The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,52

line. Rob Rennick had a sly feline quality, so he was the cat. And you ought to be able to guess Charles Wood’s code name.”

“The elephant,” I said.

“The elephant? Why an elephant, for heaven’s sake?”

“Never forgets,” I said. “Keeps his trunk packed. I never met the man, so why would you think I’d be able to guess his code name?”

“Ah, well. It will become instantly obvious when I say it. His was the only code name with purely verbal origins. His name was Chuck Wood and his code name was the woodchuck. I can’t say he bore any physical resemblance to the animal, but there was a patient but obdurate quality to his work. He would just gnaw away at something forever until he carried the day.”

“And the carvings?”

“A man named Letchkov made them. That’s a Bulgarian name. He was Bulgarian, like most of them in that crowd, although to call him that was tantamount to challenging him to a duel. He would insist he was Anatrurian. Letchkov was an old man then, so he’d be long since dead. An animal for each of the five of us, and there were others in the series, too. A pig, a goat, some I can’t recall. Some of the Anatrurian activists, you see, had animal code names of their own.”

“What became of the carvings?”

“They stayed behind in Anatruria, if you want to call it that. Or at least I assumed they did. My little mouse seems to have found a way to cross the water. A long way for a little mouse to swim.”

“If it’s the same mouse.”

“It would surprise me greatly,” he said, “to learn that it was not. But I’ve talked far too long about a closed chapter of my life, Mr. Thompson, and while I don’t suppose I’ve compromised national security at this late date, I think I’ll give you a chance to tell me how our actions in Anatruria could possibly have linked you with Cappy Hoberman, and brought you into this building.”

“There’s a young woman I’ve been seeing,” I said. “She’s Anatrurian, and—”

“What’s her name?”

“Ilona Markova.”

“That sounds Bulgarian, and could be Anatrurian.”

“She told me she was Anatrurian,” I said, “and she had a map of Eastern Europe on her wall with the borders of Anatruria outlined in red. And a photograph of Vlados and Liliana in a place of honor in her apartment.”

“Liliana,” he said. “That was the queen, all right. I’d forgotten her name. Did your friend tell you how Liliana died?”

“She didn’t even tell me who the two people were. How did Liliana die?”

“In a car crash in the south of France a year or so before the outbreak of the Second World War. Vlados was badly injured but survived. It was an article of faith among Anatrurian separatists that the car was ambushed by agents of IMRO.”

“IMRO?”

“The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, and God knows that sort of thing was their style, but would they waste time assassinating the pretender to the mythical throne of a nonexistent nation? My guess is that Vlados was drunk. Or his chauffeur was, if he had one.” He’d been looking across the room at the landscape on the far wall. Now he swung his eyes around to me. “How’d you know it was them? Vlados and Liliana?”

“From the stamps.”

“The stamps? Oh, of course! The Anatrurians we worked with talked about the stamp issue, as if a printing press in Budapest could somehow have established the legitimacy of their cause. I don’t know that any of them had actually seen any of the elusive stamps. You don’t own a set, do you? I understand they’re quite scarce.”

I explained about the illustrations in the Scott catalog.

“All right,” he said. “A friend of yours is Anatrurian, and would seem to regard herself as a loyal subject of Vlados the One and Only. There must be more to explain your interest.”

“She’s disappeared.”

“I see. Utterly?”

“Without a trace.”

“What ties her to the Boccaccio? Was it her idea you break into an apartment here?”

“No.”

“Which apartment? Who lives there?”

“Apartment 8-B, and I don’t know who lives there. But he’s another Anatrurian.”

“And how do you know that?”

“He had a photo of Vlados.”

“You’re serious? Yes, I can see you are. The same photo? The same pose, I mean to say, not the same physical object.”

“A different photo. He’s alone in this one, and he’s wearing a uniform.”

“The royals love military dress,” he said, “especially when they haven’t got a country to go with the uniform. You did enter the