The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,105

the book to your cousin, she could point out the photographs Mapes had identified as Kukarov’s.” He nodded. “Once she did, why not tear out those pages and return the book?”

“What, go to his office again? The one time I saw him I had to make up a reason. I couldn’t think of anything. He asked me what I wanted. ‘Look at me,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’ Well, he tells me, my nose is crooked, and my ears stick out a little, but these are all things he can fix. Up until then I thought I looked fine. Now every time I pass a mirror I turn my head the other way. I should go back there? Hey, Doc. You know what? Screw you!”

“Your ears do stick out,” Mapes said, “and your nose is crooked, and I never asked you to come to my office in the first place.”

“The book,” I said. “Principles of Organic Chemistry. After Marisol identified Kukarov, you took it home and gave it to your father.”

“So?”

“And he showed it to a man who was living under the name Rogovin, but who’d been calling himself Arnold Lyle. I don’t know what his name was originally, or what scam Lyle and his wife or girlfriend were working at the time.”

“Hard to say,” Ray put in. “He was a guy who took what came along. When opportunity came knockin’, he opened the door, even if it was somebody else’s apartment.”

“The Lyles had sublet a place in Murray Hill,” I said, “and whatever they had going on, they were glad to make room for Kukarov. Lyle was a Latvian, after all, and he’d gladly do his part to give the Black Scourge of Riga what he deserved. But Lyle didn’t see why they couldn’t turn a profit on the deal. Not from their fellow countrymen, but from some parties who might be interested in some of the other fellows who’d posed for Mapes’s candid camera.

“So he got the word out, letting a few interested parties know what he had to sell. I believe you were one of those parties, Mr. Blinsky.”

I looked at him, and he looked back at me, and I could feel myself shrinking under his gaze. If you wrote a play called The Black Scourge of Riga, he’s the guy you’d cast in the title role. His clothes were all black, and so was his hair and beard, and his whole affect was decidedly scourge-like. I was going to tell him he hadn’t answered my question, but then I realized that I hadn’t asked one, and I decided to move on.

“Marisol had done her part,” I said, “but now she was beginning to have second thoughts. She’d grown up hearing about Kukarov’s evil deeds, but the closest she’d ever been to Latvia was a weekend in East Hampton, and he’d done the bulk of his scourging before she was born. And what had she done? She’d betrayed a trust, for one thing, and she might have imperiled Mapes’s other clandestine clients, men who may have run afoul of the law but who had done nothing to her, or to her fellow Latvians.

“So she did what a lot of people do when they’re feeling disturbed. She went out and had a couple of drinks.”

Wally Hemphill went into a quick huddle with his client. “She’s over twenty-one,” he told the room. “If she wants to have a drink it’s her business.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“Well,” he said, “I object to this whole line of questioning, and I’m advising my client not to answer any more questions.”

“I haven’t asked any.”

“If you do, I reserve the right to object.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, but what good did it do? When I opened them, everybody was still there. This next part was tricky, and I hoped he’d shut up so I could get it right.

“She lives in Hell’s Kitchen, but she didn’t want to go where she might run into someone she knew. So she went east and south a short distance, to a place someone had recommended. A nice place, some of you may know it. She went in and had a drink, and then a man came and bought her another drink, and the next thing she knew she was in bed in her own apartment with a man on top of her, and—”

“Objection!”

I glared at him, and he shrugged apologetically. “You know,” I said, “you’re not in court, but if you were I’d hold you