The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,65
kittens.
“I think we’re set,” she said. “Oh, I forgot to ask. His answering machine, that you left a message on. Did you get the tape?”
“It was digital, so all I had to do was erase it. And I got rid of the cell phone. Nowadays it’s the easiest thing in the world for them to find out the source of an incoming call. Even if you don’t have Caller ID, or if it just registers as Unknown Caller, the cops can pull the LUDS and know exactly who called and when.”
“I know, they do it on Law & Order all the time.”
“But with a prepaid cell phone,” I said, “all they can find out is where the phone was sold, but not who bought it. So I dumped the phone, and that’s the end of that.”
“You just threw it away?”
“I could have, but it seemed wasteful. All of those prepaid minutes. I left it on the subway on my way down here. Somebody’ll find it and call his mother in Santo Domingo for free.”
“That was thoughtful, Bern.”
“I was almost thoughtful enough to top up the gas tank on the Mercury,” I said, “but not quite. I managed to find a parking place just a few doors down from where it was when I borrowed it. And I put back the ignition cylinder that I’d pulled. The owner won’t know the difference.”
“Except that it’s not where he clearly remembers parking it. So he’ll just think it’s early Alzheimer’s. Bern, what happened?”
“Huh?”
“You were preoccupied,” she said, “and now you’re not. What happened?”
“I’m still preoccupied,” I said. “I just put it on the shelf.”
“You did?”
“Literally,” I said, and went to the closet. I’d taken something besides the money from the Mapes house, had tucked it into one of the bags before I left the house, and had removed it from the bag when I put it and its fellow in the closet. I’d put it on a high shelf, out of harm’s and Carolyn’s way, and now I took it down and handed it to her.
“It’s a book,” she announced. “Hardbound, no dust jacket.” She squinted at the spine. “The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad. Isn’t that the title of the book you sold to the fat man?”
“For thirteen hundred dollars.”
“And you found a replacement copy in Mapes’s library? That’s handy, Bern. Now you can make that customer happy. What was his name again?”
“Colby Riddle.”
“Right, and how’d I forget it? Ought to be an easy name to remember. Well, you said you had a feeling there was a coincidence waiting to show up, and I’d say this qualifies, wouldn’t you? Or did he have such a huge library the book just about had to be there?”
“He had a very small library.”
“Yeah? Then it was a real coincidence.”
“More than you know,” I said.
“Bern, you’re kidding.”
“Look on the flyleaf. It’s priced at twelve dollars, and you can probably recognize the numerals as mine. And it wasn’t in the bookcase, either. It was downstairs, on the desk in his den.”
“It’s the same book.”
“Right.”
“Not just the same title, but the same book.”
“Right.”
“Bern, that’s more than a coincidence. That’s…Bern, how the hell did it get there?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but you wanted to know why I was preoccupied. That’s why.”
Twenty-Four
The fat man took the book.”
“Right.”
“But he didn’t have it long. Whoever shot him took it and drove off with it.”
“Right.”
“The fat man thought it was something else, and so did whoever killed him and took it away from him.”
“Right.”
“And then it wound up in Mapes’s den. Was it Mapes in the car? Did Mapes kill him?”
“He’s a shitheel,” I said, “but Marty never called him a thug. The man’s a plastic surgeon. He uses a scalpel, not an AK-47.”
“Is that what the fat man was shot with?”
“It was some kind of automatic weapon. You hold the trigger and the bullets keep coming out. All I know about guns is that I like to stay away from them.”
“Me too. Either Mapes was in the car, or the guy in the car took the book to Mapes.”
“That sounds logical.”
“But the book’s connected to the Rogovins, except that’s not their real name. I forget their real names.”
“Lyle and Schnittke.”
“What have they got to do with Mapes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I don’t know anything. Who were the people in the car? I mean, were they the same ones who killed the Rogovins? Lyle and Schnittke, I mean. Are they the ones who killed Lyle and Schnittke?”