The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,108
Lyles opened the safe for them, probably at gunpoint. I don’t know why the Lyles got themselves a heavy-duty Mosler safe. They didn’t need all that just to provide a short-term home for an outdated college textbook. My guess is it was in conjunction with another enterprise of theirs, and they’re dead, so it hardly matters.
“Because the visitors got the book, and in return for their cooperation the Lyles got two bullets in the back of the head. Meanwhile the doorman, wrapped up in duct tape, suffocated. Three people were dead, and the book was gone.
“And wouldn’t you know it, even while they were going about their business, the long arm of coincidence was reaching to take me by the collar. It turned itself into the long arm of the law, which I’d call a familiar quotation, even though Bartlett doesn’t seem to think so. Here’s the coincidence. On the night in question, I was taking the air in the same neighborhood where the Lyles lived and died. Half a dozen different security cameras recorded my passing. It doesn’t matter why I was there, I had a perfect right to be there, but coincidentally enough I was once convicted of burglary, and my presence on the scene was enough to induce that gentleman there”—I nodded toward Ray, and they looked at him—“to place me under arrest. And that gentleman there”—I nodded at Wally—“secured my speedy release. But by then the word was out, and people had reason to think I might be involved.”
I looked at Michael Quattrone. “If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, do you think it might be possible for you to answer it?”
He smiled without moving his lips. “It might,” he said.
“If someone you knew pulled the home invasion on 34th Street,” I said, “and if the Lyles let them in and opened the safe for them, why did they have to shoot them?”
“That’s easy,” he said. “They didn’t.”
Thirty-Nine
Of course we’re speaking hypothetically,” Michael Quattrone said. His eyes swept the room, pausing on their way to make brief but significant eye contact with Ray Kirschmann and Wally Hemphill. “And, as we’ve been reminded, this is not a courtroom. No one’s taking down what’s being said, and I would hope no one’s wearing a wire, but even if there’s a record kept, we’re speaking hypothetically.”
“Of course.”
“In that case,” he said, “let’s suppose a certain person was to learn that an old friend of his had photos of his new face floating around, up for sale to the highest bidder. And suppose he found out where the photos were, and when the bidder was going to show up to finalize the transaction. And suppose he sent some friends of his to show up before the bidder, and shortstop the whole operation.”
“Taking the photos by force,” I said, “before the other party could arrive to pay for them.”
“Something like that,” he agreed. “Now, if anything like that happened, I imagine this certain person’s friends would have immobilized the doorman, so as to come and go unannounced. And I imagine the people in the apartment—you’ve been calling them the Lyles—”
“Or the Rogovins. As you prefer.”
“Let’s call them the Rogovins, then. It’s such a stereotype otherwise, isn’t it? Criminals with foreign-sounding names that end in a vowel. Like Lyle.” Once again he managed to smile without moving his lips. “Let’s say Mr. Rogovin heard a knock on the door and opened it, thinking he was about to get rich. A couple of guys came in, and as soon as they opened their mouths he knew they weren’t the men he was expecting. But what could he do about it? He opened the safe for them, and they took the book and the money.”
“Wait a minute,” Ray said. “What money?”
He chose his words carefully. “I would have to assume there would have been money,” he said. “Why lock a chemistry textbook in a safe? But if you already had a sum of money in there, you might as well put the book in with it.”
“How much money?”
“I can only estimate. Perhaps as much as twenty-one thousand dollars. Or as little as nineteen thousand.”
“In round numbers,” I said, “twenty thousand.”
“In round numbers. Perhaps the high bidder paid some earnest money in advance, to bind the transaction. Perhaps the money was the proceeds of some other enterprise. I’m sure the men who took it thought of it as a welcome if unexpected bonus.”