The Burglar in the Closet

by Lawrence Block

  I kept at it. I checked the kitchen area first. There was no cold cash in the fridge, no hot jewelry in the oven. There was, as a matter of fact, mold and dead food in the former and stale grease and crud in the latter, and I moved on to other areas as quickly as possible.

  The drawers in the captain’s bed contained a jumble of clothing, the wardrobe running mostly to jeans in various stages of disrepute and T-shirts, some of them red Spyder’s Parlor numbers, others imprinted to promote other establishments, causes, or life styles. One drawer held a variety of contraceptive devices plus the sort of sex aids available at adult bookstores—vibrators, stimulators, and diverse rubber and leather objects the specific functions of which I could only guess at.

  No jewels. No dental instruments from Celniker Dental and Optical Supply. No objects of enormous value. It had occurred to me earlier that even if Knobby had no connection with the killing, I could at least make expenses out of the visit. After all, the way things were going it looked as though I’d need money for a lawyer, or for a plane to Tierra del Fuego, or something, and when I open a door without a key I expect to get something tangible for my troubles. I’m no amateur, for God’s sake. I don’t do it for love.

  Hopeless. He had a portable TV, a radio on the dresser top, an Instamatic camera, all items that might have gladdened the heart of a junkie who’d kicked the door in looking for the price of a bag of smack, but nothing I’d lower myself to take. There was a little cash in the top right-hand dresser drawer, accumulated tips I suppose, and I reimbursed myself for what I’d spent at the bar—and his tip was part of it, as far as that goes. Actually I did a little better than get even. There was somewhere between one and two hundred dollars in ones and fives and tens, and I scooped it all up and shook the bills down into a neat stack and found them a home on my hip. No big deal, certainly, but when I find cash around I make it mine. There was change, too, lots of it, but I left it right there and closed the drawer. You’ve got to have standards or where the hell are you?

  Enough. I could inventory every piece of debris in the lad’s apartment, but why bother? I opened his closet, I burrowed among his jackets and coats, and on the overhead shelf I saw something that made my heart turn over, or skip a beat, or stand still, or—you get the idea.

  An attaché case.

  Not mine. Not Ultrasuede but Naugahyde, black, shiny Naugahyde. The Nauga and the Ultra are two altogether different animals. My disappointment at this second discovery was greater than you can possibly imagine. For one moment I’d had the jewels at hand and the murder of Crystal Sheldrake all solved, and now that moment was over and I was back where I’d started.

  Naturally I took the case down and opened it anyway.

  Naturally I was somewhat surprised to find it absolutely jam-packed with money.

  CHAPTER

  Sixteen

  The bills were arranged in inch-thick stacks with buff-colored paper bands around their middles. The stacks rested on their edges so that I couldn’t tell whether the bills were singles or hundreds. For a moment I just stared and wondered. Then I dug out one of the little stacks and riffled through it. The bills were twenties, and I had perhaps fifty of them in my hand. Say a thousand dollars in that stack alone.

  I sampled a few other stacks. They also consisted of twenty-dollar bills, all fresh and crisp. I was looking at—what? A hundred thousand dollars? A quarter of a million?

  Ransom money? A drug payoff? Transactions of that sort usually called for old bills. An under-the-table stock deal? A real-estate transaction, all cash and off the books?

  And how did any of these notions mesh with Knobby Corcoran, a bartender who lived in one disorderly room, owned hardly any furniture, and couldn’t be bothered to double-lock his door?

  I gave the money itself some further study. Then I took ten fresh twenties from the stack and added them to the bills in my wallet. I tucked the rest back in place, closed the case, fastened the hasps.

  I put his tip money back. I’d incorporated his funds with my own and hadn’t kept a close count on what I’d taken, but I didn’t figure he knew, either. I returned around a hundred dollars in assorted bills to his top left-hand dresser drawer, thought about it, and added one of the twenties to the collection. I dropped another bill behind the drawer so that it could only be found by someone who was searching for it. I placed a third bill out of sight at the rear of the closet shelf and wedged a fourth into one of a pair of worn cowboy boots that stood at the back of the closet.

  Neat.

  I turned out the light, let myself out, closed the door behind me. The elevator took me down to the lobby and the doorman wished me good evening. I gave him a curt nod; the soles of my feet still ached from that jump and I blamed him for it.

  A cab came along the minute I got to the street. Sometimes things just work out that way.

  They have these lockers all over New York, in subway stations, at railroad terminals. I used one at Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue; I opened the door, popped the attaché case inside, dropped a pair of quarters in the slot, closed the door, turned the key, took the key out and carried it off with me. It had felt very odd, carrying all that currency around with me, and it felt even odder abandoning it like that in a public place.

  But it would have been stranger still running down to SoHo with it.

  God knows I didn’t want to go there. It hadn’t been that long since I’d faked a heart attack to get away from Walter Ignatius Grabow, and here I was climbing right back onto the horse and sticking my head in the lion’s mouth again.

  But I told myself it wasn’t all that dangerous. If he was home he’d buzz back when I rang his bell, and I’d just make an abrupt U-turn and take off. And he wouldn’t be home anyway, because it was Saturday night and he was an artist and they all go out and drink on Saturday night. He’d be partying it up at somebody else’s loft or knocking back boilermakers at the Broome Street Bar or sharing a jug of California Zinfandel with someone of the feminine persuasion.

  Except that his girlfriend Crystal was dead, and maybe he’d be doing some solitary drinking to her memory, sitting in the dark in his loft, downing shots of cheap rye and not answering the bell when I rang, just moping in a corner until I popped his lock and sashayed flylike into his parlor—

  Unpleasant thought.

  The thought stayed with me after I rang his bell and got no answer. The lock on the downstairs door was a damned good one and the metal stripping where the door met the jamb kept me from prying the bolt back, but no lock is ever quite so good as the manufacturer would have you believe. I did a little of this and a little of that and the pins dropped and the tumblers tumbled.

  I walked up two flights. The second-floor tenant, the one with all the plants, had soft rock playing on the stereo and enough guests to underlay the music with a steady murmur of conversation. As I passed his door I smelled the penetrating aroma of marijuana, its smoke an accompaniment to the music and the talk. I went up another flight and listened carefully at Grabow’s door, but all I could hear was the music from the apartment below. I got down on hands and knees and saw that no light was visible beneath his door. Maybe he was downstairs, I thought, getting happily stoned and tapping his foot to the Eagles and telling everybody about the lunatic he’d cornered that afternoon in the lobby.

  Meanwhile, the lunatic braced himself and opened the door. Grabow had a good thick slab of a door, and holding it in place was a Fox police lock, the kind that features a massive steel bar angled against the door and mounted in a plate bolted to the floor. You can’t kick a door in when it has that kind of a lock, nor can you take a crowbar and pry it open. It’s about the strongest protection there is.

  Alas, no lock is stronger than its cylinder. Grabow’s had a relatively common five-pin Rabson, mounted with a flange to discourage burglars from digging it out. Why should I dig it out? I probed it with picks and talked to it with my fingers, and while it played the maiden I played Don Juan, and who do you think
won that round?

  Grabow lived and worked in one enormous room, with oceans of absolutely empty space serving to divide the various areas of bedroom and kitchen and living room and work space from one another. The living-room area consisted of a dozen modular sofa units covered in a rich brown plush and a couple of low parson’s tables in white Formica. The sleeping area held a king-size platform bed with a sheepskin throw on it. Individual sheepskin rugs covered the floor around the bed. The wall behind the bed was exposed brick painted a creamy buff a little richer than the paper wrapper on the twenty-dollar bills, and hanging on that wall were a shield, a pair of crossed spears, and several primitive masks. The pieces looked to be Oceanic, New Guinea or New Ireland, and I wouldn’t have minded having them on my own wall. Nor would I have minded having what they’d be likely to bring at a Parke-Bernet auction.

  The kitchen was a beauty—large stove, a fridge with an automatic ice-maker in the door, a separate freezer, a double stainless-steel sink, a dishwasher, a washer-drier. Copper and stainless-steel cookware hung from wrought-iron racks overhead.

  The work area was just as good. Two long narrow tables, one chest height, the other standard. A couple of chairs and stools. Printmaking equipment. A ceramicist’s kiln. Floor-to-ceiling steel shelving filled with neatly arranged rows of paints and chemicals and tools and gadgets. A hand-cranked printing press. A few boxes of 100-percent rag-content bond paper.

  It must have been around 10:15 when I opened his door, and I suppose I spent twenty minutes giving the apartment a general search.

  Here are some of the things I did not find: A human being, living or dead. An attaché case, Ultrasuede or Naugahyde or otherwise. Any jewelry beyond some mismatched cufflinks and a couple of tie clips. Any money beyond a handful of change which I found—and left—on a bedside table. Any paintings by Grabow or anyone else. Any artwork except for the Oceanic pieces over the bed.

  Here’s what I did find: Two pieces of meticulously engraved copper plate, roughly two and a half by six inches, mounted on blocks of three-quarter-inch pine. A key of the type likely to fit a safe-deposit box. A desk-top pencil holder, covered in richly embossed red leather, containing not pencils but various implements of the finest surgical steel, each fitted with a hexagonal handle.

  When I left Walter Grabow’s loft I took nothing with me that had not been on my person when I came. I did move one or two of his possessions from their accustomed places to other parts of the loft, and I did place several crisp new twenty-dollar bills here and there.

  But I didn’t steal anything. There was a moment, I’ll admit, when I had the urge to fit one of those masks over my face, snatch the shield and a spear from the wall, and race through the streets of SoHo emitting wild Oceanic war whoops. The impulse was easily mastered, and I left masks and spears and shield where they hung. They were nice, and undeniably valuable, but when you’ve just stolen somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a mill in cash, lesser larceny does seem anticlimactic.

  Just as my cab pulled up in front of Jillian’s building I spotted the blue-and-white cruiser next to the hydrant. “Keep going,” I said. “I’ll take the corner.”

  “I already threw the flag,” my driver complained. “I’m risking a ticket.”

  “What’s life without taking chances?”

  “Yeah, you can say that, friend. You’re not the one who’s taking ’em.”

  Indeed. His tip was not all it might have been and I watched him drive off grumbling. I walked back to Jillian’s, staying close to the buildings and keeping an eye open for other police vehicles, marked or unmarked. I didn’t see any, nor did I notice any coplike creatures lurking in the shadows. I lurked in the shadows myself, and after a ten-minute lurk a pair of familiar shapes emerged from Jillian’s doorway. They were Todras and Nyswander, not too surprisingly, and it was nice to see them still on the job after so many hours. I was happy to note that their schedule was as arduous as my own.

  When they drove off I stayed right where I was for five full minutes in case they were going to be cute and circle the block. When this didn’t happen I considered calling from the booth on the corner to make sure the coast was clear. I didn’t feel like bothering. I buzzed Jillian from the vestibule.

  All the distortion of the intercom couldn’t hide the anxiety in her voice. She said, “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Bernie.”

  “Oh. I don’t—”

  “Are you alone, Jillian?”

  “The police were just here.”

  “I know. I waited until they left.”

  “They say you killed Crystal. They say you’re dangerous. You never went to the boxing matches. You were in her apartment, you killed her—”

  All this over the intercom, yet. “Can I come up, Jillian?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I’ll pick the fucking lock, I thought, and I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll kick your door in. But I said, “I’ve made a lot of progress tonight, Jillian. I know who killed her. Let me up and I’ll explain the whole business.”

  She didn’t say anything, and for a moment I wondered if she’d heard me. Perhaps she had closed the intercom switch. Perhaps at this very moment she was dialing 911, and in a scant hour the swift and efficient New York police would arrive with drawn guns. Perhaps—

  The buzzer buzzed and I opened the door.

  She wore a wool skirt, a plaid of muted greens and blues, and a navy sweater. Her tights were also navy, and on her little feet she wore deerskin slippers with pointed toes that suited her elfin quality. She poured me a cup of coffee and apologized for giving me a hard time over the intercom.

  “I’m a nervous wreck,” she said. “I’ve had a parade of visitors tonight.”

  “The cops?”

  “They came at the very end. Well, you know that, you saw them leave. First there was another policeman. He told me his name—”

  “Ray Kirschmann?”

  “That’s right. He said he wanted me to give you a message. I said I wouldn’t be hearing from you but he gave me a very knowing wink. I wouldn’t be surprised if I blushed. It was that kind of a wink.”

  “He’s that kind of a cop. What was the message?”

  “You’re supposed to get in touch with him. He said you’ve really got the guts of a burglar and you proved it going back to the scene of the crime. He said something about he’s sure you got what you went there for and he’ll want to be on hand to check it out. When I told him I didn’t really understand he said you would understand, and that the main thing was that you should get in touch with him.”

  “‘Back to the scene of the crime.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think I know from something the other cops said. And other things. After Kirschmann left Craig came over.”

  “I thought you told him not to.”

  “I did, but he came anyway and it was easier to let him come up than make a fuss. I told him he couldn’t stay.”

  “What did he want?”

  She made a face. “He was horrid. He really thinks you killed Crystal. He said the police were sure of it and he blames himself for setting it up for you to steal the jewels. That was what he really wanted to tell me—to deny that you had any arrangement with him. He said you’d probably blab if the police arrested you and that it would be his word against yours and naturally they’d take the word of a respectable dentist over that of a convicted burglar—”

  “Naturally.”

  “—but that I would have to swear that your story was a lot of nonsense or he might be in trouble. I said I didn’t believe you would kill anybody and he got very mad and accused me of siding with you against him, and I got nasty myself, and I don’t know what I ever saw in him, I swear I don’t.”

  “He’s got nice teeth.”

  “Then when he left, I was just getting interested in television when his lawyer came over.”

  “Verrill?”

  “Uh-huh. I think he came over mainly to back up Cra
ig. Craig told him about the arrangement with you and naturally he wouldn’t want that to come out, and he tried to let me know how important it was to keep it a secret. I think he was building up to offer me a bribe but he didn’t come right out and say it.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He was really pretty slick, but in a very Establishment way. As if the kind of bribe I could expect wouldn’t be an envelope full of cash but some sort of tax-free trust fund. Not really, but he had that kind of attitude. He said there was no question you murdered Crystal. He said the police had evidence.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “He didn’t say.” She looked away, swallowed. “You didn’t kill her, did you, Bernie?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you’d say that anyway, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what I’d say if I killed her. I’ve never killed anybody so the question’s never come up. Jillian, why on earth would I kill the woman? If she came in and caught me in the act, all I’d want to do would be to get away before the police came. Maybe I’d give her a shove to get out of there, if I had to—”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “No, because she didn’t catch me. But if she did, and if I did shove her, and if she took a bad fall, well, I can see how a person could get hurt that way. It’s never happened yet but I suppose it’s possible. What’s not possible is that I’d stab her in the heart with a dental scalpel I wouldn’t have with me in the first place.”

  “That’s what I told myself.”

  “Well, you were right.”