Lawrence Block - The Burglar In The Closet

“Cutty on the rocks,” he said. “Get your ass over here and have a drink.”

“How’s it going, Dennis?”

“It’s going. That’s all you can say for it. How’s it with you, Ken?”

I extended my hand horizontally, palm down, and wagged it like an airplane tipping its wings. “So-so,” I said.

“Ain’t it the truth. Hey, Ace, bring Ken here a drink. Cutty on the rocks, right?”

Ace was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and an uncertain expression. He looked like a sailor who’d given up trying to find his way back to his ship and was making the best of a bad situation. He made me a drink and freshened Dennis’s and went back to the television set. Dennis picked up his glass and said, “You’re a friend of Frankie’s, right? Well, here’s to Frankie, God love her.”

I took a sip. “That’s a coincidence,” I said, “because I was trying to get hold of Frankie, Dennis.”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

He frowned. “I saw you last night, didn’t I? ’Course I did, you were drinking coffee. We were talking with Knobby. And I was waiting for Frankie to show up.”

“That’s right.”

“She never showed. You didn’t hear, Ken? I guess you didn’t. She took her own life, Ken. Booze and pills. There was something bothering her about her friend, girl named Crystal. You know about Crystal, don’t you?” I nodded. “Well, she had some drinks and she took some Valium. Who’s to say if she did it on purpose or if it was an accident, right? Who’s to say?”

“Not us.”

“That’s the truth. A hell of a nice woman and she took her life, accidentally or on purpose and who’s to say, and God rest her is all I got to say.”

We drank to that. I’d been looking for Frankie, at her place, at some of the bars in the neighborhood. I hadn’t heard what happened to her but the news didn’t surprise me. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was suicide. Or maybe it was neither and maybe she had help, the kind of help Crystal Sheldrake and Walter Grabow had had.

He said, “I had a whatchacallit last night. A premonition. I sat there all night with Knobby, coasting on the drinks and trying her number from time to time. I was there waiting for her till Knobby closed the joint. Maybe I could of gone over there, done something.”

“When did Knobby close up, Dennis?”

“Who knows? Two, three o’clock. Who pays attention? Why?”

“He went back to his place but he didn’t stay there. He packed a suitcase and left right away.”

“Yeah? So?”

“Maybe he got on a plane,” I said. “Or maybe he met somebody and got into trouble.”

“I don’t follow you, Ken. What’s Knobby got to do with what happened to Frankie?”

I said, “Well, I’ll tell you, Dennis. It’s sort of complicated.”

I was ten minutes early at the Central Park South office. I’d spoken to Jillian around two-thirty and she’d told me that the meeting with Craig and his lawyer was all set, but I wasn’t surprised that they weren’t there when I arrived and I had the feeling they wouldn’t show at all. I planted myself in the hallway beside the frosted glass door, and at 3:58 on my watch the elevator doors opened and all three of them emerged, Craig and Jillian and a tall slender man in a vested black pinstripe suit. When he turned out to be Carson Verrill I was not wildly astonished.

Craig introduced us. The lawyer shook my hand harder than he had to and showed me a lot of his teeth. They were good teeth, but that didn’t surprise me either, because it stood to reason that he patronized the World’s Greatest Dentist. We stood there, Verrill and I shaking hands and Craig shifting his weight from foot to foot and clearing his throat a lot, while Jillian sifted through her purse until she found the key and unlocked the office door. She switched on the overhead light and a lamp on Marion the Receptionist’s desk. Then she sat in Marion’s chair and I motioned Craig and Verrill to the couch before turning to shut the outer door.

There was a little nervous chatter, Craig supplying something about the weather, Verrill saying he hoped I hadn’t been waiting long. Just a few minutes, I said.

Then Verrill said, “Well, perhaps we should come to the point, Mr. Rhodenbarr. It’s my understanding that you have something to trade. You’ve threatened to tell the police some story of my client’s alleged involvement in a burglary of his ex-wife’s apartment unless he underwrites the cost of your defense.”

“That’s really something,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“To be able to talk like that right off the bat. It’s an amazing talent, but can’t we put our cards on the table? Craig arranged for me to knock off Crystal’s place. We’re all friends here and we all know that, so what’s with this alleged business?”

Craig said, “Bernie, let’s do this Carson’s way, huh?”

Verrill glanced at Craig. I got the impression that he didn’t appreciate Craig’s support quite so much as he’d have appreciated silence. He said, “I’m not prepared to acknowledge anything of the sort, Mr. Rhodenbarr. But I do want to get a firm understanding of your position. I’ve talked with Miss Paar and I’ve talked with Dr. Sheldrake and I think I may be able to help you. I don’t have a criminal practice and I don’t see how I could undertake to prepare a defense per se, but if your interest lies in turning yourself in and arranging a guilty plea-”

“But I’m innocent, Mr. Verrill.”

“It was my understanding-”

I smiled, showing some good teeth of my own. I said, “I’ve been framed for a pair of murders, Mr. Verrill. A very clever killer has been setting me up. He’s not only clever. He’s adaptable. He originally arranged things so that your client would wind up framed for murder. Then he found it would be more effective to shift the frame onto my shoulders. He’s done a pretty good job, but I think you’ll be able to see a way out for me if I explain what I think actually happened.”

“Miss Paar says you suspected this artist of murder. Then he was in turn murdered in your apartment.”

I nodded. “I should have known he didn’t kill Crystal. He might have strangled her or beaten her to death but stabbing wasn’t Grabow’s style. No, there was a third man, and he’s the one who did both killings.”

“A third man?”

“There were three men in Crystal’s life. Grabow, the artist. Knobby Corcoran, a bartender at a saloon in the neighborhood. And the Legal Beagle.”

“Who?”

“A colleague of yours. A lawyer named John who occasionally made the rounds of the neighborhood bars with Crystal. That’s all anybody seems to know about him.”

“Then perhaps we ought to forget about him.”

“I don’t think so. I think he killed her.”

“Oh?” Verrill’s eyebrows climbed up his high forehead. “Then perhaps it would help if we knew who he was.”

“It would,” I agreed, “but it’s going to be hard to find out. A woman named Frankie told me that he existed. She’d say ‘Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!’ just the way Ed McMahon does it. But sometime last night she drank a lot of gin and swallowed a whole bottle of Valium and died.”

Craig said, “Then how are you going to find out who this Johnny is, Bernie?”

“It’s a problem.”

“Maybe he doesn’t even fit in. Maybe he was just another friend of Crystal’s. She had a lot of friends.”

“And at least one enemy,” I said. “But what you have to remember is that she was at the hub of something and somebody had to have a good reason to kill her. You had a reason, Craig, but you didn’t kill her. You were framed.”