The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (15 page)

“Unless they found out about Hoberman.”

“So what if they did? Look, when I ID’d the body, I made sure Ray got the impression I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, that I was mostly going through with it to oblige him and be a nice guy. If they finally got a make on Hoberman’s prints or something like that, well, yeah, I can see where he’d want to talk with me, at least to get me to rethink the ID. But why would he park a cop in my lobby and two more in an unmarked car out in front?”

“You could call him and ask him.”

“How? I’m in New Hampshire.”

“You came back ahead of schedule.”

“I don’t want to come back,” I said. “Then he’ll
want to pull me in, and that’s the last thing I want.”

She thought about it. “Okay, you’re calling him from New Hampshire, because you called me to tell me how beautiful it is up there and I gave you his message. That would work, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe. Until he ran a trace and found out where the call came from.”

“Would he do that?”

“He might.”

“You want to rent a car and drive up somewhere to make the call? Not New Hampshire, that’s too far, but say Connecticut? Then when he traces the call…forget I said anything, Bern. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I didn’t think it did.”

“He said you can call him at home anytime. He said you’d have the number.”

“He’s right, I do. I’ll see how I feel about it in the morning. What’s this?”

She’d handed me a business card. No name, no address, just a seven-digit number, the first three digits separated from the last four with a hyphen.

“It looks like a phone number,” I said.

“Very good, Bern.”

“No area code, though.” I ran my thumb across the surface. “Raised lettering,” I said. “Or should that be numbering? Since there aren’t any letters. I don’t remember Ray’s number offhand, but I’d be willing to bet this isn’t it. Unless he had it changed,
but this is a little too minimalist for Ray, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s not Ray’s.”

“Where did it come from?”

“A man who walked into the store and asked for you. I said you weren’t in.”

“You were right about that.”

“He said you should call him sometime to discuss a matter of mutual interest.”

“Ah, that narrows it down. This is great, I’ve got a card with a name and no number and another with a number and no name. I wish somebody else would come along and give me one with nothing on it but an address. Ten Downing Street, say, or Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Maybe one of those was this guy’s. I tried to get his name but you’d have thought it was a state secret.”

That rang a muted bell. I said, “I don’t suppose he was around six-two or -three, mid to late thirties, short blondish hair, broad shoulders? Handsome guy, might have been wearing black Levi’s and an air of contentment.”

“Sounds like Mike Todd.”

“That’s who I was describing. Is that who gave you the card?”

“Nothing like him. This man never wore jeans in his life. He was wearing a white suit.”

“Maybe it was Tom Wolfe.”

“It wasn’t Tom Wolfe. This guy was sixty or
sixty-five, around six feet tall, blue eyes, iron-gray hair. Bushy eyebrows, big nose like an eagle’s beak, prominent jaw.”

“I’m impressed,” I said. “All you left out was his weight and the amount of change in his pocket.”

“I kept my hands out of his pockets,” she said, “so I don’t know about the second part. I’d say he weighed somewhere around three hundred and fifty pounds.”

I made a sound by snicking the tip of my tongue back from my teeth. “Tssss,” I said.

“As in Tsarnoff. That would be my guess, Bern.”

“You had a busy day,” I said. “You did great, Carolyn.”

“Thanks.”

“It was a good idea to open the store, and I’d say it was productive. I don’t know what they all want from me or what I’m going to give them, but it’s good to know they’re looking for me. At least I think it is. I’ll know more when I make some calls in the morning.”

“I don’t know what Ray wants,” she said. “I guess everybody else wants the documents.”

“Whatever they are.”

“And wherever they are.”

“Oh, I think I know where they are,” I said.

“You do?”

“Well, I’ve got an inkling. Put it that way.”

“That’s great. And you’ve got a partner, too. I don’t mean me, I mean the mouse.”

“The mouse? Oh, Charlie Weeks. I guess we’re partners. In that case I hope he takes care of himself.”

“Why’s that? Oh, if he gets killed you’ll have to do something about it.”

“You got it,” I said, and leaned back and yawned. “I’m beat,” I said. “Ray can wait until morning, and so can everybody else. I’m going to bed. Or to couch, if I can persuade you to—”

“Let’s not have that argument again. You’re not going out? You could have been drinking Scotch after all.”

“Somehow,” I said, “I don’t think I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and regret that I didn’t have anything stronger than Evian this evening.”

“Maybe not,” she said, “but you can’t miss days and expect to stay in shape. That’s my theory. You want me to mind the store tomorrow?”

“I’m never open Sundays.”

“Is that carved in stone somewhere? It wouldn’t hurt anything if I opened up, would it?”

“No, but—”

“Because I found a book there that I was reading, and I might as well finish it before I start something else. And you never know who’ll pop in looking for you.”

“Well, that’s true. What did you find to read?”

“Reread, actually, but it’s one I haven’t looked
at since it came out. It’s an early one of Sue Grafton’s.”

“I didn’t think I had anything of hers in stock. Oh, I remember. It’s a book club edition, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s the one about the jazz musician who kills his unfaithful wife by throwing her onto the subway tracks.”

“I don’t think I ever read that one. What’s the title?”

“‘A’ Is for Train,”
she said. “You can borrow it when I’m done with it.”

“Borrow it? It’s my book.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “You can still borrow it, but you’ll have to wait until I’m finished.”

I
slept soundly and woke up early, managing to get dressed and out the door without waking Carolyn, who looked so blissful curled up on the couch that I couldn’t feel too guilty for taking her bed. I walked across town, pausing at my bookshop only long enough to feed Raffles and give him fresh water, then catching the IRT at Union Square and riding to the Hunter College stop at Sixty-eighth and Lex. I walked six blocks up and two blocks over, stopping en route at a deli for a container of coffee and a bagel. When I got to where I was going I found a good doorway and lurked in it, passing the time by sipping the coffee and gnawing at the bagel. I kept my eyes open, and when I finally saw what I’d come there to see I retraced my steps, but this time I passed up the deli and went straight to the subway station.

I caught another train, this one headed down
town, and got off at Wall Street. There’s no more peaceful place in the city on a Sunday morning, when the engines of commerce have ground to a halt. It’s never entirely deserted. I saw joggers on training runs, chugging away, and folks wandering around singly and in pairs, intent on enjoying the stillness.

I’d come to use the phone.

There were more convenient phones, including one in the bookstore and another in Carolyn’s apartment, but you can never be sure you’re not calling someone with one of those gadgets on his phone that displays the number you’re calling from. I was reasonably certain Ray Kirschmann wouldn’t have anything like that at his home in Sunnyside, if only because he wouldn’t want to spend the extra $1.98 a month, or whatever they charge for the service. But he’d have the resources of the New York Police Department, and thus could probably get the folks at NYNEX to trace the call.

If he traced it to a pay phone in the West Village, he’d guess I was at Carolyn’s apartment. So I had to go someplace, and Wall Street seemed as good a choice as any. Let him trace the call, and let him race down to the corner of Broad and Wall, and let him wonder if I was planning to knock over the New York Stock Exchange.

Even so, I saved him for last.

My first call was to the fat man, and my first thought was that the card was a phony, or that I’d
dialed wrong. Because the man who answered didn’t sound fat.

I know, I know. You can’t judge a book by its cover (but try to get a decent price for it if it’s stained or water-damaged, or, God forbid, missing altogether). Nor can you tell much about a body by the voice that comes out of it, which is a good thing for the phone-sex industry. All that notwithstanding, the voice I heard didn’t sound like one that might have come out of a man who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, had a beak like an eagle, and wore a white suit. It sounded instead as though its owner never got past the sixth grade, moved his lips on the rare occasions when he read something, spent his most productive hours with a pool cue in his hand, and, when not using that cue for massé shots, was skinny enough to hide behind it.

I asked to speak to Mr. Tsarnoff, and he asked me what I wanted.

“Tsarnoff,” I said confidently, “and you’re not him. Tell him it’s the man who wasn’t at the bookstore yesterday.”

There was a pause. Then a voice—a round voice, a rich voice, a voice that hit every consonant smack on the head and got the last drop of flavor out of every syllable—said, “In point of fact, sir, there is no end of people who were not at that bookstore yesterday. Or at any bookstore, on any occasion.”

Now this was more like it. This was the kind of
voice I’d had in mind, a voice that could have introduced
The Shadow.

“I’m obliged to agree with you,” I said. “Ours is a subliterate age, sir, and the frequenter of bookstores a rare reminder of a better day.”

“Ah,” he said. “It’s good of you to call. I believe you have found something that belongs to me. I trust you’re aware there’s a substantial reward offered for its return.”

I asked if he could describe it.

“A sort of leather envelope stamped in gold,” he said.

“And its contents?”

“Diverse contents.”

“And the amount of the reward?”

“Ah, did I not say, sir? Substantial. Unquestionably substantial.”

“Sir,” I said, “I must say I like your style. Were I in possession of the article you seek, I’ve no doubt we could come to terms.”

There was a pause, but not a very long one. “The subjunctive mode,” he said, “would seem to imply, sir, that you are not.”

“The implication was deliberate,” I said, “and the inference sound.”

“Yet one has the sense that there is more to the story.”

It was a pleasure having this sort of conversation, but it was also a strain. “It is my earnest hope, sir, to be able to report altered circum
stances, and indeed to have it in my power to claim your generous reward.”

“Your hope, sir?”

“My hope and expectation.”

“I am gladdened, sir, for expectation promises ever so much more than hope alone. When might this hope be fulfilled, if I might ask?”

“Anon,” I said.

“Anon,” he echoed. “A word that makes up in charm what it sacrifices in precision.”

“It does at that. ‘Shortly’ might be more precise.”

“I’m not sure that it is, but I daresay it’s a shade more encouraging.”

“It is my intention,” I said, “to call you later today, or perhaps tomorrow, to suggest a meeting. Will I be able to reach you at this number?”

“Indeed you will, sir. If I am not at home myself, you may leave word with the lad who answers the telephone.”

“You’ll hear from me,” I said, and rang off.

My next call was to my partner, Charlie Weeks. I told him I’d held off calling until he returned from his morning walk.

“You had an ample margin for error,” he said. “I’m a creature of habit in my old age, I’m afraid. I wake up at the same time every day without setting a clock. I’ve got halfway through the Sunday
Times
already.”

“The plot thickens,” I said. “I think you’re right
about what happened to Hoberman. I think Candlemas killed him.”

“It seems the likeliest explanation,” he said, “but leaves us high and dry for the time being, since Candlemas himself seems to have disappeared.”

“I have some ideas about that.”

“Oh?”

“But this is no time to go into them,” I said, “and I wouldn’t want to do it over the phone.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

“I wonder if I could come to your apartment. This evening, say? On the late side, if it’s all right with you. Eleven o’clock?”

“I’ll have the coffee made,” he said. “Or will you want decaf at that hour?”

I told him I could handle the hard stuff.

There was nothing for it. I spent another quarter and called Ray Kirschmann’s home number in Queens. When a woman answered I said, “Hi, Mrs. Kirschmann. It’s Bernie Rhodenbarr. Is Ray in? I hate to disturb him on a Sunday morning, but I’m calling from up in New Hampshire.”

“I’ll see if he’s in,” she said, a phrase I’ve always found puzzling no matter who uses it, a secretary or a spouse. I mean, who are they kidding? Don’t they already know if he’s in or not, and don’t they think I know?

Her reconnaissance mission took a few minutes, and I wished she would shake a leg. I had plenty of
quarters left, but I didn’t want a recorded operator to cut in and ask me for one. It wouldn’t do wonders for my credibility.

But that commodity turned out to be thin on the ground anyway, as it turned out. “New Hampshire,” were the first words Ray said, and he invested them with a full measure of contempt. “In a pig’s eye, Bernie.”

“I was going to stay in Pig’s Eye,” I told him, “but all the motels were full, so I wound up in Hanover. How’d you happen to know that, Ray?”

“The only thing I know for sure,” he said, “is you’re no more in New Hampshire than you are in New Zealand.”

“What makes you so sure of that, Ray?”

“You sayin’ so right off the bat, tellin’ my wife so’s she can pass it on to me. If you was really in New Hampshire, Bernie, that’s the last thing you’d do. No, I take that back. It’s the second-last thing.”

“What’s the last?”

“Placin’ the call altogether. You’d wait until you got back. You ask me, you spent the night with that sawed-off morphodyke buddy of yours, for all the good either of you could have got out of the experience. An’ then you figured you better call me, an’ you went someplace out of the way in case I trace the call, which how am I gonna do anyway from my home phone?”

“How you do go on,” I said.

“I had to guess,” he said, “I’d say you’re across
the bridge in Brooklyn Heights. Can you see the Promenade from where you’re standin’, Bernie?”

“Yes,” I said. “And it looks lovely in the morning mist.”

“It’s a beautiful day, an’ if there was any mist you missed it, ’cause it burned off hours ago. Anyway, I take it back. There ain’t enough background noise for Brooklyn. It’s Sunday mornin’, right? Be my guess you’re down in Wall Street. You can’t see the Promenade, but I bet you a dollar you can see the Stock Exchange.”

“You’re amazing, Ray. I swear I don’t know how you do it.”

“An’ that’s to make me think I’m wrong, but I think I’m right, for all the good it does me. You really want to know how I done it, Bernie, it’s just a case of us knowin’ each other a long time. Not surprisin’ I know you pretty good by now, thinkin’ of all we been through.”

“The mist hasn’t all burned off, Ray. Some of it’s in my eyes, to go with the lump in my throat.”

“Got you all choked up, huh, Bernie? Maybe this’ll unchoke you. Couple of uniforms are walkin’ a beat the other day on the Lower East Side, an’ one of the neighborhood kids takes ’em to this boarded-up buildin’ at the corner of Pitt and Madison. That’s Madison Street, not Madison Avenue, by the way.”

“That explains what it was doing on the Lower East Side.”

“Yeah, but does it explain what they found
when the kid showed ’em which board was loose an’ how to get in? Three guesses, Bernie.”

“Even if I don’t guess,” I said, “you’ll probably tell me.”

“A dead body.”

“Not mine, thank God,” I said, “but it’s good of you to voice concern, Ray. I didn’t think you cared.”

“You want to guess who?”

“If it’s not Judge Crater,” I said, “it would pretty much have to be Jimmy Hoffa, wouldn’t it?”

“The watch an’ wallet was gone,” he went on, “which you’d expect, seein’ as kids an’ God knows who else was in an’ out of the buildin’ all along. But under his clothes the guy was wearin’ a money belt, although there wasn’t a whole lot of money in it.”

“Unless the uniforms helped themselves.”

He made that sound with his tongue and his teeth, but I don’t think he was trying to say “Tsarnoff.” “Bernie,” he said, “you got a low opinion of the NYPD, which you oughta be ashamed of yourself. If they took a dime off the stiff, I got no way of knowin’ about it, so I’ll just tell you what they didn’t take. How’s that?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fascinating.”

“First thing was a passport. Had the guy’s picture on it, so you could tell right off he didn’t lift it off of somebody else. Had his name right there, too.”

“Passports usually do.”

“They’d have to, wouldn’t they? Accordin’ to the passport, his name was Jean-Claude Marmotte.”

“Sounds French.”

“Belgian,” he said. “Least he was carryin’ a Belgian passport, only it don’t hardly matter what country gave it to him, on account of they didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“It was a phony,” he said. “A good phony, or so they tell me, but one thing’s sure and that’s that the Belgians never heard of him.”

He started to say something else, but the recording cut in, inviting me to deposit more money or hang up.

“Gimme your number there,” Ray said, “an’ I’ll call you back.”

I gave that the only answer it required, dropping a fresh quarter in the slot.

“Now why’d you go an’ do that, Bernie? I was all set to call you back. How often do I get to call anybody in Pig’s Eye, New Hampshire?”

“How often do I get to hear about dead Belgians in boarded-up buildings?”

“You didn’t ask how he died.”

“I didn’t even ask who he was. Sooner or later I’ll get around to asking why you’re telling me all this.”

“Sooner or later you won’t need to. He died on account of bein’ shot once at close range in the side of the head. Entry was through the ear, matter of fact. Slug was a twenty-two. Very professional job, all in all.”

“Killed where you found him?”

“Probably not, but that’s inconclusive because of the mess the kids made of the crime scene. Wherever he bought it, he was a long ways from Belgium when he died. A long ways from New Hampshire, too, but aren’t we all?”

“There’s a point here somewhere.”

“There is,” he agreed, “an’ I’m gettin’ to it. Nothin’ in his pockets but lint. No keys, no subway tokens, no nail clipper, no Swiss Army knife. But he’s wearin’ this nice tweed suit, an’ it turns out there’s a secret pocket in the jacket.”

“A secret pocket?”

“I don’t know what else you’d call it, bein’ as it ain’t where you’d expect to find a pocket, down near the bottom and around in the back. An’ it’s hard to spot unless you’re lookin’ for it, and it zips open an’ shut, an’ we found it an’ unzipped it, an’ you want to take a guess what we found?”

“Another passport.”

“Mind tellin’ me how you happened to know that?”

“You mean I got it right? It was a guess, Ray. I swear it was.”

“This one’s Italian, and the name on it is Vassily Souslik.”

“That doesn’t sound Italian,” I said. “Spell it.” He did, and it still didn’t sound Italian. “Vassily’s a Russian name, or Slavic, anyway. And Souslik sounds like something you’d order at the Russian Tea Room.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, “not goin’ to fancy places myself. Anyway, it don’t matter, on account of it’s a fake, too. The Belgians never heard of Marmotte an’ the guineas never heard of Souslik. Same likeness an’ description on both of ’em, Bern, an’ they match the dead guy to a T. Who knows, maybe it’ll remind you of somebody you know. Five-nine, one-thirty, DOB fifteen October 1926, hair white, eyes hazel. That’s off the Belgian passport, an’ the Italian’s close enough. They got his eyes as brown, but maybe they haven’t got a word for hazel. Narrow face, little white mustache—this ringing any kind of a bell for you?”