Lawrence Block - The Burglar on the Prowl

I wasn't much surprised that the safe in the bedroom was empty-after all, as you'll recall, I was the one who had emptied it. But what relieved me enormously was the extent to which Mapes was relieved. He was so happy to be off the federal hook that he hadn't yet had a chance to wonder where his money had gone. That meant this was the first time he'd opened the safe since my visit, and that meant the rest of the plan had a chance of working.

First, though, he tried to throw us out. "I want to thank you all," he said, "for your support just now. But I don't need to keep you any longer. I think you should go."

"Oh, I dunno about that," Ray said. "Seems like we're just gettin' warmed up."

"I'll admit I'm growing interested myself," Michael Quattrone said. "I think our friend here should continue."

I was glad to hear I was his friend, and by implication everybody else's. I'd taken a seat, but I got up now and faced them. "Getting back to you," I said to Colby Riddle, who looked as though he'd hoped I would have forgotten him in all the excitement. "Mapes called you. He mentioned money, whether there's any in the safe right now or not. And he mentioned me, because he'd read the same newspaper stories as everybody else. You were a scholar, a book person. I owned a bookstore not far from where you taughtology, and-"

"Ology?"

"Well, whatever. It ends in -ology, doesn't it?"

"It's comparative linguistics."

"I stand corrected," I said, "though that's even better, come to think of it. You'd have friends in all languages, including Latvian. Mapes thought you might know me, and he was right, but you also knew some Latvians, and you knew Valdi Berzins was after the Kukarov photos.

"Mapes wanted them back. He had a pretty good idea what kind of treatment he could expect from the Black Scourge of Riga if they got into the wrong hands. He called you, hoping you could do something. You knew there was an opportunity here, you could smell it, but what action could you take?

"First, you called me. There was a chance you could keep out of sight altogether, so you didn't bother to identify yourself. You asked for a particular book, one by an author in whom you have no interest-"

"I don't care for the sea stories, I told you."

"You don't care for Conrad, period. You once quoted a line from Heart of Darkness -'The horror! The horror!' According to you, the horror was the way the man wrote."

"Did I say that? I can't say I recall it."

"Well, I can. You asked if I had The Secret Agent only because you knew the answer would be yes. It was right in the middle of the section you always go to, and it's been there for years. If by some chance I'd sold it since your last visit, you'd just ask for something else. But I hadn't, and you didn't, and I set the book aside for you.

"Then you got in touch with Berzins. I had the photos, they were in a book called The Secret Agent, and all he had to do was pick them up and pay for them. You figured I'd hand him the book, and he'd look through it and throw a fit, and I'd ask him what the hell he expected for twelve lousy dollars, and he'd walk out knowing he'd had a shot at the photos, but now they were gone.

"But Valdi Berzins was a positive thinker, and Norman Vincent Peale would have been proud of him. It didn't even occur to him that he wasn't getting the photos when he bought the book. He knew others were after them, knew they might show up at my store at any moment, so he was quick to pay for his purchase and get out. When he asked the price I said 'Thirteen' and left out the word dollars, and he thought I left out hundred as well. Of course I might have meant thirteen thousand, but that was more than he had, so he thought positively and counted out thirteen hundred-dollar bills and took a hike."

"And they killed him," Grisek said mournfully. "They killed this good man."

" 'They,' " Sigrid said. "Does this 'they' have a name?"

"Not one that I can supply. At least two people were in a car that pulled up at the curb halfway down the block from my store. When Valdi Berzins walked out the door, the car shot forward. Berzins was gunned down, and either the gunman or another passenger snatched up the book he was carrying, still in the brown paper bag I'd put it in."

"That's how it musta happened," Ray said. "But you ain't tellin' us nothin' new, Bernie. Who was in the car an' what happened to the book?"

"I can answer the second part, and maybe the rest will become clear. What happened to the book? Well, one way or another, it wound up here."

Mapes shook his head. "Ridiculous."

"Oh? I wish I'd been with you when you opened the safe for the IRS boys. But no, I don't think that's where you'd keep it. It's a book, so you'd hide it with your other books. Have you got a den, Doc?"

He didn't answer right away. Then he asked me to tell him the book's title again, and I did, and he said he had a copy of The Secret Agent, that he'd owned it for years. He'd read it in college and still had it.

"I'll be doggoned," I said. "Another coincidence."

"And that's all it is, damn you. Maybe Riddle asked for that book because he knew I had a copy. There must be hundreds of copies of the book in New York."

"Enough so that I've never been able to sell mine," I said, "until someone came along and gave me thirteen hundred dollars for it. How much did you pay for your copy?"

"I've no idea. A couple of dollars."

"I think it was a little more than that. I think you paid a pile for it, but then you weren't buying the book. You were buying the photos."

I'd just given him an out, and he grabbed it. "I can prove you're wrong," he said, and hurried through the dining room to the den, and came back triumphantly, book in hand. "Here," he said. "Here's the damned book. And if you can find any photos in it-"

He riffled the pages and stopped in abject horror. Gently I took the book from his hand and flipped it open to show a mug shot of a blond man in profile, with a scar alongside his mouth. It was fastened to the page with Scotch tape, as were three more photos which I found and displayed.

"No," he cried. "No, that's impossible." He grabbed for the book, but I snatched it out of his reach. He stepped back, plunged a hand into his pocket, and the book wasn't the only thing he'd had in the den, because when his hand came out there was a gun in it. It wasn't a very big gun, but they're all huge when they're pointed at you.

This one wasn't pointed at me for long. "Youbastard, " he cried, and he could have meant me, God knows, but as he spoke the words he whirled toward Colby Riddle and fired the gun. "Son of a fucking bitch, " he yelled, and pumped two bullets into Georgi Blinsky, and looked around for someone else to shoot.

The cops and goons all had their guns drawn, but we were all in a circle, and no one wanted to risk a shot because a miss could kill the wrong person. "You started this," he screamed, "you brainless spic whore!" and took careful aim at Marisol Maris.

Whereupon Wally Hemphill, marathoner turned martial artist, leapt from the sofa, whirled like a dervish, and delivered a spinning back kick that knocked the gun from his hand, following it with a move I couldn't follow that sent Mapes reeling across the room, right into the arms of a cop and two thugs. The thugs slapped him silly, the cop cuffed him, and Ray Kirschmann read him his rights. I hadn't paid attention to Miranda for a while, and noted that Mapes had a nice long list of rights. Somehow, though, I didn't think they were going to do him a whole lot of good.

Thanks, Maxine. You're a lifesaver, and don't ask me what flavor, it'll give me ideas. Bern, pick up your glass. Here's to crime."

"And punishment," I said, and we touched glasses and drank.