Lawrence Block - The Burglar on the Prowl

When Ray finally left (though not without promising to return) I had an actual breathing spell and went back to John Sandford. The book was getting exciting, although the main plotline struck me as a little more far-fetched than others in the series. As usual, the point of view shifted back and forth, from Lucas Davenport, Sandford's macho hero cop, to the villain, who was in this case a disillusioned ex-vegetarian Congregationalist minister making his brutal way around Minnesota, slaughtering prominent vegans and organic farmers, butchering them, and eating their livers. Pretty wild, but somehow he made you believe it, and I was starting to get caught up in it when, dammit, somebody else came in the door and headed straight for the counter.

He was a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard, thin as a pipe cleaner, and wearing a three-piece brown tweed suit. His name was Colby Riddle and he was a professor at the New School. I forget what field he was in, but I'm pretty sure it ends in-ology.

"Well," he said, "and how are you today?"

And, of course, it was the voice I'd heard on the phone that morning, heard and recognized but failed to place. "Oh, hell," I said. "You've come for the book."

"Is this a bad time, Bernie?"

"No, not at all," I said. "Or at least no more so than any other time. Colby, somebody else walked off with your book."

"Oh," he said.

"I'm really sorry."

"I thought you were going to put it aside for me."

"I did."

"Oh."

"And then someone came in and I handed it to him."

He tried to make sense out of this, and I wished him the best of luck. "You thought he was me," he said at length.

"I thought you sent him. He said he understood I had something for him, and-"

"And you thought I'd sent him, so you handed him The Secret Agent. Why didn't he hand it right back?"

"I don't know."

"Because I have to say that it strains the bonds of permissible coincidence that he happened to be looking for the very book I'd asked about."

"He wasn't. I don't believe he knew what he was looking for."

"But you gave him my book and he was satisfied."

"Apparently so."

"He paid for it?"

"Sales tax and all."

"How nice for the governor. Do you suppose he'll bring it back?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Really? When he realizes it's not what he wanted-"

"He's not going to realize it."

"Why, is he brain-dead?"

I decided he was going to hear about it on Live at Five, or read about it in the morning paper, so why not tell him now? "Among other things," I said. "He walked out of here, book in hand, and a car pulled up and somebody rolled down the window and blew him away."

"Good grief. You're serious, aren't you? It's not just a ruse to get around the fact that someone else paid more money for the book than the price you quoted to me."

"I wouldn't sell it out from under you," I said. "And yes, I'm serious. You can check out the hole in Cooperstone's window. The bullet that made it missed the guy, but most of the other rounds didn't."

"How shocking," he said, "and how dramatic. More exciting than anything old Joe Conrad ever wrote, I'll have to say that for it. Bernie, I'm sure it's in dreadful taste to bring it up, but when they shot him and he crumpled to the pavement-I assume he crumpled, didn't he?"

"More or less."

"Well, he would have dropped the book, wouldn't he? I don't suppose you managed to retrieve it."

"No."

"But do you think you might?"

"No."

"Oh. Evidence? The police have it?"

"The killers have it."

"The killers?"

"Scooped it up and drove off with it. Broke a few traffic laws while they were at it, but I don't suppose they were much concerned about that."

"They killed the man," he said thoughtfully, "and took my book. Well, not my book. I hadn't paid for it, so title hadn't transferred. It was still your book."

"If you say so, Colby."

"Well, let me see," he said, heading for the stacks. "I've got to find something to read this weekend, haven't I?"

I joined him in Fiction. I pointed out what other books of Conrad's I had, but he wasn't interested in them. The appealing thing about The Secret Agent, he said, was that it was set on dry land. Conrad's sea stories were just too nautical for his taste.

"Here's Graham Greene," I told him. "I've got a larger than usual stock of Greene, and I think a couple of these are firsts."

"Oh, God," he said. "Not Graham Greene."

"Don't care for him?"

"The salient fact about Graham Greene," he said, "is that his characters get less joy from adultery than the rest of us do embracing our wives. No, I'll pass on Graham Greene."

He settled for one of Evelyn Waugh's Guy Crouchback stories, I forget which one. He'd read it, but didn't own it, and enough time had passed so that he could happily read it again. The prospect pleased him so much that he decided it was time to go on a Waugh jag, and accordingly he picked out three more books and wrote out a check for the lot. "But I do still want The Secret Agent, " he said from the doorway. "If someone happens to bring in a copy-"

"It's yours," I assured him. "And nobody'll get it away from me, either."

I was getting ready to close when Ray Kirschmann turned up like the bad penny he is. "Perfect," I told him. "Just the man I was hoping to see."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely," I said. "You're just in time to help me with my bargain table."

"I'd be glad to, Bernie."

"Good. You take that end-"

"Except I ain't supposed to lift nothin'. Doctor's orders, on account of my back."

"If our roles were reversed," I said, "and I tried an excuse like that on you, you'd want to know the name of the doctor. Never mind, I don't want to hear it. You can just stand there and watch me work."

"Fair enough," he said, and did just that. The least he could do was hold the door for me, and he did, being a great believer in doing the least. Inside, he leaned his bulk against my counter while I did what I do to settle Raffles in for the night.

"Soon as you're ready," he said, "we can go over to that gin mill where you an' Shorty go every night. I was gonna head there myself an' surprise you."

"I wish you had."

"Yeah? Why's that? You like surprises?"

"I like them when they happen to other people, and you're the one who would have been surprised, Ray, when we didn't show up."

"You don't like that place no more?"

"Carolyn's got a previous engagement," I told him, "and I don't feel like drinking alone."

"So you'll drink with me, Bernie. Lock up an' let's go."

I shook my head. "Not tonight, Ray."

"Not tonight? Ain't it Friday?"

"Yes," I said, "and thank God and all that, but I don't feel like a drink tonight."

"Cup of coffee, then. Over on University, there's this place opened up that's supposed to be good."

"It's not bad. A little expensive, though."

"No problem," he said. "You're buyin'."

I was buying a grande latte for each of us, it turned out. I'm sure they'd have been cheaper with English names. I brought them to the table he'd picked out over at the side, and told him Colby Riddle had come looking for his copy of the Conrad novel.

"So it's as I figured," I said. "A legitimate customer ordered the book, and I assumed the fat man was there to pick it up, and he assumed it was what he was looking for, because he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. All he knew was that I had it."

"But you say you don't."

"If I did," I said, "you'd be the first to know. People are getting killed over it, whatever it is, so why would I want to hang on to it? I'd turn it over to the proper authorities."

"That'd be a first. This customer of yours got a name?"