Story Excerpt

The Ellery Queen Job
by Peter Lovesey

“So what’s this job we’re gonna pull?”

“Did I say anything about a job?”

Duke and Chuck, the go-to guy and the get-in guy, were New York crooks turned hot and bothered by the sweltering August of 1984, when the super-rich and executives had migrated to the Hamptons, leaving empty properties that cried out to be broken into—if only the owners had forgotten to activate their alarm systems.

Tall, thin and British, Duke (Marmaduke Mason on his police record) sported a straw hat, a black blazer fraying at the cuffs, a striped shirt fraying at the collar, gray flannel pants, and a black tie with diagonal light-blue stripes that he told everyone he was one of the few entitled to wear, although no New Yorker had ever asked him why.

He was the planner, forever on the lookout for junk mail piling up, suggesting that the owners were away. He read the local papers and knew when people had come into money. Streetwise and sociable, he had numerous contacts in the criminal underworld who believed they were his friends. All he wanted from them was hot information. Once he’d found a mark, he had no equal at devising ways of parting them from their possessions.

Chuck Hooper was the get-in guy. No lock, bolt, or latch had ever beaten him. He had keys of every sort, lockpicking tools, wire cutters and alarm jammers. Most burglars get in by smashing a window, but Chuck was a professional, one of the old school who liked, if possible, to pick a lock and leave no sign he had got in. The fact that his victims soon discovered they’d been burgled was not the point. He took pride in his work.

He was from the Bronx, a short, round guy with a grin he couldn’t unfix, even for funerals. He dressed in what he found left outside houses, a Giants baseball cap worn backward, a Mets T-shirt, black chinos and dusty sneakers with far too many inserts, gores, and extra straps to have been trendy. Ever.

How this unlikely duo teamed up is another story. We meet them in Bryant Park in Midtown eating an al fresco lunch on a metal bench shaded by trees. There was seating for five, but nobody shared with them. On the lawn in front, a group of women in yoga gear had stopped meditating, rolled up their mats, and moved away as soon as the pair arrived.

“I feel it in my bones, Duke.”

“I always thought you were solid flesh. Get this into your head, little man. There’s no job I can envisage for you and me, not today, not tomorrow, nor all our tomorrows.”

The permanent grin became disappointed, then resigned, then admiring. “The way you talk, you should be a writer.”

“I am.”

His jaw dropped two inches. “No shit? A book writer?’’

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, my friend. But for once, those bones of yours are uncannily correct. I prefer the term author, but yes, my creative mind will not be thwarted. I once composed a work of literature.”

“Get away. A poem?”

Duke drew in a rasp of air. “Daffodils and roads less traveled aren’t my bent. I’m more of a prose man.”

“Your life story?”

“That’s the last thing I want to reveal.”

“A novel, then?”

“I wouldn’t have the time for that.”

“A short story?”

“You got there in the end.”

“So,” Chuck continued to probe. “What about?”

“Crime.”

“Uh-huh.” He raised a stubby thumb. “That figures.”

“You won’t know this,” Duke said, “but the most highly regarded form of crime fiction is the locked-room mystery. It has a tradition going back to Edgar Allan Poe, the founding father. I don’t suppose you have heard of ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’?”

“You’re wrong there, Duke. I watched it on TV once. The monkey did it.”

Duke winced as if he’d taken a punch in the gut. “Television can’t do justice to a story like that. It should be enjoyed from the printed page. It’s an intellectual challenge, not something you goggle at. The finest crime writers have exercised their brains devising ingenious locked-room puzzles—Conan Doyle, Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen.”

“And you, Duke?”

Duke stroked his necktie between fingers and thumb. “If you insist.”

“A locked-room mystery, you called it?”

“Has that sunk in now?”

“Where did you get the idea?”

“I stole it.”

Chuck frowned. “Is that allowed?”

“For pity’s sake, Chuck, it’s crime fiction. We mystery authors all steal from each other.” He spoke as loftily as if he was one of Elmore Leonard’s inner circle.

“You gonna tell me how it was done?”

“Good Lord, no. That would be a spoiler, as we say in the profession. You must wait, like me, for my words to get into print.”

“It’s not out yet?”

Duke sighed and rolled his eyes up the higher floors of the Empire State Building. “I have yet to place it.”

“When will you do that?”

“When the right publisher comes along. My literary agent may auction it to the highest bidder.”

“You have an agent?”

“I am in the process of selecting one.”

Chuck thought for a while. “So is this story only in your head, Duke?”

“Lord, no. It’s on my desk at home. Shall we move on? The sun is going to melt us if we stay much longer.”

They ambled out of the park, headed down 42nd for three blocks, and turned left on Lexington toward the subway station. Chuck wasn’t giving up. He was starting to think this author talk was applesauce, like a lot of the stuff Duke came out with. Several blocks on, he returned to the topic. “So when will I get to read your short story?”

“It’s way ahead of its time. The world may not be ready for such a bold premise.”

Chuck smiled to himself. “Too bad.”

Two minutes passed in silence except for the steady drone of traffic, yet neither man changed the subject.

Chuck couldn’t resist a little mischief.

“It’s gonna be a surefire bestseller. You can bet your last dollar on that.”

Duke modestly spread his hands.

“Is it a murder?”

Duke sighed. “You’ll keep on until I tell you. If you must know, it is, and the victim is killed with a highly original weapon.”

“Let me guess. An icicle in the heart.”

Duke came to such a sudden halt that several office workers had to step off the sidewalk to avoid bumping into him. “How do you know that? Did you break into my apartment?”

“Would I do that to my buddy? No way.”

The author had turned whiter than Hamlet’s father. “Then how on earth . . .?”

“I was in the mystery-writing business myself.”

“You?”

“No kidding. Shall we move on? You see that brown office tower up ahead? 380 Lex, where I worked. Ellery Queen, the World’s Leading Mystery Magazine.”

“Get away.”

“The editor was real nice. She would open the mail in the morning and say, ‘Too bad. Another icicle-in-the-heart story.’” Which was pure invention, but Chuck was starting to enjoy himself. “Sometimes it’s a dagger made of ice and sometimes it’s a bullet.”

Duke had the bruised look of an unseated showjumper. “And the Ellery Queen people employed you?”

Chuck was too softhearted to inflict more pain. “I wasn’t on the payroll, if that’s what you’re asking. I was with MC at the time. The EQ office was part of our franchise.”

“I see.” But Duke didn’t see. He didn’t humble himself by asking what in the name of sanity MC was. He ran the letters through his mental calculator and got nothing. “So you weren’t a fixture in the Ellery Queen suite?”

“I was there each morning.”

And now Duke’s brain supplied a believable explanation. “Ah—with the refreshment trolley? Manhattan Catering.”

“Midtown Cleaning.”

“Huh—you were the office cleaner.” Unlike his companion, Duke was not softhearted. His injured pride turned savagely to scorn. “A mop artist. A freaking scrubber. That much I can believe. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? I thought all the hoovering was done out of office hours.”

“Yeah. I started at five-thirty, doing three other suites along the corridor, and Ellery Queen was the last and sometimes the editor arrived early and told me to finish up while she opened the mail. They had this policy of reading everything that came in and there were always new stories from wannabe writers. Did you send your story there?”

“I don’t remember,” Duke lied. “If I did, I don’t suppose they could afford my asking price.”

“If it was the icicle story, they wouldn’t have used it,” Chuck said with the authority of an insider. “That trick is over a hundred years old.”

“How do you know that?”

“The editor said so.”

“You were supposed to be sweeping the floor, not eavesdropping.”

“It’s not like it was top secret.”

Duke was incensed. “You’re a bullshitter, Chuck Hooper. You led me to believe you were editorial, not a common skivvy.”

“We all gotta live, Duke. Matter of fact, they treated me like one of the team. Some books I cleaned was so precious I had to wear polythene gloves and use a feather duster. I picked them off the shelf one by one and blew on them and stroked them with the feathers. I wasn’t allowed to shake them or slam them shut because it would damage the spines. They told me that wasn’t cleaning, it was curating. I came in special on the first Saturday in the month and got time and a half.”

“What books were these?”

“A complete run of Ellery Queens going back to nineteen forty-one. A bunch of bound volumes with hundreds of loose ones as well. After eighty years, the early ones smelt like a gorilla’s armpit. I suggested spraying them with a deodorant and the editor was horrified. Some of those critters from the nineteen forties in good condition go for big bucks.”

“These were on open shelves?’

They had stopped at an intersection. Duke was so deep in thought that he forgot to walk when the sign lit up. Someone shoved him in the back.

“Behind glass,” Chuck answered the question after they had both crossed. “The cabinet was kept locked, but I knew where to find the key. Saturdays I had the place to myself.”

“They trusted you with these rare magazines?”

“I told you, Duke. It was my curating day.”

“Did you lift any?”

“Every goddamn one of them, to blow off the dust. It was a full morning’s work.”

“I mean lift, as in purloin.”

Chuck said in a shocked tone, “No chance. They’d know right away who nicked them. I could have lost my job.”

“Lost your job and gained big bucks.”

“I’m not a book guy, Duke. I wouldn’t know where to unload old magazines.”

“You could have asked me. How many are there?”

“I dunno. Too many to count. The latest wouldn’t be worth much.”

“A complete run would. I don’t suppose anyone outside their office has a complete run. Some collector would give an arm and a leg for all the Ellery Queens ever printed.”

They reached the subway entrance before any more was said. This was the station Chuck used because it was a cinch for fare-dodging. “See you in the park tomorrow?” he said.

“Not tomorrow or the next day,” Duke said and added mysteriously, “My diary is full. Thursday I can manage at a pinch.”

 

A smartly dressed woman was fanning herself with Harper’s magazine on their usual bench on Thursday lunchtime. When Chuck got out his Burger King fried onion rings, she looked at her watch, said, “Is it as late as that?” and moved off sharply. He was joined shortly after by Duke with a roast beef on rye he couldn’t open because the plastic packaging was too tough.

“Want me to try?”

Duke handed it over and winced when Chuck put the pack to his mouth and peeled it open with his teeth.

“There’s a way into everything.”

After they’d eaten, Duke picked up their earlier conversation as if two days hadn’t passed since they last spoke. “This cabinet with the Ellery Queens. Is it made of wood?”

Chuck nodded. He wasn’t sure he wanted this conversation.

“And you said you know where the key is?”

“Two years ago, I did. It may not be there anymore.”

“Where was it kept when you were cleaning?”

“Curating.”

“Blowing off the dust.”

“Top, left side.”

“The top of the cupboard? How tall is it?”

“Taller than me or you. I had to reach up and feel for it.” Chuck tried once more to sow some seeds of caution. “They may not keep it there now.”

“They will. Old habits die hard.”

“Why do you wanna know, Duke?”

“I have been making some enquiries. I found a collector in Arizona who will pay cash for the set, no questions asked.”

“The set? He wants them all?”

“That’s how it is with serious collectors. They’re obsessive. They want to own everything.”

“If we clear out the cabinet, it’s gonna be obvious.”

“Inevitably.”

“That’s a lotta magazines.”

“My man is willing to pay twenty bucks for each, even the most recent ones that retail at one seventy-five.”

“He’s nuts.”

“All collectors are nuts.”

“How much is that?”

“Depends how many there are.” Duke pulled a copy of the magazine from his blazer pocket. “The latest issue, liberated this very morning from the magazine kiosk at Grand Central. They should tell us at the back.” He turned it over and found the indicia on the final page. “Neat. This happens to be number four hundred ninety-six.”

Chuck wasn’t slow in calculating illegal profits. “Call it five hundred. At twenty each that’s ten grand.” He whistled.

“Minus expenses,” Duke said. “We need wheels to shift them and a reliable driver.”

There was a pause while Chuck took in the seriousness of what was being proposed. “You think this is on?”

“Are you persuaded?”

He had been desperate for work, and now he was conflicted. He scratched his chin. “It’s high risk for me. My name is gonna come up as someone who knew where the key is kept.”

“The cleaner, from two years ago? No chance. How long did you work there?”

“Coupla months.”

“Did they even know your name?”

Chuck shook his head. “I was on parole at the time, calling myself Chip. You can’t be too careful. But people remember my face.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I would say it’s eminently forgettable. Put a stocking over it if you want. This is a doozy, Chuck. No cop is going to look twice at a couple of guys loading a car trunk with a pile of old pulp magazines.”

“What’s my cut?”

“Fifty-fifty, as always. Are you in?”

“Can I think it over?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I want to get on with this. If you want out, I can find muscle somewhere else, no problem.”

“Okay, I’m in.”

 

Duke was a master of strategy. He drew up a list of requirements, notably a hand truck, rubber gloves, and seven easy-assembly archive boxes that came in flat packs. He’d measured the magazine and estimated each box would hold eighty copies. There wouldn’t be vast expense involved, because they could hire the truck for the weekend along with brown coats that would make them look like porters and get them past the desk in the lobby.

They would use a driver they both knew well, Shift Smith, who stayed calm in situations of stress as long as no one called him Shifty. Before dawn on the Saturday morning he would pick up their transport from the long-term parking lot at LaGuardia.

Chuck was handed some cash and deputed to buy the archive boxes from a stationery store in Queens. “Oh, and get two bottles of water.”

“I don’t drink water out of bottles, Duke.”

“I didn’t say you did. Two large ones, still, not sparkling.”

Before investing any more cash, Duke decided on a bold but necessary move. He would visit the Ellery Queen suite during office hours for interior surveillance, as he put it. Chuck was unhappy with that, and said so.

“You said yourself it may not still be there,” Duke explained. “We could be wasting our time.”

“You said old habits die hard.”

“This is for real now. There’s another saying about wise and foolish virgins.”

Chuck didn’t know the saying. He wasn’t a virgin and he doubted whether Duke was. “You don’t expect me to join you?”

“I can manage the surveillance alone. Where exactly is the cupboard?”

“Behind the editor’s desk. . . .”

Read the exciting conclusion in this month’s issue on sale now!

Copyright © 2024 The Ellery Queen Job by Peter Lovesey