The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza Part 21

I looked at the murderer. His face was no longer expressionless. I saw something in his eyes that looked like alarm. The goatee and mustache kept me from seeing if he was keeping a stiff upper lip, but I tended to doubt it.

"Abel was a frequent patient of Murray Feinsinger's," I went on. "He must have been quite a contrast to all those runners and dancers, but his chart shows that he turned up in that office a great deal. He had an appointment the morning of the day he was killed."

"That's crazy!" Feinsinger was outraged. "He had no such appointment. He was my patient, it's true, and he was also my friend. That is why I am here at what I was told was to be a service for him, not an inquisition. He had no appointment with me on the day of his death."

"Funny. It's listed in your appointment book and on his chart." It hadn't been until early that morning, but why stress the point? "It wasn't the first time he used your X-ray equipment for nonpodiatric purposes, was it?"

Feinsinger shrugged. "Perhaps not. He would drop in occasionally and ask if he could use the machine. What did I care? He was a friend and a patient, so I let him use it. But he didn't come in that morning, or if he did I paid no attention. I certainly didn't kill him."

"Not then, no. You waited until your waiting room was clear during your lunch break. Then you went upstairs, and of course he let you in without a second thought. You asked for a look at the coin, and he showed it to you, and you killed him and took it."

"Why would I do that? I don't need money. My practice is better than it's ever been. I'm no coin collector, either. Why would I kill the man?"

"Avarice," I said. "No more and no less. You're no coin collector but you don't have to be one to know about the 1913 V-Nickel. Everybody knows about it. And the improvement in your practice just served to give you a taste for the good life-you told me that much yourself when you measured me for orthotics." And what would become of those orthotics now, I wondered. They'd already been ordered from the lab, but how could they find their way to me if my podiatrist was booked for homicide and jugged like a hare?

Never mind. "Spinoza had the answer," I said, opening the book to a place I'd marked. "'From the mere fact of our conceiving that another person takes delight in a thing, we shall ourselves love that thing and desire to take delight therein. But we a.s.sumed that the pleasure in question would be prevented by another's delight in its object; we shall, therefore, endeavor to prevent his possession thereof.'" I closed the book. "In other words, you saw how much Abel appreciated the coin and that made you hot for it yourself. You killed him and you took it, which is endeavoring to prevent his possession thereof if I ever heard of it."

"You can't prove this," he said. "You can't prove a thing."

"It's up to the police to prove things. But I don't think they'll have much trouble in this instance. You didn't just take the nickel. You also took the other articles I stole from Colcannon's safe-the emerald earrings and the Piaget watch. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn up somewhere in your office. In the locked center drawer of your desk, for instance."

He stared. "You put them there."

"How could I do a thing like that? That's not all you took from Abel. You also took his keys so that you could lock up after you left. That delayed the discovery of the body and helped you cover your tracks. I would have thought you'd have the sense to get rid of the keys."

"I did," he said, then caught himself and shook his head violently. "I did not take any keys," he said, trying to cover. "I did not kill him, I did not take the coin, I did not take any jewelry, and I most certainly did not take any keys."

"You certainly didn't get rid of them. They're in the drawer with the earrings and the watch." And they were, too. Not the set he'd taken with him, but who was to know that?

Well, he he knew it. "You've framed me," he said. "You planted those things." knew it. "You've framed me," he said. "You planted those things."

"Did I plant the nickel, too?"

"You won't find the nickel in my possession."

"Are you sure of that? When the police search the place thoroughly? When they turn it upside down and know what they're looking for? Are you absolutely certain they won't find it? Think it over."

He thought about it, and I guess I was convincing and evidently he had a higher opinion of the cops' ability to find a needle in a haystack than I did, because before anybody knew what was happening he pushed his chair back and shoved past the woman seated beside him and was on his way to the door.

Ray had his gun out almost immediately, but he was in the wrong position and there were too many people between him and Feinsinger, all of them on their feet and making noise. I could have let him go-how far was he going to run, orthotics or no?

Instead I reached under my jacket and got my gun, yelled for him to stop, and when he didn't I tranquilized the son of a b.i.t.c.h.

CHAPTER Twenty-three.

"What we want is Irish coffee," Carolyn said, "and where we want to go for it is McBell's."

McBell's is in the Village, on Sixth Avenue a couple of blocks below Eighth Street, and we went there by cab. It's not terribly hard to find a Brooklyn cabbie willing to go to Manhattan, although it can be quite a trick convincing a Manhattan cabbie to go to Brooklyn, which just proves once again that we live in an inequitable universe, and when was that ever news?

By this time the tumult and the shouting had died and the captives and the kings had departed, the kings in this case being Ray Kirschmann and a couple of stalwarts from the local precinct whom he'd called to help him with the captives. There were enough of the latter to go around-Murray Feinsinger, Herbert Franklin Colcannon, George Edward "Rabbit" Margate, and, lest we forget, Marilyn Margate and Harlon Reese.

Jessica and Clay invited us back to their place, along with most of the crowd from the service, but I said we'd take a rain check. Nor did we spend much time talking with the three-man delegation from Philadelphia. It looked as though no charges would be pressed against Howard Pitterman, who was evidently a good curator when he wasn't rustling his employer's cattle. I had the feeling Milo Hracec was in for a bonus, and arrangements had already been made for Ray Kirschmann to put a ten-thousand-dollar reward in his pocket the day the coin found its way back to its rightful owner. Normal procedure would call for the nickel to be impounded as evidence, but normal procedure can sometimes be short-circuited when the right cop is properly motivated, and Gordon Ruslander had agreed to provide the proper motivation.

The cabbie took us over the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was a glorious view on a glorious Sunday. I sat in the middle, Denise on my right and Carolyn on my left and thought how fortunate a man I was. I'd solved two murders, one of them a friend's. I'd admitted to burglary in front of a roomful of people and didn't have to worry about being charged with it. And I was riding into Manhattan with my girlfriend on one side of me and my best buddy on the other, and they'd even left off sniping at each other, and who could ask for anything more?

Carolyn was right about the Irish coffee. It was what we wanted, all right, and it was as it ought to be, the coffee rich and dark and sweet with brown sugar, the Irish whiskey generously supplied, and the whole topped not with some glop out of a shaving-cream dispenser but real handwhipped heavy cream. We had one round, and then we had a second round, and I started making noises about eventually rounding off the day with a celebratory dinner, all three of us, unless of course somebody had other plans, in which case- "s.h.i.t," Denise said. We were sitting, all three of us, around a tiny table that had room for our three stemmed gla.s.ses and one big ashtray, and she'd almost filled the ashtray already, smoking one Virginia Slim after another. She ground one out now and pushed her chair back. "I can't take any more of this," she said.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm coming unglued, that's all. You two talk, huh? I'm going home so my kid doesn't forget what I look like. The two of you can kick it around, and then you'll come over to my place later, all right?"

"I guess so," I said.

But she wasn't talking to me. She was talking to Carolyn, who hesitated, then gave a quick nod.

"Well," Denise said. She grabbed up her purse, drew a breath, then put a palm on the table for support and leaned over to kiss Carolyn lightly on the mouth. Then, cheeks scarlet, she turned and strode out of the place.

For a few minutes n.o.body said anything. Then Carolyn managed to catch the waiter's eye and ordered a martini. I thought about having one myself but didn't really feel like it. I still had half of my second Irish coffee in front of me and I didn't much feel like finishing that, either.

Carolyn said, "Couple of things, Bern. How'd you know Marilyn Margate set up all those burglaries?"

"I figured she knew Mrs. Colcannon. When she turned up with a gun in her purse and accused me of murder, she called the woman Wanda. I figured they were friends, but what kind of friend gets her brother to knock off a friend's house? And it couldn't have been coincidence that Rabbit and Harlan found their way to Eighteenth Street, any more than it was coincidence they picked a time when n.o.body was home.

"Then when I dropped in at Hair Apparent I overheard a woman talking about something personal, and I realized women tell their hairdressers everything, and I got a list of similar burglaries committed in the immediate area of the beauty parlor."

"And you found some of the names in their appointment book when you went there this morning. Bern? Wasn't that doing it the hard way? Couldn't you have just called the burglary victims and asked where they got their hair done?"

"I thought of that. But that wouldn't prove Wanda got her hair done at Hair Apparent. Besides, if I couldn't find any of the other names in the appointment book, I could always write them in myself."

"Falsify evidence, you mean."

"I think of it more as supplying evidence than falsifying it. For another thing, I could have wound up spending hours on the phone without reaching anybody. People tend to go out on Sat.u.r.day night. But maybe the most important reason, aside from the fact that I'm a burglar and it's natural for a burglar to take a burglaristic approach to problems, is that I wanted to see about the gun."

"The gun?"

"The one Marilyn brought to my apartment. I was relieved to find it in a drawer. She'd said she had put it back, but if I didn't find it I was going to a.s.sume it was still in her purse, and that would have meant tipping off Ray so that she didn't get a chance to pull it when I exposed her role in the burglaries."

"I see."

"Uh, Carolyn-"

"s.h.i.t. You probably want to talk about Denise."

"I don't know what I want want to. But I think we have to. Don't we?" to. But I think we have to. Don't we?"

"Double s.h.i.t. Yeah, I guess we probably do." She finished her martini, looked around in vain for the waiter, then gave up and put her gla.s.s down. "Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know how it happened, Bern. G.o.d knows I didn't plan it."

"You didn't even like her."

"Like her? I couldn't stand her."

"And she wasn't crazy about you."

"She despised me. Detested me. Thought of me as a dwarf who smelled like a wet dog."

"And you thought she was bony and gawky."

"Well, I was wrong, wasn't I?"

"How did it-"

"I don't know, know, Bern." The waiter sailed by and she caught him by the hem of his jacket and pressed her empty gla.s.s into his hand. "It's an emergency," she told him, and to me she said, "I swear I don't know how it happened. I guess there must have been an attraction all along and our hostility was a cover-up for it." Bern." The waiter sailed by and she caught him by the hem of his jacket and pressed her empty gla.s.s into his hand. "It's an emergency," she told him, and to me she said, "I swear I don't know how it happened. I guess there must have been an attraction all along and our hostility was a cover-up for it."

"Best cover-up since Watergate."

"Just about. The thing is I feel awful about it and so does Denise. We started off yesterday forcing ourselves to tolerate each other, and there was something in the air, and we both sensed it, and I decided to deny it, because I knew I didn't want to make a pa.s.s. In the first place she was your girlfriend and in the second place she wasn't gay."

"So?"

"So she kept getting flirtier and flirtier, and you know me, Bern, I can resist anything but temptation. She wound up making the pa.s.s, and-"

"Denise made the pa.s.s?"

"Yeah."

"I never suspected she was gay."

"I don't think she is. I think she's straight enough to own a G.o.dd.a.m.n poodle, if you want to know, but right now she wants to go on going to bed with me, and I figure what I'll do is take it a day at a time and see where it goes. I don't think it's the love affair of the century, and if it's going to f.u.c.k up our relationship, Bern, then what I figure is the h.e.l.l with her. There's women all over the place, but where am I gonna find another best friend?"

"It's okay, Carolyn."

"It's not okay. It's crazy."

"Don't worry about it. Denise and I weren't the love affair of the century, either. I called her the other day primarily because I figured I might need an alibi. You don't have to tell her that, but it's true."

"She already knows. She said so herself as a way of justifying our going to bed together."

"Well, what the h.e.l.l."

"You're not upset?"

"I don't know what I am exactly. Confused, mainly. You know the story about the guy whose wife dies and he's all broken up at the funeral, and his best friend takes him aside and tells him how he'll get over it?"

"It sounds familiar. Keep going."

"Well, the best friend says that he'll get over it, the pain and loss will fade, and after a few months he'll actually start dating again, and he'll find a woman he responds to, and he'll fall in love and go to bed with her and start building a new life. And the bereaved widower says, 'Yeah, sure, I know all that, but what am I going to do tonight?'"

"Oh."

"Somehow I think Marilyn Margate is out. Even if somebody posts bail for her, I have a feeling she wouldn't welcome me with open arms."

"Not now. How come you threw her to the wolves? You didn't have to, did you?"

"Well, it didn't hurt. Improved the case against Colcannon, tied up a few loose ends."

"I thought, you know, honor among thieves and all. She and Harlan and Rabbit are fellow burglars or something, so I didn't think you'd tip them to the cops."

"Fellow burglars? You saw what they did on Eighteenth Street."

"Yeah."

"They weren't burglars. They were barbarians. The best thing I could do for the profession of burglary was get them the h.e.l.l out of it."

"I suppose." She sipped at her new martini. "She was pretty cheap-looking, anyway."

"True."

"She must have been really s.l.u.ttish in that red and black outfit."

"You might say so."

"Still," she said thoughtfully, "I can see how she'd be very attractive to someone who liked the type."

"Uh-huh."

"I like the type, myself."

"So do I."

"Of course it's not the only type I like."

"Same here."

"Bernie? You're not mad at me? You don't hate me?"