The Empty Hours by Ed McBain

or
no?”
     
    “Well,
maybe when she started screaming she got me nervous. I mean, you know, I
thought it was my apartment and all.”
     
    “Ralph,
you were burgling that apartment. How about telling us the truth?”
     
    “No, I
got in there by mistake.”
     
    “How’d
you get in?”
     
    “The
door was open.”
     
    “In the
middle of the night, huh? The door was open?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “You
sure you didn’t pick the lock or something, huh?”
     
    “No,
no. Why would I do that? I thought it was my apartment.”
     
    “Ralph,
what were you doing with burglar’s tools?”
     
    “Who?
Who me? Those weren’t burglar’s tools.”
     
    “Then
what are they? You had a glass cutter, and a bunch of jimmies, and some
punches, and a drill and bits, and three celluloid strips, and some
lock-picking tools, and eight skeleton keys. Those sound like burglar’s tools
to me, Ralph.”
     
    “No, I’m
a carpenter.”
     
    “Yeah,
you’re a carpenter all right, Ralph. We searched your apartment, Ralph, and
found a couple of things we’re curious about. Do you always keep sixteen wrist
watches and four typewriters and twelve bracelets and eight rings and a mink
stole and three sets of silverware, Ralph?”
     
    “Yeah.
I’m a collector.”
     
    “Of
other people’s things. We also found four hundred dollars in American currency
and five thousand dollars in French francs.
     
    “Where’d
you get that money, Ralph?”
     
    “Which?”
     
    “Whichever
you feel like telling us about.”
     
    “Well,
the U.S. stuff I ... I won at the track. And the other, well, a Frenchman owed
me some gold, and so he paid me in francs. That’s all.”
     
    “We’re
checking our stolen-goods list right this minute, Ralph.”
     
    “So
check!” Reynolds said, suddenly angry. “What the hell do you want from me? Work
for your goddamn living! You want it all on a platter! Like fun! I told you
everything I’m gonna . . .”
     
    “Get
him out of here,” the chief said. “Next, Blake, Donald, Bethtown, two. Attempted
rape. No statement . . .”
     
    Bert
Kling made himself comfortable on the folding chair and began to doze again.
     
    * * * *

 
     
    11
     
     
    The check made out to George
Badueck was numbered 018. It was a small check., five dollars. It did not seem
very important to Carella., but it was one of the unexplained three, and he decided
to give it a whirl.
     
    Badueck,
as it turned out, was a photographer. His shop was directly across the street
from the County Court Building in Isola. A sign in his window advised that he
took photographs for chauffeurs’ licenses, hunting licenses, passports, taxicab
permits, pistol permits, and the like. The shop was small and crowded. Badueck
fitted into the shop like a beetle in an ant trap. He was a huge man with
thick, unruly black hair and the smell of developing fluid on him.
     
    “Who
remembers?” he said. “I get millions of people in here every day of the week.
They pay me in cash, they pay me with checks, they’re ugly, they’re pretty,
they’re skinny, they’re fat, they all look the same on the pictures I take.
Lousy. They all look like I’m photographing them for you guys. You never see
any of these official-type pictures? Man, they look like mug shots, all of
them. So who remembers this . . . what’s her name? Claudia Davis, yeah.
Another face that’s all. Another mug shot. Why? Is the check bad or something?”
     
    “No, it’s
a good check.”
     
    “So
what’s the fuss?”
     
    “No
fuss,” Carella said. “Thanks a lot.”
     
    He
sighed and went out into the August heat. The County Court Building across the
street was white and Gothic in the sunshine. He wiped a handkerchief across
his forehead and thought, Another face, that’s all. Sighing, he crossed
the street and entered the building. It was cool in the high vaulted
corridors. He consulted the directory and went up to the Bureau of Motor
Vehicles first. He asked the clerk