“You’ve done this before,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m impressed, you’re obviously a pro at this. What did you think I meant?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what I thought,” I said. “It’s frustrating. The best sort of burglary is when you know exactly what you’re looking for and just where it is, and you go in and it’s there and you take it and you’re gone.”

“That’s how I thought this was going to be.”

“I know. So did I. The second-best burglary is when you go in without any expectations whatsoever, and there’s the thrill of discovery whenever you find something. But this is the worst kind, because…well, no, that’s not true, is it? The worst kind is when you get caught.”

“Don’t even say that, Bernie!”

“The next-to-worst kind,” I said, “is when there’s something you’re looking for and it’s not there, and even if you do find something else you don’t really give a damn because it’s not what you wanted. Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s a hundred and twenty dollars,” I said. “It’s exactly half of what he had stashed in an empty jelly jar in the fridge. There was some change, too, but I left it. Go ahead, take it. We’re partners, remember?”

“It seems strange to take it.”

“It would seem stupid to leave it. I think we should get the hell out of here. You checked the duffel and the carryall, didn’t you? And the little red backpack?”

“I reached inside them. Why?”

“Check ’em good,” I said. “One reason I’ve been going through things so thoroughly is I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.” I picked up the duffel bag, opened the long zipper, ran my hands around the inside. “Maybe he stuffed the attaché case, cards and all, into a locker somewhere. Maybe he gave it to a checkroom attendant and walked away with a claim check.”

“Wouldn’t it be in his wallet?”

“Probably,” I said. I tossed the duffel bag aside and grabbed the carryall. “Check the backpack,” I told her. “It’s got a whole batch of compartments, same as this stupid thing. We might as well be thorough.”

And I set about being thorough, and so did she, and wouldn’t you know it?

“Bernie,” she said, dropping the backpack to the floor, turning to me with something in her hand. “Bernie, what’s this?”

“Let’s see,” I said. “Well, it’s a baseball card, isn’t it? And an old one, too, from the looks of it. Black-and-white photo on the front. Lousy printing, too, but the card’s in good shape, wouldn’t you say?”

“Bernie—”

“ ‘A Stand-up Triple!’ And there’s our hero, standing up at third base. Recognize the guy?”

“Which one?”

“Well, not the third baseman or the umpire. The other guy, the one planted on third with his hands on his hips and a belligerent glare on his face. I never saw him play, but I can recognize him.” I turned the card over. “ ‘Chalmers Mustard.’ Can we smell the mustard? No, but I swear there’s the faintest trace of Havana tobacco.”

“From Marty’s humidor.”

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” I said. “The card’s from a special Ted Williams series. It’s a specialized item, so it’s not worth a fortune, but it’s rare. And Marty owns it, or at least he did until your friend Luke paid him a visit.” I gazed ruefully at the hunk of cardboard, then tucked it away in my breast pocket. “Half of this is yours,” I said, “but I’d just as soon keep it intact for the time being. The cards were here, Doll. This proves it. Luke took them and brought them here.” I sighed. “And then the son of a bitch took them somewhere else.”

CHAPTER Fourteen

“Here we are,” I said. “The 195 °Chalmers Mustard Ted Williams series. ‘A lengthy—some would say overlong—set of cards produced and distributed locally in Boston. Public interest flagged as the season wore on, and the later cards received a tepid reception, perhaps reflecting their subject’s lukewarm performance on the playing field.’ ” I looked up. “I guess the Splendid Splinter had an off year. I didn’t know that ever happened to him. I saw a baseball record book a minute ago. We could look it up.”

“Do we have to?”

“I guess not,” I said. “What difference could it make, anyway? I just thought it would be easy to do, since we’re here.”

We were at Shakespeare & Co., a bookstore six or seven blocks north of Luke Santangelo’s ransacked apartment. We’d walked up Broadway, made our way through the mob of Sunday noshers waiting to get into Zabar’s, and were now checking things out in a baseball card encyclopedia. It billed itself as complete, and I could believe it. The thing weighed as much as Hank Aaron’s bat.

Every newsstand along our route had had a supply of sports card price guides in magazine form, but they were pretty much limited to the post-1948 sets issued by the more prominent national manufacturers. Our card fit the time frame, but it was much too local and esoteric for the magazines to give it space. The books Ray Kirschmann had found at my store would probably have had the Chalmers set listed, but Ray and that po-faced lout of an ADA had confiscated them.

Just as well. They were out of date, anyway. And I wouldn’t have wanted to make another trip to the store. I’d have just wound up feeding the cat again.

“And here’s our card,” I said. “ ‘A Stand-up Triple!’ Number thirty-four, and that makes it one of the good ones.”

“What’s it worth?”

“A hundred and twenty dollars. That’s in NM condition. It’s only thirty bucks in VG. NM is near mint, and VG is very good.”

“What’s ours?”

“I guess it’s near mint. I don’t know how they grade these things, but that’s what I would call it.”

“When you come right down to it,” she said, “who cares? After all we went through today, we’ve got a piece of cardboard that’s worth somewhere between thirty and a hundred twenty dollars. Suppose we wanted to sell it. What could we get for it?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Doll.”

“Twenty dollars?”

“I’m sure we could get twenty.”

“Fifty?”

“Probably not. It’s worth more than that, but the average dealer wouldn’t break out into a cold sweat at the sight of it. It’s just one card out of a set that most collectors aren’t interested in. If we took it to Boston—”

“Oh, great,” she said. “We’ll grab the shuttle to Boston so we can get a hot fifty dollars for the fucking card.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we do that. I was speaking hypothetically.”

“I know. I’m sorry I snapped. Let’s get out of here, okay? And put the book back before they arrest you for shoplifting.”

What a thought. “I think I’ll buy it,” I said.

“For God’s sake, why?”

“I guess the money’s burning a hole in my pocket. You know, my half of the two-forty from Luke’s jelly jar. Anyway, I like books. And this one brings back memories. I collected baseball cards when I was a kid, did I happen to mention it?”

“Yes,” she said. “You happened to mention it.”

We wound up walking all the way to her place.

Did I mention that it was a beautiful day? It was a perfect September afternoon, and we took a rambling walk across Central Park. The minute we crossed Central Park West and entered the park, the landscape shifted from Norman Mailer (or maybe Norman Bates) to Norman Rockwell. Families spread checkered cloths on the lawn and opened picnic baskets. Lovers walked hand in hand, sat close on benches, or lay unashamed in one another’s arms. Toddlers toddled, infants mewled and puked, and boys hurled sticks for dogs to fetch. (You’d be wasting your time trying that with a cat.)

Now, I know perfectly well it was an illusion. I even knew it at the time. Half the kids making wheelies on their bikes had very likely acquired those bikes at gunpoint from other kids. Half the folks gazing placidly into the middle distance were too stoned to blink. Some of the lovers would murder their partners by nightfall, while others were doing all they could to spread disease and increase the population. The families were dysfunctional, the toddlers were incest survivors in the making, and all the dogs had fleas.