Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

"I'm at a pay phone in a coffee shop, same as you. Let's not use names, shall we? I don't like to talk over an open line."

"Then why didn't you come here in person?"

"Because I'm afraid of you," I said. "I don't know who you are and you seem to know a lot about me. For all I know you're a violent person. I don't want to take the chance."

"Do you have the coin?"

"I picked it up this morning. I don't have it with me now because I'm not willing to run the risk. It's in a safe place and I can pick it up on short notice. I'm calling you now because I think we should set a price."

"Name your price."

"What's it worth to you?"

"No, that's not how we'll work it, sir." He seemed quite confident now, as if bargaining was something with which he had some reassuring familiarity. "Set your price, and make it your best price, and I shall say yes or no to it."

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"No."

"No?"

"According to the newspapers, a woman was killed when the coin was taken."

"Ah, but nobody knows that the coin was connected with her death. Except you and me, that is. And her husband, of course."

"Quite. I can pay you ten thousand dollars. I never argue price, sir."

"Neither do I. I'll take twenty."

"Impossible."

Twelve thousand was the price we settled on. He probably would have gone higher, but my skill in negotiation was diminished by my knowledge that I didn't have a coin to sell, so why knock myself out? We agreed on the price, and he agreed to bring the money in old out-of-sequence bills, nothing larger than a hundred. I don't know where he was going to find the money, since the banks were closed and there was no cash in the safe, but maybe he had a friend he could go to or had cash stashed around the house. I hadn't searched the place in the fine-comb style I'd employed at Abel's apartment, nor did I intend to, not with the formidable Astrid stretched out downstairs in uncertain sleep.

"We can make the exchange tomorrow," I said. "A friend of mine died this past week and there's going to be a memorial service for him over in Brooklyn. Nobody knows me there and I don't suppose anybody'll know you either, though I can't say that for sure because I don't know you myself. Do you have a big following in Cobble Hill?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then we're in good shape. The service is at the Church of the Redeemer at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon. That's on Henry Street between Congress and Amity, and now you know as much about getting there as I do. I'll have the coin in an envelope, and if you could have the money the same way, we could make the exchange. I suppose there must be a bathroom, churches generally have bathrooms, and we can go there together and make sure it's the right coin and the money's all present and accounted for."

"I don't see why we have to meet in Brooklyn."

"Because I have to be there anyway, and because I won't pick up the coin until I'm on my way to the service, and because I want to make the swap in a public place, but not so public that there are likely to be police looking on. If you don't want to do it, I'm inclined to say the hell with it and put the coin in a gum machine, because this million-dollar coin has dropped in value to twelve grand and that's not all the money in the world to me, to be frank about it. So we'll do it my way or we won't do it at all, and maybe that's a better idea anyway, come to think of it."

I let him cajole me out of my snit. I didn't require too much in the way of cajolery. It wasn't that deep a snit. Then I said, "Wait a minute, how will we recognize each other? We've never met."

"I'll know you. I've seen your picture."

He'd done better than that. He'd seen me face to face, through a pane of presumably one-way glass. And I'd seen him the same way, although he didn't know it. I went along with the charade, saying I didn't look all that much like my picture and I wanted to be able to recognize him, too, so why didn't we both wear red carnations? He agreed, and I advised him to pick up his flower that evening, because it might be difficult finding a florist open on Sunday.

And through all this chatter I kept listening for Astrid's footfall on the stairs. At any moment she might come awake, anxious to demonstrate how attack dogs got their name.

"Tomorrow, then," he said. "At two-thirty. I'll be glad when this is over, Mr.-I almost said your name."

"Don't worry about it."

"As I said, I'll be glad when this is over."

He wasn't the only one.

I made sure the gun was armed with a little plastic dart, hurried downstairs with it and had a quick look at Astrid. She lay as I'd left her, sprawled on her side, and now I could see her chest heave with heavy breathing. While I stood there she made a small mewling sound and her forepaws twitched. The dart that had done the job lay alongside her. I retrieved it, dropped it into my attaché case.

I went upstairs and used the phone again. I had a lot of people I wanted to call, but I limited myself to dialing three numbers, all of them long distance. None of the calls lasted very long. After the third one I went back downstairs to find the big black dog almost awake but not quite able to get up on her feet. She turned woebegone ill-focused eyes on me, and it was difficult to regard her as a threat. She looked incapable of a hostile thought, let alone of tearing one's throat out. But I forced myself to remember her bark, and the way she'd coiled herself to spring.

I hoped she'd be her old alert self by the time her master returned.

I let myself out, locked up after myself. If anyone watched me I was unaware of it. I walked through the garden, still wondering if there were fish in the pond, and I searched the flower beds in vain for carnations, red or otherwise. I could have suggested that he wear a tulip.

Why, I wondered, had I bothered with that carnation business? All in the interest of verisimilitude, I suppose, but it could add an unnecessary complication, because now I had to remember to pick one up before the stores closed. Which ordinarily wouldn't have been such a chore, but it was one of a long list of things to do, and I had less than twenty-four hours to get them all done.

Which left me no time to squander in gardens. I hurried through the tunnel, looked left and right and straight ahead, opened the gate and let myself out.

So many things to do…

"Idunno, Bern. What it sounds like to me is you're settin' up somethin' complicated."

"Isn't that what you wanted? You know I didn't have anything to do with either the Colcannon burglary or the murder of Abel Crowe, but you kept sniffing around, trying to stir something up."

"You're in both of those things up to your eyes, Bern. I just don't know about this, that's all."

It was Ray Kirschmann's day off and he was wearing brown gabardine slacks and a print sport shirt. The pants were baggy in the seat and too tight at the waist, and the shirt was one of those Korean imports in light green with dark-green stitching on the collar and pockets. I really wish he'd take his wife along when he buys clothes.

I said, "What's to know, Ray? I'm giving you a chance to be a hero, make a couple of good busts, clear a few old cases and put a few dollars in your pocket. What else do you expect to do? Slay the dragon and screw the king's daughter?"

"I don't care about dragons, Bern."

"You wouldn't like a princess much. One pea under the mattress keeps them bitching all night."

"Yeah, I remember the story. Tell me again about the dollars I'm gonna put in my pocket."

"There's a man who's willing to pay a reward for the recovery of his property."

"What man?"

"You'll meet him tomorrow."

"What property?"