The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,44

unless you’re a specialist with a deep stock of back issues, but there are certain magazines I hang on to when they come into the store. Collectible pulps, of course, and all the genre magazines, mystery and science fiction and westerns, but also Playboy (if the centerfold’s intact) and National Geographic, which enough people collect so that a fellow like Mickey can maintain a market in them. He gave me cash, and so did the folks who bought books, but I was still a long way from recouping the previous night’s losses.

I’d picked up our lunch—hamburgers and fries, I wasn’t feeling very imaginative—and we were at the Poodle Factory, and I’d brought Carolyn up to speed. If you wanted to call it that; it felt more to me as though I was spinning my wheels.

“What I think,” I said, “is that it may not matter what they were looking for.”

“How can that be?”

“Well, it matters to them,” I said, “and it probably matters to the police, who’d like to find someone to hang the case on, since they’re not going to be able to hang it on me. But the important thing is that those guys—I wish I knew what to call them, incidentally.”

“The perps,” she suggested.

“The perps,” I agreed. “The important thing is the perps came looking for the—shit, I don’t know what to call that, either.”

“The McGuffin.”

“Thank you. The perps came looking for the McGuffin, just on the off chance that I had it, since my name had been dragged into the affair. And they looked, and they didn’t find it, and—you know what? It’s a good thing they found my hidey-hole. Because they saw right away that that’s where I keep stuff, and the McGuffin—the McGuffin?”

“That’s the word for it, Bern.”

“They saw that the McGuffin wasn’t there, and that’s where I would have stashed it if I had it, so obviously I don’t have it. Which means that they can leave me the hell alone.”

“And you think they will?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“And you don’t think you ought to go to the cops?”

“What for? Look, I promised Edgar I’d keep the INS away from him, and all I know that they don’t is that one of the perps—the perps?”

“Bern…”

“That one of the perps is taller and heavier than Edgar, which doesn’t narrow things down much. Oh, and either he likes the Mets or he beat up some Mets fan and took his cap. If I don’t share that with them, do you figure I’m withholding valuable information?”

“I guess not. Bern, you know what’s a good thing? That you weren’t home when they showed.”

I thought of the Rogovins, and gave a nod and a shudder.

“If you had been—”

“But I wasn’t,” I said, and figured it was a good time to change the subject. “No drinks at the Bum Rap tonight, right? Because you’ve got a first date with GurlyGurl, and after that you’ve got a date with me.”

“It’s still on?”

“Now more than ever,” I said. “After last night, I’ve got the best possible reason to run up to Riverdale. I need the money.”

Seventeen

I took less than an hour for lunch, and was behind the counter and ready for business a few minutes before one. When I thought about it later, I decided that the fat man must have been perched in a doorway down the block or across the street, waiting for me to come back and open up, because I’d no sooner reached for the John Sandford novel and found my place in it than the bell tinkled to proclaim his arrival.

That didn’t mean I had to stop reading. I gave him a welcoming smile and a little nod and left him to browse my shelves, which is what just about everybody does upon arrival, unless they’ve got books to sell me, or they want directions to Grace Church. His hands were empty, so any books he wanted to sell were still on his shelves, and I didn’t get the feeling he had the urge to seek out a moment of peace and quiet among the Episcopalians around the corner, so I closed my book and waited to find out what he wanted.

I’m sure it’s politically incorrect to call him a fat man, on the general PC principle that the last thing you should do is call a spade a spade. There’s probably an acceptable euphemism for it, but I’ve thus far been spared knowing what it is, so I’ll go on calling him fat in the