. We could try to dig up Corelli’s life history if we wanted. We could call up each of the girls he knew and find out what they all knew about him. We could look him up in the New York Times file, and we could look up all the people in his address book, and we could find out everything there is to know about Joe Corelli.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“No.” He took out two cigarettes, lit one for himself and offered the other to her. She shook her head and he put the cigarette back in the pack. “No,” he said again. “Corelli doesn’t matter any more. We’re not trying to find Corelli. He’s dead, and we don’t need him. We’re not writing his biography. We’re looking for the two other men.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Lublin hired those men,” he said. “We have Lublin’s name and we have his phone number. We can find out where he lives. We’ll see him, and he’ll tell us who the men were who killed Corelli.”

“Why will he tell us?”

“We’ll make him tell us.”

Her eyes darted to the gun, then away. She said, “Now?”

“Now.” He stood up, gun in hand. “We’ll check the drugstore phone books. We’ll find the Lublin who matches the number in Corelli’s book, and then we’ll go see him.”

Dave tried the gun in each of his jacket pockets. In the inside pockets, it made a revealing bulge. In the outside pockets it hung loose and awkward. He jammed it under his belt but it didn’t feel right there, either.

Jill said, “Give it to me.” He gave her the gun and she put it in her purse. The purse was a flat one, black calf, and the gun did not fit well. She got another purse from the dresser, a larger one, and she put the gun and her other things into it. There was no bulge this time.

It was raining now, raining steadily, with a wind whipping the rain into their faces as they walked to the drugstore. Cars streaked by on wet asphalt. She held his arm with one hand and the purse with the other. In the drugstore, he started to look through all the phone books. She saved time by calling Information and asking the operator which borough Lublin’s exchange would be in. The exchange was Ulster 9, and the operator told her that would be in Brooklyn.

They found him in the Brooklyn phone book: “Lublin, Maurice 4412 Nwkrk... ULster 9-2459.” He looked at the listing and couldn’t figure out what the street was supposed to be. There was a New York street directory on the magazine rack, and he thumbed back to the index and checked the Brooklyn streets in alphabetical order. There was a Newkirk Avenue listed; it was the only street that fit.

He tried Lublin’s number, and no one answered. He called again and got no answer, then checked the phone book again to see if there was an office listed. There wasn’t.

“He’s not home,” he told her.

“Then let’s have dinner. I’m starving.”

He was, too. They hadn’t eaten at all since morning, and it was almost six already. But he hadn’t noticed his hunger until she mentioned it. He interpreted this as a sign of their progress. They were moving now, growing involved in the mechanics of pursuit, and he had been hungry without even realizing it.

They went to an Italian restaurant down the block and ate lasagne and drank bottles of beer. In the middle of the meal he left the table and used the phone to dial Lublin’s number. There was no answer. He came back to the table and told her.

“He’ll get home eventually,” she said.

“I suppose so.”

After dinner, he called again. There was no answer. They stopped at a drugstore and bought a couple of magazines, and he tried again on the drugstore phone. No answer. They went back to the hotel room. At seven-thirty he tossed a magazine aside and picked up the phone, then cradled it.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you suppose they listen in?”

“Who?”

“The hotel operators.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

He went downstairs and around the corner to the drugstore and tried again. There was no answer. In the hotel room, he kept looking at his watch. He went back to the drugstore again at eight, and called, and a man answered.

He said, “Mr. Lublin?”

“Just a minute, I’ll get him.” Then, “Maurie. For you.”

He hung up and went back to the room. He told her, “Lublin’s home now but he’s not alone. Somebody else answered the phone.”

‘Was it—”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t. I’d remember their voices.” He thought a moment. “There were noises in the background. They may have been having a party. I don’t know. I think there were a lot of people there. But there’s at least one other man, the one who answered the phone. And he called Lublin by name. If Lublin were the only other person there, he wouldn’t have called him by name, I don’t think.”

“What do we do now?”

“I’ll call again in a little while. Sooner or later he’ll be the only one left, and then I’ll go after him.”

She didn’t say anything for several minutes. Then she said, “Don’t call again tonight.”