Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why are you reading me that?”

“Aw, Bernie. Lemme ask you a question, okay? You know an apartment building called the Charlemagne?”

“Sure. On Fifth Avenue in the Seventies. Why?”

“Ever been there?”

“As a matter of fact I was there the night before last.”

“No kiddin’. Next you’re gonna tell me you’ve heard of a man named Gordon Onderdonk.”

I nodded. “We’ve met,” I said. “Once here, in the store, and again two nights ago.”

“At his apartment at the Charlemagne.”

“That’s right.” Where was he going with all this? I hadn’t stolen anything from Onderdonk, and the man would hardly have reported me to the police for lifting his letters from Andrea. Unless Ray was taking an elaborate windup before delivering the pitch, and all this Onderdonk stuff was prelude to some more incisive questions about J.C. Appling’s stamp collection. But the Applings hadn’t even returned to the city as of midnight, so how could they have discovered the loss and reported it, and how could Ray have already tied it to me?

“I went there at his invitation,” I said. “He wanted an appraisal of his personal library, although he’s not likely to be selling it. I spent some time going through his books and came up with a figure.”

“Decent of you.”

“I got paid for my time.”

“Oh, yeah? Wrote you out a check, did he?”

“Paid me in cash. Two hundred dollars.”

“Is that a fact? I suppose you’ll report the income on your tax return, a good law-abidin’ reformed citizen like yourself.”

“What’s all this sarcasm about?” Carolyn demanded. “Bernie didn’t do anything.”

“Nobody ever did. The prisons are full of innocent guys who got railroaded by corrupt police.”

“God knows there are enough corrupt police to go around,” Carolyn said, “and if they’re not railroading innocent people, what are they doing?”

“Anyway, Bern -”

“Besides eating in restaurants and not paying for their meals,” she went on. “Besides swapping jokes on street corners while old ladies get mugged and raped. Besides-”

“Besides puttin’ up with insults from some little dyke who needs a rabies shot an’ a muzzle.”

I said, “Get to the point, Ray. You just read me my rights and it says I don’t have to answer questions, so you can stop asking them. I’ll ask you one. What’s this circus about?”

“What’s it about? What the hell do you think it’s about? You’re under arrest, Bernie. Why else’d I read you your Miranda?”

“Under arrest for what?”

“Aw, Jesus, Bern.” He sighed and shook his head, as if his pessimistic view of human nature had once again been confirmed. “This guy Onderdonk,” he said. “They found him in his bedroom closet, bound and gagged with his head bashed in.”

“He’s dead?”

“Why, was he breathin’ when you left him like that? Inconsiderate of the bastard to die, but that’s what he did. He’s dead, all right, and what I gotta bring you in for is murder.” He showed me a pair of handcuffs. “I gotta use these,” he said. “Regulations which they’re enforcin’ again these days. But take your time first and close up, huh? And do a good job. Place might wind up stayin’ closed for a while.”

I don’t think I said anything. I think I just stood there.

“Carolyn, whyntcha hold the door and me’n Bern ’ll bring in the table. You don’t want to leave it out there. They’ll steal it empty in an hour and then somebody’ll walk off with the table. Aw shit, Bern, what’s the matter with you, anyway? You were always a gentle guy. Stealin’s stealin’, but what’d you go an’ kill him for?”

“What gives me the most trouble,” Wally Hemphill said, “is finding the time to fit in the miles. Of course what really helps is if I got a client who’s a runner himself. You know how some people’ll do their business over nine holes of golf? ‘Suit up,’ I’ll say, ‘and we’ll lope around the reservoir and see where we stand on this.’ You think we could pick up the pace a little, Bernie?”

“I don’t know. This is pretty fast, isn’t it?”

“I’d judge we’re doing a 9:20 mile.”

“That’s funny. I could have sworn we were going faster than sound.”

He laughed politely and picked up the pace and I sucked air and stayed with him. Gamely, you might say. It was still Thursday and I still hadn’t been to bed, and it was now around six-thirty in the evening and Wally Hemphill and I were making a counterclockwise circuit of Central Park. The circular park drive was closed to cars throughout its six-mile loop, and runners beyond number were out taking the air and turning its oxygen into carbon dioxide.

“Call Klein,” I’d told Carolyn when I left the store in handcuffs. “Tell him to come collect me. And pick up some cash from my place and bail me out.”

“Anything else?”

“Have a nice day.”

As Ray and I walked in one direction and Carolyn walked in the other, I thought how Norb Klein had represented me several times over the years. He was a nice little guy who looked sort of like a fat weasel. He had an office on Queens Boulevard and a small-time criminal practice that never got him any headlines. He wasn’t very impressive in court but he handled himself nicely behind the scenes, knowing which judge would be sympathetic to the right approach. I was trying to remember when I’d seen Norb last when Ray said, conversationally, “You didn’t hear, Bern? Norb Klein’s dead.”

“What?”

“You know what a skirt chaser he was, and he never had a hooker for a client that he didn’t sample the merchandise, and how’d he wind up goin’ out? He was bangin’ his secretary on his office couch, same girl’s been with him eight, ten years, and his ticker blows out on him. Massive whatchacallit, coronary, an’ he’s dead in the saddle. Girl said she tried everythin’ to revive him, and I just bet she did.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Carolyn!”

So we’d had a hurried conference on the street, and the only name I could think of was Wally Hemphill’s, who was ensuring himself against Norb Klein’s fate by training for the upcoming Marathon. His was a general legal practice, running to divorces and wills and partnership agreements and such, and I had no reason to believe he knew his way around what people persist in calling the criminal justice system. But he’d come when called, God love him, and I was out on bail, and I’d declined on the advice of my attorney to answer any and all questions put to me by the police, and if I just survived the trek around the park I might live forever.

“It’s funny,” Wally said now, leading our charge up a hill as if he thought he was Teddy Roosevelt. “We’d see each other in Riverside Park, we’d do a few easy miles together, and I always thought of you as a runner.”

“Well, I rarely go more than three miles, see, and I’m not used to hills.”

“No, you didn’t let me finish. I’m not knocking your running, Bernie. I thought of you as a runner and it never occurred to me that you might be a burglar. I mean you don’t think of burglars as regular-type guys who talk about Morton’s Foot and shin splints. You know what I mean?”

“Try to think of me as a guy who runs a secondhand book store.”

“And that’s why you were at Onderdonk’s apartment.”

“That’s right.”

“At his invitation. You went over the night before last, that was Tuesday night, and you appraised his library.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And he was alive when you left.”

“Of course he was alive when I left. I never killed anybody in my life.”