The Burglar in the Rye

CHAPTER Nine

It was Ray Kirschmann, wearing a dark blue suit and a red-and-blue-striped tie and, in all likelihood, clean underwear, which I hoped for his sake fit him better than the suit did. He looked at me, shook his head, looked at Carolyn, shook his head again, and came over to lean on my counter.

“I heard they let you out,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to lock you up in the first place. I didn’t have a whole lotta choice in the matter.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t suppose you did.”

“No hard feelin’s, Bern?”

“No hard feelings, Ray.”

“Glad to hear it. Bern, I gotta tell you, you’re gettin’ a little old to be creepin’ around hotels. That’s a young man’s game, and you ain’t a kid no more. What you are, you’re knockin’ on the door of middle age.”

“If I am,” I said, “I’m knocking gently. And if they don’t let me in, I’m not going to pick the lock.”

“Then it’d be the first one in ages that you didn’t,” he said. “You were in the old lady’s room last night, weren’t you?”

“What gives you that idea?”

His expression turned crafty. “Nothin’,” he said.

“Nothing?”

“Nothin’ at all, Bern. No burglar tools, no wad of cash, no coin collection, no jewelry. What did the English guy say about a dog that never barks?”

What indeed? I’ve thought about that sentence, and I have to assume the Englishman in question was Sherlock Holmes, and that the dog in question was not the titular Hound of the Baskervilles (a common mistake) but the beast in “Silver Blaze” who remains silent as a basenji. But at the time the only English guy I could think of was Redmond O’Hanlon, who when last I looked had enough on his mind with jaguars and scorpions and biting flies, not to mention our friend the toothpick fish. What did he care about dogs?

“I don’t know, Ray,” I said. “What did he say about the dog?”

“It bites, Bern. An’ so does your story, rentin’ a hotel room to meet some girl. There’s only one reason a guy like you’d shell out good money for a room, an’ it goes by the name of grand larceny. You were on those premises lookin’ for somethin’ to steal.”

“Maybe I was.”

“ Bern…”

“Carolyn,” he said, “didn’t they learn you not to interrupt?”

“They tried hard to learn me,” she said, “but I was always a slow teacher. Bern, he Mirandized you last night, remember? So watch what you say, because it can be used as evidence. He could stand up in court and swear you said it.”

“I could anyway,” he said reasonably, “whether Bernie here said it or not. A man who’s not willin’ to stretch a point on the witness stand is a man’s got no business bein’ a cop. But this ain’t about court, Bern. It’s about you an’ me comin’ out of this in good shape. Now do you want me to keep talkin’ or should I take a hike?”

“Do I get to vote?”

He glared at Carolyn, and I took a last sip of my cream soda. “Keep talking,” I said.

“You were in this hotel,” he said, “an’ it wasn’t romance brought you there. An’ you were up on the sixth floor, ’cause that’s where you ran into Goat Ear.”

“Goat Ear?”

“You forget her already? The black girl, the one that hollered when you tried to sneak out through the lobby.”

“Isis Gauthier.”

“Right, like I said. Goat Ear.”

“I met her in the hall,” I said, “and I thought we hit it off reasonably well.”

“Let’s say you made an impression, Bern. She went straight to the desk clerk and told him to quit puttin’ shoe polish on his hair an’ call 911, because there’s a suspicious person creepin’ the place.”

“I don’t know how she could call me suspicious,” I said. “I never suspected a thing.”

“What you were,” he said, “is cooler than a cucumber, even if it’s a dill pickle. Speakin’ of which, you gonna eat that one?” I shook my head and he snatched it off my plate, polishing it off in a couple of chomps. “Thanks,” he said. “What you did, Bern, you heard about this Landau woman and these letters of hers. You went lookin’ for ’em, an’ you walked in on a corpse.”

“You mean it wasn’t me who killed her.”

“Of course not, Bern. You ain’t a killer. What you are’s a burglar, an’ you’re one of the best, but when it comes to violence you’re Mahatma Gandhi rolled into one.”

“That’s me,” I said.

“So there’s Landau,” he said, “an’ she’s dead. And you let yourself out an’ lock up after yourself, chain bolt an’ all, same as you always do. It’s a trademark of yours, Bern.”

“I’m neat by nature,” I admitted, “but-”

“Lemme finish. You let yourself in, find a dead woman, an’ let yourself out. An’ run smack into a live one.”

“Isis Gauthier.”

“The black one,” he agreed, “with the French name. She’s on her way out. Now why don’t you hop on the elevator with her an’ get away from the crime scene? That way you’re home in your own bed by the time the blue uniforms hit the hotel lobby.”

“I’m sure you have the answer, Ray.”

“Sure,” he said. “The dog.”

“What dog?”

“The quiet one. We searched you, Bern. Turned you upside down an’ turned your room on the fourth floor inside out. An’ you know what we came up with?”

“Some socks and underwear,” I said. “And a teddy bear, unless one of New York ’s Finest stole it for himself.”

“You got some high opinion of the police, Bern. Nobody stole your teddy bear, which ain’t yours in the first place, bein’ as it’s the property of the hotel. What we came up with was empty hands, an’ what we didn’t find none of was burglar’s tools.”

“So?”

“So where were they?”

“Search me.”

“We did, remember?”

“Vividly.”

“You didn’t leave ’em home,” he said, “or how would you open Landau’s door, or lock up after you left? Anyhow, they’re your American Express card. You never leave home without ’em. But you knew you stood a chance of bein’ frisked, so you dumped ’em somewhere.”

“And if we only knew where they were,” I said, “we could use them to break into the Pentagon and steal government secrets.”

“If we knew where they were,” he said, “we could find more’n a set of burglar’s tools. We could find those letters, too. An’ don’t ask what letters, Bern. You’d know from reading the papers this morning, as if you didn’t know in the first place. Letters from this famous writer I never heard of, so how famous can he be? It’s not like you see the guy on the talk shows. How’s anybody supposed to know who he is?”

“You could try reading his books.”

“If I want to read, I’ll stick with Wambaugh and Caunitz and Ed McBain. Guys who know what it’s all about, not some jerk who writes all his letters on purple paper. The letters were gone, Bern. We searched her rooms the way you’d expect, it bein’ a crime scene an’ all. No letters.”

“And no burglar’s tools.”

“Like I just said.”

“And no dog,” I said. “Ray, you already said I didn’t kill her. Remember?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“And it was homicide, wasn’t it? Or did she die of natural causes?”

“Somebody hit her over the head,” he said, “an’ then stuck a knife in her chest, which naturally caused her to die. The killer took the knife along with him. I suppose he coulda left it behind, an’ you coulda picked it up an’ put it the same place you put the burglar tools an’ the letters, but why would he leave it an’ why would you pick it up? It don’t make no sense.”

“Few things do,” I said. “I thought she was shot.”

“Why’d you think that?”

Because I’d smelled the gunpowder. “I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “I must have heard it.”

“Well, you heard wrong. But even if she was shot, it wasn’t you that shot her, on account of we gave you a paraffin test last night an’ you passed it with flyin’ colors.” He tugged at his lower lip. “Of course you coulda worn gloves. Remember how you always used to wear those rubber gloves with the palms cut out for ventilation? Another trademark of yours, like locking up after the horse is stolen.”

“I know Bernie,” Carolyn said, “and I’ll tell you this right now, Ray. He didn’t steal a horse.”

He gave her a look. “Those rubber gloves wouldn’t help you beat a paraffin test,” he went on, “’cause you’d wind up with nitrate particles on your palms. But nowadays you wear those disposable gloves, made of that plastic film.” A smile began to form on his lips. “Except you weren’t wearing any gloves last night, Bern. Were you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You left a print.”

How? I distinctly remembered sliding my hands into my Pliofilm gloves before I turned the bolt to lock myself in Andrea Landau’s chambers. And, gloved, I’d promptly wiped the knob and the surfaces of door and jamb I might have touched. The gloves had stayed on my hands until I was out of the apartment altogether. I was on the fire escape, a floor below the crime scene, before I took them off.

“Ain’t you gonna ask where, Bern?”

“I would,” I said, “but I have the feeling you’ll tell me anyway.”

“On one of the envelopes.”

“Oh,” I said, and frowned. “On one of what envelopes?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I thought so.”

“You thought what?”

“That you didn’t even know you left ’ em behind. Two purple envelopes, both of ’em addressed to Anthea Landau. What kind of a name is Anthea, anyway?”

“A girl’s name,” Carolyn said.

“Well, so’s Carolyn, and what’s that prove? They were the same envelopes the letters came in, Bern, an’ they got dusted for prints, same as everything else on the scene, an’ one of ’em had prints all over it. Some of ’em were smudged, an’ plenty of ’em were hers, but one of ’em was clear as a crystal, an’ guess whose it was?”

“Something tells me it was mine.”

“You didn’t worry about handling it,” he said, “because you figured on taking it with you, along with the rest of the letters. But I guess you dropped it. Don’t look so down in the mouth, Bern. It puts you on the scene, but I already knew you were there, so it’s no big deal.”

“If you say so.”

“You had the stack of letters. They musta been in an envelope or a file folder, and that’d be what, an inch thick? Two inches? Goat Ear didn’t mention you holdin’ nothin’, so your hands were empty, but that’s because your shirt was full.”

“My shirt?”

“Under your shirt, that’d be my guess as to where you put the letters. That’d get you past Goat Ear, but a trained observer would spot it, so you had to stash the stuff before you hit the lobby, since you know somebody’s been murdered, and you realize you might get spotted.”

“By a trained observer.”

“Or anyone who happens to recognize you for the encourageable burglar you are.”

“Incorrigible.”

“You said it. But you didn’t dump the stuff in your room, Bern, an’ you didn’t get out of the hotel with it, an’ what’s that leave?”

“Since you don’t believe I never had it in the first place-”

“Not on your life, Bern.”

“-then I must have stashed it somewhere in the hotel.”

“Uh-huh. Another room’d be my guess, an’ if I was a young hothead I’d be goin’ room to room, movin’ furniture an’ pullin’ up the carpet.”

“But you’re older and wiser.”

“You got the idea, Bern. Why make waves when we both get a chance here to do ourselves some good? What you gotta do is tell me where you stashed the stuff, an’ I’ll go in myself an’ get it, an’ we’ll wait and see.”

“We’ll wait and see what?”

“How to cash in. That’s gonna be the tricky part. The way I hear it, nobody knows what the letters are worth. An’ they ain’t worth much unless they can be sold right out in the open. You steal a rare book or a valuable coin or a painting, you got these crackpot collectors who’ll pay through the nose for it and keep it where nobody ever gets a peek at it. But your college libraries are the big buyers for letters like this Gulliver wrote, an’ they won’t pay big bucks for something unless they get to brag that they got it.”

“They want the publicity.”

“Like an old guy with a young girlfriend. Half the fun is showin’ her off to his buddies, especially since that’s about all he can still do. So this is the kind of deal where you sell the loot back to the insurance company.”

“Well, in that case…”

“Except it ain’t insured. Landau wouldn’t take out a floater policy on all her old letters, an’ they wouldn’t be covered by Sotheby’s insurance because Sotheby’s didn’t have ’ em yet. An ’ Landau can’t ransom ’em back, because she’s dead, an’ unless there’s a new will nobody knows about, the estate goes to the Authors Guild for handouts to writers who are up against it, which I guess plenty of ’em are most of the time.”

“It’s this society of ours, Ray. We don’t value the arts sufficiently.”

“Yeah, we all of us oughta be ashamed. Thing is, Bern, somebody’s gonna offer a reward, or some other way’ll open up to make a quiet dollar. An’ we’ll split.”

“Fifty-fifty,” I said.

“Only way to avoid hard feelings, Bernie. Half for you an’ half for me. Keep it all as even as Steven.”

“It seems fair.”

“Damn right it does. So? We got a deal?”

“I guess so,” I said. “But I’m going to have to retrieve the letters myself.”

“How? Your picture’s all over the papers, Bern. You’ll never get past the front desk. Lemme get ’em. I can walk in like I own the place.”

“Just lend me your badge,” I said, “and I can do the same.”

“Very funny.”

“The letters are in a safe place,” I said, “and nobody’s going to disturb them. I’ll get to them as soon as I can, but there’s no hurry. And they’d be difficult for you to get to, Ray, even if you knew where they were.”

“That don’t make sense, Bern.”

“Ray,” I said, “I could tell you everything I know about those letters and you couldn’t find them. Trust me.”

“Yeah,” he said, “you’re as good at hidin’ stuff as you are at findin’ it. Only thing is I hope you didn’t hide it right there in Landau’s apartment.”

“How could I do that? You must have searched the place from top to bottom.”

“We did,” he said, “and your room, too. Includin’ the bear.”

“The bear? Paddington Bear?”

“In your room, sittin’ on top of the fireplace.”

“And you thought he might have a two-inch-thick file of correspondence? Did he hide it under his little red jacket?”

He shook his head. “Not the letters. But he coulda been holdin’ the burglar’s tools, or even the gun, if it was a little one.”

Carolyn said, “Is that a gun in your paw, or are you just glad to see me? Ray, did you and your buddies cut open Bernie’s bear? Because if you did I think he’s got the makings of a pretty good lawsuit.”

“An’ a complaint to the SPCA,” Ray said, “but all we did was x-ray him, so put your mind at rest. All in all it was a pretty thorough search, Bernie, your room an’ hers, but it ain’t like searching for narcotics, where you can go in with dogs. How’s a dog gonna help you find letters from a particular person?”

“Maybe you could let him sniff a sample of Gully Fairborn’s handwriting.”

“Or a purple envelope. I know how cute you are, an’ I had a couple of uniforms go through her files lookin’ for anything purple. Perfect place to hide ’em, just stick ’em in the wrong file.”

“Like ‘The Purloined Letter,’” Carolyn said.

“Whatever. Purloin or sirloin, they came up empty. But we didn’t rip the desk apart, or the refrigerator door, so you coulda double-dipped back into Landau’s place an’ found some tricky spot to leave everything. Only thing, the apartment’s sealed off now as a crime scene. You can’t get in.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Good,” he said. “So it’s somewhere else, somewhere you can get to.”

“I’d say so.”

“An’ where I can’t.”

“Not without creating a disruption,” I said, “and attracting more attention than you’d be comfortable with.”

“An’ who wants that?” He shrugged. “Okay, Bern. We’ll play it your way for now. Take your time, but not too much of it, huh? There’s a lot of heat, what with a dame bumped off who’s supposed to be kind of prominent, even if nobody I know ever heard of her. You wouldn’t happen to know who knocked her off, would you?”

“If all this has been an elaborate buildup…”

“Naw, I know you didn’t kill her. But you beat us to the crime scene, so you might have seen somethin’ that gave you an idea. An’ even if you didn’t, you got a knack for steppin’ on your dick an’ coming up smellin’ like a daffodil. One minute you’re under arrest, an’ the next minute you’re tellin’ a roomful of people who the real killer is.”

“Well, I’m glad this room’s not full of people,” I said, “because for a change I’d be tongue-tied.”

“That straight, Bern?”

“Absolutely. I haven’t got a clue.”

“But you might come up with somethin’,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the first time. If you do, you know where to bring it.”

“Sure, Ray. We’re partners.”

“You bet we are, Bernie. We generally do all right together, don’t we? An’ I got a good feelin’ about this one. I think we’re gonna come out of it lookin’ real good.” He paused at the door. “Been a pleasure, Carolyn. You hardly said a word.”

“I never had a chance, Ray.”

“Maybe that’s the answer. You’re a lot less of a pain in the neck when you don’t open your mouth.”

“Gee,” she said, “I wonder if it’d work for you?”

“See? The minute you got that mouth runnin’ you’re as bad as ever. But when you zip it up you’re okay. You know what? You look different.”

“Huh?”

“You look different,” he said. “Most of the time you look like a dog gettin’ ready to bite somebody.”

“And now I look like a poodle that’s just had a wash and set.”

“More like a fluffy little cocker spaniel,” he said. “Softer an’ gentler, you know?” He opened the door. “Whatever you’re doin’, keep doin’ it. That’s my advice.”