The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

by Lawrence Block

  “Carolyn, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m dying of thirst, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “No shit, Bernie.”

  “You are. You drank two beers and a pint of Scotch and you’re shitfaced.”

  She braced an elbow on her knee, rested her head in the palm of her hand and gave me a look. “In the first place,” she said, “it wasn’t a pint, it was maybe six ounces, which isn’t even half a pint. We’re talking about three drinks in a good bar or two drinks in a terrific bar. In the second place, it’s not nice to tell your best friend that she’s shitfaced. Pie-eyed, maybe. Half in the bag, three sheets to the wind, a little under the weather, all acceptable. But shitfaced, that’s not a nice thing to say to someone you love. And in the third place—”

  “In the third place, you’re still drunk.”

  “In the third place, I was drunk before I drank your booze in the first place.” She beamed triumphantly, then frowned. “Or should that be the fourth place, Bernie? I don’t know. It’s hell keeping track of all these places. In the fifth place I was drunk when I got back to my place, and then I had a drink before I came up to your place, so that makes me—”

  “Out of place,” I suggested.

  “I don’t know what it makes me.” She waved an impatient hand. “That’s not the important thing.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  “What is?”

  She looked furtively around. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody,” she said.

  “’To tell anybody what?”

  “There aren’t any bugs in this place, are there, Bern?”

  “Just the usual roaches and silverfish. What’s the problem, Carolyn?”

  “The problem is my pussy’s been snatched.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “My kid’s been catnapped.”

  “Your kid’s been—Carolyn, you don’t have any kids. How much did you have to drink, anyway? Before you got here?”

  “Shit on toast,” she said, loud. “Will you just listen to me? Please? It’s Archie.”

  “Archie?”

  She nodded. “Archie,” she said. “They’ve kidnapped Archie Goodwin.”

  Chapter Four

  “The cat,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Archie the cat. Your Burmese cat. That Archie.”

  “Of course, Bern. Who else?”

  “You said Archie Goodwin, and the first thing I thought—”

  “That’s his full name, Bern.”

  “I know that.”

  “I didn’t mean Archie Goodwin the person, Bern, because he’s a character in the Nero Wolfe stories, and the only way he could have been kidnapped would be in a book, and if that happened I wouldn’t run up here in the middle of the night and carry on about it. You want to know the truth, Bern, I think you need a drink more than I do, which is saying something.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  It was more like five. I walked down the hall past my friend Mrs. Hesch’s apartment to Mrs. Seidel’s. Mrs. Seidel was visiting family in Shaker Heights, according to Mrs. Hesch. I rang her bell for safety’s sake, then let myself into her apartment. (She’d gone off without double-locking her door, so all I had to do was loid the springlock with a strip of plastic. Someone, I thought, would have to talk to Mrs. Seidel about that.)

  I came back from there with a mostly full bottle of Canadian Club. I poured drinks for both of us. Carolyn had hers swallowed before I had the cap back on the bottle.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  I took a drink myself, and as it hit bottom I remembered that I was pouring it into a very empty stomach. It would be a lot easier to get me drunk than to get Carolyn sober, but I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. I opened the fridge and built a sandwich of thin-sliced Polish ham and Monterey jack cheese on one of those dark musky rye breads that comes in little square loaves. I took a big bite and chewed thoughtfully and could have killed for a bottle of Dos Equis.

  “What about Archie?” I said.

  “He doesn’t drink.”

  “Carolyn—”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to be drunk, Bern.” She tilted the bottle and helped herself to a few more cc’s of the CC, as it were. “I went home and fed the cats and had something to eat, and then I got restless and went out. I kept bopping around. I think I had a touch of moon madness. Did you happen to notice the moon?”

  “No.”

  “Neither did I, but I’ll bet it’s full or close to it. I kept feeling as though the problem was that I just wasn’t in the right place. So I’d go somewhere else and I’d feel the same way. I went to Paula’s and the Duchess and Kelly’s West and a couple of straight bars on Bleecker Street, and then I went back to Paula’s and played a little pool, and then I hit this pigpen on Nineteenth Street, I forget the name, and then I hit the Duchess again—”

  “I get the picture.”

  “I was bouncing is what I was doing, and of course you have to have a drink when you go to a place, and I went to a lot of places.”

  “And had a lot of drinks.”

  “What else? But I wasn’t looking to get drunk, see. I was looking to get lucky. Will true love ever come to Carolyn Kaiser? And, failing that, how about true lust?”

  “Not tonight, I gather.”

  “I’ll tell you, I couldn’t get arrested. I called Alison a couple of times, which I swore I wasn’t gonna do, but it’s all right because she didn’t answer. Then I went home. I figured I’d make it a reasonably early night, maybe have a brandy before I turned in, and I opened the door and the cat was missing. Archie, I mean. Ubi was fine.”

  Archie, full name Archie Goodwin, was a sleek Burmese given to eloquent yowling. Ubi, full name Ubiquity or Ubiquitous, I forget which, was a plump Russian Blue, more affectionate and a good deal less assertive than his Burmese buddy. Both had started life as males, and each had received at a tender age the sort of surgical attention which leaves one purring in soprano.

  “He was hiding somewhere,” I suggested.

  “No way. I looked in all his hiding places. In things, under things, behind things. Besides, I ran the electric can opener. That’s like a fire alarm to a dalmatian.”

  “Maybe he snuck out.”

  “How? The window was shut and the door was locked. John Dickson Carr couldn’t have slipped him out of there.”

  “The door was locked?”

  “Locked up tight. I always double-lock my dead bolt locks when I go out. You made me a believer in that department. And I locked the Fox police lock. I know I locked all those locks because I had to unlock them to get in.”

  “So he went out when you left. Or maybe he snuck out while you were letting yourself in.”

  “I would have noticed.”

  “Well, you said yourself that you’d had a few drinks more than usual to celebrate the full moon. Maybe—”

  “I wasn’t that bad, Bern.”

  “Okay.”

  “And he never does that anyway. Neither of the cats ever tries to get out. Look, you could say this and I could say that and we’d be going around Robin Hood’s barn because I know for a fact the cat was snatched. I got a phone call.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what time I got home and I don’t know how much time I spent looking for the cat and running the electric can opener. There was a little brandy and I finally poured some for myself and sat down with it and the phone rang.”

  “And?”

  She poured another drink, a short one, and paused with the glass halfway to her lips. She said, “Bern? It wasn’t you, was it?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean I could see how it could be a joke that got out of hand, but if it was, tell me now, huh? If you tell me now there won’t be any hard feelings, but if you don’t tell me now all bets are off.”

  “You
think I took your cat.”

  “No I don’t. I don’t think you’ve got that kind of an asshole sense of humor. But people do wacky things, and who else could unlock all those locks and lock ’em up again on the way out? So all I want you to do is say, ‘Yes, Carolyn, I took your cat,’ or ‘No, you little idiot, I didn’t take your cat,’ and then we can get on with it.”

  “No, you little idiot, I didn’t take your cat.”

  “Thank God. Except if you had I’d know the cat was safe.” She looked at the glass in her hand as if seeing it for the first time. “Did I just pour this?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I must have known what I was doing,” she said, and drank it. “The phone call.”

  “Right. Tell me about it.”

  “I’m not sure if it was a man or a woman. It was either a man making his voice high or a woman making her voice husky, and I couldn’t tell you which. Whoever it was had an accent like Peter Lorre except really phony. ‘Ve haff ze poosycat.’ That kind of accent.”

  “Is that what he said? ‘Ve haff ze poosycat’?”

  “Or words to that effect. If I want to see him again, di dah di dah di dah di dah.”

  “What are all the di dahs about?”

  “You’re not gonna believe this, Bern.”

  “He asked for money?”

  “A quarter of a million dollars or I’ll never see my cat again.”

  “A quarter of a—”

  “Million dollars. Right.”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “Dollars. Right.”

  “For—”

  “A cat. Right.”

  “I’ll be a—”

  “Child of a dog. Right. So will I.”

  “Well, it’s nuts,” I said. “In the first place the cat’s not worth any real money. Is he show quality?”

  “Probably, but so what? You can’t breed him.”

  “And he’s not a television star like Morris. He’s just a cat.”

  “Just my cat,” she said. “Just an animal I happen to love.”

  “You want a hankie?”

  “What I want is to stop being an idiot. Shit, I can’t help it. Gimme the hankie. Where am I gonna get a quarter of a million bucks, Bern?”

  “You could start by taking all your old deposit bottles back to the deli.”

  “They add up, huh?”

  “Little grains of water, little drops of sand. That’s another thing that’s crazy. Who would figure you could come up with that kind of money? Your apartment’s cozy, but Twenty-two Arbor Court isn’t the Charlemagne. Anyone bright enough to get in and out and lock up after himself—he really locked up after himself?”

  “Swear to God.”

  “Who has keys to your place?”

  “Just you.”

  “What about Randy Messinger?”

  “She wouldn’t pull this kind of shit. And anyway the Fox lock is new since she and I were lovers. Remember when you installed it for me?”

  “And you locked it when you left, and unlocked it when you came back.”

  “Definitely.”

  “You didn’t just turn the cylinder. The bar moved and everything.”

  “Bernie, trust me. It was locked and I had to unlock it.”

  “That rules out Randy.”

  “She wouldn’t have done it.”

  “No, but somebody could have copied her keys. Do I still have my set?” I went and checked, and I still had them. I turned, saw my attaché case propped up against the sofa. If I sold its contents for their full market value, I might have two-fifths of the price of a secondhand Burmese cat.

  Oh, I thought.

  “Take a couple of aspirin,” I said. “And if you want another drink, have it with hot water and sugar. You’ll sleep better.”

  “Sleep?”

  “Uh-huh, and the sooner the better. You take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’ll take the couch. Except I won’t because I don’t want to go to sleep and I can’t stay here anyway. They said they would call me in the morning.”

  “That’s why I want you to get to sleep. So you’ll be clearheaded when they call.”

  “Bernie, I got news for you. I’m not gonna be clearheaded in the morning. I’m gonna have a head like a soccer ball that Pelé got pissed at.”

  “Well, I’ll be clearheaded,” I said, “and one head is better than none. The aspirin’s in the medicine cabinet.”

  “What a clever place for it. I bet you’re the kind of guy who keeps milk in the fridge and soap in the soap dish.”

  “I’ll fix you a hot toddy.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? I have to be at my place for when they call.”

  “They’ll call here.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because you don’t have a quarter of a million dollars,” I said, “and who could mistake you for David Rockefeller? So if they want a hefty ransom for Archie they must expect you to steal it, and that means they must know you’ve got a friend in the stealing business, and that means they’ll call here. Drink this and take your aspirin and get ready for bed.”

  “I didn’t bring pajamas. Have you got a shirt or something that I can sleep in?”

  “Sure.”

  “And I’m not sleepy. I’ll just toss and turn, but I guess that’s all right.”

  Five minutes later she was snoring.

  Chapter Five

  A sign on the counter said the suggested contribution was $2.50. “Contribute more or less if you prefer,” it counseled, “but you must contribute something.” The chap immediately in front of us plunked down a dime. The attendant started to tell him about the suggested contribution, but our lad wasn’t open to suggestion.

  “Read your own sign, sonny,” he said sourly. “How many times do I have to go through this with you vermin? You’d think it was coming out of your own pockets. They haven’t got you on commission, have they?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I’m an artist. The dime’s my widow’s mite. Take it in good grace or in the future I’ll reduce my contribution to a penny.”

  “Oh, you can’t do that, Mr. Turnquist,” the attendant said archly. “It would throw our whole budget out of whack.”

  “You know me, eh?”

  “Everybody knows you, Mr. Turnquist.” A heavy sigh. “Everybody.”

  He took Turnquist’s dime and gave him a little yellow lapel pin for it. Turnquist faced us as he fastened the pin to the breast pocket of his thrift shop suit jacket. It was a sort of gray, and came reasonably close to matching his thrift shop trousers. He smiled, showing misaligned tobacco-stained teeth. He had a beard, a ragged goatee a little redder than his rusty brown hair and a little more infiltrated with gray, and the rest of his face was two or three days away from a shave.

  “Little tin gods on wheels,” he advised us. “That’s all these people are. Don’t take any crap from them. If Art can be intimidated, it ain’t Art.”

  He moved on and I laid a five-dollar bill on the counter and accepted two lapel pins in return. “An artist,” the attendant said meaningfully. He tapped another sign, which announced that children under the age of sixteen were not admitted, whether or not accompanied by an adult. “We ought to amend our policy,” he said. “No children, no dogs, and no artists.”

  I’d awakened before Carolyn and went directly to a liquor store on West Seventy-second, where I bought a replacement bottle of Canadian Club. I took it home and knocked on Mrs. Seidel’s door, and when my knock went unanswered I let myself in and cracked the seal on the bottle, poured an ounce or so down the sink drain, capped the bottle and put it back where I’d found its fellow the night before. I let myself out and met Mrs. Hesch in the hallway, the inevitable cigarette burning unattended in the corner of her mouth. I stopped at her apartment for a cup of coffee—she makes terrific coffee—and we talked, not for the first time, about the coin-operated laundry in t
he basement. She was exercised about the driers, which, their dials notwithstanding, had two temperatures—On and Off. I was vexed with the washers, which were as voracious as Pac-Man when it came to socks. Neither of us said anything about the fact that I’d just let myself out of Mrs. Seidel’s place.

  I went back to my apartment and listened to Carolyn being sick in the bathroom while I put a pot of coffee on. She came out looking a little green and sat in the corner of the couch holding her head. I showered and shaved and came back to find her staring unhappily at a cup of coffee. I asked her if she wanted aspirin. She said she wouldn’t mind some Extra-Strength Tylenol, but I didn’t have any. I ate and she didn’t and we both drank coffee and the phone rang.

  A woman’s voice, unaccented, said, “Mr. Rhodenbarr? Have you spoken to your friend?”

  I thought of pointing out that the question was implicitly insulting, presuming that I only had one friend, that I was the sort of person who couldn’t possibly have more than a single friend, that I was lucky to have one and could probably expect to be deserted by her when she wised up.

  I said, “Yes.”

  “Are you prepared to pay the ransom? A quarter of a million dollars?”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as a shade high? I know inflation’s murder these days, and I understand it’s a seller’s market for Burmese cats, but—”

  “Do you have the money?”

  “I try not to keep that much cash around the house.”

  “You can raise it?”

  Carolyn had come over to my side when the phone rang. I laid a reassuring hand on her arm. To my caller I said, “Let’s cut the comedy, huh? Bring the cat back and we’ll forget the whole thing. Otherwise—”

  Otherwise what? I’m damned if I know what kind of a threat I was prepared to make. But Carolyn didn’t give me the chance. She clutched my arm. She said, “Bernie—”

  “Ve vill kill ze cat,” the woman said, her voice much louder and suddenly accented. The effect was somewhere between an ad for Viennese pastry mit schlag and that guy in the World War II movies who reminds you that you’ve got relatives in Chermany.