Lawrence Block - The Burglar on the Prowl

"That's what you did at my place," I said. "But it's not what they did."

"They made a mess? Yeah, you said they did."

"But they didn't make a mess here. Aside from a pair of dead bodies in the living room, I'd say they left the place pretty much as they found it. Which means they didn't search it, and what does that tell you?"

"That they got the damn thing outta the safe, just like I told you right from the beginning."

"But I already explained why they couldn't have. So that leaves another possibility, and it's the only one I can think of."

"Let's hear it."

"They got something," I said, "and they thought it was the McGuffin, and at that stage they had no reason to leave the Lyles breathing."

"Bang bang."

"And away they went, and it wasn't until hours later that they found out they didn't have what they wanted. Because it's still here."

He took his time thinking it over. "Okay," he said at length. "I can't find the holes in that, so all you gotta do is prove the pudding. If it's here, show it to me."

Twenty minutes later, we stood looking down at four photos which I'd laid out on the dining room table. They were color prints, four inches by five inches, and looked to have been taken by the same camera. All four were framed with Scotch tape that held them to pages recently torn from a book. If you looked closely, you could see another thickness of tape, half as wide, which suggested that they'd been mounted somewhere else, then cut loose and mounted anew. The book from which they'd been most recently removed wasQB VII, by Leon Uris. I'd read the book years ago and remembered it fondly, and it had bothered me to rip out the pages, especially with the author having died not long ago. But it was a book club edition and its dust jacket was missing, so it could have been worse. I'd put it on the table next to the photos, where it sat looking deceptively intact.

The photographs showed two faces, full-face and profile. Both faces, stern and expressionless, were those of middle-aged white men, and they filled the photos; if anything of either man existed below the chin, you couldn't have told from these pictures. Madame Defarge might have just plucked them from the basket at the base of the guillotine.

"There," I said, triumphantly. "Head shots."

I give up, Bern. Who the hell are these guys?"

"That's what Ray wanted to know," I said. "He also wanted to hang on to the photos, but I pointed out they might be evidence someday, so he couldn't just come up with them. He had to find them somewhere, in the right time and the right place, when finding them was something he was legally authorized to do. This way, I said, he had plausible deniability. I think he liked the sound of it."

"I don't blame him. I like the sound of it myself. You got any idea who these bozos are? Because I wouldn't know where to start guessing. You look at them and at first glance they look like brothers, or maybe cousins, and then you look again and see how different they are. The noses are different, the mouths are completely different, this one's jowly, this one's got a higher forehead, the other's got a scar, they're different around the eyes-you know, when you add it all up, they're barely members of the same species, but there's a similarity about them, and I don't know what it is."

"Same pose, for one thing. Same expression, or lack of expression."

She nodded. "Same overall shape of the head, too."

"Ray said they were brothers, but with different parents."

"Ike and Mike, they look alike. Except they don't. Ike here looks older, doesn't he?"

"Well, he's a blond. They're supposed to have more fun."

"Mike's definitely younger. If he were a woman you'd say his hair was mouse-colored, but you don't hear that with guys. What would you call his hair color, sandy?"

"I guess."

"It's funny," she said. "He's got less hair than Ike, but he looks years younger. I wonder why."

"Maybe he was born ten years later than the blond guy."

"That would explain it, Bern. Or maybe it's clean living. A healthier diet. More vegetables. Plenty of exercise, regular dental checkups. Assuming either one of them even has teeth. They've both got this cold closemouthed stare, and I think that's what makes them look alike, even though they don't. Bern, how'd you know where to look for the photos?"

"I gave Berzins a book," I said, "and he was happy to pay thirteen hundred dollars for it, and I suppose he'd have gone as high as ten thousand, because that's what he'd brought along with him. He didn't care about the title or author, and when I said the title he must have thought I was talking about him, because that's what he was, a secret agent of some sort."

"And then they shot him and took the book from him-"

"And took it to Mapes's house in Riverdale. Or to Mapes, anyway, for him to take home. They didn't say, 'A book? We don't need no stinking books,' and throw it in the garbage. They figured it might be what they were after, so I thought about that, and I decided it might be something you could hide in a book. And then I realized it was probably photos, which you can definitely hide in a book. Then you stick the book in the middle of a bookcase, and nobody thinks to look for it."

"Like the Poe story."

" 'The Purloined Letter.' Yes, the same idea. The apartment was a sublet, remember, and the original tenants had left the books in the bookcase. They were readers, too, so there were plenty of books. Ray said he and his buddies lifted them out a handful at a time and checked to make sure nothing was hidden behind them. That was reasonable if you didn't know what you were looking for, but it was just a waste of effort in this case. Some cop had that copy of QB VII in his hand and didn't have a clue what he was holding."

"So you went through them a book at a time."

"It didn't take long. You just open the book and riffle the pages. If there's anything in there, you know right away. The hard part was finding the right book, which happened fairly early on, and then checking all the others to make sure it was the only one like that."

"I don't know if I would have had the patience to do that, Bern."

"I didn't get to think about it, because Ray just kept going, picking up books and riffling them, showing me what painstaking police work looks like. The least I could do was follow his example. And of course there were no more books with photos taped to their pages, but that way we were positive."

"Just four photos," she said. "Two for each subject. I asked before if you had a clue who they were, and I don't remember what you said."

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh."

"Your computer working?"

"Is my computer working? Of course it's working. I was just online, and I checked my buddy list, and guess who else was online? GurlyGurl, so we IM'd back and forth for a while. We've got a date for Tuesday night, unless she has to work late." She grinned. "She was bitching about one of the lawyers who keeps piling work on her, says she's a real ovary-buster. I bet I know who she means."

"Maybe we'd better not go on any double dates just yet."

"My thought exactly. She likes me, Bern. Isn't that neat?"

"Very."

"Why'd you ask about my computer?"

"Because you're better on it than I am," I said, "and I thought maybe you'd like to do a little research."

Ray had brought along a fresh roll of CRIME SCENE tape, and after he'd used it to reseal the apartment he offered to drop me at Carolyn's. He got as far as Sheridan Square and told me I was on my own, claiming that he always got lost in the crooked little streets. He may just have been in a hurry to get home. It was still raining, so I was glad I had my umbrella.

Before I got out of the car I reached in my pocket and remembered what I'd been carrying around ever since I spoke to him hours ago. "You could do me a favor," I said. "Do you think you'd be able to run a print for me?"