Lawrence Block: The Burglar on the Prowl

"This is the official story, remember? Ray found the book, but the photos were gone."

"Who took them?"

"Good question. First, though, the home invasion and the murder. Michael Quattrone's men were responsible for the home invasion part, as he more or less admitted, albeit hypothetically. The cops can't make a case against him and won't try, but they know his guys did it. And the doorman's death was accidental. It was homicide, that's what you call it when someone's killed in the commission of a felony, but nobody meant for it to happen."

"That must make the doorman feel a lot better."

"Quattrone wound up withPrinciples of Organic Chemistry, which by now contained Mapes's mug shots of everybody but Kukarov. His main goal was to destroy the ones of Whitey Mullane, his friend and mentor, and my guess is he'll trash the others as well, if he hasn't already. They'd be worth something to a blackmailer, but that's not his line of work, and anyway he doesn't know who the people are."

"And after his men left?"

"Blinsky and his crew got there, too late to pick up the book, or to recover the twenty grand they'd already paid the Lyles. So they shot them, which I suspect they were planning to do all along, book or no book. I don't think Georgi Blinsky was a very nice man."

"Then I won't feel too bad that he got killed. What about the photos of Kukarov?"

"What about them?"

"Well, I know what happened to them. They were in the Leon Uris book waiting for you to find them. I know that because you told me, and Ray knows it because he was there. But what do the cops think happened to them?"

"They think they disappeared."

"Just like that? Poof?"

"No one's too clear on the details. Maybe when they took the tape off his mouth Lyle told Blinsky where the photos were."

"And Blinsky took them. And put the book back where he found it?"

"Does that seem unlikely? How about this-Lyle taped the Kukarov photos in QB VII, then thought better of it and cut them out again. He put them somewhere else, and gave them to Blinsky, hoping it would lead the man in black to spare his life."

"That's a little better, but-"

"Carolyn, it didn't happen, so what difference does it make how it didn't happen? Somebody got the photos, and whoever it was he doesn't have them now, so what do the cops care?"

"I just wondered, that's all. But I see what you mean."

"Now what comes next? Colby Riddle, I guess, and Valdi Berzins. Well, you know how the story goes there. Mapes called Colby, who agreed to help out, probably for a substantial consideration."

"Money, in other words."

"What could be more considerate? Colby got me to set a book aside for him, then told Berzins to go in and ask for it. Meanwhile, a car full of Russians was waiting for Berzins to come out of my store."

"How'd they know to wait for him there?"

"They knew about me from the newspaper article," I said, "or they knew about Berzins and tailed him to the bookstore. He was waiting around on the sidewalk while I had lunch at your place, so that would have given them time to get into position. Both explanations play out about the same, so you can take your pick."

"Okay."

"Then Berzins came in, picked up the book, overpaid or under-paid for it, as you prefer, and went out to meet his death."

"In a hail of flying bullets," she said. "A Russian shot him, right?"

"Right."

"And then jumped out and picked up the book."

"Right."

"So how did it get in Mapes's den?"

"Well, that's hard to say for sure," I said, "because all the people involved are dead."

"Not Mapes."

"He's refusing to answer questions. And nobody much cares, because he killed two men in front of a roomful of witnesses, including three cops and two members of the New York bar."

"And a paralegal," she said, "and someone who works behind a New York bar, and a lot of others besides. But they must have some explanation."

"The Russians," I said. "I'll tell you, they make even better villains now than they did during the Cold War. They shot Berzins, and they wound up with the book, and they already had the photos. They taped the photos intoThe Secret Agent, and sold the package to Mapes."

"If they already had the photos, why shoot Berzins?"

"That's a good question. Hmmm. Okay, try this: Colby and Mapes didn't know the Russians already had the photos, so Blinsky killed Berzins and grabbed the book so he'd have a plausible explanation for how the photos came into his possession."

"I'm not sure that makes perfect sense, Bern. Thank God it doesn't have to. But getting back to Mapes. Why would he come back with the book? He'd have to know the photos were in it, and he looked completely surprised when they showed."

"That would have been a problem," I acknowledged. "He could have been planning to remove the photos, and somehow forgot that he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Or he could have been brazening it out. Remember, the photos were taped securely to the pages. You could give them a fast riffle without revealing anything. He gambled that you could, anyway. And on the off chance that it didn't work, well, he brought his gun along for backup."

"Or Colby could have put the photos in the book without telling him, Bern."

I nodded. "Much better. Colby thought he was doing Mapes a favor, and Mapes saw it as betrayal, and that's why the first person he shot was Colby. That's good, Carolyn. If they ever ask me, I'll trot that one out for them. But I don't think they will."

"So that's the story," she said. "The Russians sold the book back to Mapes. For the money in the wall safe, I suppose. And then he lost it and shot everybody, because he saw the walls closing in on him."

"And he'd have shot Marisol, too," I said, "if Wally hadn't blown out a knee and switched to martial arts. Marathon training just doesn't do much for you in close-quarters combat."

"Wally was terrific, Bern." She picked up her glass, drank deep. "And so was everything you just told me. Now tell me what really happened."

"Well," I said, "to begin with, I had the photos."

"Right."

"Of course I didn't get them until after Berzins was killed. That was on Friday, and Ray let me into the taped-up crime scene on Sunday afternoon."

"I'd forgotten that part."

"Colby never knew Berzins. I was just blowing smoke when I said he did. He knew Mapes, and after Mapes called him, asking what he knew about a bookseller named Rhodenbarr, Colby wanted to make sure the store was open. So he called, and when I picked up the phone he had the answer to his question. Then, to give himself an excuse to stop by later on, he asked for a book he already knew I had."

"Because he'd seen it in the section he always browsed. But if Colby didn't know Berzins, how did Berzins know to ask for the book?"

"He didn't."

"He didn't what? Didn't know or didn't ask?"

"Both. He knew I had something to do with the burglary-even though I didn't-and he combined positive thinking with diplomatic caution. He left his ID and his regular wallet in his parked car and came to me with nothing but ten thousand dollars and a bellyful of self-confidence. 'I believe you have something for me'-that's what he said. If I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, he'd have gone into more detail. But he didn't have to, because I was obliging enough to turn around and hand him a book."

"And he assumed the photos were in it."

"Wouldn't you?"

"I might have looked to make sure, Bern."

"Even if a fast response would let you get something for thirteen hundred bucks that you'd been prepared to pay ten thousand for?"

"That's a point."

"Then he got gunned down, and somebody picked up the book."

"And there weren't any photos in it."