"Is this a bad time, Bernie?"
"No, not at all," I said. "Or at least no more so than any other time. Colby, somebody else walked off with your book."
"Oh," he said.
"I'm really sorry."
"I thought you were going to put it aside for me."
"I did."
"Oh."
"And then someone came in and I handed it to him."
He tried to make sense out of this, and I wished him the best of luck. "You thought he was me," he said at length.
"I thought you sent him. He said he understood I had something for him, and-"
"And you thought I'd sent him, so you handed himThe Secret Agent. Why didn't he hand it right back?"
"I don't know."
"Because I have to say that it strains the bonds of permissible coincidence that he happened to be looking for the very book I'd asked about."
"He wasn't. I don't believe he knew what he was looking for."
"But you gave him my book and he was satisfied."
"Apparently so."
"He paid for it?"
"Sales tax and all."
"How nice for the governor. Do you suppose he'll bring it back?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Really? When he realizes it's not what he wanted-"
"He's not going to realize it."
"Why, is he brain-dead?"
I decided he was going to hear about it onLive at Five, or read about it in the morning paper, so why not tell him now? "Among other things," I said. "He walked out of here, book in hand, and a car pulled up and somebody rolled down the window and blew him away."
"Good grief. You're serious, aren't you? It's not just a ruse to get around the fact that someone else paid more money for the book than the price you quoted to me."
"I wouldn't sell it out from under you," I said. "And yes, I'm serious. You can check out the hole in Cooperstone's window. The bullet that made it missed the guy, but most of the other rounds didn't."
"How shocking," he said, "and how dramatic. More exciting than anything old Joe Conrad ever wrote, I'll have to say that for it. Bernie, I'm sure it's in dreadful taste to bring it up, but when they shot him and he crumpled to the pavement-I assume he crumpled, didn't he?"
"More or less."
"Well, he would have dropped the book, wouldn't he? I don't suppose you managed to retrieve it."
"No."
"But do you think you might?"
"No."
"Oh. Evidence? The police have it?"
"The killers have it."
"The killers?"
"Scooped it up and drove off with it. Broke a few traffic laws while they were at it, but I don't suppose they were much concerned about that."
"They killed the man," he said thoughtfully, "and took my book. Well, notmy book. I hadn't paid for it, so title hadn't transferred. It was still your book."
"If you say so, Colby."
"Well, let me see," he said, heading for the stacks. "I've got to find something to read this weekend, haven't I?"
I joined him in Fiction. I pointed out what other books of Conrad's I had, but he wasn't interested in them. The appealing thing aboutThe Secret Agent, he said, was that it was set on dry land. Conrad's sea stories were just too nautical for his taste.
"Here's Graham Greene," I told him. "I've got a larger than usual stock of Greene, and I think a couple of these are firsts."
"Oh, God," he said. "Not Graham Greene."
"Don't care for him?"
"The salient fact about Graham Greene," he said, "is that his characters get less joy from adultery than the rest of us do embracing our wives. No, I'll pass on Graham Greene."
He settled for one of Evelyn Waugh's Guy Crouchback stories, I forget which one. He'd read it, but didn't own it, and enough time had passed so that he could happily read it again. The prospect pleased him so much that he decided it was time to go on a Waugh jag, and accordingly he picked out three more books and wrote out a check for the lot. "But I do still wantThe Secret Agent, " he said from the doorway. "If someone happens to bring in a copy-"
"It's yours," I assured him. "And nobody'll get it away from me, either."
Nineteen
Iwas getting ready to close when Ray Kirschmann turned up like the bad penny he is. "Perfect," I told him. "Just the man I was hoping to see."
"Yeah?"
"Absolutely," I said. "You're just in time to help me with my bargain table."
"I'd be glad to, Bernie."
"Good. You take that end-"
"Except I ain't supposed to lift nothin'. Doctor's orders, on account of my back."
"If our roles were reversed," I said, "and I tried an excuse like that on you, you'd want to know the name of the doctor. Never mind, I don't want to hear it. You can just stand there and watch me work."
"Fair enough," he said, and did just that. The least he could do was hold the door for me, and he did, being a great believer in doing the least. Inside, he leaned his bulk against my counter while I did what I do to settle Raffles in for the night.
"Soon as you're ready," he said, "we can go over to that gin mill where you an' Shorty go every night. I was gonna head there myself an' surprise you."
"I wish you had."
"Yeah? Why's that? You like surprises?"
"I like them when they happen to other people, and you're the one who would have been surprised, Ray, when we didn't show up."
"You don't like that place no more?"
"Carolyn's got a previous engagement," I told him, "and I don't feel like drinking alone."
"So you'll drink with me, Bernie. Lock up an' let's go."
I shook my head. "Not tonight, Ray."
"Not tonight? Ain't it Friday?"
"Yes," I said, "and thank God and all that, but I don't feel like a drink tonight."
"Cup of coffee, then. Over on University, there's this place opened up that's supposed to be good."
"It's not bad. A little expensive, though."
"No problem," he said. "You're buyin'."
I was buying a grande latte for each of us, it turned out. I'm sure they'd have been cheaper with English names. I brought them to the table he'd picked out over at the side, and told him Colby Riddle had come looking for his copy of the Conrad novel.
"So it's as I figured," I said. "A legitimate customer ordered the book, and I assumed the fat man was there to pick it up, and he assumed it was what he was looking for, because he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. All he knew was that I had it."
"But you say you don't."
"If I did," I said, "you'd be the first to know. People are getting killed over it, whatever it is, so why would I want to hang on to it? I'd turn it over to the proper authorities."
"That'd be a first. This customer of yours got a name?"
"He'd almost have to, Ray. These days it's almost as hard to go through life without a name as it is without a Social Security number."
"You wanna tell me his name, Bernie?"
"Can't."
"Can't? What do you mean, you can't?"
"My lips are sealed," I said. "Don't you read the papers? There was a case in Denver where the cops tried to make a bookstore owner divulge what books one of her clients had bought. He was a dope dealer, and they wanted to prove he'd bought a copy ofHow to Make Crystal Meth in Your Very Own Kitchen. "
"Who'd publish somethin' like that?"
"That may not be the exact title. The point is, Joyce Meskis took a stand, and it must have cost her a fortune in legal fees, but she won. And if she could put her life on the line for the principle of the Freedom to Read, I don't see how I can do less."
"What a load of crap," he said. "What's this Polack Conrad have to do with cooking crank at home? You're blowin' smoke, Bernie, but it don't matter. You don't want to tell me the name, that's fine. I'll tell you a name instead. How's that?"
"You've lost me, Ray."
"Arnold Lyle."
"Arnold Ly
le."
"Ring a bell?" I shook my head. "How about Shirley Schnittke?"
"Arnold Lyle and Shirley Schnittke. Schnittke?"
"I think I'm pronouncin' it right."
I suppose it was possible, although when he tried for Mondrian it always came out Moon Drain. "Arnold Lyle and Shirley Schnittke. I can see the two names carved into the trunk of a tree, with a heart around it pierced by an arrow. Who are they, anyway?"
"Remember Rogovin's first name?"
"Give me a moment, it's on the tip of my tongue."
"Spit it out, why don't you?"
"Lyle," I said. "Arnold and Shirley are the Rogovins?"
"They were," he said. "Now they're toast. Fingerprints came back, and that's who they turned out to be, with records almost as long as yours. They both came over from Russia a few years back and went straight to Brighton Beach. There's a lot of hardworkin', law-abidin' Russians in Brighton Beach, but he wasn't one of 'em an' neither was she."
"He came over from Russia with a name like Arnold Lyle."
"Naw, he changed it when he got here. Changed it legally, which musta made it the last legal thing he ever did. Far as anybody knows, Schnittke's the name she was born with."
"Some people are 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 Khayy m, 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 from where Ray left me to sip the dregs of my four-dollar latte, but it seemed simpler to go to the place I knew about, and I did.
I gave the clerk some money and he gave me a phone that would stop working after I'd spent a certain number of minutes talking on it. I forget how many minutes I had coming, because I knew I wasn't going to use more than the merest fraction of them. There was only one number I was planning to call, and I didn't expect to call it more than once or twice, maybe three times at the outside.
I left the store with my new cell phone in my breast pocket, and I just started walking, and after I'd gone a couple of blocks I realized where I was headed. I looked at my watch, and I had plenty of time, and this seemed like a reasonable way to kill it. I let my feet keep on walking in the direction they seemed to have chosen for themselves, and before very long I was standing diagonally across the street from a white brick building at the corner of Third Avenue and 34th Street. I'd walked past that building Wednesday night, I'd walked all over the damn neighborhood, but I hadn't had any reason to notice it.
I looked it over, and all it looked like was a white brick apartment building of the sort that went up all over the city around forty years ago. Ugly no-frills architecture, cheap construction, ceilings as low as the building code permitted, and walls you could detect a fart through, even if you were deaf. They don't build 'em like that anymore, and it's a damn good thing.
I considered going over and having a word with the doorman, who was on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. But what could I ask him, and what would he be likely to tell me? Nothing, I was sure, that Ray didn't already know.
Not that I expected anything to come of the partnership he'd proposed. Still, somebody had killed the Rogovins (whom I was going to have to learn to think of as Lyle and Schnittke). And the same people-the perps, if you will-had traumatized Edgar the Doorman, sacked my apartment, stolen my emergency fund, and shot holes in a good customer of mine. (I'd never seen the fat man before, but anybody who's in my store for less than five minutes and manages to spend $1300 is a hell of a good customer. Besides, Raffles thought he was a prince.)
If I could help Ray nail the bastards, or if we could take some money away from them, or both-well, that was fine with me.
I walked around some more, wondering just how many security cameras were recording my movements. All of these infringements on our privacy are making it particularly difficult on people who are doing something the
y shouldn't be doing, so I suppose it's not surprising the crime rate is dropping. Pretty soon every criminal in a position to make a choice will choose to go straight, or at least to go into the world of big business, where criminal conduct rarely leads to anything so extreme as a jail sentence, and where security cameras aren't a factor.