Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“The box was a personal matter,” I said. “Call it a favor for a friend. The important thing was for me to get into the apartment, Ray. I didn’t even realize it at the time, in fact I actually thought that the box was the important thing, but just being in the apartment told me what I wanted to know.”

“I don’t get it,” Loren said. He looked as though he expected a trick, as though when I opened the blue box I’d be likely to extract a white rabbit. “What did you find in the apartment, Bernie?”

“For openers, the door wasn’t locked completely. The deadbolt wasn’t on.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Ray said. “I told you some cop just shut the door and didn’t bother locking it. What’s it matter?”

“It doesn’t. What does matter is that the deadbolt was locked when I let myself into Flaxford’s apartment the other night. If it had just been the spring lock I’d have opened it faster, but that’s a good Rabson lock and I had to work the cylinder around for one and a half turns. It didn’t take me too long because I happen to be outstanding in my chosen field-”

“Jesus, what we gotta listen to.”

“-but I had to turn the bolt first, then go on to knock off the spring lock. Which I did.”

“So?”

“So either the murderer happened to take a key with him on his way out of the apartment and then happened to take the time to use the key to lock Flaxford’s corpse inside, or else Flaxford engaged that deadbolt himself by turning the knob from the inside. And I somehow can’t see the murderer having the key in the first place or bothering to use it if he did.”

I had their attention now but they didn’t know quite what to make of it. Slowly Ray said, “You’re sayin’ Flaxford locked hisself in, right?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Jesus, Bernie, all you’re puttin’ is your own neck in the noose. If he locked hisself in and the door’s locked when you get there, then the bastard was alive when you let yourself in.”

“That’s absolutely right.”

“Then you killed him.”

“Wrong.” I slapped Loren’s stick against the palm of my hand. “See, I have an advantage here,” I went on. “I happen to know for a fact that I didn’t kill Flaxford. So knowing he was alive when I got there means something different to me. It means I know who killed him.”

“Who?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” I pointed with the nightstick. “Loren killed him. Who else?”

I watched Loren’s right hand. Interestingly enough, it went to where his gun would have been if I hadn’t been wearing it at the time. He dropped his hand to his side and saw me looking at him and blushed.

“You’re out of your mind,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“If that’s not typical for Gemini I don’t know what is. Just try on any kind of a wild lie and see how it goes over. Ray, I think we better take him in. This time put cuffs on him, will you? He already escaped from us once.”

Ray was silent for a moment. Then to me he said, “Are you just snowballing this one, Bernie? Puttin’ it together as you go along?”

“No, I think it’s fairly solid, Ray.”

“You want to run it by me once just for curiosity?”

“Ray, you’re not going to listen to this maniac-”

“Shut up,” Ray Kirschmann said. And to me he added, “Go ahead, Bernie, you got me interested. Go through it once for me.”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s pretty simple, actually. J. Francis Flaxford was supposed to go to the opening of a play that night. It was all set. That’s why I picked that particular time to hit his apartment. I had inside information and my source knew for a fact he’d be out.

“Well, he was all set to go. He was in his dressing gown, ready to get dressed, and then he had an accident. I don’t know if it was a stroke or a fainting spell or a minor heart attack or an accidental fall or what, but the upshot of it is he wound up passed out on his bed wearing his robe. Somewhere along the line he probably knocked the lamp off the bedside table or bumped into something and maybe that was the noise that prompted some neighbor to call the cops. It doesn’t matter. The significant thing is that he was unconscious in his bedroom with the door locked from inside when I entered the apartment.”

“This is crazy,” Loren said.

“Let him talk.” Ray’s voice was neutral. “So far you’re just spinnin’ your wheels, Bernie.”

“All right. I got into the apartment and went right to work. I never left the living room and did nothing but go through the desk because that was where the box was supposed to be. My informant didn’t know the box was disguised as a book. I was still playing around with the desk when you arrived. We had our conversation, made our financial arrangements, and we were all set to leave when Loren got a call of nature.”

“So?”

“So according to his story, he went to the bathroom, used the toilet, then made a wrong turn on his way back and walked to the bedroom by mistake. There he discovered Flaxford’s corpse. So he turned and rushed all the way back to the living room where we were waiting for him, finally sounded the alarm far and wide, turned a little green around the gills and flopped over in a faint.”

“Well, we both saw him do that, Bernie. And then you sandbagged me and took off like a bat outta hell.”

I shrugged off that last charge. “Loren saw Flaxford right off the bat,” I said, “speaking of bats. He had to. That’s a short hallway. If you walk toward the bathroom from the living room you can see those chalkmarks on the bedroom carpet before you reach the bathroom door. Of course there were no chalkmarks at the time. But there was a body there, sprawled out on the bed, and that was interesting enough so that Loren passed right by the john and checked out the bedroom.”

“And?”

“He was in there for a few minutes. Then the body-Flaxford, that is-came to life. I don’t know whether Loren originally thought he was dead or unconscious, but either way the man was suddenly alive and awake and staring at him, and Loren reacted automatically. He swung his trusty nightstick and cracked Flaxford over the head.”

“Crazy,” Loren said. His voice was trembling but that might have been rage and indignation as easily as guilt. “He’s out of his mind. Why would I do anything like that?”

“For money.”

“What money?”

“The money you were filling your pockets with when Flaxford blinked his baby blues at you. There was money all over his lap and all over the floor when you found him.” To Ray I said, “Look, Flaxford was a fixer, a bagman, a guy with a lot of angles going for himself. He may have bank accounts and safe deposit boxes and secret stashes but he also would have had cash on hand. Every operator like that does, whether his operations are legal or not. Look, I’m just a small-time burglar myself but I was able to put my hands on ten grand tonight.” I saw no point in adding that only half of it had been mine.

“Now the one thing that never turned up in Flaxford’s apartment was money. Not in his drawer or closets, not in any wall safe, not in that fantastic desk. With all the searches that place got, including the search I gave it tonight, the one thing that never turned up was cash.”

“So you’re saying that because there was no cash Loren here must have taken it?”

“It’s crazy,” Loren said.

“It’s not crazy,” I said. “Whatever knocked Flaxford unconscious, it got him suddenly. A fall, a stroke, whatever-all of a sudden he was unconscious. It’s my guess he had a recent visitor bringing him a payoff that he was supposed to transfer from one person to another. The payoff was big enough to make him delay his trip to the theater. He got the cash, his visitor left, and he took it to his bedroom to count it before he passed out. Loren walked in and found this unconscious man in a room full of hundred-dollar bills.”