The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,79

overall shape of the head, too.”

“Ray said they were brothers, but with different parents.”

“Ike and Mike, they look alike. Except they don’t. Ike here looks older, doesn’t he?”

“Well, he’s a blond. They’re supposed to have more fun.”

“Mike’s definitely younger. If he were a woman you’d say his hair was mouse-colored, but you don’t hear that with guys. What would you call his hair color, sandy?”

“I guess.”

“It’s funny,” she said. “He’s got less hair than Ike, but he looks years younger. I wonder why.”

“Maybe he was born ten years later than the blond guy.”

“That would explain it, Bern. Or maybe it’s clean living. A healthier diet. More vegetables. Plenty of exercise, regular dental checkups. Assuming either one of them even has teeth. They’ve both got this cold closemouthed stare, and I think that’s what makes them look alike, even though they don’t. Bern, how’d you know where to look for the photos?”

“I gave Berzins a book,” I said, “and he was happy to pay thirteen hundred dollars for it, and I suppose he’d have gone as high as ten thousand, because that’s what he’d brought along with him. He didn’t care about the title or author, and when I said the title he must have thought I was talking about him, because that’s what he was, a secret agent of some sort.”

“And then they shot him and took the book from him—”

“And took it to Mapes’s house in Riverdale. Or to Mapes, anyway, for him to take home. They didn’t say, ‘A book? We don’t need no stinking books,’ and throw it in the garbage. They figured it might be what they were after, so I thought about that, and I decided it might be something you could hide in a book. And then I realized it was probably photos, which you can definitely hide in a book. Then you stick the book in the middle of a bookcase, and nobody thinks to look for it.”

“Like the Poe story.”

“ ‘The Purloined Letter.’ Yes, the same idea. The apartment was a sublet, remember, and the original tenants had left the books in the bookcase. They were readers, too, so there were plenty of books. Ray said he and his buddies lifted them out a handful at a time and checked to make sure nothing was hidden behind them. That was reasonable if you didn’t know what you were looking for, but it was just a waste of effort in this case. Some cop had that copy of QB VII in his hand and didn’t have a clue what he was holding.”

“So you went through them a book at a time.”

“It didn’t take long. You just open the book and riffle the pages. If there’s anything in there, you know right away. The hard part was finding the right book, which happened fairly early on, and then checking all the others to make sure it was the only one like that.”

“I don’t know if I would have had the patience to do that, Bern.”

“I didn’t get to think about it, because Ray just kept going, picking up books and riffling them, showing me what painstaking police work looks like. The least I could do was follow his example. And of course there were no more books with photos taped to their pages, but that way we were positive.”

“Just four photos,” she said. “Two for each subject. I asked before if you had a clue who they were, and I don’t remember what you said.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh.”

“Your computer working?”

“Is my computer working? Of course it’s working. I was just online, and I checked my buddy list, and guess who else was online? GurlyGurl, so we IM’d back and forth for a while. We’ve got a date for Tuesday night, unless she has to work late.” She grinned. “She was bitching about one of the lawyers who keeps piling work on her, says she’s a real ovary-buster. I bet I know who she means.”

“Maybe we’d better not go on any double dates just yet.”

“My thought exactly. She likes me, Bern. Isn’t that neat?”

“Very.”

“Why’d you ask about my computer?”

“Because you’re better on it than I am,” I said, “and I thought maybe you’d like to do a little research.”

Ray had brought along a fresh roll of CRIME SCENE tape, and after he’d used it to reseal the apartment he offered to drop me at Carolyn’s. He got as far as Sheridan Square and told me I was on my own, claiming that he always got