“You were just going to take the coin collection. That was the agreement.”
“Well, it has to look right,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe what a mess I made, all for the sake of creating the proper appearance. Did you want me to spoil the illusion by leaving a wad of cash in the safe?”
“No, but—”
“In New York,” I said, “if I left cash lying around you could count on the cops to take it. Maybe they’re honest here, in which case they’d report it to the IRS and let Mr. McEwan explain where it came from.” One for him, one for me, one for him, one for me. “You think he’d prefer it that way?”
“No, you’re quite right. But maybe you should keep all the cash for yourself. You found it, after all.”
I shook my head. “It’s share and share alike. There, it comes out even. Oh, one more thing.” I got five twenties from my pocket. “In the desk. Again, how would it look if I left them? Two for you and two for me, and have you got a ten by any chance? Wait a minute, I’ve got it. There you go.”
He looked at the bills he was holding. He said, “The dimes are in a box of games in the garage? Between the Parcheesi and…what was the other one you mentioned?”
“Stratego.”
“I’ll make a note of that. The dimes are the only collection Jack cares about. His father gave him one he’d found in a drawer when Jack was a boy, and that started him collecting. I think the set’s worth forty or fifty thousand dollars. At least that’s what they’re insured for.”
“I didn’t examine them too closely,” I said, “but the condition looked good, and there were only a couple of dates missing.”
“It must have been hard to leave them behind.”
I shook my head. “That was the deal. Besides, you’d take a beating fencing anything that specialized. No, the hard part was wrecking the safe and leaving a mess. But I forced myself.”
I watched as he put the money in his jacket pocket. He’d already participated fully in a felony, but actually taking the money evidently had some strong symbolic value for him, because he straightened up behind the wheel and gave a little sigh when he had done so.
“Jack’s in Atlanta,” he said. “He and Betty flew down for the golf. Said he almost didn’t go this year, the way the market’s been behaving. Said he’d thought about selling the coins, but how would that look? And he’d have hated to part with those dimes.”
“Now he won’t have to. But he’d better figure on keeping them out of sight for a year or two.”
“I’ll make sure he knows that.” A slow smile spread on his face. “What’s the line from Casablanca? At the very end, Bogart to Claude Rains.”
“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“Indeed. And a profitable one. Get some sleep, Bernie. I’ve a feeling the next few days are going to be busy ones.”
CHAPTER Twenty
He was right. It was a busy week.
Tuesday night, while an eminent cardiologist and his wife were at the Met oohing and ahing over David Hockney’s sets for Die Zauberflöte, Marty and I were on the way to their house in Port Washington. A security patrol watched over the neighborhood according to a strict schedule; armed with that schedule, we synchronized our own movements accordingly.
There was no alarm this time, just a formidable door with a brass lion’s-head knocker and one of those legendary Poulard locks, to which I laid a successful siege. Inside, I dumped a couple of drawers without bothering to see what hit the floor, hurrying directly to the master bedroom, where the doctor’s wife kept her jewelry in a handsome dresser-top chest with five inch-deep drawers and a mirrored lid. I grabbed a pillow off one of the twin beds, stripped it of its pillowcase, and scooped all of the jewelry into the pillowcase. I dumped a drawer or two, knocked over a lamp, and hurried downstairs. I was right on schedule, and so were the security forces; I hunkered down by the living-room picture window and watched in admiration as they slowed their prowl car in front of the house and beamed their pivoting spotlight here and there. Then, satisfied that all was well, they pressed on.
For variety’s sake, I left the Poulard’s pickproof reputation unsullied, picking it shut behind me and scuttling around to the side of the house, where I kicked in a basement window and made a mess of a flower bed. Then I swung the pillowcase over my shoulder, checked my watch, and met the Lincoln out front.
“Poor Alex,” Marty said. “A couple of wrong moves in the commodities market put his back against the wall. Unfortunately, frozen pork bellies aren’t like stamps and coins and baseball cards. You can’t cash them in when times get tough.”
“Or arrange to have them stolen.”
“Quite. He swallowed his pride and went to Frieda, told her the situation. Pointed out that they had a substantial amount of money invested in her jewelry, and that it could see them through a tight spot. Perhaps they might sell some of the pieces she never wore anyway.” He shook his head. “The woman wouldn’t hear of it. Well, he suggested, it was only a temporary difficulty. A few triple-bypass operations would set them right again, but in the meantime suppose they pledged the odd tiara as collateral with Provident Loan.” He chuckled. “Alex said she was aghast. Pawn her jewelry? Hock her bracelets at some corner pawnshop? Not a chance.”
I told him I’d barely had time to look at what I was taking, but the quality looked good.
“The insurance coverage is close to two hundred thousand,” he said. “Of course one dresses for the opera, so whatever she wore tonight will have escaped us.” I said it was a shame they couldn’t have gone square dancing instead, and he smiled at the very idea. “One thing, Bernie. There should be a jade-and-diamond necklace with matching earrings. Everything else is ours to sell, but Alex would like that back.”
“No problem,” I said, “but how’s he going to manage that? Won’t it tip her off that he staged the whole thing?”
“Oh, it’s not for Frieda,” he said. “But Alex is especially fond of that particular ensemble. He wants to give it to his girlfriend.”
Wednesday I didn’t need the Lincoln, or Marty’s company either. I closed the store in the middle of the afternoon, hung the clock face in the window, and told Raffles to take messages if anybody called. I caught a cab and got out half a block from a four-story townhouse in Murray Hill. On the parlor floor, I found what I was looking for in a place of honor over the living-room fireplace. It was an oil painting about twelve inches high and sixteen inches wide, a rural landscape showing some fat cattle taking shelter beneath an enormous tree.
I cut it from its frame and rolled the canvas so that it would fit wrapped around my forearm between my shirtsleeve and my jacket. Minutes later I was on Third Avenue, my hand raised to summon a taxi that took me uptown to Marty’s apartment. His eyes widened when I walked in empty-handed. Then I took off my jacket and he smiled and reached for the canvas.
“Here we are,” he said, unrolling it. “Many’s the time I’ve admired this little beauty over the years. ‘Best investment I ever made,’ George Hanley always said. ‘Gave ten thousand dollars for it to a little mustachioed froggy art dealer on the Boulevard Haussmann. Barb thought I was crazy, but we both liked it and it made a nice souvenir of the trip. I’ll be honest with you, I never even heard of the artist at the time. Courbet? I didn’t know Courbet from Beaujolais.’ He never tired of that phrase, Bernie. ‘I didn’t know Courbet from Beaujolais.’ ”
“Well, it has a nice ring to it.”