The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,117

Berzins to go in and ask for it. Meanwhile, a car full of Russians was waiting for Berzins to come out of my store.”

“How’d they know to wait for him there?”

“They knew about me from the newspaper article,” I said, “or they knew about Berzins and tailed him to the bookstore. He was waiting around on the sidewalk while I had lunch at your place, so that would have given them time to get into position. Both explanations play out about the same, so you can take your pick.”

“Okay.”

“Then Berzins came in, picked up the book, overpaid or under-paid for it, as you prefer, and went out to meet his death.”

“In a hail of flying bullets,” she said. “A Russian shot him, right?”

“Right.”

“And then jumped out and picked up the book.”

“Right.”

“So how did it get in Mapes’s den?”

“Well, that’s hard to say for sure,” I said, “because all the people involved are dead.”

“Not Mapes.”

“He’s refusing to answer questions. And nobody much cares, because he killed two men in front of a roomful of witnesses, including three cops and two members of the New York bar.”

“And a paralegal,” she said, “and someone who works behind a New York bar, and a lot of others besides. But they must have some explanation.”

“The Russians,” I said. “I’ll tell you, they make even better villains now than they did during the Cold War. They shot Berzins, and they wound up with the book, and they already had the photos. They taped the photos into The Secret Agent, and sold the package to Mapes.”

“If they already had the photos, why shoot Berzins?”

“That’s a good question. Hmmm. Okay, try this: Colby and Mapes didn’t know the Russians already had the photos, so Blinsky killed Berzins and grabbed the book so he’d have a plausible explanation for how the photos came into his possession.”

“I’m not sure that makes perfect sense, Bern. Thank God it doesn’t have to. But getting back to Mapes. Why would he come back with the book? He’d have to know the photos were in it, and he looked completely surprised when they showed.”

“That would have been a problem,” I acknowledged. “He could have been planning to remove the photos, and somehow forgot that he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Or he could have been brazening it out. Remember, the photos were taped securely to the pages. You could give them a fast riffle without revealing anything. He gambled that you could, anyway. And on the off chance that it didn’t work, well, he brought his gun along for backup.”

“Or Colby could have put the photos in the book without telling him, Bern.”

I nodded. “Much better. Colby thought he was doing Mapes a favor, and Mapes saw it as betrayal, and that’s why the first person he shot was Colby. That’s good, Carolyn. If they ever ask me, I’ll trot that one out for them. But I don’t think they will.”

“So that’s the story,” she said. “The Russians sold the book back to Mapes. For the money in the wall safe, I suppose. And then he lost it and shot everybody, because he saw the walls closing in on him.”

“And he’d have shot Marisol, too,” I said, “if Wally hadn’t blown out a knee and switched to martial arts. Marathon training just doesn’t do much for you in close-quarters combat.”

“Wally was terrific, Bern.” She picked up her glass, drank deep. “And so was everything you just told me. Now tell me what really happened.”

“Well,” I said, “to begin with, I had the photos.”

“Right.”

“Of course I didn’t get them until after Berzins was killed. That was on Friday, and Ray let me into the taped-up crime scene on Sunday afternoon.”

“I’d forgotten that part.”

“Colby never knew Berzins. I was just blowing smoke when I said he did. He knew Mapes, and after Mapes called him, asking what he knew about a bookseller named Rhodenbarr, Colby wanted to make sure the store was open. So he called, and when I picked up the phone he had the answer to his question. Then, to give himself an excuse to stop by later on, he asked for a book he already knew I had.”

“Because he’d seen it in the section he always browsed. But if Colby didn’t know Berzins, how did Berzins know to ask for the book?”

“He didn’t.”

“He didn’t what? Didn’t know or didn’t ask?”

“Both. He knew I had something to do with the burglary—even though I didn’t—and he combined positive thinking with diplomatic caution. He left