She started to say something but I tuned her out. An idea was beginning to glimmer. I picked up my glass, then put it down without drinking anything. No more liquor tonight, not for Bernard. He had work to do.

“Money,” I said.

“In the blue box?”

“That’s always possible, I suppose. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You were going to pay me another four thousand dollars. Have you still got it?”

“Yes.”

“At home?”

“Here, as a matter of fact. Why?”

“Can you raise any more?”

“Maybe two or three thousand over the next few days.”

“No time for that. Your four thousand and my five thousand is nine thousand-isn’t it impressive the way I can work out these sums in my head-nine thousand might be enough. Ten thousand would be a lot better. Could you dig up an extra thousand dollars in the next couple of hours if you put your mind to it?”

“I suppose I could. I’m thinking who I could ask. Yes, I could manage a thousand dollars. Why?”

I opened my suitcase, took out the three books. I gave Gibbon to Darla Sandoval and kept Barbara Tuchman and beekeeping for myself. “Every thirty pages or so,” I said, talking as I riffled pages, “you will find two pages glued together. Tear them open-” I suited action to words “-and you’ll find a hundred-dollar bill.”

“Where did you get these books?”

“Mostly on Fourth Avenue. Not Guns of August, that came from Book-of-the-Month Club. Oh, you thought I stole them. No, this is my stash, my case money. I may have stolen the money but the books are all my own. They’ve been shaken and riffled and all, but they’ve refused to give up their secret. Come on, now. If we both work we’ll get the money that much faster.”

“But what are we going to do with it?”

“We are going to put your five thousand and my five thousand together,” I said, “and that will give us ten thousand dollars, and we’re going to use it to get me into J. Francis Flaxford’s apartment, past the doorman and through the police evidence seal and everything. We’re going to do it in the most expedient way possible. We’re going to hire a police escort.”

Chapter Fourteen

I sat back in my chair and watched Ray Kirschmann count hundred-dollar bills. He performed his operation in silence but he did move his lips as he counted so it was easy for me to keep up with him. When he was all done he said, “Ten thousand, all right. That’s what you said.”

“Ten thousand two hundred, Ray. I must have had some bills stuck together. Careless of me. Leave two of them on the table there, huh? The price we set was ten even.”

“Jesus,” he said, but he put a pair of hundreds on the glass-topped coffee table before shuffling the remaining ten thou into a neat if bulky roll. “This is crazy,” he said. “Dizziest damn thing I ever did. Dizziest damn thing I ever heard of, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s also the easiest money you ever made in your life.”

“I’m takin’ a hell of a risk, Bernie.”

“What risk? You’ve got every right in the world to want to have another look at the Flaxford apartment, you and Loren. You were the two cops who caught the original squeal and you were right in the middle of everything.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“So there’s something you have a feeling you may have missed, so you pick up the keys and get a warrant or permission slip or whatever the hell you get, and you and Loren go let yourselves into Flaxford’s place.”

“Except it ain’t Loren.”

“So instead of one skinny guy in a blue uniform you have a different skinny guy in a blue uniform. All cops look alike, you know that.”

“Jesus.”

“If you want to put the money back on the table-”

He gave me a sour look. I was in the same apartment where I’d met Darla Sandoval but I was drinking instant Yuban now instead of Scotch, and Darla herself was tucked away behind a pair of louvered doors in the kitchen. Since half of the ten grand was hers I figured she had every right in the world to listen in on our arrangements, but I also figured she’d be better off not meeting Ray Kirschmann face to face. If he’d even bothered to wonder whose apartment we were using he’d kept his curiosity to himself. Outside of a conventional Nice place you got here, Rhodenbarr we might as well have been meeting over hot dogs at Nedick’s.

“I just don’t know,” he said now. “A fugitive from justice, an escaped murderer-”

“Ray, all I ever killed is time. I already told you that.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t honestly think I killed Flaxford, do you?”

“I got no opinion on the subject, Bernie. You’re the same fugitive from a homicide charge whether you killed him or he died of an ingrown toenail.” He frowned at an irksome memory. “If you didn’t do it,” he said, “why in the hell did you jump me the way you did? Made me feel like seven different kinds of an asshole.”

“I was stupid, Ray. I got spooked.”

“Yeah, spooked.”

“If I’d already known Flaxford was dead on the floor I wouldn’t have gone nuts like that, but it shocked me, same as it shocked Loren, and I-”

“When Loren gets shocked he faints. It’s a lot less hostile, just closing your eyes and hitting the rug.”

“Next time I’ll faint.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to find something in that apartment that’ll point straight at the real killer. Because I know I didn’t kill anybody, Ray, and I’ll find out who did, and when I’ve got it worked out I’ll hand it to you and look what a hero you’ll be. ‘The resourceful cop who dug beneath the surface to get at the real truth. You’re a safe bet to make plainclothes on the strength of that.”

“Yeah, plainclothes. When you tell it I come out of it with a promotion. When I work it out on my own I see myself winding up stepping on my cock.”

“Forget that, Ray. A promotion and ten grand, that’s how you’ll wind up.”

“Don’t forget I got to split with Loren.” I shot him a doubtful look and he gave me back an injured expression in exchange. “Right down the middle,” he said. “It’s the same fuckin’ risk for the both of us. You’ll be wearin’ his badge and twirlin’ his nightstick, for Chrissake. Be his gun on your hip. If the shit hits the fan he’ll be right there in front of it, arm in arm with me. So it’s five grand for him and five grand for me.”

“Sounds fair to me.”

He looked at me for a moment, then let out air in a soundless whistle. He patted the bulky package on the sofa beside him. “Size thirty-eight long,” he said. “That’s what you ordered, right?”

“That’s what I take.”

“Loren’s smaller’n you so I picked this up new. Maybe you better try it on.”

I unwrapped the parcel, got out of my own clothes, donned a pair of regulation police blues over a blue shirt. There was no cap; I would wear Loren’s. When I was dressed Ray inspected me, tugged here and there on the uniform, frowned, stepped back, shrugged, shook his head doubtfully and turned aside.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You don’t look like New York ’s Finest to me.”

“Just so I’m not a disgrace to the uniform.”

“I guess it ain’t too bad of a fit. It don’t look tailor-made, you got to admit that, but then you also got to admit that neither does Loren’s.”

I took a moment to picture Loren. “No,” I agreed, “he doesn’t look as though the uniform was stitched together around him.” I patted my trousers, pressed out imaginary wrinkles. “So I guess I’ll do,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you’ll do.”

I was still in uniform when he left. After the door closed behind him Darla Sandoval emerged from the kitchen. She looked me up and down and raised her eyebrows.

“Well?”

“I think you look like a policeman. There’s a mirror on the bedroom door if you want to see yourself.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been a mirror on the bedroom ceiling. (Well, maybe I would have.) But I went and checked my reflection on the mirrored door and decided I cut a reasonably dashing figure. I returned to the living room and agreed with Darla that I looked like a cop.