Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“How much did it finally come to, partner? Twenty grand? Forty?”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty thousand American dollars.” Ray whistled softly. “No wonder you weren’t crazy about our deal tonight. Why take chances for ten grand when you already had fifty salted away, especially when you’d have to split the ten in half and the fifty was yours free and clear.”

“Half’s yours, Ray. You think I would hold out?”

“Oh, you’re real cute, Loren.”

“I was just waiting until I could find a way to explain it to you. I wouldn’t hold out on you.”

“Of course not.”

“Twenty-five thousand tax-free dollars is your end of it, Ray. Jesus, here we have the murderer standing right next to you. It’s open and shut and all he is is a fucking burglar, Ray. See how sweet it is?”

“Oh, I get it. You think we should hang it all on Bernie here.” Ray scratched his chin. “Thing is, what happens when he tells his story? They’d lean on you and do some checking and you’d crack wide open, Loren.”

“He could get shot trying to escape. Ray, he escaped once, right? He’s a dangerous man. Listen to me, Ray. Think about twenty-five thousand dollars. Or maybe you should get more than half. Is that it? Ray, listen to me-”

Ray hit him. He used his open hand and slapped Loren across the face. Loren put his hand to his cheek and stood there looking properly stunned while the slap went on echoing in the silent apartment.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Ray said after a moment. “You have the right to-oh, fuck this noise. Bernie, if the question ever comes up recall that I read this cocksucker his rights.”

“No question about it.”

“Because I want this to be airtight. I never liked the little shit but you’d think he’d know the difference between clean and dirty, between taking money and killing for it. You know what I’d like? I’d like something hard, some piece of evidence that would nail his ass to the wall. Like his nightstick with Flaxford’s blood on it, but it’s a sure bet that already went down the incinerator.”

“You’ll find the money. With blood on some of it.”

“Unless he stashed it.” He glared at Loren. “But I suppose he’ll tell me where it is.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think he actually picked up fifty thousand dollars. I think he picked up forty-nine thousand nine hundred.”

“You lost me, Bernie.”

I held out the blue box. “Now I didn’t open this box yet,” I said, “because I don’t know the combination. But I could probably pick the lock, and when I do I have a feeling I know what we’ll find inside. I think we’ll find a hundred-dollar bill and I think there’ll be a bloodstain on the bill and I even think there’ll be a fingerprint on the bloodstain. Now it could conceivably be Flaxford’s fingerprint if he did some bleeding before Loren got to him. Maybe he cut himself on the lamp as he knocked it over. But I have a hunch it’ll be Loren’s fingerprint, and it certainly ought to be a good piece of evidence, don’t you think?”

Ray gave me a long look. “That’s what you think you’ll find in the box.”

“Call it a hunch.”

“So why not open the box and see for ourselves?” And when I’d done so he said, “Beautiful, Just beautiful. When’d you set this up, anyway? Oh, sure, the time you went to the toilet. You faked flushing it same as Loren did. That’s cute. And the bill was there all the time? The lab boys missed it? Amazing.”

“It must have been in the blue box all along.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t suppose I’ll ever learn what was really in the blue box, and I don’t really suppose I give a shit. I like what’s in there now. That’s a beautiful print, all right, and I’ll bet it does turn up to be yours, Loren, and I’ll also bet that blood turns out to be the right type.” He sighed heavily. “Loren,” he said, “I think you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“That’s fantastic,” Ellie said. “Just incredible. You actually solved the murder.”

“That’s what I did, all right.”

“It’s amazing.” She drew up her legs and tucked her feet underneath herself. She was wearing the outfit she’d had on the morning she knocked the plant over, the white painter’s pants and the Western-style denim shirt, and she looked as fetching as ever. “I don’t see how you figured it out, Bernie.”

“Well, I told you how it went. The main thing was realizing that the deadbolt had been locked originally. At the time I assumed that Flaxford had locked it on his way out, but of course he was in the bedroom then. Once I made the connection, there were two possibilities. Either the murderer was someone with a key, or Flaxford had locked it himself from the inside. And if Flaxford had locked up, then he was alive when I was in the apartment, and if that was the case only one person could have killed him.”

“Loren.”

“Loren. And if Loren killed him it was for money, and money was the one thing that wasn’t turning up. And there just had to be money in the case.”

“And you figured all this out while you were opening the door.”

“I had it pretty much figured out before then. I wanted it to look like it was coming to me while Ray was around so it would be easier for him to follow the reasoning.”

“And then you had the luck to find the hundred-dollar bill on the floor.”

I let that pass. It was luck, but I’d been prepared to make my own luck. There was a hundred-dollar bill in my wallet right now, one of the pair Darla and I had split, and there was a little blood on it for decoration, and it would have gone into the blue box if the genuine article hadn’t turned up behind the bed. I’d needed something to take Ray’s mind off what was originally in the box and a piece of bloody currency had looked to have the right sort of dramatic value, something Perry Mason might wave about in a courtroom. Maybe that was why I happened to notice the bill Loren had actually left behind. Well, this way I could keep my own bill, at least until I found something to spend it on.

Ellie got up and went to the kitchen for more coffee. I stretched out and put my feet up on the coffee table. I was bone-tired and tightly wired all at once. I wanted to lie down and sleep for six or seven days, but the way I felt I might have to stay awake about that long.

It was getting late now, almost one-thirty. Once Ray and Loren had gotten out of Darla’s apartment I called her at home as we’d arranged, ringing twice and hanging up. A few minutes later she rang me back and I reported that I’d found the box and had the tapes and pictures in hand. “You don’t have to worry about negatives,” I said. “They’re Polaroid shots. One thing, whoever took them had a nice sense of composition.”

“You looked at them.”

“I had to know what they were and I didn’t trust myself to identify them by touch.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” she said. “I just wondered if you found them interesting.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“I thought you might. Have you listened to the tapes?”

“No. I’m not going to. I think there should be a certain amount of mystery in our relationship.”

“Oh, are we going to have a relationship?”

“I rather thought we might. Does your fireplace work or is it just for decoration?”

“It works. I’ve never had a relationship in a fireplace.”

“I had something else in mind for it. I’m going to burn the pictures and tapes before I leave. They’re half mine anyway. I spent all my case money getting them back and I want them out of the way as soon as possible.”