Donald Westlake - Smoke

"He stole the coats?"

"You can't prove it, not in a court of law," Barney said. "Fingerprints will tell you where a guy was, but they can't tell you when he was there. Anyway, the week before that, either Wednesday or Thursday, they can't be sure, a bunch of diamonds went missing on West Forty-seventh Street. Again, looks like an inside job, no alarms touched, nobody suspicious around, just the diamonds are gone."

"And they found Noon's fingerprints," Mordon finished.

Barney grinned at him. "You know they did."

"Of course," Mordon said, realizing. "He can't wear gloves."

Barney raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Go on."

Barney thought about that, then shrugged and decided to let it go, to get back to his own flow of events. His smile when he looked at Mordon now was proprietary, the way he might smile at his restaurant. "Fredric Noon's an interesting guy, isn't he?"

"You said that before."

"I'm saying it again. He's an interesting guy. And you're gonna tell me why."

"I don't think so," Mordon said, "but I'll be happy to tell my client what you just said." And he reached for the door handle.

"Don't be stupid, Mr. Leethe," Barney said.

Mordon looked at him in surprise, and Barney wasn't smiling anymore. "Am I being stupid?"

"Not yet. It's true some of the shooflys would like to nail my nuts to a courthouse bench, but I also got friends here and there in the department, what with one thing and another."

"I'm sure you do."

"Now, if I was to go to those friends," Barney said, "and tell them you tried to suborn me and bribe me to pass along classified NYPD information—"

"They'd laugh at you," Mordon said. " I'd laugh at you."

"You think so?" Barney's eyes were now cold as ice. "You think I haven't been wired with you, Mr. Leethe? You think I'm so stupid I don't have selected tapes from our conversations that make you the heavy and me the virgin? Do you have tapes, Mr. Leethe?"

It had never occurred to Mordon that he might need such items. He stared at Barney, unable to think of a thing to say.

Barney could think of what to say. Patting Mordon's knee, the gesture sympathetic, he said, "You got a partner now, Mr. Leethe. So tell me the story."

Mordon told him the story.

19

"The house is haunted, you know," Mrs. Krutchfield said.

The young woman signing the register looked less than overwhelmed. "Oh, yeah?"

"Many of our guests have seen . . . strange things."

"I do too sometimes," the young woman said, and extended her credit card.

Dealing with the card, looking at the information the young woman had written on the register — Peg Briscoe, and an address in Brooklyn and the license number of that van outside — Mrs. Krutchfield was not at all surprised that this guest was a New Yorker.

City people, they think they know it all. Mrs. Krutchfield, a buxom motherly woman rather beyond a certain age, was sorry, but she just couldn't help it, New Yorkers rubbed her the wrong way, they always had. They were never impressed by anything. You can take your tourist families from faraway places like Osaka, Japan, and Ionia, Iowa, and Urbino, Italy, and Uyuni, Bolivia — and Mrs. Krutchfield could show you all of them in her visitors' book with their very excellent comments — and you could show them your wonders of the Hudson River valley, and you could just happen to mention that this lovely old pre-Revolution farmhouse, now The Sewing Kit bed-and-breakfast outside Rhinebeck, was known to be haunted by a British cavalry officer slain under this very roof in 1778, and those people are, in two words, impressed.

But not New Yorkers. It was such a pity, then, since The Sewing Kit was a mere 100 miles straight north of Manhattan, into the most scenic countryside, that New Yorkers were so much more important to her operation than all the Osakians and Ionians and Urbinos and Uyunis put together. Mrs. Krutchfield just bit her lip and kept her own counsel and tried not to look at the "wives'" ring fingers, and did her level best to treat the New Yorkers just like everybody else.

Including this Briscoe snip. Handing over the large iron key dangling from an even larger wooden representation of the sort of drum that goes with a fife, Mrs. Krutchfield smiled maternally and said, "You'll be in General Burgoyne."

The snip frowned, hefting the heavy key and drum. "Is that usual?"

That was the other thing about New Yorkers: they kept saying things that made no sense. Ignoring that remark, Mrs. Krutchfield said, "We've named all our rooms after Revolutionary War figures, so much nicer than numbers, I think. General Burgoyne, and Betsy Ross, and Thomas Jefferson—"

"The usual suspects."

Mrs. Krutchfield got that one. "Yes," she said, miffed. But she couldn't help going on with her patter. "All except the colonel, of course, we wouldn't name a room after him. "

So it is possible to attract the attention of a New York snip. The girl said, "The colonel?"

"Colonel Hesketh Pardigrass," Mrs. Krutchfield explained, and looked over her shoulder before lowering her voice to add, "the one who was slain in this very house in 1778. It was because of a woman. He's the ghost."

"Ah," the young woman said. "Haunted house equals ghost equals your colonel."

"Well, yes." It was so hard to be civil to New Yorkers, but Mrs. Krutchfield would not give up. "You can read all about him in your room," she confided. "I wrote up his history and made copies, so there's one in every room. You're welcome to take it with you if you like." She didn't add, but might have, most of the decent people do. Particularly the Japanese.

"Thank you," the girl said, noncommittal; she wouldn't take the colonel's history with her, you could tell. And now she hefted the drum-and-key once more, and said, "Are they alphabetical?"

Mrs. Krutchfield went blank. "Are what alphabetical?"

"The rooms. I was wondering how to find General Burgoyne."

"Oh, well, I'll give you directions," Mrs. Krutchfield offered. Alphabetical? she wondered. What did the girl mean, alphabetical? "You just drive your vehicle around to the back," she said, "and park anywhere. You'll see the outside staircase, just go up and in the door there, and it's the first door on the right. You'll have lovely views of the Catskills."

"Oh, good."

"And you'll be staying just the one night?" This customer was a bit unusual, at that; a lone young woman on a Wednesday in June, arriving at almost six in the evening, for one night only.

Which the girl confirmed. "Yes. We're up looking for a house to rent for the summer, but we didn't find anything today."

Mrs. Krutchfield frowned past the girl toward her van parked on the circular drive. "We? I thought you were alone."

"Oh, I am. My, uh, my friends had to drive back to the city tonight, because of their cats."

Oh, yes, New Yorkers also have cats. Some had even been known to ask if they could keep their smelly cats in the actual rooms at The Sewing Kit, to which the invariable response was a gentle but firm no.

The girl said, "You wouldn't know any houses for rent, would you?"

"I'm afraid not, no."

"Well, we'll look some more tomorrow. Thank you."

Mrs. Krutchfield was at heart a good woman, which is why she said, "There's a television set in the parlor, some guests like to watch in the evening," even though New Yorkers never want to watch the same programs as everybody else.

"Thanks." The girl turned away, paused, seemed to think about something, and turned back with her brow all furrowed. "Your ghost," she said. "You say there's a write-up about him in the room?"