Burglars Can't Be Choosers (15 page)

“I guess,” she said.

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“I suppose so. You really think it’s still there? The blue box?”

“If it was there in the first place it’s there now. I think I know who turned my apartment inside out. I think it was a couple of people from Michael Debus’s office.” Probably the two men I’d seen going into my building two nights ago, I thought. While I’d stood on the corner looking up at my lighted windows they’d been busy turning order into chaos. “He’s a D.A. in Brooklyn or Queens and he was connected to Flaxford.”

“Flaxford was blackmailing him, too?”

“I don’t think so, I think he was Debus’s fixer. Carter Sandoval was making things hot for Debus, and Flaxford was putting pressure on Mrs. Sandoval to call her husband off. Debus must have been worried that something incriminating was left on the premises. But he probably didn’t know it was in a blue box or anything like that, just that Flaxford had it and he couldn’t let it fall into the wrong hands. At any rate, he sent over a pair of oafs to toss my place. If he did that, then he didn’t get the box himself. And that means no one did.”

“What about the killer?”

“Huh?”

“Flaxford had a visitor at his apartment that night. Someone he knew. Probably someone else he was blackmailing. Who knows how many people he had his hooks into? And he could have kept all the evidence in that box of his.”

“Keep talking.”

She shrugged. “So he met with his victim and the victim demanded to see the evidence and Flaxford showed it to him, and then the victim killed Flaxford, smashed his head in, and scooped up the box and ran like a thief.”

“Like a murderer, too.”

“Exactly. Seconds later you went in—it’s a miracle you and the killer didn’t bump into each other in the hallway, actually—and meanwhile someone
heard the struggle and called the police, and while you were riffling desk drawers they came through the door and there you were.”

“There I was,” I agreed.

“This Debus would still think the box was either at Flaxford’s apartment or at your place. Because he wouldn’t know about X.”

“About who?”

“X. The killer.” I looked at her. “Well, that’s how they always say it on television.”

“I hate seeing my whole life reduced to an algebraic equation.”

“Well, call him whatever you want. Just because Debus thinks you have the box doesn’t mean a third person couldn’t have it, so if you don’t find it in the apartment it may be because it isn’t there in the first place.”

I felt slightly angry, the way people must have felt a few centuries back when Galileo started making waves. I said, “The box is in Flaxford’s apartment.” And the earth is flat, you bitch, and heavy objects fall faster than light ones, and quit raining on my parade, damn you.

“It’s possible, Bernie, but—”

“The killer may have panicked and ran out of the apartment without the box. Maybe Flaxford never showed him the box in the first place.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe the blue box has been in Flaxford’s safe
deposit box all along. Safe in the bowels of some midtown bank.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe Michael Debus killed Flaxford. He got the box and then Darla Sandoval and Wesley Brill ransacked my apartment.”

“You don’t think—”

“No, I don’t. Maybe Brill killed Flaxford because he couldn’t remember his lines. He gave the box to Carter Sandoval to keep his coin collection in. That’s not what I think, either. I’ll tell you what I think. I think the blue box is in Flaxford’s place.”

“Because you want it to be there.”

“That’s right, because I want it to be there. Because I’m a fucking intuitive genius who plays his hunches.”

“Which is largely responsible for the fantastic success you’ve made of your life.”

We were by this point managing the neat trick of screaming at each other without raising our voices. In a portion of my mind—the portion that wasn’t screaming—I wondered just what we were really mad about. I knew that on my part there was at least a little sexual agitation involved. Darla Sandoval had started fires that had not yet been properly extinguished.

Ultimately the fighting died down as pointlessly as it had started. We looked at each other and it
was over. “I’ll make coffee,” she offered. “Unless you’d rather have a drink.”

“Not when I’m working.”

“But you’ll have keys, won’t you? And you’ll be with an authorized representative of the law.”

“It’s still burglary as far as I’m concerned.”

“So just coffee for you. Fair enough. He’s picking you up at her place? Are you going uptown dressed like that?”

“Don’t you think I’ll be warm enough? Sorry. I don’t know if I’ll change or not. Frankly I’m getting sick of putting this uniform on and taking it off. But with my luck somebody’ll stop me en route uptown and expect me to shoot it out with a holdup man.”

“Or investigate a burglary.”

“Or that. And without the cap the uniform looks incomplete. I guess I’ll change.”

“After you take your uniform off,” she said, “would you have to put your other clothes on right away?”

“Huh?”

She turned toward me, gave me a slow smile.

“Oh,” I said, and began undoing buttons.

I
beat the cops to Darla’s place, but not by more than a few minutes. I had barely finished changing into my basic blue when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to admit Ray and Loren. Ray looked sour, Loren uncertain. Ray came in first, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “He’s been driving me nuts, Bernie,” he said. “You want to tell him why he can’t come along with us?”

I looked at Loren, who in turn looked at my scotch-grain loafers, not because he disapproved of them but because they were where he wanted to point his eyes. “I just think I should go, too,” he said. “Suppose something happens. Then what?”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Ray said. “Me and Bernie, we’re gonna visit a place, then we’re gonna leave the place, then we come back here and Bernie
gives you your stuff back and you and me, we get the hell outta here and go home and count our money. You bring some magazines along?”

“I brought a book.”

“So you sit on the couch there and read your book. It’s a nice comfortable couch. I sat on it earlier myself. You usually pick up this kind of dough reading a book?”

Loren breathed in and out, in and out. “Suppose something happens. Suppose this Gemini here pulls something and you and I are on opposite ends of town, Ray. Then what?”

“Flaxford’s apartment’s on the East Side,” I pointed out. “Just like this one.”

No one responded to this. Loren began describing things that could go wrong, from traffic wrecks to sudden civil defense alerts. Ray replied that having three cops along, two legitimate and one not, was more awkward than having one real one and one ringer.

“I don’t like this,” Loren said. “I’m not nuts about it, if you want to know the truth.”

“If you came along, you and Bernie’d only have one gun between the two of you. And one badge and so on. Just one hat, for Chrissakes.”

“That’s another thing. I’m going to be sitting here without my badge, without my gun. Jesus, I don’t know, Ray.”

“You’ll be sittin’ behind a locked door in an
empty apartment, Loren. What in the hell do you need a gun for? You scared of cockroaches?”

“No roaches,” I said. “This is a class building.”

“There you go,” Ray said. “No roaches.”

“Who cares about roaches?”

“I thought maybe you did.”

“I just don’t know, Ray.”

“Just sit down, you asshole. Give Bernie your stuff. Bernie, maybe a drink would help him unwind, you know?”

“Sure.”

“You got any booze around?”

I went into the kitchen for the Scotch. I brought the bottle and a glass and some ice. “I better not,” Loren said. “I’m on duty.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ray said.

I said, “Well, it’s here if you want it, Loren.” He nodded. I buckled on his gun belt and made sure the holster was snapped shut so that the gun wouldn’t fall out and embarrass us all. I reached back, patted the cold steel on my hip, and thought what a horrible thing it was. “Damned thing weighs a ton,” I said.

“What, the gun? You get used to it.”

“You’d think it’d be hard to walk straight, all that weight.”

“No time at all you get used to it. You get so you feel naked without it, you know.”

I took the shiny black nightstick from Loren and
gave it an experimental whack against my palm. The wood was smooth and well-polished. Ray showed me how to hook it to my belt and fix the stick so it wouldn’t swing loose and wallop me in the shin. Then I pinned on my badge, set my cap on my head and straightened it. I went to the bedroom and looked at myself in the mirrored door, and this time I decided that I really did look like a cop.

The cap helped, certainly, and I think the badge and gun and stick and cuffs made a subtle difference too, changing my own attitude, making me feel more comfortable in my role. I took the nightstick from its grip, giving it a tentative twirl, then tucking it back where it belonged. I even considered practicing getting the gun out of the holster but rejected the idea, confident that I would only succeed in shooting off a toe. Miraculous enough that I’d pinned my badge to my uniform blouse, I thought, and not to my skin.

But by the time I returned to the living room I felt enough like a cop to tell someone to move on, or hold up traffic, or get a free meal at a lunch counter. And I guess Ray noticed the difference. He looked me over from cap to shoes and back again and gave a slow nod. “You’ll pass,” he said.

Even Loren had to agree. “They’re natural actors,” he said.

“Burglars?”

“Geminis.”

“Jesus,” Ray said. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

In the black-and-white he said, “We’re cleared to enter the apartment. It’s sealed as evidence but what we do is break those seals and affix new ones when we leave. It’ll all be recorded that way so nothing’ll be screwed up.”

“Is that standard?”

“Oh, sure. The seals are to prevent unauthorized entry. They can’t really keep anybody out who wants in but you can’t go through the door without you break the seal. This particular apartment, it’s been opened up and resealed a couple times already. I saw the sheet on it.”

“Oh? Who’s been inside?”

“The usual. The photographer and the lab crew went through it before it was sealed up in the first place, but then the photographer went back for seconds later on. Maybe some of his pictures didn’t turn out or maybe somebody from the D.A.’s office wanted him to get establishing shots of the other rooms. You never know what those monkeys’ll want to show to a jury and label it Exhibit A. Then there was another visit from an Assistant D.A., probably to get the feel of the place firsthand, and there were a couple of bulls from Homicide, even though this is the precinct’s case all the way and
we’re not letting those pricks from Homicide take it away from us, but of course they have to get a look all the same, maybe figuring the M.O.’ll fit a case they’re already carryin’ on the books. Then, and it musta been the same kind of thing, there was a visit from another D.A.’s office, not even Manhattan but some clowns from across the river—”

“When was that?”

“I dunno. What’s the difference?”

“Which office was it? Brooklyn? Queens?”

“Brooklyn.”

“Who’s the Brooklyn DA?”

“Kings County D.A. is—shit, I forget the name.”

“Is it Michael Debus?”

“That’s it. Yeah, Debus. Why?”

“When were his men there?”

“Sometime between the murder and tonight. What’s it matter?” He looked at me thoughtfully, almost sideswiping a parked car in the process. “They park right in the middle of the fuckin’ street,” he complained. “How do you connect up with this Debus character, Bernie?”

“I don’t. I think Flaxford did.”

“How?”

I thought for a moment. If I knew precisely when my own apartment had been visited, and precisely when Debus had had the Flaxford apartment
searched, then…Then what? Then nothing. It might help my theory in my own mind if I could establish that Debus had sent men to East Sixty-seventh Street before he sent them to West End Avenue, but it wouldn’t really prove anything, nor would it demolish my theory if the timing was the other way around.

When all was said and done, the only really important variable was the box. Either I could find it or I couldn’t.

“It might eventually be important,” I said, “to know just who Debus sent to the apartment and when they were there.”

“Well, it’s a matter of record.”

“You could find out?”

“Not right this minute, but later on. Sure.”

“It’ll be there anyway,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

I recognized the doorman. But he didn’t recognize me, and I decided that I would definitely have to remember him at Christmas. He held the door for us as he’d held it for me twice before, and while Ray chatted with him he paused twice to challenge people on their way into the building. Evidently he’d been reprimanded for letting me in, but at least they hadn’t taken his job away and I was happy for him.

I didn’t even get a second glance from him. I was wearing a uniform and I was standing there next to Ray, so why should he pay any attention to me?

We rode up on the elevator with a man dressed as a priest. I suppose he probably
was
a priest, but he looked less like a priest than I looked like a cop, so why should I take anything for granted? It occurred to me that clerical garb would make a good cover for a burglary. It would certainly get you past most doormen in a hurry. Of course it wouldn’t do you too much good in the suburbs where the object was to avoid getting noticed in the first place, but apartment houses were something else.

Now in the suburbs a mailman’s uniform would be ideal. Of course, a lot of people know their route man, but if you could pass yourself off as the guy who delivers parcels or special delivery letters or something like that—

“Something on your mind, Bernie?”

“Just thinking about business,” I said. We got off at the third floor and left the alleged priest to ascend alone. I stood aside while Ray broke the seals on Flaxford’s door. Then, while he was fishing in his pocket for the keys, I extended a finger and poked the doorbell. He gave me a look as the bell sounded within the apartment.

“Just routine,” I explained

“Police seals on the door and you think there’s somebody inside the place?”

“You never know.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Everybody has a routine,” I said. “That’s mine.”

“Jesus,” he said. He found the keys, poked one at the lock. I could see it wasn’t going to fit and it didn’t. He tried the other and it slid in.

“Must seem funny to you,” he said. “Using a key.”

Just a little earlier I’d used Darla’s key and now we were using Flaxford’s. The only place I had to break into these days was the place where I was living.

“Last time I opened this door,” he said, “there was a burglar on the other side of it.”

“Last time I opened it there was a corpse in the bedroom.”

“Let’s hope tonight’s a new experience for both of us.”

He gave the key a half-turn clockwise and pushed the door open. He said something I didn’t catch and went on inside, reaching to flick on the light switch. Then he turned and motioned me inside but I stayed where I was.

“Come on,” he said. “Whattaya waitin’ for?”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

“Of course it was. I unlocked it.”

“Just the snaplock. All you had to do was turn it halfway around and it opened. A lock like that has a deadbolt, too, and if the deadbolt’s engaged
you have to turn it one and a half times around to open it.”

“So?”

“So the last person out didn’t bother locking it with the key. He just closed it on his way out.”

“What’s it matter? Maybe his partner’s got the key and he’s halfway to the elevator so he doesn’t bother. Maybe he never thinks to lock it with the key. A lot of people always leave their doors like that. They never take the trouble to use the whatchamacallit, the deadbolt.”

“I know. They make my life a lot easier.”

“So here we got somebody who it’s not his apartment in the first place and he’s gonna be slapping an evidence seal on it anyway, and what does he care about deadbolts? It don’t mean a thing, Bernie.”

“Right,” I said. I poked at my memory, trying to catch something small and quick that kept darting around corners. “
I
put the deadbolt on,” I said.

“How’s that?”

“Once I was inside. I closed the door and I turned this gizmo here, this knob. That’s how you engage the deadbolt from inside the apartment.”

“So?”

“And when you and Loren got here with the key from the doorman, you had to turn it around a full turn to undo the bolt and then another half turn to draw back the spring lock.”

“If you say so,” Ray said. He was a little impatient now. “If that’s what you say I’ll take your word for it, Bernie, because I frankly don’t make a point of noticing how many times I turn a key in a lock, especially when I don’t know what the fuck’s on the other side of the door, which I didn’t at the time. None of this makes the slightest fucking difference and I don’t know what the hell you’re rattling on about. I thought you wanted to get into this place, but if all you want is to stand outside talking about bolts like a nut—”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. I came all the way inside and closed the door behind me. And turned the bolt.

The apartment didn’t look different from when I’d seen it last. If the wrecking crew at my apartment had been Michael Debus’s responsibility, he’d clearly assigned a gentler crowd altogether to the task of searching J. Francis Flaxford’s digs. Of course the search of my place had been unauthorized and unrecorded while the visit here had been made with official permission and was duly noted in some official log. So Flaxford’s books remained on Flaxford’s shelves and Flaxford’s clothes remained in Flaxford’s closets and drawers. No one had slashed open his furniture or taken up his rugs or cast pictures down from his walls.

All of this seemed wildly unfair. Flaxford, who
had gone to whatever reward awaits fixers and blackmailers, would never wear these clothes or read these books or inhabit this apartment again, yet everything was shipshape for him. I, on the other hand, had a use for the contents of my apartment. And I had been sorely mistreated.

I tried to put this inequity out of my mind and concentrate instead on searching the place. I began in the bedroom, where chalkmarks on the oriental rug (I’ve no idea what kind) indicated the position of the body. He had been lying just to the left of the foot of his bed, his outspread feet reaching toward the doorway. There were dark brown stains on the carpet where his head had been outlined and similar stains on the unmade bed.

I said, “Blood?” Ray nodded. “You always think of blood as red,” I said.

“Brown when it dries, though.”

“Uh-huh. He must have flopped on the bed when he was hit. And slid down onto the floor.”

“Figures.”

“The paper said he was killed with an ashtray. Where is it?”

“I thought it was a lamp. You sure it was an ashtray?”

“The paper said.”