The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,52

just lucky that way,” I said.

“They took that apartment less’n a month ago. Sublet it, signed a one-year lease, an’ paid cash. Don’t ask me where they came up with the name Rogovin.”

“Maybe they were thinking of Saul Rogovin.”

“Who the hell’s that?”

“He pitched for the Buffalo Bisons fifty years ago,” I said. “Or maybe Syrell Rogovin Leahy. She’s a writer, and I’ve actually got a book of hers in the store.”

“That’s nice, Bern. Let’s stick with their real names, Lyle and Schnittke. Names don’t mean nothin’ to you, huh?”

“Not a thing.”

“They musta already owned the safe. The rest of the furniture came with the place, but we got in touch with the owner, an’ she don’t know nothin’ about a safe. An’ we contacted the companies in town that sell safes, an’ nobody sold ’em one.”

“That’s interesting,” I said, although I’m not sure it was. “Why are you telling me all this, Ray?”

“That’s a question I oughta be askin’ myself, Bernie.”

“And?”

“First off,” he said, “I’m pretty sure you didn’t have nothin’ to do with this.”

“So am I, and it seems to me I told you that early on.”

“Yeah, but when I start automatically takin’ your word for anythin’, it’s time for them to ship me to the funny farm. This time, though, it looks like you’re tellin’ the truth. An’ I figure it’s an opportunity for the both of us.”

“An opportunity?”

He nodded gravely. “Over the years,” he said, “you an’ I done pretty good together, Bern.”

“On balance,” I said, “I’d have to agree with you.”

“There’s somethin’ here that a lot of people want. Whatever it is, they want it bad enough to kill for it.”

“And that looks like an opportunity to you? To me it looks like an opportunity to leave the country.”

“If I was to break this case,” he said, “it’d be a real good collar. Now that we know who the Rogovins are, an’ what with all that shootin’ in the street, it ain’t my case anymore. Major Cases took it over. But that don’t mean I can’t put in a little work on it, an’ if I was to crack it open, well, it’d look pretty good for me.”

“I’m sure it would. Where do I come into it, Ray?”

“Not every case gets solved,” he said. “Good police work only goes so far.”

“A lot of the time,” I said, “it goes too far.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Thing is, you got Lyle and Schnittke in the middle of this, you’re talkin’ some kind of organized crime. A lot of the time you can’t close those cases, even though you got a pretty good idea who did it. But whether we close it or not, there could be a nice payoff in it, Bernie.”

“If we were to find what everybody’s looking for.”

“Bingo,” he said.

“You still don’t know what it is, do you?”

“No. How about you?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well,” he said, “one of us might learn something. What do you say we pool our information? You find out somethin’, you let me know. An’ the vice is versa, as far as that goes.”

“And if there’s a payoff?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he said. “Except the credit, which I’ll take, because it wouldn’t do you much good. Unless we could get the mayor to give you a citation, Citizen of the Week or somethin’, but I’d have to say it’s a long shot, what with your record an’ all. But a straight fifty-fifty split on the cash.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll go along with your tailor on that one.”

“My tailor? What are you talkin’ about? I don’t have a tailor.”

“Really? I figured Omar the Tent Maker got all your business.”

“Is that a crack? An’ who the hell is he, anyway?”

“It’s sort of a crack,” I said, “but nothing too serious. And he’s toast now, like Arnold and Shirley, but back when he was still fresh pita bread he was a Persian poet named Omar Khayyám, and he said a lot of good things. ‘Take the cash and let the credit go’ was one of them.”

“The cash an’ the credit, huh?” He considered the matter. “Well, he’s no tailor of mine,” he said. “I want ’em both.”

There’s a store on 23rd Street off Fifth Avenue that sells prepaid cell phones. There are, I’m fairly sure, similar establishments all over town, but you generally only notice that sort of place when you’re in the market, and even then your eyes can skip right over them. I’m sure I’d have found one on 14th Street, just a few blocks