Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“I think I know where the box is,” I said.

“Where?”

“Where it’s been all along. Flaxford’s apartment.”

“You said you looked.”

“I looked in the desk, but that’s as far as I got. I’d have kept on looking if the Marines hadn’t landed and I think I probably would have found it. It could have been anywhere in the apartment. Just because you saw him put it in the desk doesn’t mean he left it there forever. Maybe he had a wall safe behind a picture. Maybe he stuck it in a drawer in the bedside table. It could even be in the desk but not in a drawer. Those old rolltops have secret compartments. Maybe he put the box in one of them after you left. Anyway, I’ll bet it’s still there, right where he put it, and the killer assumes I’ve got it, and the apartment’s all locked up with a police seal on the door.”

“What can we do?”

An idea began heating up in the back of my mind. I let it simmer there while I took a different tack with her. “This blue box,” I said. “I think it’s time I knew what was inside it.”

“Is it important?”

“It’s important to you and it’s important to the man who killed Flaxford. That makes it important to me. Whatever it is must be pretty valuable.”

“Only to me.”

“He was blackmailing you.”

A nod.

“Photographs? Something like that?”

“Photographs, tape recordings. He showed me some pictures and played part of a tape for me.” She shuddered. “I knew he didn’t love me any more than I loved him. But I thought he enjoyed what we did.” She stood up, took a few steps toward the window. “My life with my husband is quite conventional, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Some years ago I learned that I’m not all that conventional myself. When I met Fran some months ago we learned we had certain, uh, tastes in common.” She turned to face me. “I never expected to be blackmailed.”

“What did he want from you? Money?”

“No. I don’t have any money. I had a hard time raising enough cash to hire you and Wesley. No, Fran wanted me to influence my husband. You know he’s involved with CACA.”

“I know.”

“There’s a man named Michael Debus. He’s the District Attorney of Brooklyn or Queens, I can never remember which. Carter’s spearheading some sort of investigation which threatens to expose this Debus.”

“And Flaxford wanted you to pull the plug on it?”

“Yes. As if I could, incorruptible as Carter is.”

“What was Flaxford’s interest?”

“I don’t know. I can’t figure out how he fits into it all. He and I became involved long before Carter began this investigation, so he didn’t start seeing me with an ulterior motive in mind. And I always understood that he was involved with the theater. He produced some shows off-off-Broadway, you know, and he moved in those circles. That’s how I met him.”

“And that’s how you met Brill also?”

“Yes. He didn’t know Fran or any of my other theater friends, which made me feel safer about using him. But Fran must have been involved with crime in some way that I never knew about.”

“He must have been some kind of a fixer,” I said. “He was obviously trying to fix things for Debus.”

“Well, he certainly fixed me.” She came over, sat down on a love seat, took a cigarette from a box on the coffee table, lit it with a butane table lighter. “He must have known just what he was doing when he started up with me,” she said levelly. “Even if the Debus investigation hadn’t started. He knew who Carter was and he must have decided that it would come in handy sooner or later to have a hold on me.”

“Did your husband ever meet him?”

“Two or three times when I dragged Carter to an opening or a party. I’m interested in the theater the way Carter is interested in collecting coins. With those small companies you can have the excitement of being a backer and the thrill of being an insider for a couple of hundred deductible dollars. It’s an inexpensive way to delude yourself into thinking you’re involved in creative work with creative people. Oh, you meet the most interesting people that way, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

She took our empty glasses into the kitchen. I think she may have helped herself to a slug from the bottle while she was at it because when she came back her face had softened and she seemed more at ease.

I asked her when Flaxford had shown her the contents of the blue box.

“About two weeks ago. It was only the fourth time I’d been to his apartment. We generally came here. This isn’t a friend’s apartment, you see. I rented it myself some years ago as a convenience.”

“I’m sure it’s convenient.”

“It is.” She drew on her cigarette. “Of course he took me to his apartment so he could make the tapes and photographs. And then he invited me up to show me his work and make his pitch.”

“He told you to get your husband to drop the Debus investigation?”

“Yes.”

“But you couldn’t do that?”

“Tell Carter to discontinue a CACA project?” She laughed. “You ought to remember just how high-principled a man my husband is, Mr. Rhodenbarr. You tried to bribe him, remember?”

“I do indeed. Didn’t you say as much to Flaxford?”

“Of course I did. He said he was just trying to give me a chance to work things out on my own. For the sake of our friendship, he said.” She gritted her teeth. “But if I couldn’t sway Carter myself, then he’d go to him directly, threaten to circulate the photos.”

“What would Carter have done?”

“I don’t know. I’m not certain. He couldn’t have allowed the photographs to circulate. Carter Sandoval’s wife doing perverted things? No, he could hardly have tolerated that, no more than he could have tolerated remaining married to me. I’m not sure just what he would have done. He might have tried something dramatic, something like leaving a detailed note implicating Fran and Debus and then diving out a window.”

“Would he have tried killing Flaxford?”

“Carter? Commit murder?”

“He might not have thought of it as murder.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t imagine him doing it,” she said. “Anyway, he was with me at the theater.”

“The whole night?”

“We had dinner together and then we drove downtown.”

“And you were together the entire time?”

She hesitated. “There was a one-act curtain raiser before the main production. An experimental extended scene written by Gulliver Shane. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his work.”

“I’m not. Is Carter?”

“Pardon?”

“He missed the curtain-raiser, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “He dropped me in front of the theater and then went to park the car. The curtain was at eight-thirty and I had time for a cigarette in the lobby so he must have dropped me at twenty after eight. Then he had trouble finding a parking place. He won’t park by a hydrant even though they don’t tow cars away that far downtown. He’s so disgustingly honest.”

“So he missed the curtain.”

“If you’re not seated when the lights go up you have to watch from the back of the theater. So he couldn’t sit next to me during the Shane play. But he said he watched from the back, and he was sitting beside me by nine o’clock, or maybe nine-fifteen at the outside. That wouldn’t have given him enough time to rush all the way uptown and kill Fran and get back to me that quickly, would it?”

I didn’t say anything.

“And Carter wouldn’t even have known about Fran. Fran hadn’t gone to him yet, I know he hadn’t. I was supposed to have until the end of the week. And Carter wouldn’t kill anyone by striking him. He’d use a gun.”

“Does he still have that cannon of his?”