Burglars Can't Be Choosers (14 page)

“You think there’s something else?”

“I think there has to be. You and your husband are the only people who’d be interested in the tapes and pictures. But if neither of you killed Flaxford and neither of you sacked my apartment, then there has to be something else for somebody else to
be looking for. And once we know what it is we’ll have a shot at knowing who’s looking for it.”

She started to say something but I tuned her out. An idea was beginning to glimmer. I picked up my glass, then put it down without drinking anything. No more liquor tonight, not for Bernard. He had work to do.

“Money,” I said.

“In the blue box?”

“That’s always possible, I suppose. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You were going to pay me another four thousand dollars. Have you still got it?”

“Yes.”

“At home?”

“Here, as a matter of fact. Why?”

“Can you raise any more?”

“Maybe two or three thousand over the next few days.”

“No time for that. Your four thousand and my five thousand is nine thousand—isn’t it impressive the way I can work out these sums in my head—nine thousand might be enough. Ten thousand would be a lot better. Could you dig up an extra thousand dollars in the next couple of hours if you put your mind to it?”

“I suppose I could. I’m thinking who I could ask. Yes, I could manage a thousand dollars. Why?”

I opened my suitcase, took out the three books. I gave Gibbon to Darla Sandoval and kept Barbara Tuchman and beekeeping for myself. “Every thirty pages or so,” I said, talking as I riffled pages, “you will find two pages glued together. Tear them open—” I suited action to words “—and you’ll find a hundred-dollar bill.”

“Where did you get these books?”

“Mostly on Fourth Avenue. Not
Guns of August,
that came from Book-of-the-Month Club. Oh, you thought I stole them. No, this is my stash, my case money. I may have stolen the money but the books are all my own. They’ve been shaken and riffled and all, but they’ve refused to give up their secret. Come on, now. If we both work we’ll get the money that much faster.”

“But what are we going to do with it?”

“We are going to put your five thousand and my five thousand together,” I said, “and that will give us ten thousand dollars, and we’re going to use it to get me into J. Francis Flaxford’s apartment, past the doorman and through the police evidence seal and everything. We’re going to do it in the most expedient way possible. We’re going to hire a police escort.”

I
sat back in my chair and watched Ray Kirschmann count hundred-dollar bills. He performed his operation in silence but he did move his lips as he counted so it was easy for me to keep up with him. When he was all done he said, “Ten thousand, all right. That’s what you said.”

“Ten thousand two hundred, Ray. I must have had some bills stuck together. Careless of me. Leave two of them on the table there, huh? The price we set was ten even.”

“Jesus,” he said, but he put a pair of hundreds on the glass-topped coffee table before shuffling the remaining ten thou into a neat if bulky roll. “This is crazy,” he said. “Dizziest damn thing I ever did. Dizziest damn thing I ever heard of, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s also the easiest money you ever made in your life.”

“I’m takin’ a hell of a risk, Bernie.”

“What risk? You’ve got every right in the world to want to have another look at the Flaxford apartment, you and Loren. You were the two cops who caught the original squeal and you were right in the middle of everything.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“So there’s something you have a feeling you may have missed, so you pick up the keys and get a warrant or permission slip or whatever the hell you get, and you and Loren go let yourselves into Flaxford’s place.”

“Except it ain’t Loren.”

“So instead of one skinny guy in a blue uniform you have a different skinny guy in a blue uniform. All cops look alike, you know that.”

“Jesus.”

“If you want to put the money back on the table—”

He gave me a sour look. I was in the same apartment where I’d met Darla Sandoval but I was drinking instant Yuban now instead of Scotch, and Darla herself was tucked away behind a pair of louvered doors in the kitchen. Since half of the ten grand was hers I figured she had every right in the world to listen in on our arrangements, but I also figured she’d be better off not meeting Ray Kirschmann face to face. If he’d even bothered to wonder whose apartment we were using he’d kept
his curiosity to himself. Outside of a conventional
Nice place you got here, Rhodenbarr
we might as well have been meeting over hot dogs at Nedick’s.

“I just don’t know,” he said now. “A fugitive from justice, an escaped murderer—”

“Ray, all I ever killed is time. I already told you that.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t honestly think I killed Flaxford, do you?”

“I got no opinion on the subject, Bernie. You’re the same fugitive from a homicide charge whether you killed him or he died of an ingrown toenail.” He frowned at an irksome memory. “If you
didn’t
do it,” he said, “why in the hell did you jump me the way you did? Made me feel like seven different kinds of an asshole.”

“I was stupid, Ray. I got spooked.”

“Yeah, spooked.”

“If I’d already known Flaxford was dead on the floor I wouldn’t have gone nuts like that, but it shocked me, same as it shocked Loren, and I—”

“When Loren gets shocked he faints. It’s a lot less hostile, just closing your eyes and hitting the rug.”

“Next time I’ll faint.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to find something in that apartment that’ll point straight at the real killer. Because I
know
I didn’t kill anybody, Ray, and I’ll find out who did, and when I’ve got it worked out I’ll hand it to you and look what a hero you’ll be. ‘The resourceful cop who dug beneath the surface to get at the real truth. You’re a safe bet to make plainclothes on the strength of that.”

“Yeah, plainclothes. When you tell it I come out of it with a promotion. When I work it out on my own I see myself winding up stepping on my cock.”

“Forget that, Ray. A promotion and ten grand, that’s how you’ll wind up.”

“Don’t forget I got to split with Loren.” I shot him a doubtful look and he gave me back an injured expression in exchange. “Right down the middle,” he said. “It’s the same fuckin’ risk for the both of us. You’ll be wearin’ his badge and twirlin’ his nightstick, for Chrissake. Be his gun on your hip. If the shit hits the fan he’ll be right there in front of it, arm in arm with me. So it’s five grand for him and five grand for me.”

“Sounds fair to me.”

He looked at me for a moment, then let out air in a soundless whistle. He patted the bulky package on the sofa beside him. “Size thirty-eight long,” he said. “That’s what you ordered, right?”

“That’s what I take.”

“Loren’s smaller’n you so I picked this up new. Maybe you better try it on.”

I unwrapped the parcel, got out of my own clothes, donned a pair of regulation police blues over a blue shirt. There was no cap; I would wear Loren’s. When I was dressed Ray inspected me, tugged here and there on the uniform, frowned, stepped back, shrugged, shook his head doubtfully and turned aside.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You don’t look like New York’s Finest to me.”

“Just so I’m not a disgrace to the uniform.”

“I guess it ain’t too bad of a fit. It don’t look tailor-made, you got to admit that, but then you also got to admit that neither does Loren’s.”

I took a moment to picture Loren. “No,” I agreed, “he doesn’t look as though the uniform was stitched together around him.” I patted my trousers, pressed out imaginary wrinkles. “So I guess I’ll do,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you’ll do.”

I was still in uniform when he left. After the door closed behind him Darla Sandoval emerged from the kitchen. She looked me up and down and raised her eyebrows.

“Well?”

“I think you look like a policeman. There’s a mirror on the bedroom door if you want to see yourself.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been a mirror on the bedroom ceiling. (Well, maybe I
would have.) But I went and checked my reflection on the mirrored door and decided I cut a reasonably dashing figure. I returned to the living room and agreed with Darla that I looked like a cop.

“He took all our money,” she said. “Do you think that was wise?”

“I think it was inevitable. You can’t pay cops half in advance and the balance upon delivery. You ought to be able to but they don’t like to work that way.”

“He’s picking you up here tonight.”

I nodded. “At twenty-one hundred hours. That’s nine o’clock in English but he said it in cop talk because I was wearing the uniform.”

“So you’ll just wait for him here?”

I shook my head. “I’ll go back to where I’m staying downtown. I didn’t want to complicate things by having him meet me there. I’d just as soon he didn’t know where I’m staying.”

“Suppose he doesn’t show up, Bernard? Then what?”

“He’ll show. He’ll even make sure he’s on time because he doesn’t want anything to go wrong. He’ll bring Loren and I’ll equip myself with all of Loren’s paraphernalia, the badge and the cap and the gun and the nightstick and the cuffs, all that crap, and Loren’ll curl up here with an astrology magazine while Ray and I go and do the dirty deed. Then Ray’ll drop me back here and pick up Loren and that’s the end of it.”

“But suppose he keeps the ten thousand dollars and forgets all about you?”

“Oh,” I said, “he won’t do that.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He’s honest,” I said, and when she stared at me I explained. “There’s all kinds of honest. If a cop like Ray makes a deal he’ll stick with it. He’s that kind of honest. And you heard him carry on when I showed some doubt about his giving Loren an even split. He was genuinely offended at the implication. What’s so funny?”

“I was thinking of Carter. He wouldn’t understand a syllable of this.”

“Well, he’s a different kind of honest.”

“He certainly is. Bernard, I think I can have one more drink without harming myself any. Can I get you one?”

“No thanks.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“More coffee, then?”

I shook my head. She went back to the kitchen and returned with drink in hand. She sat down on the sofa, sipped her drink, set it down on the coffee table and noticed the pair of hundred-dollar bills I’d convinced Ray to leave behind. “I guess these are yours,” she said.

“Well, one of us counted wrong, Mrs. Sandoval.”

“Darla.”

“Darla. Why don’t we each take one of them?”

That struck her as fair. She kept a bill and passed its brother to me. Then she said, “You said he was honest. That policeman. But he would have kept the extra two hundred dollars.”

“Oh, sure. He was steamed when I called him on it.”

“There really are all kinds of honesty, aren’t there?”

“There really are.”

It was time to change back into mufti, time to pack up the uniform and cart it downtown. But for the moment I didn’t feel much like moving. I sat in a chair across from Darla and watched her nibble at her drink.

“Bernard? I was thinking that it’s a waste of time for you to chase downtown and back. And it’s an added risk, isn’t it? Being out on the street that much?”

“I’ll take cabs both ways.”

“Even so.”

“A small risk, I suppose.”

“You could stay here, you know.”

“I’d like to drop my suitcase at the place where I’m staying.”

“Oh?”

“And there’s someone I’ll want to see before I
meet Ray this evening. And a stop or two I’ll want to make.”

“I see.”

Our eyes met. She had a lot of presence, this lady did. And something more than that.

“You really look effective in that uniform,” she said.

“Effective?”

“Very effective. I’m just sorry I won’t be able to be here tonight when you have all the accessories. The nightstick and the handcuffs and the badge and the gun.”

“Well, you can imagine how I’ll look with the props.”

“Yes, I certainly can.” She ran the tip of her tongue very purposefully over her lips. “Costumes can be very useful, you know. I sometimes think that’s what I like most about theater. Not that the actors wear costumes physically, although they often do, but that the whole character which an actor puts on is a sort of costume.”

“Do you do any acting yourself, Darla?”

“Oh, no, I’m just a dabbler. I told you that, didn’t I? Why should you think I might have acted?”

“The way you were using your voice just then.”

She licked her lips again. “Costumes,” she said, and ran her eyes over my uniform. “I think I told
you that I used to consider myself a very conventional person.”

“I think you did.”

“Yes, I’m quite sure I said that.”

“Yes.”

“Conventional in sexual matters.”

“Yes.”

“But in recent years I’ve found out otherwise. I may have told you that.”

“Uh, yes, I think you did.”

“In fact I’m positive I did.”

“Yes.”

She got to her feet and stood in such a way as to make me very much aware of the shape of her body. “If you were to wear that uniform,” she said, “or one rather like it, and if you were to have handcuffs and a nightstick, I think I would find you quite irresistible.”

“Uh.”

“And we might do the most extraordinary things. Imaginative persons could probably find interesting things to do with handcuffs and a nightstick.”

“Probably.”

“And with each other.”

“Very probably.”

“Of course you might be too conventional for that sort of thing.”

“I’m not all that conventional.”

“No, I didn’t really think you were. Do you find me attractive?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you’re not saying that out of politeness.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s good. I’m older than you, of course. That wouldn’t bother you?”

“Why should it?”

“I’ve no idea. It wouldn’t?”

“No.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “This is not the right time for us,” she said.

“And I don’t have the cuffs or the stick.”

“No, you don’t. But as an experiment, why don’t you come kiss me?”

It was a stirring kiss. We were standing, her arms around my neck, and midway through the kiss I dropped my hands to her buttocks and took hold of them and squeezed with all my strength, whereupon she made some extraordinary sounds and quivered a bit. Eventually we let go of each other and she stepped backward.

“After all of this is over, Bernard—”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“The uniform wouldn’t even be all that important. Or the other paraphernalia.”

“No, but it might be fun.”

“Oh, it would definitely be fun.” She licked her
lips again. “I want to wash up. And you’ll want to change, or do you plan to wear the uniform downtown?”

“No, I’ll change.”

I was in my own clothes by the time she returned from the bathroom, the heat flush gone from her face, the lipstick replenished on her mouth. I put on my silly yellow wig and fixed my cap in place over it. She gave me keys for the front door and the door to the apartment so that I would be able to let myself in when I returned. I didn’t remind her that I could manage without them.

She said, “Bernard? That two hundred dollars the policeman was going to keep?”

“What about it?”

“Would he have divided it with his partner?”

I had to think about it, and finally I told her I just didn’t know.

She smiled. “It’s a good question, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a very good question.”

I got back to Rod’s place before Ellie did. While I waited for her I tried my cop suit on again and frowned at my shoes. Did cops wear scotch-grain loafers? It seemed to me that they always wore square-toed black oxfords, occasionally switching to black wing tips. But did they ever wear loafers?

I decided it didn’t matter. Nobody was going to be staring at my feet.

When Ellie walked in my outfit gave her a giggling fit. This didn’t do wonders for my self-confidence. “But you can’t be a cop,” she said. “You’re a crook!”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“You just don’t look like a cop, Bernie.”

“Cops don’t look like cops anymore,” I pointed out. “Oh, older bulls like Ray still look the part, but the younger generation’s gone to hell. Ray’s partner’s a good example. Bumping his nightstick into his knee, asking me what my sign was, then collapsing in a dead faint. I look as much like a cop as he does. Anyway, the only person I have to convince is a doorman. And I’ll be with Ray and he’ll do all the talking.”