The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza by Lawrence Block

right?”
    “Sure. Colcannon can identify the men who killed his wife. We’ve already established that he can’t identify me. All they’ve got that leads to me is a rubber glove, and if the glove doesn’t fit, how can I wear it? If one of us had to drop a glove, I’m damned glad it was you.”
    “I wish that made me feel better.”
    “You’ve got to look on the bright side. Another thing to be glad of is that Colcannon wasn’t killed. If they had known Wanda was dead they probably would have killed him, too, and then he wouldn’t have been around to get me off the hook.”
    “I didn’t think of that.”
    “I did.” I lifted the phone from her desk. “Anyway, I’d better call Abel.”
    “Why?”
    “To tell him we didn’t kill anybody.”
    “He already knows that, doesn’t he? It’s a shame neither of us bothered to read the Post, but won’t it tell what time she was killed?”
    “Probably.”
    “Well, it was around 11:30 when we got to Abel’s. I remember it was 12:07 when he checked the Piagetwatch against yours. And it was after midnight when the Colcannons walked in on the burglars, so how could Abel think we did it?”
    “My God,” I said. “He’s our alibi.”
    “Sure.”
    “I hope to God we never have to use him. Imagine trying to beat a burglary charge by insisting you were spending the time with a fence, trying to sell the things you’d already lifted from the burglary victim.”
    “When you put it that way, it does sound bizarre.”
    “I know.” I began dialing. “I’ll call him anyway and put him in the picture. He may not have noticed the timing and assume we killed that woman, and I wouldn’t want that.”
    “Would he refuse to handle the coin?”
    “Why?”
    “If we were killers—”
    The phone was ringing. I let it ring. “Abel’s a fence,” I said. “Not a judge. Anyway, we didn’t do it and I can make him believe it. If he’d ever answer his goddamned phone.”
    I hung up. Carolyn frowned to herself for a moment, then said, “It’s just business as usual, isn’t it? Wanda’s dead but nothing’s changed. Abel will sell the coin in a few days or a few months and we’ll get our share, same as if nothing ever happened to her.”
    “That’s right.”
    “It seems wrong. I don’t know why.”
    “We didn’t kill her, Carolyn.”
    “I know that.”
    “We didn’t do anything to cause her death.”
    “I know that, too. It was some other guys and they had no connection with us. I understand all that, Bern. I just feel funny, that’s all. What do you think we’ll get?”
    “Huh?”
    “For the coin.”
    “Oh. I don’t know.”
    “How will we know what price he sells it for?”
    “He’ll tell us.”
    “What I mean is he won’t cheat us, will he?”
    “Abel? He might.”
    “Really?”
    “Well, the man’s a receiver of stolen goods,” I said. “I imagine he’s told a lie or two in the course of a long life. I don’t suppose he’d draw the line at telling another. And it’s the easiest sort of a lie because there’s no way for us to know about it.”
    “Then how can we trust him?”
    “In a sense I don’t suppose we can. Not to be perfectly honest, anyway. If he got lucky and peddled the V-Nickel for half a million dollars, say, I’d guess he might tell us he got two hundred thousand dollars for it. We’d get half of that, and I suppose he’d have cheated us out of a bundle if that happened, but would we really have a complaint? It would be hard for me towork up much indignation if my end of a night’s work came to fifty thousand dollars.”
    “Suppose he tells us he sold it for fifty thousand? Then what?”
    “Then he’ll probably be telling the truth. My guess is that he’d be most likely to cheat us if the coin sells high and most likely to be completely honest if the selling price is low. And we can be sure that our end won’t drop below seventeen thousand five hundred, because he offered us that much for cash on delivery, so