Bernie Rhodenbarr - 10 - The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780061030987
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-01-07T20:46:09+00:00

Twenty-Four

The fat man took the book.”

“Right.”

“But he didn’t have it long. Whoever shot him took it and drove off with it.”

“Right.”

“The fat man thought it was something else, and so did whoever killed him and took it away from him.”

“Right.”

“And then it wound up in Mapes’s den. Was it Mapes in the car? Did Mapes kill him?”

“He’s a shitheel,” I said, “but Marty never called him a thug. The man’s a plastic surgeon. He uses a scalpel, not an AK-47.”

“Is that what the fat man was shot with?”

“It was some kind of automatic weapon. You hold the trigger and the bullets keep coming out. All I know about guns is that I like to stay away from them.”

“Me too. Either Mapes was in the car, or the guy in the car took the book to Mapes.”

“That sounds logical.”

“But the book’s connected to the Rogovins, except that’s not their real name. I forget their real names.”

“Lyle and Schnittke.”

“What have they got to do with Mapes?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know anything. Who were the people in the car? I mean, were they the same ones who killed the Rogovins? Lyle and Schnittke, I mean. Are they the ones who killed Lyle and Schnittke?”

“That’s what I thought. Now I’m not so sure. My apartment was tossed by the people who killed Lyle and…you know what? I’m going to call them the Lyles. I don’t know if they were married or living together or just good friends, but I’m sick of saying Schnittke.”

“It doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. Anyway, the same people did those two things, because they gave both doormen the same treatment.”

“Sort of a signature. They’re the ones we’ve been calling the perps.”

“Right, the perps. I don’t know who’s who, Carolyn. It’s all too deep for me. All I know is the book was in Mapes’s den, and it shouldn’t have been there.”

“And you took it.”

“I know, and don’t ask me why. It may not have been the brightest thing I ever did. I broke into his house and emptied his safe, and I was nice and anonymous about it, and then I took the book, and that narrows the suspect list from all burglars to a burglar with a particular interest in a particular book by Joseph Conrad. I might as well have taken along an etching tool and signed the safe.”

“Bern, he just lost a quarter of a million dollars.”

“Not quite.”

“Close enough. He just lost the price of a studio apartment—”

“Well, a pretty nice studio apartment, in a good neighborhood.”

“—and you think he’s even going to notice the book is missing, or give a rat’s ass about it if he does? Besides, the book’s not the McGuffin. It’s a fake McGuffin, and people only want it until they find out it’s not what they want.”

“Isn’t that true of everything?”

“Bern—”

I got to my feet, holding my hands palm-outward to ward off more questions. “It’s too deep for me,” I said. “All of it.”

“Where are you going, Bern?”

“A bar.

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