the foreign, but there didn’t look to be too much of that. Oh, that reminds me.” I unzipped the bag, fished around for the packet of currency, and tore off the paper wrapper.
“What’s that?”
“Money,” I said, dealing out hundred-dollar bills like a hand of gin rummy, one for him, one for me, one for him, one for me. “Something like five thousand would be my guess, but we’ll just divvy it up.”
“You were just going to take the coin collection. That was the agreement.”
“Well, it has to look right,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe what a mess I made, all for the sake of creating the proper appearance. Did you want me to spoil the illusion by leaving a wad of cash in the safe?”
“No, but—”
“In New York,” I said, “if I left cash lying around you could count on the cops to take it. Maybe they’re honest here, in which case they’d report it to the IRS and let Mr. McEwan explain where it came from.” One for him, one for me, one for him, one for me. “You think he’d prefer it that way?”
“No, you’re quite right. But maybe you should keep all the cash for yourself. You found it, after all.”
I shook my head. “It’s share and share alike. There, it comes out even. Oh, one more thing.” I got five twenties from my pocket. “In the desk. Again, how would it look if I left them? Two for you and two for me, and have you got a ten by any chance? Wait a minute, I’ve got it. There you go.”
He looked at the bills he was holding. He said, “The dimes are in a box of games in the garage? Between the Parcheesi and…what was the other one you mentioned?”
“Stratego.”
“I’ll make a note of that. The dimes are the only collection Jack cares about. His father gave him one he’d found in a drawer when Jack was a boy, and that started him collecting. I think the set’s worth forty or fifty thousand dollars. At least that’s what they’re insured for.”
“I didn’t examine them too closely,” I said, “but the condition looked good, and there were only a couple of dates missing.”
“It must have been hard to leave them behind.”
I shook my head. “That was the deal. Besides, you’d take a beating fencing anything that specialized. No, the hard part was wrecking the safe and leaving a mess. But I forced myself.”
I watched as he put the money in his jacket pocket. He’d already participated fully in a felony, but actually taking the money evidently had some strong symbolic value for him, because he straightened up behind the wheel and gave a little sigh when he had done so.
“Jack’s in Atlanta,” he said. “He and Betty flew down for the golf. Said he almost didn’t go this year, the way the market’s been behaving. Said he’d thought about selling the coins, but how would that look? And he’d have hated to part with those dimes.”
“Now he won’t have to. But he’d better figure on keeping them out of sight for a year or two.”
“I’ll make sure he knows that.” A slow smile spread on his face. “What’s the line from Casablanca? At the very end, Bogart to Claude Rains.”
“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“Indeed. And a profitable one. Get some sleep, Bernie. I’ve a feeling the next few days are going to be busy ones.”
CHAPTER
Twenty
He was right. It was a busy week.
Tuesday night, while an eminent cardiologist and his wife were at the Met oohing and ahing over David Hockney’s sets for Die Zauberflöte, Marty and I were on the way to their house in Port Washington. A security patrol watched over the neighborhood according to a strict schedule; armed with that schedule, we synchronized our own movements accordingly.
There was no alarm this time, just a formidable door with a brass lion’s-head knocker and one of those legendary Poulard locks, to which I laid a successful siege. Inside, I dumped a couple of drawers without bothering to see what hit the floor, hurrying directly to the master bedroom, where the doctor’s wife kept her jewelry in a handsome dresser-top chest with five inch-deep drawers and a mirrored lid. I grabbed a pillow off one of the twin beds, stripped it of its pillowcase, and scooped all of the jewelry into the pillowcase. I dumped a drawer or two, knocked over a lamp, and hurried downstairs. I was right on schedule, and so