The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

  “I’m at a pay phone in a coffee shop, same as you. Let’s not use names, shall we? I don’t like to talk over an open line.”

  “Then why didn’t you come here in person?”

  “Because I’m afraid of you,” I said. “I don’t know who you are and you seem to know a lot about me. For all I know you’re a violent person. I don’t want to take the chance.”

  “Do you have the coin?”

  “I picked it up this morning. I don’t have it with me now because I’m not willing to run the risk. It’s in a safe place and I can pick it up on short notice. I’m calling you now because I think we should set a price.”

  “Name your price.”

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  “No, that’s not how we’ll work it, sir.” He seemed quite confident now, as if bargaining was something with which he had some reassuring familiarity. “Set your price, and make it your best price, and I shall say yes or no to it.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “According to the newspapers, a woman was killed when the coin was taken.”

  “Ah, but nobody knows that the coin was connected with her death. Except you and me, that is. And her husband, of course.”

  “Quite. I can pay you ten thousand dollars. I never argue price, sir.”

  “Neither do I. I’ll take twenty.”

  “Impossible.”

  Twelve thousand was the price we settled on. He probably would have gone higher, but my skill in negotiation was diminished by my knowledge that I didn’t have a coin to sell, so why knock myself out? We agreed on the price, and he agreed to bring the money in old out-of-sequence bills, nothing larger than a hundred. I don’t know where he was going to find the money, since the banks were closed and there was no cash in the safe, but maybe he had a friend he could go to or had cash stashed around the house. I hadn’t searched the place in the fine-comb style I’d employed at Abel’s apartment, nor did I intend to, not with the formidable Astrid stretched out downstairs in uncertain sleep.

  “We can make the exchange tomorrow,” I said. “A friend of mine died this past week and there’s going to be a memorial service for him over in Brooklyn. Nobody knows me there and I don’t suppose anybody’ll know you either, though I can’t say that for sure because I don’t know you myself. Do you have a big following in Cobble Hill?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then we’re in good shape. The service is at the Church of the Redeemer at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon. That’s on Henry Street between Congress and Amity, and now you know as much about getting there as I do. I’ll have the coin in an envelope, and if you could have the money the same way, we could make the exchange. I suppose there must be a bathroom, churches generally have bathrooms, and we can go there together and make sure it’s the right coin and the money’s all present and accounted for.”

  “I don’t see why we have to meet in Brooklyn.”

  “Because I have to be there anyway, and because I won’t pick up the coin until I’m on my way to the service, and because I want to make the swap in a public place, but not so public that there are likely to be police looking on. If you don’t want to do it, I’m inclined to say the hell with it and put the coin in a gum machine, because this million-dollar coin has dropped in value to twelve grand and that’s not all the money in the world to me, to be frank about it. So we’ll do it my way or we won’t do it at all, and maybe that’s a better idea anyway, come to think of it.”

  I let him cajole me out of my snit. I didn’t require too much in the way of cajolery. It wasn’t that deep a snit. Then I said, “Wait a minute, how will we recognize each other? We’ve never met.”

  “I’ll know you. I’ve seen your picture.”

  He’d done better than that. He’d seen me face to face, through a pane of presumably one-way glass. And I’d seen him the same way, although he didn’t know it. I went along with the charade, saying I didn’t look all that much like my picture and I wanted to be able to recognize him, too, so why didn’t we both wear red carnations? He agreed, and I advised him to pick up his flower that evening, because it might be difficult finding a florist open on Sunday.

  And through all this chatter I kept listening for Astrid’s footfall on the stairs. At any moment she might come awake, anxious to demonstrate how attack dogs got their name.

  “Tomorrow, then,” he said. “At two-thirty. I’ll be glad when this is over, Mr.—I almost said your name.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “As I said, I’ll be glad when this is over.”

  He wasn’t the only one.

  I made sure the gun was armed with a little plastic dart, hurried downstairs with it and had a quick look at Astrid. She lay as I’d left her, sprawled on her side, and now I could see her chest heave with heavy breathing. While I stood there she made a small mewling sound and her forepaws twitched. The dart that had done the job lay alongside her. I retrieved it, dropped it into my attaché case.

  I went upstairs and used the phone again. I had a lot of people I wanted to call, but I limited myself to dialing three numbers, all of them long distance. None of the calls lasted very long. After the third one I went back downstairs to find the big black dog almost awake but not quite able to get up on her feet. She turned woebegone ill-focused eyes on me, and it was difficult to regard her as a threat. She looked incapable of a hostile thought, let alone of tearing one’s throat out. But I forced myself to remember her bark, and the way she’d coiled herself to spring.

  I hoped she’d be her old alert self by the time her master returned.

  I let myself out, locked up after myself. If anyone watched me I was unaware of it. I walked through the garden, still wondering if there were fish in the pond, and I searched the flower beds in vain for carnations, red or otherwise. I could have suggested that he wear a tulip.

  Why, I wondered, had I bothered with that carnation business? All in the interest of verisimilitude, I suppose, but it could add an unnecessary complication, because now I had to remember to pick one up before the stores closed. Which ordinarily wouldn’t have been such a chore, but it was one of a long list of things to do, and I had less than twenty-four hours to get them all done.

  Which left me no time to squander in gardens. I hurried through the tunnel, looked left and right and straight ahead, opened the gate and let myself out.

  So many things to do…

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  “I dunno, Bern. What it sounds like to me is you’re settin’ up somethin’ complicated.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? You know I didn’t have anything to do with either the Colcannon burglary or the murder of Abel Crowe, but you kept sniffing around, trying to stir something up.”

  “You’re in both of those things up to your eyes, Bern. I just don’t know about this, that’s all.”

  It was Ray Kirschmann’s day off and he was wearing brown gabardine slacks and a print sport shirt. The pants were baggy in the seat and too tight at the waist, and the shirt was one of those Korean imports in light green with dark-green stitching on the collar and pockets. I really wish he’d take his wife along when he buys clothes.

  I said, “What’s to know, Ray? I’m giving you a chance to be a hero, make a couple of good busts, clear a few old cases and put a few dollars in your pocket. What else do you expect to do? Slay the dragon and screw the king’s daughter?”

  “I don’t care about dragons, Bern.”

  “You wouldn’t like a princess much. One pea under the mattress keeps them bitching all night.”

  “Yeah, I remember the story. Tell me again about the dollars I’m gonna put in my pocket.”

  “There’s a man who’s willing to pay a reward for the recovery of his property.”

  “What man?”

  “You’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “What property?”

  “You’ll find that
out tomorrow, too.”

  “How am I gonna recover it? That’s somethin’ else I’ll find out tomorrow. This is soundin’ like those old radio programs. ‘Tune in tomorrow an’ see what happens to Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy.’ Remember Jack Armstrong, Bern? Whatever did happen to him?”

  “He’s doing short time at Attica.”

  “Jesus, what a thought. How much of a reward are we talkin’ about?”

  “Ten grand.”

  He nodded, sucked his teeth. “But it’s not offered officially,” he said. “The guy could welsh.”

  “If it’s not official it doesn’t have to be reported, either. No taxes to pay. No splits with anybody higher up in the department.”

  His face took on a crafty look, and greed sparkled in his eyes. Spinoza may not have had a good word to say for avarice, but how would the wheels turn without it?

  “The hell,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  “Have you got that list?”

  He nodded, drew a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of the green sport shirt. “These here are burglaries committed in the past two years with an M.O. like the Colcannon job—forced entry and the place left like the burglars brought a cyclone with ’em. And it’s the area you said—Manhattan south of Forty-second Street, west of Fifth Avenue and north of Fourteenth Street. Computers are wonderful. You just say what you want and you got it.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how comforting it is to know the police have these tools at their command.”

  “I can imagine. You’re not the first person to figure Rabbit Margate might have done this kinda thing before, you know. They been questionin’ him left and right. Not goin’ back two years, and not just the neighborhood you picked, but they been askin’ him a question or two.”

  “Are they getting anywhere?”

  “He still bein’ Humphrey Bogart.”

  “Yesterday you said he was Jimmy Cagney.”

  “Same difference.”

  “You’ll bring him tomorrow?”

  “It’s irregular. If he got loose and took a powder I’d have a little trouble explainin’ it. I guess I could take a chance.”

  “And you don’t know who was working with him?”

  “Not yet. He’ll talk sooner or later.”

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and went over the time and place with him again.

  “Anythin’ I should bring? Besides Rabbit?”

  “Your gun.”

  “I’m never without it.”

  “Not even in the shower? Let me think. Handcuffs, Ray. Bring plenty of handcuffs.”

  “Like I’m gonna arrest the whole Jesse James gang or somethin’. Well, you generally delivered in the past, Bern, so I’ll play along. Anythin’ else I can do for you in the meantime? Want a lift anywhere? Anythin’ I can do to grease the skids for you a little?”

  I thought it over, then resisted temptation. “No,” I said. “I can manage.”

  I found Marilyn Margate at Hair Apparent. She was combing out a hard-faced woman with a headful of unconvincing auburn hair. “He admits he sleeps with his wife,” the woman was saying, “but he insists he never enjoys it, that it’s just a sense of duty. But my experience is they always tell you that, so how do you know what to believe?”

  “I know just where you’re coming from,” Marilyn said. “Believe me, I know.”

  When she had a minute I drew her aside and gave her a slip of paper with the time and place of Abel’s service. “It’s important for you to show up,” I said. “And bring Harlan Reese.”

  “Harlan? You think he went back and killed Wanda? That doesn’t sound like Harlan.”

  “Just bring him.”

  “I don’t know. He’s not even leaving his room. And he was talking about splitting for the coast or something before the cops get onto him. I don’t think he’s gonna want to chase out to Brooklyn for some old guy’s funeral.”

  “Get him to come anyway. Your brother’ll be there.”

  “Rabbit’s gonna be there? You mean they let him out?”

  “They’ll release him for the service. I arranged it.”

  “You—” Her eyes were wide, her expression respectful. “That’s some kind of arranging,” she said. “That’s more than the lawyer could do. They wouldn’t set bail for him. Wait’ll I tell his lawyer.”

  “Don’t tell his lawyer anything.”

  “Oh. All right.”

  “Just show up tomorrow with Harlan.”

  “If Rabbit’s gonna be there, I’ll get there. And I’ll bring Harlan.”

  I called Narrowback Gallery and Denise answered. “I hope you’re free tomorrow,” I said. “I’d like you to come to a funeral in Brooklyn.”

  “I’ll wear a smock and a smile. You want to talk to your partner in crime?”

  “Please.”

  She put Carolyn on and I said things were going well, albeit hectically. “I have to get into Abel’s building,” I said, “and I decided not to ask Ray for help because I didn’t want him to know what I was up to. Any bright ideas?”

  “I guess it’s a little late for another doctor’s appointment.”

  “It’s Saturday and it’s close to dinnertime. That does make it tricky.”

  “If there’s anything I can do—”

  “I can’t think of anything. I’ll probably be tied up most of the night, assuming I find a way in. I thought maybe I’d drop over to your place after I’m done.”

  “Well, I sort of have a date, Bern.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow at Abel’s service. You’d better take down the address, or did I give it to you earlier?” I gave it to her again and she wrote it down. Then I asked her to put Denise on.

  “Carolyn has the address for the service tomorrow. That’s assuming that the two of you are speaking.”

  “You assume a lot.”

  “Uh-huh. What I wanted to say is I’ve got a batch of things to do tonight but I’ll be done sooner or later, and I thought maybe I could drop over.”

  “Oh.”

  “Because I’d like to see you.”

  “Tonight’s a bad night, Bernie.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow in Brooklyn.”

  “I guess so. Okay to bring Gore and Truman?”

  “They’re already on my list.”

  A machine answered Murray Feinsinger’s telephone, inviting me to leave my name and number or call back at nine Monday morning if I wanted to speak to the doctor. I hung up without leaving a message and read through the listing of Feinsingers in the Manhattan directory until I found a listing for one Dorothy Feinsinger at the same address and dialed the number. Murray himself answered it.

  I said, “Dr. Feinsinger? My name’s Bernard Rhodenbarr, I was in to see you yesterday afternoon. About my feet.”

  “That’s why most people come to see me, Mr. Rhodenbarr. My office is closed for the day, and—”

  “I don’t know if you remember me. I had Morton’s Foot, and you’re going to be making orthotics for me.”

  “They’re not ready yet, of course. It takes a couple of weeks.”

  “Yes, I understand that. But I gave you a deposit, just a small deposit really, and—”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already sent the order in, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Is there a problem?”

  “No problem at all,” I said, “but I had a sudden cash windfall this afternoon, as a matter of fact I had a good day at the track, see, and I wanted to pay you the balance due before I blow it on necessities. And I’m in the neighborhood, so I thought maybe I could come up and pay you what I owe you, I guess it comes to two hundred and seventy dollars because I paid a thirty-dollar deposit, and—”

  “That’s very considerate of you, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Why don’t you stop in Monday?”

  “Well, Monday’s a hard day for me, and for all I know the money might be gone by then. It wouldn’t take a minute if I could just come up and pay you and—”

  “I can’t rea
lly take money outside of business hours,” he said. “I’m at my apartment. My office is across the hall and it’s closed, and I’d have to open up and make out a receipt for you and enter the cash in my books, and I’d rather not do all that.”

  “A receipt’s not important to me. I could just pop up, pay you the cash, and off I’d go.”

  There was a pause. By now he must have been certain he was dealing with a lunatic, and why should he want to invite a lunatic upstairs? There should have been a way to get to see him, but I had evidently blown it, and everything I said now was only going to make it worse.

  “Well, I’ll see you Monday,” I said. “I hope I still have the money by then. Maybe I’ll put it in my shoe in the meantime.”

  Brooklyn Information had a listing for a J. L. Garland on Cheever Place. The operator had no better idea than I if that was in Cobble Hill, but she said the exchange sounded about right, so I dialed it and got a chap with a sort of reedy voice. I asked to speak to Jessica and she came to the phone.

  “This is Bernie Rhodenbarr,” I told her. “I’ll be there tomorrow, and I just wanted to confirm the time and place. Two-thirty at the Church of the Redeemer, is that right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Good. There are a couple of people I’d like you to call, if you would. To ask them to come. Neighbors of your grandfather’s.”

  “I already posted a notice in the lobby. But you can call anyone yourself if you think it’s advisable.”

  “I’ve already invited several people, as a matter of fact. I’d appreciate it if you’d make these particular calls, though. Could you write this down?”

  She said she could and I gave her names and numbers and told her what to say. While I was doing this it occurred to me that she might have access to Abel’s apartment. I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to visit the place in her company, but it looked to be better than not going at all.