Lawrence Block - The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

“That a fact,” Ray said.

“It is,” Charlie Weeks said. “Now, Montana ’s too large and too sparsely settled for those limits to make any sense. And the federal government could make them pass that law, but they couldn’t regulate how they enforced it. So Montana assigned only four state troopers to speed limit enforcement, and you know how large the state is.”

“Prolly as big as Brooklyn and Manhattan put together.”

Weeks’s smile spread across his face. “Very nearly,” he said. “The federal government couldn’t establish penalties for violating the speeding laws, either, so Montana set the fine at five dollars per violation. If one of the state’s four traffic cops nails you for doing a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour in a fifty-five zone, it costs you five bucks.”

“Reasonable,” Ray said.

“Very reasonable, but here’s the point I’m trying to make. Just so no one’s grossly inconvenienced, neither the motorist nor the arresting officer, the fine may be collected on the spot. You pull me over, I give you five dollars, and I go on my way.”

“An’ everybody’s happy,” Ray said.

“Exactly. And the state’s best interests are served. Admirable, wouldn’t you say?”

“In a manner of speakin’, yeah.”

“Officer,” Gregory Tsarnoff said, “if the Assyrian is only going to forfeit bond, perhaps he could post it directly, without going through the usual channels.”

“I’ll tell you this,” Ray said. “It’s irregular.”

“But expedient, surely.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, “but it’d get the job done.”

“Tiglath,” Charlie Weeks said, “how much dough have you got on you?”

“You mean money?”

“No, I’m thinking about starting a bakery. Yes, I mean money. You came here thinking you’d have a chance to bid on those bearer shares. How much did you bring?”

“Not so much. I am not a rich man, Charlie. Surely you know that.”

“Don’t dick around, Tiggy, it’s late in the game for that. What are you carrying?”

“Ten thousand.”

“That’s U.S. dollars, I hope. Not Anatrurian tschirin.”

“Dollars, of course.”

“What about you, Gregorius?”

“A little more than that,” Tsarnoff said. “But can you possibly be suggesting that I help raise bail money for the Assyrian? He wrote my name in blood!”

“Yeah, but credit where it’s due, Gregorius. He spelled it wrong. Do I think you should kick in? Yes, I do.” He frowned. “You know what else I think? I think there’s too many people in the room. We need a private conference, Gregorius. You and me and Tiggy and Officer Kirschmann here.”

“And Wilfred.”

“If you prefer, Gregorius.”

“An’ Bernie,” Ray said.

“And the weasel, to be sure.”

I steered everybody else to my office in the back. That didn’t seem fair to Ilona and Michael, but they didn’t seem to mind, Ilona smiling her ironic smile while the king looked as though he’d suffered a light concussion. Between them they were less irritated than Carolyn and Mowgli, who were unhappy to be missing the next act.

I left them admiring the portrait of St. John of God, the patron saint of booksellers, and got back in time to hear Weeks explaining that he had the bearer shares. “Michael’s a nice fellow,” he was saying, “but that family was never loaded with smarts. After I heard about the burglary attempt, I told him I wanted to check the portfolio. I haven’t given it back to him yet, and when I do the shares won’t be in it.”

Tsarnoff stroked his big chin. “Without the account number-”

“Without the number the shares are just paper, but who’s to say there’s no one alive who knows the number? For that matter, who’s to say you can’t create a hairline fissure in the rock-solid walls of the Swiss banking system? If the three of us threw in together…”

“You and I, sir? And the Assyrian?”

Weeks was smiling furiously. “Be like old times,” he said. “Wouldn’t it, now?”

“Well, now,” Ray said, and there was a knock on the door. I looked up, and the knock was repeated, louder. I gave a dismissing wave, but the large young man at the door refused to be dismissed. He knocked again.

I went to the door, cracked it a few inches. “We’re closed,” I said. “Private meeting, not open for business today. Come back tomorrow.”

He held up a book. “I just want to buy this,” he said. “It’s off that table there, fifty cents, three for a buck. Here’s a buck.”

I pushed the money back at him. “Please,” I said.

“But I want the book.”

“Take the book.”

“But-”

“It’s a special,” I said. “Today only. Take it, it’s free. Please. Goodbye.”

I closed the door, turned the lock. I turned back to the five of them and found they’d made their deal. Rasmoulian had taken off his trench coat and was hunting under his clothes for a money belt. Wilfred handed a manila envelope to his employer, who opened it and began counting hundred-dollar bills. Weeks drew a similar stack of bills from his pocket, removed a rubber band, licked his thumb, and began counting.

“I wish I knew why the hell I was doing this,” Weeks said. “I’ve got all the money I need. What the hell do you think it is, Gregorius?”

“You miss the action, sir.”

“I’m an old man. What do I need with action?” No one had an answer, and I don’t think he wanted one. He finished counting his bundle, collected bundles from the other two, weighed all three in his cupped hands. I gave him a shopping bag from behind the counter and he dropped all the money into it. A few hours ago that bag had contained books, the ones I’d bought from Mowgli for seventy-five dollars. Now it was full of hundred-dollar bills.

Four hundred of them, according to Weeks, who held it out toward Ray.

“I don’t know,” Ray said, and shot a quick glance my way. I moved my head about an inch to the left and an inch to the right. Ray registered this, widened his eyes. I met his eyes, then raised mine a few degrees toward the ceiling.

“Thing is,” he said, “there’s a lot’s gotta be done, a bunch of police personnel gotta be brought in on this. Seems to me forty grand’s gonna spread too thin to cover it all.”

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Charlie Weeks said. “I thought we had a deal.”

“Make it fifty an’ we got a deal.”

“That’s an outrage. We’d already agreed on a figure, for Christ’s sake.”

“Put it this way,” Ray said. “You got yourself a real good deal when that trooper stopped you out in Montana. But you ain’t in the Wild West this time around. This here’s New York.”

“It doesn’t seem right,” Carolyn said. “Tiggy murdered both of those men. And he winds up getting away with it.”

It was around four-thirty and we were around the corner at the Bum Rap. Carolyn was staying in shape with a glass of Scotch on the rocks; I was getting back into shape gradually, nursing a beer.

“Mrs. Kirschmann needs a new fur coat,” I said.

“And she gets it, and Tiggy gets away clean. But when does justice get served?”

“Justice gets served last,” I said, “and usually winds up with leftovers. The fact of the matter is there would never have been enough evidence to convict Rasmoulian, even if he didn’t skip the country in advance of trial. He’d never wind up in prison, and this way at least he winds up out of the country, and so do the rest of them.”

“Tsarnoff and who else?”

“Wilfred, of course. Getting Wilfred and Rasmoulian out of the country means a saving of untold lives. They’re a pair of stone killers if I ever saw one.”