Of course we're speaking hypothetically," Michael Quattrone said. His eyes swept the room, pausing on their way to make brief but significant eye contact with Ray Kirschmann and Wally Hemphill. "And, as we've been reminded, this is not a courtroom. No one's taking down what's being said, and I would hope no one's wearing a wire, but even if there's a record kept, we're speaking hypothetically."
"Of course."
"In that case," he said, "let's suppose a certain person was to learn that an old friend of his had photos of his new face floating around, up for sale to the highest bidder. And suppose he found out where the photos were, and when the bidder was going to show up to finalize the transaction. And suppose he sent some friends of his to show up before the bidder, and shortstop the whole operation."
"Taking the photos by force," I said, "before the other party could arrive to pay for them."
"Something like that," he agreed. "Now, if anything like that happened, I imagine this certain person's friends would have immobilized the doorman, so as to come and go unannounced. And I imagine the people in the apartment-you've been calling them the Lyles-"
"Or the Rogovins. As you prefer."
"Let's call them the Rogovins, then. It's such a stereotype otherwise, isn't it? Criminals with foreign-sounding names that end in a vowel. Like Lyle." Once again he managed to smile without moving his lips. "Let's say Mr. Rogovin heard a knock on the door and opened it, thinking he was about to get rich. A couple of guys came in, and as soon as they opened their mouths he knew they weren't the men he was expecting. But what could he do about it? He opened the safe for them, and they took the book and the money."
"Wait a minute," Ray said. "What money?"
He chose his words carefully. "I would have to assume there would have been money," he said. "Why lock a chemistry textbook in a safe? But if you already had a sum of money in there, you might as well put the book in with it."
"How much money?"
"I can only estimate. Perhaps as much as twenty-one thousand dollars. Or as little as nineteen thousand."
"In round numbers," I said, "twenty thousand."
"In round numbers. Perhaps the high bidder paid some earnest money in advance, to bind the transaction. Perhaps the money was the proceeds of some other enterprise. I'm sure the men who took it thought of it as a welcome if unexpected bonus."
"My original question-"
"Was why did they kill the Rogovins. My answer was that they didn't. They left them trussed with tape, which held them while they had a quick look around the apartment to see if it held anything else worth taking. It would also keep the Rogovins incapacitated while they quit the building and left the area. After that, what threat did the two of them represent? They could hardly file a police report. In any case, they didn't know the identities of the men who robbed them. Killing them would just generate heat, and to no purpose."
"And the doorman? He suffocated before the cops found him."
"That was unfortunate," Quattrone said. "It was an accident, and it should never have happened." His eyes flicked ever so briefly toward the doorway, where one of his goons was looking at the floor with the fascination of someone who had never seen carpet before. "I wouldn't be surprised," he said, "if the person responsible didn't very much regret what happened."
"Someone shot those two people," I said. "They were all taped up, and they'd been shot in the head. If it wasn't your hypothetical men-"
"It wasn't."
"-then who was it?"
" Bern?" I turned at Carolyn's voice. "The high bidder," she said. "He was on his way over, right?"
"Of course," I said. "There was a second party of visitors to the apartment on East 34th Street. The doorman was still hors de combat, so all they had to do was walk in and go upstairs. They'd have found the door unlocked and the safe wide open and the occupants all taped up. Maybe they took the tape off one of their mouths long enough to get some questions answered. They wouldn't have liked the answers, wouldn't have been happy to go away without the book of photos, and without a chance of recovering the twenty grand they'd paid in front. Whether that was half in advance or payment in full, it was a big chunk of dough, and there was no way to get it back."
I could feel eyes staring at me, and they were Georgi Blinsky's. "You were the high bidder," I told him. "You showed up to keep the appointment. When the Lyles couldn't supply either the photographs or the money, you executed them and left."
"You can prove nothing," he said. "You have no evidence and no witnesses. When all of this was taking place, I was with large party at Georgian nightclub on Oriental Boulevard. Many people will swear to this."
"I'm sure they will. Why kill them?"
He looked at me, as if he found the question disappointing. Then he said, "No book, no money. So? No witnesses, either. But I was with friends, in nightclub. I can prove this, and you can prove nothing."
"The next thing that happened," I said, "is that my apartment was broken into. It had already been searched by the police, but the men who broke in probably didn't know that. My doorman was trussed up and locked in the parcel room, the same as the Lyles' doorman, so it seems safe to assume the same people were responsible."
"I can see where you'd assume that," Michael Quattrone said.
"They tore the place apart. What do you suppose they were looking for?"
"The missing photos," he said without hesitation. "Whoever sent them must have heard about these photos of a missing Russian, and none of the pictures in that chemistry textbook looked like they could have been that man. And there were pages missing from the book, as if somebody had torn them out. Four pages, which would work out to one set of four photos."
"And you had a use for them?"
"A lot of people wanted them. It's human to want what everybody wants. Besides, who's to say what else a person might find in a burglar's apartment? It seemed worth a visit."
And while they were there, I said with my eyes, your ham-handed thugs broke open my secret cupboard and took my money.
When you find money, his eyes answered back, you take it, and if I were you I'd be glad they left you the passports.
Funny how much information can be exchanged without a word being spoken…
"I'm having trouble following this," Lacey Kavinoky said. "I mean, maybe I'm not supposed to follow it. I'm not sure what I'm doing here in the first place. But I thought the photographs were in the book. But I gather some pages were torn out. Those were the photos of this Russian? The Black Scourge of Riga?"
"That's right."
"Who tore them out? And why?"
"The Lyles," I said. "They were Latvian patriots, after all. They might try to get some money for Kukarov's photos, but they'd make sure they went to a good home-somebody who'd track the man down and bring him to justice."
A nod from Grisek confirmed my supposition.
"So they removed those four pages," I said, "and cut the photos free from the backing, and taped them to the pages of another book."
"The one about the quarterback," Ray Kirschmann said.
"You know," I said, "you used that phrase once before, Ray, and I didn't know what the hell you were talking about, so I let it pass. But now I get it, and QB VII isn't about a quarterback."
"It ain't?"
"It's a novel by Leon Uris, based on what he went through when some Nazi sued him for libel. The title is the name of the British courtroom where the trial took place."
"Well, how's anybody supposed to know that, Bernie? An' who gives a rat's ass, anyway? What I want to know is why didn't the poor saps turn the book over to this Blintz guy so's to keep from gettin' shot? It was still there in the bookcase, right where anybody could find it."
"Not just anybody," I said. "It took a skilled professional, gifted with imagination and resourcefulness. You're being too modest, Ray. When you told me how you went through every book in the bookcase until you found one with torn pages bearing telltale tape residue, it was clear what had happened. Somebody had found those photographs and spirited them away."
This was all news to Ray, and I could see him working hard to adjust to new realities. Well, who told him to mention QB VII?
"It wouldn't have saved them," I said, moving along smoothly, "and they must have known that. And who's to say they had a chance to raise the subject even if they wanted to?"
"So this guy took the book," Lacey said, pointing at Quattrone, "and that guy murdered the man and woman," she went on, nodding at Blinsky, "and the photos were still in the apartment. Right?"
"Hypothetically," said Michael Quattrone.
"Hypothetically," I agreed.
"Whatever," she said. "But if somebody found them, and tore them out of the book, they aren't there anymore. Right?"
"Right."
"Okay," she said, and flashed a smile at Carolyn. "I like to understand stuff. That's all."
I like to understand stuff, too, especially if I'm called upon to explain it. But sometimes you can start with the explanation and wait for the understanding to come along in its wake. That had worked once already-until Quattrone spoke, it hadn't occurred to me that the Lyles could have had a second set of visitors after the first set made off with the book.
So I pressed on.
"Wednesday the Lyles were robbed and murdered," I said, "and Thursday I got arrested and burglarized, and Friday morning coincidence once again hove into view. I got a phone call from a customer of mine, and perhaps he can tell us what he asked me for."
"I guess it's my turn," Colby Riddle said. "I certainly thought my request was innocent enough. I'd called your bookstore, Bernie, and I asked if you had a particular book."
"Not Principles of Organic Chemistry, I don't suppose."
"I'm afraid not. Nor QB VII, by the much lamented Mr. Uris. I asked for a book by Joseph Conrad."
"I don't suppose you remember the title?"
"The Secret Agent.You determined that you did, and said you'd set it aside for me. I said I'd come by and pick it up when I had the chance, and I suppose we exchanged further pleasantries, though perhaps we didn't, as that's as much as I can recall."
"That may have been all there was," I said, "because I didn't know who you were."
"Why didn't you ask my name?"
"Because your voice was familiar, Colby, and you sounded as though you assumed I'd know who you were, and I didn't want to appear boorish. I'd hardly had any sleep the night before, so I wasn't at my best. I was sure I'd know you when you showed up."
"And so you did, Bernie. But you didn't have the book anymore."
"Because I'd given it to a man named Valdi Berzins," I said. "Mr. Grisek, I believe you may have known him."
The Latvian nodded, looking unhappy. "A good man," he said. "A fine man. A patriotist."
"It was he to whom the Lyles had promised the Kukarov photos, wasn't it?"
"He did not tell me the detailings," Grisek said. His English was unaccented, but also unorthodox. "And always he looked on the side where the sun was. 'The photos have been thieved,' he told me, 'so I will make my deal with the thief. And perhaps he is less of a thief than the man he took them from.' You know this book, The Power to Think Positive?"
"That's The Power of Positive Thinking," I said, "by Norman Vincent Peale. A great bestseller in its day. I've got two or three copies in the store, and I suppose I ought to put them on the bargain table, but I somehow feel I owe it to the author to think that someone'll come along and pay full price for it."
"Valdi Berzins was positively thinking, Mr. Rhodenbarr. He went to your bookstore with money to pay for the book. And instead he was killed."
I said I saw it happen, and one of the women said it must have been awful for me, and I said it was worse for Berzins. "He came into the shop and said I must have something for him. And I didn't know what he was talking about, and then I remembered Colby Riddle's phone call, although I still didn't know who'd been on the other end of the phone. I knew it wasn't Berzins, the voice was wrong, but he seemed so confident I would know what he wanted, and that was all I could think of. I said the book's title, and that seemed to make him happy, and he sure didn't argue about the price. He paid me a hundred times what I asked him for, evidently assuming that I was leaving off the word hundred to save time. I realized this just in time to run outside after him and watch him get killed. If there hadn't been a parked car in the way, I might have been killed along with him."
"Who killed him?" Grisek demanded. "Who killed my friend Berzins?"
"That's a good question. Here's another. Why did he assume I'd know what book he wanted? And, when I mentioned the book by name, why did it make him happy?"
"You said The Secret Agent, " Carolyn said, "and that was him. He thought you were recognizing him for what he was."
"That's what I thought at first, but it doesn't add up. It still doesn't explain why he thought I'd have a book for him, or why he was happy with the one I handed him. He didn't flip through it looking for pictures. He just paid for it and left. Colby, what made you ask for that particular book?"
"I'd been looking for a copy. It's a book, and you're a bookseller, and so-"
"You don't much care for Conrad."
"I don't like his sea stories. I'm told The Secret Agent is the sort of book the man might have written if he'd never gone to sea. I thought it worth a try."
"And worth a phone call."
"Why not?"
"But I think you already got a phone call," I said. "From a plastic surgeon."
"Bernie," he said, "you can't be serious. I may look like a candidate for plastic surgery, but I'm afraid I lack the requisite vanity. Am I to assume the plastic surgeon in question is our host, Dr. Mapes? Why would you think I even know the man? How would we have met?"
"At school," I said, "or on a bus, or in an Internet chat room, with both of you pretending to be lesbians. But if I had to guess, I'd say your dermatologist referred you. Maybe you had a suspicious mole on your face, in a spot that was sufficiently visible to warrant a plastic surgeon's doing the work."
"How could you possibly know something like that?"
"Just a wild guess. What I can't figure out is how you knew Valdi Berzins."
"I didn't."
"You must have. The two of you probably had a friend in common, some professor teaching a course called Latvian as a Second Language. One way or another, you knew both of them. And you called Mapes, or Mapes called you, and he let you know about these photos, and that he had a few hundred thousand dollars in a wall safe in his bedroom, and-"
"Hold it right there," said one of the government men. They were both on their feet. One of them was holding a gun, while the other brandished a piece of paper. "I was wondering when you'd get around to the reason we're here. A couple of hundred thousand dollars in undeclared cash, that sounds about right." He whirled on Mapes. "Crandall Rountree Mapes? I'm from Internal Revenue, and I have here a court order authorizing my partner and I-"
My partner and me, I thought, you federal dimwit.
"-to search said Devonshire Close premises. Sir, I'd like you to escort us upstairs and open the safe for us."
Mapes had weathered everything up to this point. Now it was as if the hand of fate had come at him with a scalpel and savaged all the fine work some colleague had done for him. He aged ten years just like that, and his color faded even as the perspiration poured out of him.
He was sputtering, something about an attorney, and the IRS man told him he could get one later, but in the meantime they were damn well going to have a look at that safe. Wally Hemphill scanned the piece of paper and told Mapes yes, they had the authority, and there was nothing he could do but keep his mouth shut.
"The rest of you wait down here," the other IRS agent said.
And off they went.