Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“Shit,” she said. “Where’d you get the script?”

“In your apartment.”

“Double shit.”

“Just one flight down. Fourth-floor front. Very conveniently located. I dropped in on my way up here. I thought your cats might be hungry but old Esther and Haman were nowhere to be found.”

“Esther and Mordecai.”

“Since you don’t have any cats it seems silly to argue about their names.” I tapped the little paper-bound book. “Two If By Sea,” I said. “The very play our mutual friend’s traveling around the country with. And the speech I read comes trippingly from the lips of a character named Ruth Hightower.”

“Who told you?”

“Wesley Brill told me which play Ruth Hightower’s a character in. But I thought to ask him the question in the first place. When I introduced you to him as Ruth Hightower he thought that was amusing. I suppose he thought it might be coincidental, but you were quick to switch the conversation around and give your real name. And the night before when we hit Peter Alan Martin’s office I was mumbling some doggerel about one if by land and two if by sea and Ruth Hightower on the opposite shore will be, some Paul Revere crap, and you got very edgy. You must have thought I had everything figured out and I was just babbling. Then this morning you decided to tell me your real name.”

“Well, it doesn’t mean anything, does it?” Her eyes met mine. “I just got into a role and it took me a little time to get back to being me.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Oh, it’s not so complicated.”

“Oh, I think it is. You got into a role, all right. And it was easy for you to get into a role because you’re an actress. That should have been obvious to me earlier than it was. Look how neatly you ran down Brill yesterday. You knew just who to call-first Channel 9, then the Academy in Hollywood, then SAG. I didn’t even know what SAG was, I thought it was something women tend to do after a certain age, and there you were on the phone with them, dropping little bits of shoptalk left and right.

“The thing is, the whole business was lousy with actors and theater buffs from the beginning. Flaxford dabbled as a producer and real estate operator while he made his money in less respectable areas. Rod’s an actor who talked about the great deal he had on an apartment because the landlord has a soft spot for actors. Darla Sandoval’s hobby is theater; that’s how Flaxford got his hooks into her in the first place, and that’s how she found Brill and used him to hire me. And you’re an actress, and that’s how you knew Rod.”

“That’s right.”

“But it’s only the beginning. It’s also how you happened to know Flaxford, and he was the one who introduced you to Darla. You didn’t meet her downtown or you would have known her last name. But you didn’t. It wasn’t until you heard her first name this afternoon at Brill’s hotel room that you realized how it all tied together. Once you knew that the Mrs. Sandoval we were talking about was a lady named Darla, then you decided you had a previous engagement and couldn’t tag along to her apartment. Because she would recognize you and you wouldn’t just be the nice young thing who dropped by to water the plants.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, honey.” I stroked her hair, smiled down at her. “The blue box wasn’t empty.”

“Oh.”

I reached into my pocket, took out the one photograph I’d kept. I looked at it for a moment, then showed it to Ellie. She took a quick look at it, shuddered and turned away.

“That’s Darla,” I said. “The one on the left. The other one is you.”

“God.”

“I burned the rest of the pictures. And the tapes. You don’t have to hold out on me, Ellie. I know you were involved with Flaxford. I don’t know whether you met him through the theater or because he was your landlord. He owned this building, didn’t he? He was the legendary landlord with the soft spot for actors?”

“Yes. He found me this apartment. I didn’t even realize at the time that it was his building.”

“And he had you on the hook one way or another. I don’t know what he had on you and I don’t care, but it was enough so that you cooperated with Darla. Then the other night you were over at his place. The night he was killed.”

“That’s not true.”

“Of course it is. Look, Ellie, Ray Kirschmann bought my explanation about how Flaxford locked himself in his apartment. But that doesn’t mean I bought it. I was the one selling it. You were in the apartment with him. You had a key to the place, and not because he wanted you to water his plants. You were sleeping with J. Francis often enough to have a key of your own.

“And you were in bed with him that night. That’s why you were confused when the papers described him as wearing a dressing gown. You said you thought you’d heard he was discovered nude. Well, that wasn’t what you thought you heard. It was how he was when you left him.” I took a sip of my coffee. “There was a time when I thought you might have been in the apartment while I was searching the desk. It seemed possible. You could have heard me at the door and ducked into a closet or something. Then you’d have stayed put until I got out of there and both cops went tearing after me, and then you could have gotten out yourself. That possibility occurred to me because I couldn’t figure out how else you knew about me and knew I was at Rod’s place. But that didn’t make sense either, and I was sure you’d left Flaxford with his clothes off. But then how did you happen to turn up here? It was enough of a coincidence that you and Rod lived in the same building and I picked his apartment to hide out in. But how did you know I was here and how did you recognize me? You must have called Rod and asked to borrow his apartment and picked up his keys from some other neighbor. But how did you know to do that?”

“Hell.”

“I kept you out of it, Ellie. The cops don’t know you exist and they’ll never have reason to find out. But I’d like to know how it all fits together.”

“You know most of it.”

“I’d like to know the rest.”

“Why?” She drew farther from me, turned her head to the side. “What difference does it make? I’ll go back to my life and you’ll go back to yours. I can leave now. There’s a whole pot of coffee and most of a bottle of Scotch left so you’ll be all right.”

“I want to know the story first, Ellie. Before anybody goes anywhere.”

She turned to look at me, a challenge in the blue-green eyes. Then she said, “Well, you figured out most of it. I don’t know where to start, really. I was at his apartment that evening. You know that much. He had an opening to attend and he wanted me to go with him.”

“The Sandovals were going to be there.”

“That wouldn’t have mattered. I’d seen her around, actually, and we’d talked once or twice before he put us together for the photography session. I just never heard her last name. There must be hundreds of people I know on a first-name basis only.”

“Go on.”

“I was up there and we went to bed. He was an awful man, Bernie. He was extremely cruel and manipulative. I didn’t want to go to bed with him. I hadn’t wanted to go to bed with Darla, as far as that goes. He was…I would have killed him if I were capable of killing anybody. I tried to do the next best thing. I tried to let him die.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were…we were in bed, and I guess he had a heart attack or something. He gasped and collapsed on the bed. I thought he was dead, and it was horrible, but at the same time I felt a great rush of relief.”

“But he was alive. Did you know that?”