The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (7 page)

He took a close look. “You know somethin’? I think you’re right.”

I gave the glove back to him. “Take care of this. You might even tell them the glove’s the wrong size. They can start looking around for a klutzy burglar with very small hands.”

“I’ll spread the word. You headin’ back to the store now? I’ll give you a ride.”

“All part of the service?”

“Just that it’s on my way. What the hell.”

This time I got a ride in an unmarked car. We made small talk about the Mets’ new third baseman, a possible garbage strike, and a shakeup in the Queens District Attorney’s office. Crooks and cops always have
plenty of things to talk about once they can get past the basic adversary nature of their relationship. The two classes actually have more in common than either of us would like to admit. Phil and Dan, who couldn’t have looked more like cops unless they’d been in uniform, had looked like robbers to me when they came into my store.

Ray dropped me right in front of Barnegat Books, told me to take care, gave me a slow wink, and drove off. I started to open up, looked to see if he was gone, then said to hell with it and refastened the locks I’d opened. I had to do a few things that were more important than selling books.

I hadn’t been part of the gang of burglars who’d killed Wanda Colcannon. Her husband hadn’t merely failed to identify me. He’d given them a firm negative identification. And if the rubber glove was all they had, their evidence was a joke.

But Richler still thought I was involved.

And something funny, something I’d realized at the very end of the ride back to the store. Ray Kirschmann thought so, too.

C
arolyn and I usually have lunch together. Mondays and Wednesdays I pick up something and we eat at the Poodle Factory. Tuesdays and Thursdays she brings our lunch to the bookstore. Fridays we generally go someplace ethnic and inexpensive and toss a coin for the check. All of this, of course, is subject to change if anything comes up, and Carolyn must have gathered that something had. It was a Wednesday, so when I’d failed to turn up around noon she’d evidently gone somewhere herself. The Poodle Factory was closed, with a cardboard sign hanging on the back of the door. B
ACK
A
T
, the sign said, and beneath it the movable clock hands pointed to one-thirty.

I looked in at the coffee shop on the corner of Broadway but didn’t see her. There was a pay phone on the wall at the back but it looked a little too exposed. I
walked north a block and checked the felafel place. She wasn’t there, either, but their pay phone was a little more private. I ordered a cup of coffee and a hummus sandwich. I wasn’t especially hungry but I hadn’t had anything since my roll for breakfast and figured I probably ought to eat. I ate most of my sandwich, drank all of my coffee, and made sure I got some dimes in my change.

The first call I made was to Abel Crowe. The
Post
was on the street by now, and I didn’t have to look at it to know that Wanda Colcannon would be spread all over page three. Her murder might even get the front page, unless something more urgent displaced it, like a projected invasion of killer bees from South America. (Once, during the Son of Sam foofaraw, they’d given the entire front page to a photo of David Berkowitz asleep in his cell. SAM SLEEPS! the headline shrieked.)

At any rate, the murder was general knowledge by now and one medium or another was sure to call it to Abel’s attention. Any stolen object with a six-figure price tag is hot enough to blister the skin, but homicide always turns up the heat, and Abel would not be happy. Nor could I make him happy, but I could at least assure him that we were burglars, not murderers.

I let the phone ring an even dozen times. When my dime came back I stood there for a minute, then tried the number again. One sometimes misdials, and telephone-company equipment sometimes misbehaves.

No answer. I’d dialed his number from memory and there was no directory handy to confirm my recollection, so I let Information check it for me. I’d remembered correctly, but to be on the safe side I dialed it yet again, and when there was still no answer I gave up. Maybe he was already out selling the coin. Maybe he was at his favorite bakery on West Seventy-second Street, buying up everything in sight. Maybe he was napping with the phone’s bell muffled, or soaking in the tub, or tempting muggers in Riverside Park.

I dialed 411 again and let them look up another number for me. Narrowback Gallery, on West Broadway in SoHo. The phone rang four times, just long enough for me to decide I wasn’t destined to reach anybody this afternoon, and then Denise Raphaelson answered, her voice scratchy from the cigarettes she chain-smoked.

“Hi,” I said. “Are we set for dinner tonight?”

“Bernie?”

“Uh-huh.”

There was a pause. “I’m a little confused,” she said finally. “I’ve been painting my brains out and I think the fumes are starting to get to me. Did we have a dinner date for tonight?”

“Well, yeah. It was sort of mentioned casually. Too casually, I guess, if it slipped your mind.”

“I should write these things down,” she said, “but I never do. I’m sorry, Bernie.”

“You made other plans.”

“I did? I don’t think I did. Of course if I could forget a dinner date with you, I could forget other things at least as easily. For all I know I’m throwing a party tonight. Truman and Gore are coming, and Hilton wanted a quick look at my latest work before he does his piece for the Sunday
Times,
and Andy said he’d bring Marlene if she’s in town. What do you suppose it’s like being one of those people that people know who you are without hearing your last name? I bet if I was Jackie I’d still have to show ID to cash a check at D’Agostino’s.”

Telephonic whimsy is her specialty. We’d first met over the phone when I was trying to find an artist without knowing anything about him but his last name. She’d told me how to manage that, and one thing had led to another, as it so often does. We have since seen each other now and again, and if it’s all remained very casual and on the surface, that’s not the worst thing that can be said of what one has learned to call interpersonal relationships.

“What I should have done,” she said now, “is fake it. When you asked if we were set for dinner tonight I should have said yes and let it go at that. It’s a shame I don’t take drugs. Then I could blame this mental sluggishness on the joint I’d just smoked. Would you believe paint fumes?”

“Sure.”

“Because I
am
free for dinner, and just because I don’t seem to recall our date shouldn’t prevent me from keeping it. Did we make plans to meet someplace?”

“Not yet.”

“Should we?”

“Why don’t I drop by your place around seven-thirty?”

“Why don’t you?”

“I think I will.”

“I think you should. Shall I cook something?”

“We’ll go out.”

“This is sounding better and better. Maybe I’ll have this painting finished and you can look at it. Maybe I won’t and you can’t. ‘Bernie at 7:30.’ I’ve written it down. I can’t possibly forget now.”

“I have faith in you, Denise.”

“Shall I wear anything in particular?”

“Just a smock and a smile.”

“Ta.”

I tried Abel again, twelve rings and out. By then it was one-thirty. I hiked back to the Poodle Factory and caught Carolyn between appointments. “There you are,” she said. “When you didn’t show I went looking for you, and when I saw your store was closed I figured you’d just ducked out to pick up lunch, so I came back here and waited, and when you still didn’t show I said the hell with it and went out and ate.”

“Not at the coffee shop,” I said, “and not at Mamoun’s.”

“I went and had some curry. I figured some really hot food would counteract the sugar from last night. God, what a morning!”

“Bad?”

“My head felt like the soccer ball from Pélé’s last game. You have any idea what it’s like to face a Giant Schnauzer on top of a sugar hangover?”

“No.”

“Count your lucky stars. The coffee shop and Mamoun’s—what did you do, go out looking for me?”

“Sort of.”

“Any particular reason?”

I hated to ruin her day, but what else could I do? “Just wanted to tell you you were missing a glove,” I said. “Of the rubber variety, and with the palm cut out.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“You weren’t going to say that, remember? You were going to switch to ‘child of a dog’ because ‘son of a bitch’ is sexist.”

“Shit. I saw the glove was missing last night when I checked my pockets. I threw away the one but the other was gone. I thought it over and decided not to tell you. How’d you find out? What did you do, go through my garbage?”

“I always go through your garbage. It started out as a perversion and now it’s a hobby.”

“That’s the way it always works.”

“I didn’t go through your garbage. You dropped it in the garden, in case you were wondering.”

“I did? Jesus, they ought to put me away. How do you know this? You didn’t go back there, did you? No, of course you didn’t.”

“No. Somebody showed me the glove.”

“Who would—” Light dawned and her face fell. “Oh, no,” she said. “Cops.”

“Right.”

“You got arrested.”

“Not officially.”

“What happened?”

“They let me go. My hands are bigger than yours. The glove didn’t fit. And Herbert Colcannon didn’t recognize me.”

“Why would he recognize you? He never met you.”

“Right. I’ll bet you didn’t read the paper at lunch.”

“I read the
Times
this morning. Why?”

“It’s complicated,” I said, “but it’s important. You’d better hear the whole thing.”

Her phone rang a couple of times while I was going through it. She switched on the answering machine and let her callers leave messages if they wanted. We were interrupted once by a sad-eyed man wearing an obvious toupee who wanted to inquire about services
and rates. If his pet resembled him, he probably had a basset hound.

When I was finished Carolyn just sat there shaking her head. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’m sorry about the glove, Bern. I feel rotten about it.”

“These things happen.”

“I thought I’d be a help and look what I did. I might as well have left a trail of bread crumbs.”

“The birds would have eaten them.”

“Yeah. I can’t believe she’s dead. Wanda Flanders Colcannon. I can’t believe it.”

“You’d believe it if you saw the picture.”

She shuddered, made a face. “Burglary’s fun,” she said. “But murder—”

“I know.”

“I don’t understand how it happened. The other burglars, the slobs, got there
before
we did.”

“Right.”

“And turned the place upside down and stole God knows what and left.”

“Right.”

“And then came back? Why? Don’t tell me it’s true about criminals returning to the scene of the crime?”

“Only to commit another crime. Remember, we didn’t know the Colcannons were planning to leave Astrid. We thought they were staying overnight.”

“I’m sorry about that, too.”

“Don’t be. You couldn’t know otherwise. The point is, the other burglars probably made the same assumption. Suppose they grabbed up everything they could, took off over the rooftops, then decided they’d like to have another shot at the wall safe. They had time to pick up a torch or a drill. They might not have brought the right equipment the first time because they might not even have known about the safe, but if they had time to pick up a torch and all night to work on the safe, why not give it the old college try?”

“And then the Colcannons came home right in the middle of it?”

“Evidently.”

“If they did, wouldn’t the burglars make them give them the combination of the safe?”

“Probably. Unless they’d already opened it.”

“If they had, why would they still be hanging around?”

“They wouldn’t. But the Colcannons could have walked in the door just as the burglars were on their way out.”

“Wouldn’t they leave the way they came? Through the skylight?”

“You’re right,” I said. I frowned. “Anyway, there’s a third possibility. There could have been a third set of burglars.”

“A third set? How many people knew that damned dog was going to Pennsylvania to get laid?”

“Maybe these last burglars weren’t real burglars,” I suggested. “Maybe they were kids or junkies on the prowl, just roaming across the rooftops to see what they turned up. They’d notice the broken skylight and drop in for a look around. There were still plenty of things there to steal if you were an amateur on the prowl. Remember the radio? That would bring the price of a bag of heroin.”

“There was at least one television set. Plus some stereo components on the second floor.”

“See what I mean? Loads of goodies for a thief with low standards. But there wasn’t a lot of money, and sometimes amateur thieves take that sort of thing personally. You know how muggers sometimes beat up people who don’t have any cash on them?”

“I’ve heard of that.”

“Well, there’s a class of burglars who get the same sort of resentment. I can imagine a couple of punks dropping in through the broken skylight, picking up a radio and a portable TV, then deciding to hang around until the householders come home so they can rob them of their cash.” I followed that train of thought for a minute, then dropped it and shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. I may have to spend the next week looking over my shoulder for cops, but basically we’re in the clear. The thing is, they’re going to find the guys who did it. There’ll be a lot of heat with her murdered, and Richler was right. He said somebody would blab
at a bar and somebody else would overhear him. That’s what usually happens and it’s how most crimes get solved.”

“And you think we’re all right?”

“Sure. Colcannon can identify the men who killed his wife. We’ve already established that he can’t identify me. All they’ve got that leads to me is a rubber glove, and if the glove doesn’t fit, how can I wear it? If one of us had to drop a glove, I’m damned glad it was you.”

“I wish that made me feel better.”

“You’ve got to look on the bright side. Another thing to be glad of is that Colcannon wasn’t killed. If they had known Wanda was dead they probably would have killed him, too, and then he wouldn’t have been around to get me off the hook.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“I did.” I lifted the phone from her desk. “Anyway, I’d better call Abel.”

“Why?”

“To tell him we didn’t kill anybody.”

“He already knows that, doesn’t he? It’s a shame neither of us bothered to read the
Post,
but won’t it tell what time she was killed?”

“Probably.”

“Well, it was around 11:30 when we got to Abel’s. I remember it was 12:07 when he checked the Piaget
watch against yours. And it was after midnight when the Colcannons walked in on the burglars, so how could Abel think we did it?”

“My God,” I said. “He’s our alibi.”

“Sure.”

“I hope to God we never have to use him. Imagine trying to beat a burglary charge by insisting you were spending the time with a fence, trying to sell the things you’d already lifted from the burglary victim.”

“When you put it that way, it does sound bizarre.”

“I know.” I began dialing. “I’ll call him anyway and put him in the picture. He may not have noticed the timing and assume we killed that woman, and I wouldn’t want that.”

“Would he refuse to handle the coin?”

“Why?”

“If we were killers—”

The phone was ringing. I let it ring. “Abel’s a fence,” I said. “Not a judge. Anyway, we didn’t do it and I can make him believe it. If he’d ever answer his goddamned phone.”