“There is no telling what it’s all worth,” Rasmoulian said, his spots of color glowing.
“Indeed, sir. There is no telling what money remains in that numbered account, or what assets the corporation retains. What could old Vlados have drained off? And what about his son, of blessed memory? No one goes through capital like a pretender trying to maintain a pretense.”
“Vlados had an income,” Weeks said. “Remember, the people who chose him for the throne didn’t pick him off a dunghill. He was a shirttail cousin of the king of Sweden and claimed descent on his mother’s side from Maria Theresa of Austria. Queen Liliana was some kind of grandniece of Queen Victoria. They weren’t rich enough to buy the Congo from Leopold of Belgium, but Liliana never had to shop at Kmart either. They had an income and they lived within it.”
“And Todor?”
“Same story for the colt. We didn’t get him back to Anatruria by dangling some dough in front of him. He worked for a living, fronting an investment syndicate based in Luxembourg, but he was comfortable.” He grinned. “We hooked him by the ego. He figured he’d look good with a crown on his head.”
“He was a patriot,” Ilona said. “That is not ego, to go to the aid of your people. It is self-sacrifice.”
“How would you know so much about it, little lady? He was long gone from Anatruria before you were born.”
He didn’t sound as though he expected an answer, and she didn’t give him one. I said, “Let’s flash-forward to the present, okay? I’d like to tell you about a man named Hugo Candlemas. That’s an unusual name, and he was an unusual man, erudite and personable. Earlier this year he came to New York and took an apartment on the Upper East Side. And a matter of days ago he came into this store and introduced himself to me. He persuaded me to break into an apartment a few blocks away from his and steal a leather portfolio.”
“You, Bernie?” The question came from Mowgli, who may have been the only person in the room who didn’t know what I did when I wasn’t selling books. “Why would he think you’d be up for something like that?”
“At the time,” I said, “I thought he’d heard my name years ago from a man he mentioned as a mutual acquaintance, a gentleman named Abel Crowe.” Both Rasmoulian and Tsarnoff started at the name, which didn’t much surprise me. “Until he died, Abel Crowe was at the very top of his profession, which happened to be the receiving of stolen goods.”
“He was a fence, all right,” Ray Kirschmann agreed. “An’ you gotta hand it to him, he was the best wide receiver in the business.”
“And I was a burglar,” I said. Mowgli, wide-eyed at this news, remained silent, probably because of the elbow Carolyn dug into his ribs. “But I’ve changed my mind about that. I don’t think Abel would have bandied my name about.”
“Abel was discreet,” Tsarnoff said.
“He was,” I agreed, “and even if my name did come up, how would Candlemas remember it years later when he happened to need a burglar? I don’t think that’s how it happened.”
“He must have looked in the Yellow Pages,” Charlie Weeks suggested.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think he followed Ilona.”
“A couple of weeks ago,” I said to her, “you walked into my store. I tried to figure out how you got here, because I couldn’t believe it was coincidence. But at the time there was nothing for it to coincide with, was there? I’d never met Candlemas or heard of any of the people in this room. I didn’t know Anatruria from God’s Little Acre.
“And you were just looking for something to read. You picked out a book, and we got talking and found out we shared a passion for Humphrey Bogart. There was a Humphrey Bogart film festival just getting under way, and you knew about it, and we arranged to meet at the theater that night. Before we knew it we were going every night, watching two movies together, eating popcorn from the same container, then going our separate ways.”
I looked into her eyes, and I thought of Bogart and tried to borrow a little nobility from him. “You’re a beautiful woman,” I said, “and I could have gone for you in a big way if you’d ever given me the slightest encouragement, but you never did. It was clear from the start that you had someone else. And that was okay. I liked your company, and I guess you liked mine, but what we both liked was up there on the screen.”
There was gratitude in her eyes now, and a touch of relief, and something else as well. Wistfulness, maybe.
“I don’t know if Candlemas was on your tail when you came into the bookstore,” I said. “Probably not. But if he followed you at all he could hardly help running into me, because we were spending seven nights a week at the movies. He’d want to know who I was, and it wouldn’t have been hard for him to find out. The kind of people he’d have asked would have known about my sideline as a burglar.”
“It’s the booksellin’ that’s a sideline,” Ray put in.
I ignored that. “Candlemas needed a burglar,” I said, “and he probably did know Abel Crowe, who spent the war in a concentration camp and knocked around Europe for a few years before he came over here. He would have learned I was a good burglar-”
“The best,” Ray said.
“-and he had a name to drop to establish his bona fides. He sounded me out, and when the address he wanted me to burgle didn’t ring a bell, he knew Ilona hadn’t told me about the man who lived there.”
“And who was that?” Ray wanted to know.
“The man in her life,” I said. “The man, too, whom Candlemas had pursued to New York. He’s right here. Mr. Michael Todd.”
“Around the World in Eighty Days,” Mowgli said. “Great flick. But didn’t his plane go down?”
“Michael Todd,” I said. “You speak good unaccented English, Mike, so why shouldn’t your name be just as American as your speech? But you anglicized it along the way, didn’t you? Why don’t you tell them what it was before you changed it?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell them,” he said.
“Mikhail Todorov,” I said. “The only son of Todor Vladov, the only grandson of Vlados the First. And, if there is such a thing, the rightful heir to the Anatrurian throne.”
CHAPTER Twenty-two
I guess we’re all suckers for royalty. Half the house must have known or suspected Mike’s place in the scheme of things, but all the same a hush fell over the room, and it hung there until Carolyn broke it. “A king,” she said. “I can’t believe it. In my store.”
“Your store?”
“Well, it’s almost my store, Bern. Who kept it open over the weekend? Uh, speaking of my store, Your Majesty, I don’t suppose you have a dog that needs washing, but if you ever do-”
“I’ll most certainly think of you,” he said, whereupon Carolyn looked almost glassy-eyed enough to drop a curtsy. “Mr. Rhodenbarr, I haven’t said anything until now, but perhaps I should. This business of an Anatrurian throne makes me quite uncomfortable. My grandfather’s moment of glory occurred ages ago, and my father’s little adventure took place before I was born, and very nearly cost him his life. That my family had a tentative claim on a putative crown was interesting, even amusing, something to impress a girl or enliven a social gathering. I have my own life, with a small amount of capital and a career in international finance and economic development. I don’t spend time nostalgic for a royal past or dreaming of a royal future.”
“And yet you came to New York,” I said gently.