The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

  So I locked up again and went over to the bathroom door and told Marilyn the coast was clear.

  She had heard most of it. We talked, and by the time we were done she seemed to believe that I’d had nothing to do with the murder of Wanda Colcannon. But she knew Rabbit was equally innocent of murder and she wanted to get him off the hook.

  I said, “What about the partner? How many guys did Rabbit work with?”

  “Just one.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  “I don’t know if I should say.”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell anybody. And the police probably already know who he is, if they don’t have him in custody by now.”

  “Rabbit wouldn’t fink.”

  “He might,” I said. “Mostly people will, sooner or later. But even if Rabbit’s the toughest nut since G. Gordon Liddy, the cops’ll probably get the partner the same way they got Rabbit. Some neighborhood snitch’ll add two and two and call the cops.”

  “Why do you want to know who it was?”

  “Because maybe he split with Rabbit and went back alone for another try at the safe. Or with a third person.”

  “Oh.” She put a finger to her pointed chin. Her eyes, I noted, didn’t need all that makeup. They were large enough without it. “I don’t think Harlan would do that,” she said.

  “Harlan?”

  “Harlan Reese. They pulled it off together. If Harlan went back—no, I don’t think he would do that, not without telling Rabbit.”

  “Maybe they both went back.”

  “You still think Rabbit killed her.”

  “I didn’t say that. But how do you know what Harlan might have done?”

  “Rabbit didn’t go back a second time. I’m positive of that.”

  I let it go. We talked about the Third Burglars Carolyn and I had hypothesized, and as I explained the theory it seemed as difficult to pin down as the elusive Third Murderer in Macbeth. A couple of roaming vandals, skipping idly over the rooftops in search of loot, happening by chance on a smashed skylight, dropping in for criminous purposes, and committing a slight case of homicide on their way out.

  Earlier, I had believed all that. Now it struck me as occupying a rung on the plausibility ladder somewhere between the Great Pumpkin and the Tooth Fairy.

  Because Ray was right, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Somehow the two murders, Crowe and Colcannon, were connected. And the only way Rabbit Margate was going to beat a murder rap was by someone’s coming up with the real killer, and the police couldn’t possibly do that because they already figured they had the real killer, so why look elsewhere?

  And if Rabbit didn’t wind up in the clear, I was in trouble. Because Rabbit’s sister knew I’d been at the Colcannon place after her brother left it, and Ray knew I had heard of Rabbit before he’d mentioned him, and Ray figured there was a connection between me and Colcannon and me and Crowe, and sooner or later he’d do something with his suspicions.

  For one thing, he might give Abel’s place a really thorough toss of the sort I’d given it, and while I didn’t think he’d find the money in the telephone or the rare stamps in the books, neither did I think he’d miss the watch and earrings that were hidden beneath the cigars. Once he found them he’d almost certainly order the place swept for prints again.

  And then I’d be in trouble. They had already dusted for prints after Abel’s body was found, which was why I hadn’t encumbered myself with gloves on my recent visit, that and the fact that I, uh, hadn’t thought to bring a pair with me. So my prints were now all over the damned apartment, and while that might not be evidence of homicide (since the prints hadn’t been there for the first inspection), it would be very powerful evidence indeed that I’d paid Abel a visit after his death, and how was I going to explain that one?

  I picked up the phone and called Carolyn. No answer. I called Denise and learned from Jared that she had not come home yet. There was something seriously wrong with telephones, I decided, because I kept calling people and people kept calling me and nobody ever got to talk with anyone else. My life was turning into a clumsy metaphor for the failure of communications in the Age of Alienation.

  I dialed 246-4200. It rang and was answered, and for a minute or so I listened without saying a word. Then I replaced the receiver and turned to Marilyn, who was looking at me oddly.

  “You didn’t say anything,” she said.

  “That’s true. I’m going to help you.”

  “How?”

  “By getting them to release Rabbit.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “By finding out who the Third Burglar was. By learning who really killed Wanda Colcannon.”

  I was afraid she’d ask how I was going to bring that off, and I would have been stuck for an answer. Instead she asked why.

  “That last call I made,” I said. “It was Dial-a-Prayer.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I’m serious. The prayer today was something like, ‘Oh Lord, let me do something today I have never done before. Show me a new way in which I can be of service to a fellow human being.’ There was more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.”

  She raised her penciled eyebrows. “Dial-a-Prayer,” she said.

  “Call it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  “And that’s why you’re going to help Rabbit.”

  “It’s a reason. Won’t it do?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess it will. I guess it’ll have to.”

  CHAPTER

  Fifteen

  Marilyn wanted to leave right away. She had to see a lawyer about getting Rabbit out on bail, which might or might not be possible, and she said something about getting in touch with Harlan Reese. Then, when I warned her that Ray Kirschmann might be lurking in the lobby or laying doggo across the street, she reversed direction completely.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Maybe what I oughta do is stay right here.”

  I looked at her, a veritable vision in rouge et noir, and I inhaled her scent, and I listened with amazement to my very own voice telling her I didn’t think that was a good idea. “You have things to do,” I said, “and I have things to do, and we’d better go do them. Besides, Ray could turn ornery and come back with a warrant and a crowbar, and then the bathroom wouldn’t be sacrosanct anymore. One thing, though. Maybe you should leave the gun here.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t belong to me. My boss keeps it in case we get held up. I think she just likes having it, you know? I mean who’s gonna hold up a beauty parlor?”

  “Is that where you work?”

  She nodded. “Hair Apparent. There’s four operators plus Magda, she’s the owner. I’m working tomorrow. I’ll put the gun back then.”

  “Good. Because if the police found it in your purse—”

  “I know.”

  We were in the hallway and I was locking the last of the locks when the phone started ringing. I gritted my teeth. If I unlocked everything and raced I still wouldn’t get to the phone on time, and if I did it would just be somebody offering me free home delivery of the Newark Star-Ledger. The hell with it.

  The elevator took us down past the lobby to the basement. We went through the laundry room and down a dimly lit corridor to the service entrance. I held the door for her and she climbed a short flight of stairs, opened her red-and-black umbrella, and disappeared into the night.

  Back in my apartment, I stood for a moment glaring at my phone and wondering how many times it had rung while I was letting Marilyn out. It wasn’t ringing now, and it was getting late enough to discourage me from placing many calls of my own. I tried one, dialing Carolyn’s number, and wasn’t surprised when nobody answered.

  The four little cups of espresso were starting to wear off and I poured myself a healthy hooker of straight Scotch to speed them on their way. I drank it down, then got a taller glass from the cupboard and stirred an ounce or two of Scotch into four or five ounces of milk. The perfect nightcap—t
he milk coats your stomach while the Scotch rots your liver.

  The phone rang.

  I leaped for it, then made myself draw a calming breath before lifting the receiver to my ear. A male voice, one I’d last heard almost twenty-two hours ago, said, “Rhodenbarr? I want the nickel.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everybody wants it. I wouldn’t mind getting my own hands on it.”

  “Don’t joke with me. I know you have the coin.”

  “I had it. I don’t have it anymore.”

  There was a pause, and for a moment I thought I’d lost him. Then he said, “You’re lying.”

  “No. Do you think I’m crazy enough to pop it in the same pocket as the keys and the Saint Christopher medal? I wouldn’t do that, and I wouldn’t keep it around the house, either. Not with all the burglaries you hear about in this town.”

  This last didn’t win a chuckle. “You have access to the coin?”

  “It’s where I can get it.”

  “Get it now,” he urged. “And name your price and we will arrange a meeting. I have the rest of the night at my disposal, and—”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” I said. “If I don’t get enough sleep I’m a terrible grouch the next day. Anyway, I couldn’t get hold of the coin at this hour even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I’m afraid it’ll have to be tomorrow.”

  “What time tomorrow?”

  “That’s hard to say. Give me a number where I can reach you.”

  This time I got the chuckle. “I think not, Rhodenbarr. It will be better if I continue to call you. Estimate how much time you’ll need to gain possession of the coin, then return to your apartment at an appointed hour and I’ll telephone you. Merely tell me the hour.”

  In other words, be at a specific place at a specific time with the coin in my hand. “Inconvenient,” I said. “Tell you what. There’s another number where I’ll be tomorrow afternoon at two.”

  “And the number?”

  I gave him Carolyn’s. She sublets her rent-controlled apartment from a man named Nathan Aranow, and as he remains the tenant of record her phone is listed in his name. (Half the people in New York operate this way. The other half pay $500 a month for a studio apartment.) I didn’t think he could get the name and address from the number, and if he did how was he going to find Nathan Aranow? Carolyn simply mailed a money order in that name to her landlord every month. For all any of us knew, Nathan Aranow had been wiped out years ago in a flash flood.

  He repeated the number. “And the coin,” he said. “Who else knows you have it?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You had no accomplice?”

  “I always work alone.”

  “And you haven’t spoken to anyone?”

  “I’ve spoken to plenty of people, but not about the coin.”

  “So no one else knows you have it.”

  “As far as I know,” I said, “nobody else even knows it’s missing. Just you and I and Herbert Franklin Colcannon, unless he’s told somebody, and I don’t think he has.” Or else Ray Kirschmann would have been sniffing after half a million dollars, and if that had been the case he’d have been drooling all over my rug. “He might not report it, not if it wasn’t insured. And if he had reasons.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t report it.”

  “Of course Rabbit might talk.”

  “Rabbit?”

  “George Edward Margate. Isn’t that why you fingered the Colcannon place for him? You should have picked someone who knew how to punch a safe. I guess the nickel was supposed to be your finder’s fee for setting up the job.”

  A long low chuckle. “Clever,” he said. “I should have made my arrangements with you in the first place.”

  “You certainly should have. It might help if I knew your name.”

  “It might,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow at two o’clock. That number’s in the Village, isn’t it?”

  “I own a bookstore on East Eleventh Street. There’s two phones, one listed and one unlisted. I gave you the number of the unlisted one.”

  “Shall I simply meet you at your store, then?”

  “No,” I said. “Call the number at two.”

  I hung up and returned to my Scotch and milk. The milk was warmish, but that’s supposed to be an advantage when you’re trying to go to sleep. I sat down and sipped and thought that I’d done rather a lot of lying. Well, Dial-a-Prayer hadn’t said anything provocative about honesty. Just being of service to one’s fellow man, and if I wasn’t that, then what was I?

  The phone rang. I picked it up and it was Carolyn. “Been calling you all night,” she said. “What the hell happened to you, Bernie? Either nobody answered or the line was busy, or once in a while I would get a wrong number. What’s been happening?”

  “Everything.”

  “Are you gonna have to get glasses?”

  “Glasses?”

  “Didn’t you say you were going to the eye doctor?”

  “Oh. Yeah, right.”

  “You have to get glasses?”

  “No, but he said I should stop reading in the dark.”

  “I could have told you that. You okay? You sound a little funny.”

  She sounded about half lit, but I didn’t bother to mention it. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just exhausted. A lot of things have happened but I can’t really talk now.”

  “Company?”

  “Yes,” I said, and then it struck me that I’d better stop this lying before my nose started to grow. “No,” I said.

  “I knew it was one or the other. But which?”

  “I’m alone,” I said, “but evidently can’t think straight. Are you at home?”

  “No, I’m bopping around the bars. Why?”

  “Going back to your place later?”

  “Unless I get lucky, which it doesn’t look like I’m gonna. Why?”

  “You’ll be home in the morning? Or will you be at the Poodle Factory?”

  “I don’t work Saturdays anymore, Bernie. I don’t have to, not since I started doing a little burglary to make ends meet. Remember?”

  “Maybe you could go over to the store when you wake up,” I said, “and pick up your telephone answering machine, and take it back to your apartment.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “I’ll be over around ten or so and tell you all about it.”

  “Jesus, I certainly hope so.”

  I hung up and it rang again and it was Denise, home at last and returning my call. I asked her how she would like company around one-thirty.

  “It’s almost that now,” she said.

  “I mean tomorrow afternoon. All right if I drop in for a few minutes?”

  “Sure. Just for a few minutes?”

  “Maybe an hour at the outside.”

  “Sure, I guess. Does this mark a new development in our ever-evolving relationship, Bernie? Are you advance-booking a quickie or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be over around one-thirty, maybe a quarter of two, and I’ll explain everything.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  I hung up and got undressed. When I took my socks off I sat for a moment on the edge of my bed and examined my feet. I had never really studied them before, and it had certainly never occurred to me that they were narrow. They definitely looked narrow now, long and skinny and foolish. And there was no question about it, my second toes extended beyond my big toes. I tried to retract the offending second toes, tried to extend the big toes, but this didn’t work, and I must have been damned tired to think it might.

  Morton’s Foot. I had it, all right, and while it wasn’t as dismaying as a positive Wassermann, I can’t say I felt happy about it.

  So the phone rang.

  I picked it up. A woman with an English accent said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is this Bernard Rhodenbarr?”

  “Yes.”


  “I thought I might have dialed the weather report by mistake. You said ‘It never rains but it pours.’”

  “I didn’t realize I’d said that aloud.”

  “You did, actually, and it is raining, and—I’m sorry to be calling you so late. I couldn’t reach you earlier. My name is Jessica Garland. I don’t know if that means anything to you.”

  “Not offhand, but I don’t think my mind’s at its sharpest. Not if I’m capable of answering the phone with a code phrase from a spy movie.”

  “You know, it did rather sound like that. I thought my grandfather might have mentioned me, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  “Your grandfather?”

  “Abel Crowe.”

  My jaw may have hung loose for a moment. Then I said, “I never knew Abel had a grandchild. I never even knew he’d been married.”

  “I don’t know that he was. He was certainly never married to my grandmother. She was from Budapest originally, and the two of them were lovers in Vienna before the war. When the Nazis annexed Austria in ’38 she got out with my mother in her arms and the clothes she was wearing and nothing else. Grandfather’s parting gift to her was a small fortune in rare stamps which she concealed in the lining of her coat. She went from Vienna to Antwerp, where she sold the stamps, and from there to London, where she died in the Blitz. Grandfather wound up in a concentration camp and survived.”

  “And your mother—?”

  “Mother was five or six years old when Grandmother was killed. She was taken in by a neighbor family and grew up as an English girl. She married young, had me early on, and assumed her own father was dead, that he’d died in a concentration camp or in the war. It must have been about six years ago that she learned otherwise. I say, I’m doing a great lot of talking, aren’t I? Do you mind terribly?”

  “I find it rather soothing.”

  “Do you? Well, Grandfather literally turned up on our doorstep in Croydon. It seems he’d hired agents and finally succeeded in tracing Mother. There was a joyful reunion, but before very long they found themselves with precious little to say to each other. She’d grown up to be a rather ordinary English suburban housewife, while Grandfather—well, you know the sort of life he led.”