Burglars Can't Be Choosers

by Lawrence Block

  “Can you get part of the fifty thousand?”

  “Not a chance. Cops don’t give money to crooks. I’m the one person in the world who won’t get a sniff of the fifty thou. I’ll have to go steal some money in a hurry, though. I’m as broke as I’ve ever been.”

  “Oh, Bernie. Look what happened the last time you tried to steal something.”

  “That was stealing-to-order. From now on I’m strictly freelance.”

  “Oh, you’re incorrigible.”

  “That’s the term, all right. Rehabilitation is wasted on me.”

  She put down her coffee cup, snuggled up close, nestled her little head on my shoulder. I breathed in her perfume. “What’s really amazing,” she said, “is that the box was empty all along.”

  “Except for the hundred-dollar bill inside it.”

  “But before you put the bill in the box was empty.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I wonder what happened to the pictures.”

  “Maybe there never were any pictures,” I suggested. “Maybe he threatened Mrs. Sandoval but never actually showed her any pictures. Because in order to take photographs there would have had to be a third person there, wouldn’t there? And no extra person ever did turn up in this case.”

  “That’s true. But I thought you said he showed the pictures to her.”

  “That’s the impression I had, but maybe he just showed her the box and talked so smoothly that she was left with the impression he’d proved there were pictures in the box? That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “So there probably were never any pictures or tapes in the first place. And if there were, it’s academic because they’re gone now.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Up in smoke—that would be my guess.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “It certainly is.”

  “And everything’s all cleared up? That’s the most amazing thing of all. The police don’t want to lock you up anymore?”

  “Oh, there are a few charges they could bring,” I said. “But I talked to Ray about that and he’s going to get them quashed without any noise. They could charge me with resisting arrest and unlawful entry, but they’re not really interested in that and they’d probably have trouble making the charges stick. Besides, however they decide to wrap all this up, the last thing they want is my testimony getting in the way.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Uh-huh.” I draped an arm around her, curled my fingers around her shoulder. “It all wound up nice and neat,” I said. “I didn’t even have to bring you into it. You’re completely in the clear.”

  The silence was devastating. Her whole body went rigid under my hand. I kept that hand on her shoulder and reached into my back pocket for the book I’d found in Apartment 4-F. I had the page marked and flipped right to it.

  I read, “ ‘I was divorced four years ago. Then I was working, not a very involving job, and then I quit, and now I’m on unemployment. I paint a little and I make jewelry and there’s a thing I’ve been doing lately with stained glass. Not what everybody else does but a form I sort of invented myself, these three-dimensional free-form sculptures I’ve been making. The thing is, I don’t know about any of these things, whether I’m good enough or not. I mean, maybe they’re just hobbies. And if that’s all they are, well, the hell with them. Because I don’t want hobbies. I want something to do and I don’t have it yet. Or at least I don’t think I do.’ ”

  “Shit,” she said. “Where’d you get the script?”

  “In your apartment.”

  “Double shit.”

  “Just one flight down. Fourth-floor front. Very conveniently located. I dropped in on my way up here. I thought your cats might be hungry but old Esther and Haman were nowhere to be found.”

  “Esther and Mordecai.”

  “Since you don’t have any cats it seems silly to argue about their names.” I tapped the little paper-bound book. “Two If By Sea,” I said. “The very play our mutual friend’s traveling around the country with. And the speech I read comes trippingly from the lips of a character named Ruth Hightower.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Wesley Brill told me which play Ruth Hightower’s a character in. But I thought to ask him the question in the first place. When I introduced you to him as Ruth Hightower he thought that was amusing. I suppose he thought it might be coincidental, but you were quick to switch the conversation around and give your real name. And the night before when we hit Peter Alan Martin’s office I was mumbling some doggerel about one if by land and two if by sea and Ruth Hightower on the opposite shore will be, some Paul Revere crap, and you got very edgy. You must have thought I had everything figured out and I was just babbling. Then this morning you decided to tell me your real name.”

  “Well, it doesn’t mean anything, does it?” Her eyes met mine. “I just got into a role and it took me a little time to get back to being me.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Oh, it’s not so complicated.”

  “Oh, I think it is. You got into a role, all right. And it was easy for you to get into a role because you’re an actress. That should have been obvious to me earlier than it was. Look how neatly you ran down Brill yesterday. You knew just who to call—first Channel 9, then the Academy in Hollywood, then SAG. I didn’t even know what SAG was, I thought it was something women tend to do after a certain age, and there you were on the phone with them, dropping little bits of shoptalk left and right.

  “The thing is, the whole business was lousy with actors and theater buffs from the beginning. Flaxford dabbled as a producer and real estate operator while he made his money in less respectable areas. Rod’s an actor who talked about the great deal he had on an apartment because the landlord has a soft spot for actors. Darla Sandoval’s hobby is theater; that’s how Flaxford got his hooks into her in the first place, and that’s how she found Brill and used him to hire me. And you’re an actress, and that’s how you knew Rod.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But it’s only the beginning. It’s also how you happened to know Flaxford, and he was the one who introduced you to Darla. You didn’t meet her downtown or you would have known her last name. But you didn’t. It wasn’t until you heard her first name this afternoon at Brill’s hotel room that you realized how it all tied together. Once you knew that the Mrs. Sandoval we were talking about was a lady named Darla, then you decided you had a previous engagement and couldn’t tag along to her apartment. Because she would recognize you and you wouldn’t just be the nice young thing who dropped by to water the plants.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean, honey.” I stroked her hair, smiled down at her. “The blue box wasn’t empty.”

  “Oh.”

  I reached into my pocket, took out the one photograph I’d kept. I looked at it for a moment, then showed it to Ellie. She took a quick look at it, shuddered and turned away.

  “That’s Darla,” I said. “The one on the left. The other one is you.”

  “God.”

  “I burned the rest of the pictures. And the tapes. You don’t have to hold out on me, Ellie. I know you were involved with Flaxford. I don’t know whether you met him through the theater or because he was your landlord. He owned this building, didn’t he? He was the legendary landlord with the soft spot for actors?”

  “Yes. He found me this apartment. I didn’t even realize at the time that it was his building.”

  “And he had you on the hook one way or another. I don’t know what he had on you and I don’t care, but it was enough so that you cooperated with Darla. Then the other night you were over at his place. The night he was killed.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Of course it is. Look, Ellie, Ray Kirschmann bought my explanation about how Flaxford locked himself in his apartment. But that doesn’t mean I bought it. I was the one selling it. You we
re in the apartment with him. You had a key to the place, and not because he wanted you to water his plants. You were sleeping with J. Francis often enough to have a key of your own.

  “And you were in bed with him that night. That’s why you were confused when the papers described him as wearing a dressing gown. You said you thought you’d heard he was discovered nude. Well, that wasn’t what you thought you heard. It was how he was when you left him.” I took a sip of my coffee. “There was a time when I thought you might have been in the apartment while I was searching the desk. It seemed possible. You could have heard me at the door and ducked into a closet or something. Then you’d have stayed put until I got out of there and both cops went tearing after me, and then you could have gotten out yourself. That possibility occurred to me because I couldn’t figure out how else you knew about me and knew I was at Rod’s place. But that didn’t make sense either, and I was sure you’d left Flaxford with his clothes off. But then how did you happen to turn up here? It was enough of a coincidence that you and Rod lived in the same building and I picked his apartment to hide out in. But how did you know I was here and how did you recognize me? You must have called Rod and asked to borrow his apartment and picked up his keys from some other neighbor. But how did you know to do that?”

  “Hell.”

  “I kept you out of it, Ellie. The cops don’t know you exist and they’ll never have reason to find out. But I’d like to know how it all fits together.”

  “You know most of it.”

  “I’d like to know the rest.”

  “Why?” She drew farther from me, turned her head to the side. “What difference does it make? I’ll go back to my life and you’ll go back to yours. I can leave now. There’s a whole pot of coffee and most of a bottle of Scotch left so you’ll be all right.”

  “I want to know the story first, Ellie. Before anybody goes anywhere.”

  She turned to look at me, a challenge in the blue-green eyes. Then she said, “Well, you figured out most of it. I don’t know where to start, really. I was at his apartment that evening. You know that much. He had an opening to attend and he wanted me to go with him.”

  “The Sandovals were going to be there.”

  “That wouldn’t have mattered. I’d seen her around, actually, and we’d talked once or twice before he put us together for the photography session. I just never heard her last name. There must be hundreds of people I know on a first-name basis only.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was up there and we went to bed. He was an awful man, Bernie. He was extremely cruel and manipulative. I didn’t want to go to bed with him. I hadn’t wanted to go to bed with Darla, as far as that goes. He was…I would have killed him if I were capable of killing anybody. I tried to do the next best thing. I tried to let him die.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were…we were in bed, and I guess he had a heart attack or something. He gasped and collapsed on the bed. I thought he was dead, and it was horrible, but at the same time I felt a great rush of relief.”

  “But he was alive. Did you know that?”

  She nodded. “I checked his pulse and his heart was beating, and then I saw that he was breathing, and I knew that I ought to call the fire department or an ambulance or something. Then I realized that I wanted him to be dead. I even felt cheated because he was breathing and his heart was beating. I thought of killing him, smothering him with a pillow while he lay there unconscious, but I couldn’t do that.”

  “So you left him there.”

  “Yes. I just…left him there. I got dressed in a hurry. There were a few things of mine in his closet. I packed them in a shopping bag, put my clothes on and left. I figured maybe he would live and maybe he would die and he would just have to take his chances. I wouldn’t call an ambulance. I’d leave it up to fate.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Home. My apartment downstairs.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Probably around seven or seven-thirty.”

  “That early?”

  “It must have been. We hadn’t started to get dressed and we had to be at the theater in time for an eight-thirty curtain.”

  I thought about it. “All right,” I said. “He was collapsed on the bed naked around seven or seven-thirty. Somewhere along the line he came back to consciousness. He got up, picked up a robe and put it on. He looked around for you and you were gone. Where was the money?”

  “What money?”

  “The fifty thousand dollars Loren found.”

  “I don’t know anything about it. There was no money in sight when I was with him. I don’t know who brought him the money or where he got it.”

  “But you locked the door when you went out.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I didn’t want anyone just walking in and saving him. I couldn’t actually kill him but I could make it easy for him to die. Was that horrible of me, Bernie? I guess it was.”

  I left the question unanswered. “He probably already had the money,” I said. “Sure. He realized you were gone and he looked in the closet and your things were gone, too, and he wanted to make sure you didn’t decide to take along the fifty thousand bucks that Debus had passed on to him, or that he had picked up on Debus’s behalf. Whatever. So he went to wherever he’d put the money and it was there, and then he got a little woozy and he went back to the bedroom and sat there with the money in his hand, and he felt rotten and he tried to get up and he knocked a lamp over or something, made a noise, maybe cried out in desperation, and then he collapsed on the bed again. That could have happened any time before my arrival a little after nine. Then he was unconscious while I riffled his desk. He’d have lapsed into regular sleep by the time Loren went in and started picking up what must have looked like all the money in the world. Then the commotion woke him and Loren went nuts and smacked him with his nightstick, and Flaxford closed his eyes for the third and final time that night, and after Ray and I had done our little pas de deux Loren went back and beat him to death with the ashtray.”

  “God.”

  “But how did you come into it again? How did you know I was in this apartment?”

  “I saw you come in.”

  “How? You couldn’t have followed my cab, and how would you know to follow it anyway? Besides you were down here all along. All right, you could have seen me from your window, you’ve got an apartment that fronts on the street. But how would you recognize me?”

  “I saw you uptown, Bernie.”

  “What?”

  “I went back uptown. I sat in my apartment for a while and then I started to worry about him. If he was dead, well, then he was dead and that was that. But if not I really had to do something for him. I took a cab back up there and tried to decide what to do. I didn’t want to call him up and I didn’t want to send an ambulance before I knew whether he was all right or not, and I just didn’t know what to do. I sent the cab away and I was walking back and forth on the sidewalk in front of his building, trying to get up my courage to go inside. I had my key, of course, and the doorman would have let me in because he knew me. But I was afraid Fran would be furious with me if he was all right and knew I’d left him, and if he was dead I didn’t want to walk in on him, and—God, I just didn’t know what to do.”

  “And then you saw me go into the building? But you wouldn’t have recognized me.”

  “It was later than that. I saw you come out of the building. You were moving at the speed of light and you almost ran right into me. You sort of dodged me and went tearing off down the street, and a few minutes later a policeman came tearing out after you, and then the doorman told me you were a burglar who’d been in Mr. Flaxford’s apartment.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then the other policeman came downstairs a few minutes later and they talked about how Fran was dead and you had killed him. I didn’t know what had happened. I came back here and stayed in my apartment, and I was convinced
the police would find out that I had been responsible, although I don’t think I really was responsible, but I was getting increasingly paranoid. I kept going to the window and looking out for cops, and then I saw you walk right into the building and I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know who you were or how you knew about me and I was sure you were coming after me to kill me.”

  “Why would I be after you?”

  “How did I know? But why else would you be coming into the building? I locked all my locks and I stood at the door shaking like a leaf and listening to you come up the stairs. When you reached the fourth floor I nearly died, and when you went on up to the fifth floor I thought you’d made a mistake and you’d be back down in a minute. When you didn’t come back down I couldn’t figure out what had happened. Finally I went upstairs and listened at the two doors up here, and when I heard sounds in this apartment I knew you must be in here because Rod was out of town and the apartment was empty. I couldn’t figure out what you were doing here but I went back to my own apartment and knocked myself out with a Seconal, and in the morning I bought the papers and found out what had happened and who you were.”

  “And then you called Rod and arranged to pick up his keys.”

  “I also found out that he knew you. I said I’d run across a fellow named Bernie Rhodenbarr and hadn’t he mentioned that name to me once? And he said he might have, though he didn’t recall, but that the two of you had played poker together a few times. So I figured that was why you’d picked this apartment.” She took a deep breath. “Then I decided to come up here. I didn’t know whether you had killed Fran or not. I figured he must have been dead before you got there, that he died because he didn’t receive prompt medical attention and it was my fault. But then there was all that business about the ashtray and I wondered if maybe you had killed him after all. And then you and I met, and I guess it’s obvious I was drawn to you and fascinated by you, and I got involved more deeply than I probably should have. And at the same time I had to play a part. I couldn’t give you my real name or address at the beginning because if you really were the killer and I wanted to bail out, then I was better off if you didn’t know who I was or where to get hold of me. And if the police caught you, you wouldn’t be able to drag me into it.”