"They didn't know the men, they weren't going to tell anybody, it was perfectly safe…"
His voice trailed off. Everyone was staring at him now, except for Marty, who was gazing thoughtfully at Marisol, and Marisol, who was examining her feet.
"If it was so damn safe," I said, "how come we're all here? How come four people are dead?" I sighed. "It might have been safe. Unethical, dishonest, illegal, but safe. Except you forgot one thing. You forgot the long arm of coincidence."
Thirty-Eight
I liked the phrase enough to say it again. "The long arm of coincidence. The law has a proverbially lengthy arm, but so does coincidence. I checked myBartlett's this morning, and a fellow named Haddon Chambers coined the phrase back in 1888, in his playCaptain Swift. He was born in 1860 and died in 1921, and except for his one immortal line, that's as much as I know about Haddon Chambers. Of course you could go and Google him, and you'll probably get his blood type and his mother's maiden name, along with Whittaker Chambers and Haddon's Notch, New Hampshire.
"The long arm of coincidence. There's a hand at the end of that arm, and it's left its fingerprints all over this business. Starting with the time a couple of weeks ago when Mapes took Volume Two down from the shelf to show off to his latest girlfriend."
"That's terrible," Lacey Kavinoky said. "On top of everything else, the man cheats on his wife." She colored, embarrassed by her outburst. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pipe up like that."
"How could you help it? It's shocking, and we're all shocked. Still, there's a fair amount of it going around. What's coincidental is that the woman in question was the daughter of a Latvian immigrant."
"And he showed her Cuckoo's pitcher anyway?" Ray said. "Not too bright, is he, Bernie?"
"Not the sharpest scalpel in the autoclave," I allowed, "but all he knew about Kukarov was that he was Russian. The man wouldn't have mentioned the Riga connection, let alone that he was the Black Scourge thereof. 'Now this man,' Mapes told her, 'came here from Russia to make a new life for himself, and thanks to me he doesn't have to look over his shoulder for KGB operatives.' The pictures didn't mean a thing to her, Before or After. But she knew the name. There aren't too many Latvians-or half-Latvians, for that matter-who wouldn't recognize the name of Valentine Kukarov."
Grisek said something in an undertone, but even in an overtone I wouldn't have understood it, because he was speaking in his native tongue. I found out later that it was something along the lines ofMay the fires of Hell consume him, starting at the toes and taking eternity to reach his cursed head. I'd have pardoned his Latvian, but nobody asked me to.
"Marisol was the girl's name. That doesn't sound Latvian, but don't worry about it. She'd heard her father talk about Kukarov, and would have gone to him for advice, but he was back home in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. But she had an aunt and uncle in Bay Ridge, and they agreed that she had to get hold of those photographs.
"But how? She'd been to her lover's office once, at his invitation. There was no reason for him to invite her again, and no plausible way she could invite herself. The way things stood, if the book disappeared he'd never suspect her; he'd put it back himself before ushering her out of the office. But if she were to pay him another visit, andthen the book went missing…
"Her cousin Karlis came up with the answer. An artist with a loft in Williamsburg, he made an appointment with Dr. Mapes. He showed up twenty minutes early, looking perfectly respectable in his weddings-and-funerals suit, and when the receptionist was out of the room he pulled downPrinciples of Organic Chemistry and popped it in his tote bag. He could have torn out the four pages with Kukarov's photos on them, but maybe that would have taken too much time."
"I never saw the man," Karlis said. "Or the photos. So how would I know which ones to take?"
"But when you showed the book to your cousin, she could point out the photographs Mapes had identified as Kukarov's." He nodded. "Once she did, why not tear out those pages and return the book?"
"What, go to his office again? The one time I saw him I had to make up a reason. I couldn't think of anything. He asked me what I wanted. 'Look at me,' I said. 'What do you think?' Well, he tells me, my nose is crooked, and my ears stick out a little, but these are all things he can fix. Up until then I thought I looked fine. Now every time I pass a mirror I turn my head the other way. I should go back there? Hey, Doc. You know what? Screw you!"
"Your ears do stick out," Mapes said, "and your noseis crooked, and I never asked you to come to my office in the first place."
"The book," I said. "Principles of Organic Chemistry.After Marisol identified Kukarov, you took it home and gave it to your father."
"So?"
"And he showed it to a man who was living under the name Rogovin, but who'd been calling himself Arnold Lyle. I don't know what his name was originally, or what scam Lyle and his wife or girlfriend were working at the time."
"Hard to say," Ray put in. "He was a guy who took what came along. When opportunity came knockin', he opened the door, even if it was somebody else's apartment."
"The Lyles had sublet a place in Murray Hill," I said, "and whatever they had going on, they were glad to make room for Kukarov. Lyle was a Latvian, after all, and he'd gladly do his part to give the Black Scourge of Riga what he deserved. But Lyle didn't see why they couldn't turn a profit on the deal. Not from their fellow countrymen, but from some parties who might be interested in some of the other fellows who'd posed for Mapes's candid camera.
"So he got the word out, letting a few interested parties know what he had to sell. I believe you were one of those parties, Mr. Blinsky."
I looked at him, and he looked back at me, and I could feel myself shrinking under his gaze. If you wrote a play calledThe Black Scourge of Riga, he's the guy you'd cast in the title role. His clothes were all black, and so was his hair and beard, and his whole affect was decidedly scourge-like. I was going to tell him he hadn't answered my question, but then I realized that I hadn't asked one, and I decided to move on.
"Marisol had done her part," I said, "but now she was beginning to have second thoughts. She'd grown up hearing about Kukarov's evil deeds, but the closest she'd ever been to Latvia was a weekend in East Hampton, and he'd done the bulk of his scourging before she was born. And what had she done? She'd betrayed a trust, for one thing, and she might have imperiled Mapes's other clandestine clients, men who may have run afoul of the law but who had done nothing to her, or to her fellow Latvians.
"So she did what a lot of people do when they're feeling disturbed. She went out and had a couple of drinks."
Wally Hemphill went into a quick huddle with his client. "She's over twenty-one," he told the room. "If she wants to have a drink it's her business."
"I never said it wasn't."
"Well," he said, "I object to this whole line of questioning, and I'm advising my client not to answer any more questions."
"I haven't asked any."
"If you do, I reserve the right to object."
I closed my eyes for a moment, but what good did it do? When I opened them, everybody was still there. This next part was tricky, and I hoped he'd shut up so I could get it right.
"She lives in Hell's Kitchen, but she didn't want to go where she might run into someone she knew. So she went east and south a short distance, to a place someone had recommended. A nice place, some of you may know it. She went in and had a drink, and then a man came and bought her another drink, and the next thing she knew she was in bed in her own apartment with a man on top of her, and-"
"Objection!"
I glared at him, and he shrugged apologetically. "You know," I said, "you're not in court, but if you were I'd hold you in contempt."