The Burglar in the Closet

by Lawrence Block

The problem, of course, derived from an offshoot of Parkinson’s Law. A person, be he bureaucrat or burglar, tends to take for a task as much time as is available for it. Because I knew Crystal Sheldrake would be absent from her apartment for hours on end, I was inclined to spend several of those hours divesting her of her possessions. I’ve always known that burglars should observe the old Playboy Philosophy—i.e., Get In and Get Out—but there’s something to be said for making use of the available time. You can miss things if your work is rushed. You can leave incriminating evidence behind. And it’s a kick, going through another person’s things, participating vicariously (and perhaps neurotically) in that person’s life. The kicks involved are one of the attractions of burglary for me. I can admit that, even if I can’t do anything much about it.

  So I lingered. I could have tossed the Sheldrake pied-à-terre in twenty efficient minutes if I put my mind to it. Instead I took my precious time.

  I’d finished picking the second Sheldrake lock at 7:57—I happened to note the time before easing the door open. At 9:14 I closed my attaché case and fastened the snaps. I picked it up and noted its increased weight with approval, trying to think of the avoir-dupois more in terms of carats than ounces.

  Then I set the case down again and gave the premises another careful contemplative toss. I don’t even know if I was really looking for anything at this point. A person younger than I might have said I was trying to pick up vibrations. Come to think of it, I might have said that myself, but not aloud. What I was probably trying to do, in truth, was prolong the delicious feeling of being where I wasn’t supposed to be and where no one knew I was. Not even Craig knew I was there. I’d told him I would go in a night or two later, but it was such a pleasant evening, such a propitious night for breaking and entering…

  So I was in the bedroom, examining a pastel portrait of a youngish woman elegantly coiffed and gowned, with an emerald at her throat that looked to be head and shoulders above anything I’d stolen from Crystal Sheldrake. The painting looked early nineteenth century and the woman looked French, but she might simply have cultivated the art of looking French. There was something fetching about her expression. I decided she’d been disappointed so many times in life, largely by men, that she’d reached a point where she expected disappointment and decided that she could live with it, but it still rather rankled. I was between women myself at the time and told her with my eyes that I could make her life a joy and a fulfillment, but her chalky blues met mine and she let me know that she was sure I’d be just as big a letdown as everybody else. I figured she was probably right.

  Then I heard the key in the lock.

  It was a good thing there were two locks, and it was another good thing I’d relocked them upon entering. (I could have bolted them as well, so that they couldn’t be opened from outside, but I’d given up doing that a while ago, figuring that it just let citizens know there was a burglar inside and moved them to come back with a cop or two in tow.) I froze, and my heart ascended to within an inch or two of my tonsils, and my body got damp in all those spots the antiperspirant ads warn you about. The key turned in the lock, and the bolt drew back, and someone said something inaudible, to another person or to the empty air, and another key found its way into another lock, and I stopped being frozen and started moving.

  There was a window in the bedroom, conventionally enough, but there was an air conditioner in it so there was no quick way to open it. There was another smaller window, large enough so that I could have gotten through it, but some spoilsport had installed bars on it to prevent some rotten burglar from climbing in through it. This also prevented rotten burglars from climbing out, although the installer had probably not had that specifically in mind.

  I registered this, then looked at the bed with its lacy spread and thought about throwing myself under it. But there wasn’t really a hell of a lot of room between the box spring and the carpet. I could have fit but I could not have been happy about it. And there’s something so undignified about hiding under a bed. It’s such a dreary cliché.

  The bedroom closet was every bit as trite but rather more comfortable. Even as the key was turning in the second Rabson lock, I was darting into the closet. I’d opened it before to paw through garments and check hatboxes in the hope that they held more than hats. It had then been quaintly locked, the key stuck right there in the lock waiting for me to turn it. I don’t know why people do this but they do it all the time. I guess if they keep the key somewhere else it’s too much trouble hunting for it every time they want to change their shoes, and I guess locking a door provides some sort of emotional security even when you leave the key in the lock. I’d taken nothing from her closet earlier; if she had furs they were in storage, and I hate stealing furs anyway, and I certainly wasn’t going to make off with her Capezios.

  At any rate, I hadn’t bothered relocking the closet and that saved unlocking it all over again. I popped inside and drew it shut after me, slipped between a couple of faintly perfumed gowns and adjusted them again in front of me, took a deep breath that didn’t even begin to fill my aching lungs, and listened carefully as the door opened and two people entered.

  It was not hard to know that there were two of them because I could hear them talking, even though I could not yet make out their conversation. From the pitch of their voices I could tell that one was female and one was male, and I assumed the female was Crystal Sheldrake, wheat jeans and paisley blouse and all. I had no idea who the man might be. All I knew was that he was a fast worker, having hustled her back here so swiftly. Maybe he was married. That would explain his hurry, and why they’d wound up here rather than at his place.

  Sounds of ice clinking, sounds of liquid pouring. I breathed in the closet smells of Arpège and Shalimar and antique perspiration and thought wistfully of the two before-dinner martinis I’d neglected to have. I never drink before I work because it might impair my efficiency, and I thought about that policy, and I thought about my efficiency, and I felt rather stupider than usual.

  I hadn’t had the before-dinner drinks and I hadn’t had the dinner either, preferring to postpone that pleasure until I could do it in style and in celebration. I’d been thinking in terms of a latish supper at a little hideaway I know on Cornelia Street in the Village. Those two marts first, of course, and then that cold asparagus soup they do such a good job with, and then the sweetbreads with mushrooms, God, those sweetbreads, and a salad of arugola and spinach with mandarin orange sections, ah yes, and perhaps a half bottle of something nice to go with the sweetbreads. A white wine, of course, but what white wine? It was something to ponder.

  Then coffee, lots of coffee, all of it black. And of course a postprandial brandy with the coffee. No dessert, no point in overdoing it, got to watch the old waistline even if one’s not quite obsessive enough to jog around Gramercy Park. No dessert, then, but perhaps a second snifter of that brandy just to take the edge off all that coffee and reward oneself for a job well done.

  A job well done indeed.

  In the living room, ice continued to clink in glasses. I heard laughter. The radio or the record player was pressed into service. More ice clinking. More laughter, a little more carefree now.

  I stood there in the closet and found my thoughts turning inexorably in the direction of alcohol. I thought about the martinis, cold as the Klondike, three hearty ounces of crystal-clear Tanqueray gin with just the most fleeting kiss of Noilly Prat vermouth, a ribbon of twisted lemon peel afloat, the stemmed glass perfectly frosted. Then my mind moved to the wine. Just what white wine would be ideal?

  “…beautiful, beautiful evening,” the woman sang out. “Know something, though? I’m a little warmish, sweetie.”

  Warmish? I couldn’t imagine why. There were two air conditioners in the apartment, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, and she’d left them both running in her absence. They’d kept the apartment more than comfortable. My hands are always warm and sweaty inside my rubber gloves, but the rest o
f me had been cool and dry.

  Until now, that is. The bedroom air conditioner was having no discernible effect on the air in the closet, which was not what you’d call conditioned. My hands were getting the worst of it and I peeled my gloves off and stuck them in my pocket. At the moment fingerprints were my least pressing concern. Suffocation probably headed the list, or at least it seemed to, and close behind it came apprehension and arrest and prison, following one upon the other in a most unpleasant way.

  I breathed in. I breathed out. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I could get away with this one. Maybe Crystal and her gentleman friend would be sufficiently involved in one another so as not to notice the absence of jewelry. Maybe they’d do whatever they’d come to do, and having done it perhaps they’d leave, or lapse into coma, and then maybe I could let myself out of the closet and the apartment. Then, swag in hand, I could return to my own neighborhood and—

  Hell!

  Swag in hand indeed. My swag, all of it neatly packed in the Ultrasuede attaché case, was not by any means in hand, not in hand and not at hand either. It was resting on the opposite side of the bedroom from me, propped against the wall under the pastel portrait of the disappointed mademoiselle. So even if Crystal didn’t notice the absence of her jewelry she seemed more than likely to notice the presence of the case, and that would indicate not merely that she had been burgled but that the burglar had been interrupted while at work, and that would mean she would put in an urgent phone call to 911, and cop cars would descend upon the scene of the crime, and some minion of the law would be bright enough to open the closet, and I, Bernard Grimes Rhodenbarr, would be instantly up the creek, and in no time at all, up the river as well.

  Hell!

  “Something more comfortable,” the woman said. I could hear them better now because they were en route to the bedroom, which I can’t say astonished me. And then they were in the bedroom, and then they did what they’d come to the bedroom to do, and that’s all you’re going to hear from me on that subject. It was no fun listening to it and I’m certainly not going to try to re-create the experience for you.

  As a matter of fact, I paid them the absolute minimum of attention myself. I let my mind return to the question of the perfect wine as accompaniment to the sweetbreads. Not a French white, I decided, for all that the sweetbreads were a French dish. A German white might have a little more oomph. A Rhine? That would do, certainly, but I decided after some thought that a choice Moselle might carry a wee bit more authority. I thought about a Piesporter Goldtröpfchen I’d had not long ago, a bottle shared with a young woman with whom, as it turned out, that was all that was to be shared. That would be acceptable with the sweetbreads, certainly. One wouldn’t want anything too dry. And yet the dish did call for a wine with a slight lingering sweetness, a fruity nose—

  Of course! My mind summoned up memories of a ’75 Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett, with a full, lovely flowery scent, a tart freshness of flavor like a bite out of a perfect Granny Smith apple, the merest hint of spice, just a trace of tongue-tickling spritz. There was no guarantee that the restaurant I’d chosen would have that particular wine, but neither was there any guarantee that I’d be having dinner there instead of doing five-to-fifteen at Attica, so I might as well give my imagination free rein. And what was that nonsense about a half bottle of wine? Any wine worth drinking was worth having a full bottle of, surely.

  I rounded out my meal somewhat by guessing what the vegetable du jour might chance to be. Broccoli, I decided, steamed al dente, uncomplicated with Hollandaise—just dotted lightly with sweet butter. Or, failing that, some undercooked zucchini sauced very lightly with tomato and basil and dusted with grated Parmesan.

  My thoughts then jumped sensibly enough to the after-dinner brandy. A good Cognac, I thought. Any good Cognac. And I let myself dwell on various good Cognacs I’d had at one time or another and the ever-more-comfortable circumstances than the present in which I’d relished them.

  A drink, I thought, would help. It might not really help, but it would seem to help and I’d settle for that just now. A well-equipped burglar, I told myself, really ought to be supplied with a hip flask. Or even a square flask. A thermos, perhaps, to keep the martinis properly chilled…

  Nothing lasts forever. The lovemaking of Crystal Sheldrake and her latest friend, which certainly seemed eternal to me if not to them, lasted by actual measurement twenty-three minutes. I can’t say when Crystal’s key turned in her lock, having had more urgent matters on my mind at the time. But I did glance at my watch not too long after and noted that it was 9:38. I glanced again when the two of them entered the bedroom. 10:02. I checked again from time to time while the performance was in progress, and when the finale descended with a crash my glow-in-the-dark watch told me it was 10:25.

  There was a spate of silence, a chorus of Gee, you were terrific and You’re sensational and We’ve got to do this more often, all the things good up-to-date people say instead of I love you. Then the man said, “Christ, it’s later than I thought. Half-past ten already. I better get going.”

  “Running back home to what’s-her-name?”

  “As if you didn’t remember her name.”

  “I prefer to forget it. There are moments, my sweet, when I actually manage to forget her existence altogether.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “Of course I’m jealous, baby. Does that come as a surprise to you?”

  “Oh, come on, Crystal, you aren’t really jealous.”

  “No?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Think it’s just a role I play? Maybe you’re right. I couldn’t say. Your tie’s crooked.”

  “Mmm, thanks.”

  They went on like this, not saying anything I had any enormous need to hear. I had trouble keeping all of my mind on their conversation, not only because it was duller than a Swedish film but because I kept waiting for one or the other of them to stub a toe on the attaché case and wonder aloud how it happened to be there. This, however, did not happen. There was more chitchat, and then she walked him to the door and let him out and locked up after him, and I think I heard the sound of her snicking the sliding bolt shut. Fine precaution to take, lady, I thought, with the burglar already tucked away in your clothes closet.

  Then I heard nothing at all for a while, and then the phone rang twice and was answered, and there was a conversation which I couldn’t make out. More silence, this time followed by a temper tantrum of brief duration. “Stinking sonofabitch bastard,” Crystal roared, out of the blue. I had no way of knowing whether she was referring to her recent bedmate, her ex-husband, her telephone caller, or someone else altogether. Nor did I too much care. She yelled out just once, and then there was a thudding sound, perhaps of her heaving something at a wall. Then calm returned.

  And so did Crystal, retracing her steps from living room to bedroom. I guess she had replenished her drink somewhere along the way, because I heard ice cubes clinking. By now, however, I no longer actively wanted something wet. I just wanted to go home.

  The next thing I heard was water running. There was a lavatory in the hallway off the living room, a full bathroom off the bedroom. The bathroom had a stall shower and that’s what I was hearing. Crystal was going to erase the patina of love-making. The man had left and Crystal was going to take a shower and all I had to do was pop out of the closet and scoop up my jewel-laden attaché case and be gone.

  I was just about to do this when the shower became suddenly more audible than it had been. I shrank back behind the rack of dresses and sundry garments, and footsteps approached me, and a key turned, neatly locking me in the closet.

  Which of course was not her intent. She wanted to unlock the door, and she had left it locked and assumed it was still locked, so she’d turned the key, and—

  “Funny,” she said aloud. And paused, and then turned the key in the opposite direction, this time unlocking the closet, and reached in to take a hooded lime-green terry-cloth robe from
a hanger.

  I did not breathe while this was happening. Not specifically to escape detection but because breathing is impossible when your heart is lodged in your windpipe.

  There was Crystal, ash-blond hair stuffed into a coral shower cap. I saw her but she didn’t see me, and that was just fine, and in the wink of an eye (if anyone’s eye winked) she was closing the door again.

  And locking it.

  Wonderful. She had a thing about closets. Some people can’t leave a room for five minutes without turning off the lights. Crystal couldn’t walk away from an unlocked closet. I listened as her footsteps carried her back to the bathroom, listened as the bathroom door closed, listened as she settled herself under her pulsating massagic shower head (no speculation; I’d looked in the bathroom and she had one of those jobbies).

  Then I stopped listening and poked between the dresses and turned the doorknob and pushed, and when the door predictably refused to budge I could have wept.

  What an incredible comedy of errors. What a massive farce.

  I stroked the lock with my fingertips. It was laughable, of course. A good kick would have sent the door flying open, but that would involve more noise than I cared to create. So I’d have to find a gentler way out, and the first step was to get the damned key out of the lock.

  Which is easy enough. I supplied myself with a scrap of paper by tearing one of the protective garment bags that was protecting one of Crystal’s garments. I scrunched down on hands and knees and slipped the paper under the door so that it was positioned beneath the keyhole. Then I used one of my little pieces of steel to poke around in the silly-ass lock until the key jiggled loose and fell to the floor.

  Back on my hands and knees again, tugging at the paper. Tugging gently, because a swift tug would have the effect of a swift yank on a tablecloth, removing the cloth but leaving the dishes behind. I didn’t just want the paper. I wanted the key that was on it as well. Why pick a lock if the key’s just inches from your grasp? Easy does it, take your time, easy, that’s right—