The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,70
an item like that, and Whelkin’s just the man to find one of them. He may never make the big score he’s trying for but he hasn’t missed many meals so far in life and I don’t figure he’ll start now.”
“Did you give him the book?”
“No way. Oh, he’s got a satchel full of copies. I only took the Hitler specimen from his room at the Gresham. I left him some Haggard copies and a few that hadn’t been tampered with, so he can cook up another Hitler copy if he’s got the time and patience. If he forged all of that once, he can do it again. But I’m holding onto the copy I swiped from him.”
“You’re not going to sell it?”
I may have managed to look hurt. “Of course not,” I said. “I may be a crook in my off-hours, but I’m a perfectly honest bookseller. I don’t misrepresent my stock. Anyway, the book’s not for sale. It’s for my personal library. I don’t figure to read it very often but I like the idea of having it around.”
The Maharajah, I told her, was on his way to Monaco to unwind with a flutter at roulette or baccarat or whatever moved him. The whole experience, he told me, had been invigorating. I was glad he thought so.
And Jesse Arkwright, I added, was in jail. Jugged, by George, and locked up tighter than the Crown jewels. They’d booked the bastard for Murder One and you can’t get bailed out of that charge. Doesn’t matter how rich you are.
“Not that he’ll be imprisoned on that charge,” I explained. “To tell you the truth, I’ll be surprised if the case ever comes to trial. The evidence is sketchy. It might be enough to convict a poor man but he’s got the bread for a good enough lawyer to worm his way out. He’ll probably plead to a reduced charge. Manslaughter, say, or overtime parking. He’ll pull a sentence of a year or two and I’ll bet you even money he won’t serve a day. Suspended sentence. Wait and see.”
“But he killed that woman.”
“No question.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Few things do,” I said philosophically. Move over, Immanuel Kant. “At least he’s not getting off scot-free. He’s behind bars even as we speak, and his reputation is getting dragged through the mud, and he’ll pay a lot emotionally and financially even if he doesn’t wind up serving any prison time for what he did. He’s lucky, no question, but he’s not as he thought he’d be before you nailed him with the bookend.”
“It was a lucky shot.”
“It was a perfect strike from where I stood.”
She grinned and scooped up some hummus. “Maybe I’m what the Mets could use,” she said.
“What the Mets could use,” I said, “is divine intercession. Anyway, lots of things aren’t fair. The Blinns are getting away with their insurance claim, for example. I’m off the hook for burglarizing their apartment. The police agreed not to press charges in return for my cooperation in collaring Arkwright for murder, which is pretty decent of them, but the Blinns still get to collect for all the stuff I stole, which I didn’t steal to begin with, and if that’s fair you’ll have to explain it to me.”
“It may not be fair,” she said, “but I’m glad anyway. I like Gert and Artie.”
“So do I. They’re good people. And that reminds me.”
“Oh?”
“I had a call from Artie Blinn last night.”
“Did you? This mint tea’s terrific, incidentally. Sweet, though. Couldn’t you get it without sugar?”
“That’s how it comes.”
“It’s probably going to rot my teeth and my insides and everything. But I don’t care. Do you care?”
“I can’t get all worked up about it. There was something Artie wanted to know, to get back to Artie.”
“There are things I’ve been wanting to know,” she said. “Things I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“About Rudyard Whelkin.”
“What about him?”
“Was he really drugged when he set up the appointment with you? Or did he just sound that way?”
“He just sounded that way.”
“Why? And why didn’t he show up at Porlock’s place?”
“Well, it was her idea. Her reason was that she was going to sandwich in a meeting with the Maharajah so she could sell him the odd copy of the book. She certainly didn’t want Whelkin around while all that was going on. The way she sold it to him was to leave things open so that I wouldn’t know he was involved in double-crossing me. He could always get