Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (i am reading a book TXT) 📕

another door. Before they were even halfway through the number of possibilities for this one, it began to dawn on them that something might be wrong.

“Better go check,” ordered the plainclothesman, and his partner turned and ran up the stairs. In the confusion of leaving, the keys were dropped, and, losing his place, he had to go through the whole ring before confirming his maddening suspicion. Just as he finished, “He’s gone, Murphy,” came from upstairs, and he kicked the door. Then, noticing July was still there, he said, “He’ll pay for this,” and directed him to lead the way upstairs.

“Get on the phone,” he shouted as soon as they reached the first floor. “Have his car’s description sent out.”

But the other was across the room in the middle of a lamp display. “There’s no hurry,” he said. “A guy like that can’t get very far away. Look at these things here—these ‘lava lights.’ I’ve never seen anything like it. What’ll they think of next?” In anger, the plainclothesman charged out of the building and over to his car radio.

“How do these things work?”

“I think it’s heat,” said July.

Bob Reed was standing with a small family who were looking at sofas. He excused himself politely and went over to the policeman. “Say,” he said, “what’s the trouble here?”

“It doesn’t concern you. Boy, these are really something. How much are they?”

“Seventeen fifty.”

“That much?”

“Is Mr. Carroll in some kind of trouble?”

“For all I know, you are too, so you better get yourself a lawyer and stop asking questions. This smaller one here, how much is it?”

“Fifteen fifty.”

“That much?”

July went into the office and sat down on the desk. The plainclothesman came back from outside and with the uniformed policeman came into the small room that still had no windows and shut the door. The latter carried a lava light and searched around for a plug. “Wait till you see this thing. This guy said itwas heat that did it.” He found an outlet, unplugged the desk lamp and plugged in the light. The heavier orange liquid in the bottom refused to rise.

“It has to warm up,” said July.

“What were you doing when we came in?”

“Filling out an order form.”

“What kind of order form?”

“Here.” July handed him the paper.

He looked at it and put it down. “Where did Carroll go?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you know a man by the name of Bobby Thompson?”

“No.”

“You want to take a ride down to the station?”

“Ask me something I can answer.”

“You know that your boss was involved with a company that exported stolen goods overseas and sold them through discount houses?”

“No.”

“What did you think?” asked the uniformed man. “That all the truckloads of stolen property taken during a single week in the city were sold through secondhand shops? No, there’s no market of that size anywhere. If there was, it’d be discovered. There had to be a mechanism for getting rid of it—an export business. Hell, in an underdeveloped country most secondhand stuff would look like new.”

“A neat little business,” put in the other. “And I suppose you didn’t know anything about it.”

“No.”

“Look, it’s beginning to work! Isn’t that amazing. They cost seventeen fifty, though.”

“That much?”

July was glad for their questions. He didn’t want to be left alone. The companionship of his own thoughts was not welcome.

“Where do you live?”

“Upstairs.”

“Upstairs here?”

“ Yes.”

“Hmmm. How long has this been going on?”

“What?”

“Living in the store.”

“Five years.”

“Hmmm. Did you know—Say, Bailey, why don’t you go up and check his room—just to make sure?”

“The salesman said he drove away in his car.”

“Go ahead and look anyway.”

The uniformed policeman left.

“It’s funny,” the remaining one said, settling down into a chair with a cigar and putting his hat next to July on the desk. “We’ve been looking for an outlet for these ‘dentist office’ burglaries ever since the mid-fifties. We broke up a couple of smaller gangs who actually had delivery trucks and you could call in your order and have the stuff brought over. But they handled musical equipment almost exclusively. Then we turned over this stone in Chelsea—outside of Boston—and who do you suppose was underneath it? Right, Mr. Carroll. And the damnedest thing is—after all these years he’d decided for some reason to get out, and ever since week before last he’s been closing down his contacts and turning his hired thieves back on their own. None of them will testify, of course—criminal morality—and with the trouble we had in getting anything to base a warrant on, we thought he’d surely have his own place cleaned out. I’m surprised. But I suppose you knew all of this.”

“It’s a surprise to me.”

Bailey returned. “Nothing but a bunch of books, Murphy, and a cat. Cruddy little place to live. You’d think the kid was a monk. Are you a monk, kid? Probably not. Ask him where he got the TV. It looks new.”

“Where’d you get the television?”

“Honestly. If you don’t think so, check the serial numbers.”

“I already got them, Murphy. Boy, do I get a kick out of those lights.”

“Now, where do you suppose Carroll went off to?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he went home.”

“No. They’d’ve brought him back already. Oh well, he won’t be hard to find. He’s too used to being obvious. He’s been rich too long. I wonder what a guy like that must be thinking now—knowing he’s going to prison. There’s a basic stupidity in all criminals—at least in criminals who commit passionless crimes. Jesus, if there’s anything important in life, it must be health first, then not being in prison.”

“What’s with all those books?”

“Nothing.”

“You going to some school?”

“No, why? Make you suspicious?”

“Don’t be smart or we’ll take you down to the station. As a matter of fact, I like books myself. Just very odd is all.”

“I liked books when I was a kid,” said Bailey, “until I grew out of’em. Records too. How long do these lava lights keep working?”

“Nobody knows. They just came out.”

“Do you have a crowbar or something we can get into those rooms in the