The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart Read online

  “I know, and it’s not like you. How come?”

  “For Captain Hoberman.” I picked up the glass again and gazed down into it, then raised it a little higher and looked through it at the ceiling light fixture. “The trouble with vodka,” I said, “is it’s not as good to stare at. You hold a glass full of amber whiskey to the light, it’s as though you’re looking through it and seeing the secrets of the universe. You do the same thing with vodka and it might as well be a glass of water.”

  “That’s true, Bern. I never thought of it that way, but it’s true.”

  “And yet,” I said, “as soon as you swallow it, it doesn’t make a bit of difference what color it is. It works just fine.” I tilted my glass and proved the point. “Carolyn? Is it okay if I stay over at your place tonight?”

  “Sure,” she said, “and it’s a good idea, too. This is no night for you to be alone.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “And I wouldn’t want you going uptown on the subway in your condition, or even in a cab.”

  “Neither would I,” I said, “but that’s not it, either. I want to get an early start tomorrow.”

  “An early start on what?”

  “The case.”

  “What case?”

  “What case?” I stared at her. “Have I been talking to myself? Haven’t you been paying any attention? A man’s dead, a portfolio is missing, a beautiful woman has disappeared—”

  “Bern,” she said, “all those things are true, and at least one of them is a shame, but what does it have to do with you?”

  “I have to do something about it,” I said.

  “That’s the booze talking, Bern.”

  “No, I said, its me.”

  “It sounds like you,” she said, “but I think it’s the booze. Ilona packed up and moved out. If she wants to be found, she knows how to get in touch with you. If she doesn’t want to be found, what do you want with her? I know it was wonderful, what the two of you had, but evidently she’s profoundly neurotic or leading some kind of a double life, and as soon as you begin to get close to her she runs away. I’ve known women like that, Bern. None of them ever disappeared quite so abruptly, but some of them pulled things that weren’t all that different.”

  “I have to find Ilona,” I said, “but that’s not the main thing I have to do. I have to solve the case.”

  “How?”

  “By recovering the portfolio that was stolen out from under me, and finding out more about those documents that Tsarnoff and Rasmoulian are so hot to get hold of. And by figuring out what CAPHOB means and what it’s doing on the side of my attaché case. But most of all by catching the person who committed murder in that fourth-floor flat on East Seventy-sixth Street.”

  “Bern,” she said gently, “don’t you think that’s a job for the police?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s my job.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “When your partner is killed,” I said, “you have to do something about it. Maybe he wasn’t much good and maybe you didn’t like him much, but that doesn’t matter. He was your partner, and you’re supposed to do something about it.”

  “Gee,” she said. “I never thought of it that way. I have to admit, Bern, when you put it like that it sounds so forceful and clear-cut that it’s hard to argue with you.”

  “Why, thank you, Carolyn.”

  “You’re welcome. ‘He was your partner, and you’re supposed to do something about it.’ I’ll have to remember that.” She looked sharply at me. “Wait a minute. Who said that?”

  “I did,” I said. “Just a minute ago.”

  “Yeah, but Sam Spade said it first. In The Maltese Falcon, when Miles Archer is murdered. Maybe it’s not word for word, but that’s exactly what he said.”

  I thought about it. “You know,” I said, “I think you’re right.”

  She reached out a hand, laid it on top of mine. “Bern,” she said, “do you want to know what I think? I think you’ve been going to too many movies.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re starting to get yourself mixed up with Humphrey Bogart,” she said, “and that can be dangerous. The line’s a great one, but it doesn’t fit the situation.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Hugo Candlemas wasn’t your partner. If he was anything, he was an employer. He hired you to steal that portfolio, and he never even paid you.”

  “That’s true. On the other hand, I never stole the portfolio.”

  “And it’s not as though the two of you got to be best friends. I know you identified his body this afternoon, but look at all the trouble you had doing it.”

  “I didn’t have any trouble.”

  “That’s not the way it sounded when you told me about it. You hemmed and hawed and told Ray a lot of crap about how you’ve got a better memory for names than faces. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So if his features were that faintly etched on your memory—”

  “His features were etched upon my memory,” I said, “as if by a diamond on glass.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know what I said. Don’t tell me what I said.”

  “I’m sorry, Bern.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to snap at you. That was Bogart talking just then, not me.” I picked up my glass. The vodka was gone but some of the ice had melted, so I took a swallow of that. “All I needed at the morgue was one quick look,” I said. “I hemmed and hawed because I didn’t want to make the identification.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it wasn’t Candlemas.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No, it wasn’t. You’re right, Candlemas wasn’t my partner, but that’s not who I was talking about. I mean the man who helped me get past the doorman and elevator operator at the Boccaccio.”

  “Not Captain Hoberman?”

  “That’s who it was, all right, and he was my partner, or as close as I had to a partner in that little caper. He didn’t have the world’s hardest task to perform, but he did what he was supposed to, and he deserved more for his troubles than a drawer in the morgue.” I drew a breath. “It doesn’t matter if I got the line from a movie or thought it up myself. It’s just as true either way. He was my partner, and he’s dead, and it’s up to me to do something about it.”

  CHAPTER

  Twelve

  Over breakfast she said, “I don’t know if you remember this, Bern, but just before you fell asleep you were saying something about Ilona’s disappearance being tied in with Captain Hoberman’s murder. But you wouldn’t say how, and then you passed out.”

  “I remember.”

  “You do?”

  “Except for the part about passing out.”

  “I’m surprised you remember any of it. I figured you were delirious. I was mad at you because I was sure I’d be up all night looking for a connection, but the next thing I knew it was morning and Ubi and Archie were yowling for their breakfast.”

  Ubi’s a Russian Blue, Archie an extremely vocal Burmese. “I never even heard them,” I said.

  “Well, you’re a sound sleeper, Bern. Plus they weren’t walking on you at the time. Anyway, the last thing you said was you’d tell me in the morning. It’s morning, so let’s hear it. Unless you weren’t serious.’

  “I was serious.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t remember how much I already told you. Do you know about the photograph? The one Ilona lights candles to?”

  “King Whatsis.”

  “Vlados.”

  “Whatever. You recognized him from the stamps, because your parents let you have a stamp collection when you were a kid.”

  “You mean yours didn’t?”

  She shook her head. “Too butch. I think they had an inkling, and they tried to steer me in the other direction. Instead of stamps, I got Story Book Dolls. You know, in the little boxes, and wearing their national costumes?
”

  “What did you do, break their heads off?”

  “Are you kidding? I loved those dolls.”

  “You did?”

  “I thought they were adorable. I’d still have ’em if I had the space. I gave them to my cousin’s kids on the Island. ‘This is just a loan,’ I told them. ‘They still belong to Aunt Carolyn.’ In case I ever move to a larger apartment, but I never will, and if I did I’d have trouble getting the dolls back from those kids. They’re crazy about them, especially Jason.”

  “Jason?”

  “Yeah, and his father’s getting a little nervous about it. ‘Look how I turned out,’ I told him. As soon as I could I moved to the Village and tried to get a girlfriend from every country.”

  “Wearing their national costumes.”

  “I don’t think I ever had an Anatrurian doll,” she said, “or an Anatrurian girlfriend, either, since I never even heard of the country until you started going to the movies with Ilona. I had a couple of dolls from that part of the world, though, with peasant blouses and lots of embroidery on their skirts. Beautiful faces, too.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “I’m sorry, Bern. Look, Ilona’s from Anatruria and she had a picture of the king and queen. How does that tie her in with Candlemas and Hoberman and Tiglath Whatchamacallit—”

  “Rasmoulian.”

  “If you say so. And Sarnoff.”

  “Tsarnoff.”

  “Tso? I still don’t see the connection.”

  “Neither did I. It wasn’t until last night that it hit me. I was in the cab, and Max Fiddler was telling me this incredible story about a woman and her disgusting pet monkey. I didn’t tell you, did I?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m not going to. Before that he went on and on about his memory and how great it was, and maybe that planted a seed and got me thinking about memory, I don’t know. But just as we got to my apartment building, I remembered. That’s why I had him bring me back downtown again.”

  “I thought you wanted to see me.”

  “I did,” I said, “but I probably would have waited until morning. Or I would have gone upstairs first and put my things away and then come downtown on the subway.” I patted my pockets. “I’ve still got my picks and my flashlight,” I said. “Well, that’s just as well. I may need them.”

  “Bern, what was it you remembered?”

  “The photograph.”

  “The one of King—”

  “Vlados,” I supplied. “Right. I thought I recognized it from the stamps. But I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t? But you checked in the Scott catalog, and there he was, big as life and twice as ugly.”

  “Not ugly at all,” I said. “He’s a good-looking man. Or was, because he’d have to be a hundred and ten by now. But one thing he certainly wasn’t in the stamp catalog was big. The pictures are tiny. I had to use a magnifying glass to make sure it was the same person I saw in the photograph.”

  “So?”

  “So the point is I recognized him from another photograph, and that was what triggered the memory.”

  “What other photo? The one of Ilona with her mother and her father?” Her mouth dropped open. “Bern, is it the Anatrurian version of Anastasia? Is Ilona a long-lost princess? Bern!”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t you see? That explains why she packed up and disappeared. She’s in love with you, Bern.”

  “That would explain it, all right.”

  “No,” she said, impatient. “Don’t you get it? She can’t marry you because you’re a commoner!” She got a faraway look in her eye. “Maybe she’ll abdicate, like the Duke of Windsor, giving up the Anatrurian throne for the man she loves. Why are you looking at me like that, Bern? It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s a princess, either, any more than that apartment was Buckingham Palace. Ilona’s father didn’t look anything like Vlados the First. They’re two different guys.”

  “Oh.”

  “The photo I’m talking about,” I said, “was the one at the Boccaccio.”

  “At the Boccaccio?” Light dawned. “In the apartment you burgled!”

  “Tried to burgle.”

  “There was a photo of a guy in a uniform. And it was him? Vlad the Unveiler?”

  “I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at the photograph,” I admitted. “At the time I didn’t notice much besides his teeth and the way he combed his hair. It was parted in the middle and slicked down.”

  “He sounds like a dreamboat.”

  “And his uniform,” I said. “I noticed his uniform. He looked like a member of the palace guard in a Sigmund Romberg operetta. That was before I went to Ilona’s apartment, and there was something faintly familiar about the guy, but I just thought he looked like Teddy Roosevelt would have looked if he was going on a date with a flapper. Then the next night I saw Ilona’s photo and I knew I’d seen the guy somewhere before. But I wasn’t thinking of the photo from the Boccaccio, not consciously. I don’t know, maybe Max Fiddler’s right. Maybe I ought to start taking ginkgo biloba.”

  “If you can remember to buy it,” she said, “you don’t need it.”

  “Good point. Anyway, when I saw Ilona’s photo Thursday night it rang a bell, and I didn’t know why. Last night it finally came to me.”

  “And you couldn’t wait to get downtown with the news. Except you forgot to tell me.”

  “I had other things to tell you. And the reason I was in a rush to come downtown, well, I didn’t want to go into my own building.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had a feeling somebody might be waiting there for me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t mean Ilona. You mean somebody dangerous.”

  I nodded. “I already had a gun pulled on me. I snapped at Rasmoulian to behave himself and put it away, and damned if he didn’t. But how many times can you get away with that? The next time around he might shoot me. How did he know to come to the bookstore? He even knew my middle name, for God’s sake.”

  “Is he Anatrurian, too, Bern?”

  “I don’t know what he is. Rasmoulian sounds as though it could be Armenian. And Tiglath might be Assyrian.”

  “Assyrian? You mean like from Assyria? Is that a country?”

  “Not recently,” I said. “Remember ‘The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold’? It’s a poem, but that’s the only line I remember. I think the king of ancient Assyria was Tiglath-Pileser. But I might have him confused with somebody else.”

  “How do you know all this, Bern? Did Tiggy happen to have his picture on a stamp?”

  I shook my head. “Will Durant wrote about him, but I forget what he said. You read that stuff and it’s all very interesting, but then you put the book down and it all runs together. I think Tiglath-Pileser kicked a lot of ass back in ancient times, but then most of them did.”

  “And you think Tiglath Rasmoulian is named after him?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. Maybe he changed his name from Caphob. Maybe he’s planning on opening a restaurant called Two Guys From Nineveh.”

  “Nineveh?”

  “That was the big city in Assyria. I think.” I stood up. “You know what the trouble is? I know all this crap, or half know it, everything from scraps of poetry to the capital of South Dakota, but I don’t know any of the important stuff, like what the hell’s going on. One man’s been stabbed to death and another man stuck a gun in my face and I went and fell in love with a beautiful woman just hours before she disappeared without a trace, and all I know is the name of a city in Assyria, and I’m not even sure if I’m right. What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking in the dictionary,” she said. “How do you spell it, anyway? Never mind, I found it. ‘Nineveh, a capital of Assyria, the ruins of which are located on the Tigris River, opposite Mosul.’ Do yo
u want me to look up Mosul?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Mosul, Mosul, Mosul. Where are you, Mosul? Ah. ‘Mosul, a city in northern Iraq, on the Tigris opposite Nineveh.’ Maybe Tiglath got his name from the Tigris.”

  “That’s the whole problem in a nutshell,” I said. “We’ve got a million questions and we’re looking for the answers in stamp catalogs and dictionaries. I’m not going to find out what’s in that portfolio by looking in a book, and I’m not going to catch Hoberman’s killer by browsing in a library.”

  “I know,” she said, “but you have to start somewhere, Bern. Don’t you?”

  “I have to start with a person,” I said, “but I don’t know how to find any of them. Ilona disappeared. So did Hugo Candlemas. Hoberman’s dead. Who does that leave?”

  “How about Tiggy?”

  “Rasmoulian? He gave me a card, but there was nothing on it but his name.”

  “Maybe he’s in the book.”

  “Which book? The stamp catalog or the dictionary?”

  “The phone book.”

  “Fat chance,” I said, but I went and looked anyway, and he wasn’t listed.

  “Speaking of fat…”

  “Tsarnoff,” I said. “The fat man. But I don’t know his first name.”

  “How many Tsarnoffs can there be, Bern?”

  “Good point,” I said, and checked. There weren’t any, which saved having to call them all and try to guess their weight over the phone.

  “I bet there are plenty of Sarnoffs,” Carolyn said.

  “Rasmoulian was very adamant about the Tsss sound. But maybe the fat man spells it with a Z.” I looked, and there weren’t any Tzarnoffs, either.

  Carolyn said, “Who else is there? The two burglars? We don’t know their names. You said a man and a woman, huh?”

  “They made love.”

  “It could still be a man and woman. Maybe it was the guy who lived there and his girlfriend. Did you think of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You did?”

  “Sure. It would explain how they happened to have a key. Maybe they weren’t burglars at all, maybe the guy suddenly got the urge to check his portfolio in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s the kind of guy he is.”

  “Who is he, anyway, Bern?”