Nineteen

I was getting ready to close when Ray Kirschmann turned up like the bad penny he is. "Perfect," I told him. "Just the man I was hoping to see."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely," I said. "You're just in time to help me with my bargain table."

"I'd be glad to, Bernie."

"Good. You take that end-"

"Except I ain't supposed to lift nothin'. Doctor's orders, on account of my back."

"If our roles were reversed," I said, "and I tried an excuse like that on you, you'd want to know the name of the doctor. Never mind, I don't want to hear it. You can just stand there and watch me work."

"Fair enough," he said, and did just that. The least he could do was hold the door for me, and he did, being a great believer in doing the least. Inside, he leaned his bulk against my counter while I did what I do to settle Raffles in for the night.

"Soon as you're ready," he said, "we can go over to that gin mill where you an' Shorty go every night. I was gonna head there myself an' surprise you."

"I wish you had."

"Yeah? Why's that? You like surprises?"

"I like them when they happen to other people, and you're the one who would have been surprised, Ray, when we didn't show up."

"You don't like that place no more?"

"Carolyn's got a previous engagement," I told him, "and I don't feel like drinking alone."

"So you'll drink with me, Bernie. Lock up an' let's go."

I shook my head. "Not tonight, Ray."

"Not tonight? Ain't it Friday?"

"Yes," I said, "and thank God and all that, but I don't feel like a drink tonight."

"Cup of coffee, then. Over on University, there's this place opened up that's supposed to be good."

"It's not bad. A little expensive, though."

"No problem," he said. "You're buyin'."

I was buying a grande latte for each of us, it turned out. I'm sure they'd have been cheaper with English names. I brought them to the table he'd picked out over at the side, and told him Colby Riddle had come looking for his copy of the Conrad novel.

"So it's as I figured," I said. "A legitimate customer ordered the book, and I assumed the fat man was there to pick it up, and he assumed it was what he was looking for, because he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. All he knew was that I had it."

"But you say you don't."

"If I did," I said, "you'd be the first to know. People are getting killed over it, whatever it is, so why would I want to hang on to it? I'd turn it over to the proper authorities."

"That'd be a first. This customer of yours got a name?"

"He'd almost have to, Ray. These days it's almost as hard to go through life without a name as it is without a Social Security number."

"You wanna tell me his name, Bernie?"

"Can't."

"Can't? What do you mean, you can't?"

"My lips are sealed," I said. "Don't you read the papers? There was a case in Denver where the cops tried to make a bookstore owner divulge what books one of her clients had bought. He was a dope dealer, and they wanted to prove he'd bought a copy ofHow to Make Crystal Meth in Your Very Own Kitchen. "

"Who'd publish somethin' like that?"

"That may not be the exact title. The point is, Joyce Meskis took a stand, and it must have cost her a fortune in legal fees, but she won. And if she could put her life on the line for the principle of the Freedom to Read, I don't see how I can do less."

"What a load of crap," he said. "What's this Polack Conrad have to do with cooking crank at home? You're blowin' smoke, Bernie, but it don't matter. You don't want to tell me the name, that's fine. I'll tell you a name instead. How's that?"

"You've lost me, Ray."

" Arnold Lyle."

" Arnold Lyle."

"Ring a bell?" I shook my head. "How about Shirley Schnittke?"

" Arnold Lyle and Shirley Schnittke. Schnittke?"

"I think I'm pronouncin' it right."

I suppose it was possible, although when he tried for Mondrian it always came out Moon Drain. " Arnold Lyle and Shirley Schnittke. I can see the two names carved into the trunk of a tree, with a heart around it pierced by an arrow. Who are they, anyway?"

"Remember Rogovin's first name?"

"Give me a moment, it's on the tip of my tongue."

"Spit it out, why don't you?"

"Lyle," I said. "Arnold and Shirley are the Rogovins?"

"They were," he said. "Now they're toast. Fingerprints came back, and that's who they turned out to be, with records almost as long as yours. They both came over from Russia a few years back and went straight to Brighton Beach. There's a lot of hardworkin', law-abidin' Russians in Brighton Beach, but he wasn't one of 'em an' neither was she."

"He came over from Russia with a name like Arnold Lyle."

"Naw, he changed it when he got here. Changed it legally, which musta made it the last legal thing he ever did. Far as anybody knows, Schnittke's the name she was born with."

"Some people are just lucky that way," I said.

"They took that apartment less'n a month ago. Sublet it, signed a one-year lease, an' paid cash. Don't ask me where they came up with the name Rogovin."

"Maybe they were thinking of Saul Rogovin."

"Who the hell's that?"

"He pitched for the Buffalo Bisons fifty years ago," I said. "Or maybe Syrell Rogovin Leahy. She's a writer, and I've actually got a book of hers in the store."

"That's nice, Bern. Let's stick with their real names, Lyle and Schnittke. Names don't mean nothin' to you, huh?"

"Not a thing."

"They musta already owned the safe. The rest of the furniture came with the place, but we got in touch with the owner, an' she don't know nothin' about a safe. An' we contacted the companies in town that sell safes, an' nobody sold 'em one."

"That's interesting," I said, although I'm not sure it was. "Why are you telling me all this, Ray?"

"That's a question I oughta be askin' myself, Bernie."

"And?"

"First off," he said, "I'm pretty sure you didn't have nothin' to do with this."

"So am I, and it seems to me I told you that early on."

"Yeah, but when I start automatically takin' your word for anythin', it's time for them to ship me to the funny farm. This time, though, it looks like you're tellin' the truth. An' I figure it's an opportunity for the both of us."

"An opportunity?"

He nodded gravely. "Over the years," he said, "you an' I done pretty good together, Bern."

"On balance," I said, "I'd have to agree with you."

"There's somethin' here that a lot of people want. Whatever it is, they want it bad enough to kill for it."

"And that looks like an opportunity to you? To me it looks like an opportunity to leave the country."

"If I was to break this case," he said, "it'd be a real good collar. Now that we know who the Rogovins are, an' what with all that shootin' in the street, it ain't my case anymore. Major Cases took it over. But that don't mean I can't put in a little work on it, an' if I was to crack it open, well, it'd look pretty good for me."

"I'm sure it would. Where do I come into it, Ray?"

"Not every case gets solved," he said. "Good police work only goes so far."

"A lot of the time," I said, "it goes too far."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Thing is, you got Lyle and Schnittke in the middle of this, you're talkin' some kind of organized crime. A lot of the time you can't close those cases, even though you got a pretty good idea who did it. But whether we close it or not, there could be a nice payoff in it, Bernie."

"If we were to find what everybody's looking for."

"Bingo," he said.

"You still don't know what it is, do you?"

"No. How about you?"

"Not a clue."

"Well," he said, "one of us might learn something. What do you say we pool our information? You find out somethin', you let me know. An' the vice is versa, as far as that goes."