Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“They might make interesting souvenirs.”

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. It’s like keeping a loaded gun around the house. The possible benefit is infinitesimal and the downside risk is enormous. I want to destroy them tonight. You can trust me to do it, incidentally. I’m not a potential blackmailer, just in case you were wondering.”

“Oh, I trust you, Bernard.”

“I still have my cop suit. I thought I might leave it here. It would save dragging it back downtown.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“And I still have the handcuffs and the nightstick, strangely enough. The cop they belonged to had to leave in a hurry and he won’t have any further use for them. I’ll leave them here, too.”

“Lovely. If it weren’t so late already-”

“No, it’s too late. And I have some other things to do. But I’ll be in touch, Darla.”

“Oh, good,” she said. “That will be nice.”

I looked up the number of the Cumberland and called Wesley Brill to tell him that the whole thing was wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. “You’re completely out of it,” I said. “The case is solved, I’m in the clear, and neither you nor Mrs. S. ever got mentioned. In case you were worried.”

“I was,” he admitted. “How’d you pull it off?”

“I got lucky. Look, have you got a minute? Because I’ve got a couple of questions.”

I asked my questions and he answered them. We chatted for a minute or two, agreed we ought to meet for a drink one of these days, albeit at someplace other than Pandora’s, and that was that. I found Rodney Hart’s number in the book, dialed it, heard it ring upwards of fifteen times, then got a cooperative girl at the answering service. She told me where to reach Rod-he was still in St. Louis-but when I got through to his hotel there he hadn’t come in yet. I suppose the play was still on the boards.

I changed back into my own clothes and stowed my cop gear in Darla’s closet. She had some interesting gear of her own there, some of which I’d seen in the Polaroid shots, but I didn’t really have time to inspect it. In the living room I flipped through the photographs and piled all but one of them in the wood-burning fireplace, which I now transformed into a film-burning fireplace. I added the cassettes, which smoldered and stank a bit, stirred the ashes when ashes there were, put on the air conditioner and left.

I took a cab downtown to Bethune Street and had a lot of fun telling the driver how to find it. I looked up at the building. There were no lights on in the fourth-floor apartment. I stood in the vestibule and checked the buzzer at 4-F. No name beside the button. I poked the button and nothing happened, so I opened the downstairs door in my usual fashion and went up three flights.

The locks were easy to pick. I let myself in and didn’t have to spend too much time in there. After ten minutes or so I left, picked the locks shut behind me, and climbed another flight to Rod’s apartment where Ellie was waiting.

And we were both there now, sipping cups of coffee laced with Scotch and working everything out. “You’re completely in the clear,” she said. “Is that right? The cops don’t even want to talk to you?”

“They’ll probably want to talk to me sooner or later,” I said. “A lot depends on what Ray ultimately decides to do. He wants Loren out of that uniform for good and he wants him to do some time in prison, but at the same time he’d probably like to avoid a full-scale investigation and court battle. I figure they’ll probably work out some kind of compromise. Loren’ll plead guilty to some kind of manslaughter charge. If he’s inside for more than a year I’ll be surprised.”

“After he killed a man?”

“Well, it would be hard to prove all that in court, and it would be impossible to do without dragging in errant burglars and bribe-taking cops and corrupt district attorneys and other politicians, so you might say the system has a vested interest in putting a lid on this one. And Loren has fifty thousand silent arguments in his favor.”

“Fifty thousand-oh, the money. What happens to the money now?”

“That’s a good question. It belongs to Michael Debus, I think, but how is he going to come around and claim it? I can’t see anybody letting Loren keep it, and I don’t think Ray’ll be able to grab it all for himself. I wish there was a way I could cut myself in for a piece of it. Not out of greed but just so that I could wind up close to even. This whole business is costing me a fortune, you know. I got a thousand dollars in front and gave it to Ray. Then Debus’s men did a few thousand dollars’ damage to my apartment and its contents, and finally my five grand case money went to Ray so that I could clear myself. It all adds up to a hell of a depressing balance sheet.”

“Can you get part of the fifty thousand?”

“Not a chance. Cops don’t give money to crooks. I’m the one person in the world who won’t get a sniff of the fifty thou. I’ll have to go steal some money in a hurry, though. I’m as broke as I’ve ever been.”

“Oh, Bernie. Look what happened the last time you tried to steal something.”

“That was stealing-to-order. From now on I’m strictly freelance.”

“Oh, you’re incorrigible.”

“That’s the term, all right. Rehabilitation is wasted on me.”

She put down her coffee cup, snuggled up close, nestled her little head on my shoulder. I breathed in her perfume. “What’s really amazing,” she said, “is that the box was empty all along.”

“Except for the hundred-dollar bill inside it.”

“But before you put the bill in the box was empty.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wonder what happened to the pictures.”

“Maybe there never were any pictures,” I suggested. “Maybe he threatened Mrs. Sandoval but never actually showed her any pictures. Because in order to take photographs there would have had to be a third person there, wouldn’t there? And no extra person ever did turn up in this case.”

“That’s true. But I thought you said he showed the pictures to her.”

“That’s the impression I had, but maybe he just showed her the box and talked so smoothly that she was left with the impression he’d proved there were pictures in the box? That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“So there probably were never any pictures or tapes in the first place. And if there were, it’s academic because they’re gone now.”

“Gone where?”

“Up in smoke-that would be my guess.”

“That’s amazing.”

“It certainly is.”

“And everything’s all cleared up? That’s the most amazing thing of all. The police don’t want to lock you up anymore?”

“Oh, there are a few charges they could bring,” I said. “But I talked to Ray about that and he’s going to get them quashed without any noise. They could charge me with resisting arrest and unlawful entry, but they’re not really interested in that and they’d probably have trouble making the charges stick. Besides, however they decide to wrap all this up, the last thing they want is my testimony getting in the way.”

“That makes sense.”

“Uh-huh.” I draped an arm around her, curled my fingers around her shoulder. “It all wound up nice and neat,” I said. “I didn’t even have to bring you into it. You’re completely in the clear.”

The silence was devastating. Her whole body went rigid under my hand. I kept that hand on her shoulder and reached into my back pocket for the book I’d found in Apartment 4-F. I had the page marked and flipped right to it.

I read, “ ‘I was divorced four years ago. Then I was working, not a very involving job, and then I quit, and now I’m on unemployment. I paint a little and I make jewelry and there’s a thing I’ve been doing lately with stained glass. Not what everybody else does but a form I sort of invented myself, these three-dimensional free-form sculptures I’ve been making. The thing is, I don’t know about any of these things, whether I’m good enough or not. I mean, maybe they’re just hobbies. And if that’s all they are, well, the hell with them. Because I don’t want hobbies. I want something to do and I don’t have it yet. Or at least I don’t think I do.’ ”