The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr)

by Lawrence Block

  And then I remembered the pizza.

  When I left, I was carrying T. B. Culloden’s book in the Gristede’s bag, and I had an empty pizza box under one arm. On my way out I set up the police lock’s steel bar, and took time to undo all my earlier work, turning each cylinder and locking all three locks. I went down the stairs, paused in the vestibule to transfer my gloves from my hands to my pockets, and went out into the night.

  I turned left when I hit the street and left again at University Place, heading uptown. I dropped the pizza box in the first trash can I came to and the gloves in the second. At Eleventh Street I considered walking half a block and leaving the book at my store. What better place to hide a book than a bookshop?

  But did I really want to unlock my door at that hour? I had every right to do so, I was the store’s lawful sole proprietor, but would I enjoy proving as much to a suspicious patrolman? And he’d have the right to stop and frisk me, even if I was neither young nor black, and what would he make of the flashlight and burglar tools?

  I had the Gristede’s bag in one hand. I held up the other one, and hailed a taxi.

  “Juneau Lock!”

  “Music to my ears,” I told her, wondering what sense the words would make to her. Not that I was required to say anything. She was already dishing out whatever today’s treat might be, filling a couple of containers with something that smelled dangerously wonderful.

  “Ver’ spicy,” she said, shaking her head in mock warning. “Juneau Lock spicy.”

  “We love spicy.”

  A smile lit up her face, and the whole room along with it. She was a slip of a girl, her face a perfect oval, her features as dainty and delicate as, well, a china doll. The shapeless smock she wore kept me from knowing what her figure was like, and it seemed to me that I was better off in my ignorance.

  She was really adorable. Carolyn had assured me she wasn’t interested in girls, and that left boys, and if only we had a language in common I might have made an effort. But all I did was pay for the food, and we smiled and giggled at each other, and I walked out wondering how difficult it would be for me to learn Mandarin.

  Or did she speak Taiwanese? There were people all over town advertising Mandarin lessons, but I couldn’t recall any listings in Craigslist offering to teach you how to ask directions in Taipei. But didn’t the Taiwanese all know how to speak Mandarin, the way the Scots all know how to speak English?

  Maybe, come to think of it, just a little more comprehensibly than Scots speaking English . . .

  “Juneau Lock,” Carolyn said. “And just in time, because I’m starving. I didn’t realize I was hungry until I got a whiff of the food. How come it always smells different, and yet it’s always recognizably Juneau Lock?”

  “That’s one of life’s mysteries,” I said.

  “And the list keeps getting longer, doesn’t it? Mmm, this does smell terrific.”

  “Even better than pizza.”

  “Is that what you were thinking of bringing today?”

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  “It can cross your mind,” she said, “just so long as it keeps right on walking. This is a much better idea than pizza. Not that there’s anything wrong with pizza, but there’s a time and a place for it.”

  We ate for a few minutes in silence, too involved with the food to talk, and then she asked why I’d mentioned pizza at all.

  “Because of last night,” I said. “You know what they tell people in National Parks? ‘Take only snapshots, leave only footprints.’ Last night I visited somebody a few blocks from here, and I don’t think I left any footprints, but I did leave the smell of pizza.”

  “And you didn’t take snapshots,” she said, after I’d filled her in. “You took a book and you left an odor.”

  “I prefer to think of it as an aroma.”

  “By the time they get back, Bern, it’ll be too faint to notice. Or they’ll think it came in from the street. Especially with no other evidence that anyone was in there while they were gone. But even if you left a note on the kitchen table, ‘Thanks for your hospitality, I had a great time in your apartment,’ would they be able to tell they’d been burgled?”

  “Only if he missed the book,” I said.

  “You think it’s one of his favorites? Is Colonial silver a big passion for Mel?”

  I hadn’t seen any silver, Colonial or otherwise. “I’m not sure he ever read it. His book-buying habits are all over the map. There’s a lot of fiction, along with a whole lot of history. He’s got Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic, Trevelyan’s three-volume England Under Queen Anne, Oman’s Britain Before the Norman Conquest. A fair number of biographies. Natural history—he’s got Archie Carr’s definitive work on the turtles and tortoises of North America, side by side with The Burgess Bird Book for Children.”

  “I had that book when I was a kid! And the one about animals.”

  “The companion volume, both of them by Thornton W. Burgess.”

  “I remember the names of the characters, Bern. Jenny Wren, Jerry Muskrat.”

  “Billy Mink.”

  “Right, Billy Mink! I haven’t thought of Billy Mink in years. He was a mean little bastard, wasn’t he? I loved those books. I wonder whatever happened to them.”

  “Your mother gave them to the rummage sale,” I said. “Like my comic books.”

  “That must have been some rummage sale. A whole room full of childhood memories.”

  We speculated on what else might be in that enormous room, and Carolyn guessed that the Burgess volume in Wattrous’s library was his own copy from childhood, one that his mother had failed to purge. I said that was likely, as he still had his Oz books, and that sent Carolyn into a long riff on Frank Baum’s fantasy world, and how she longed to go there.

  “I got my hopes up,” she said, “every time the winds reached forty miles an hour. I kept bugging my parents to move us to a house in Kansas.”

  “You’d stand a better chance in a trailer park,” I pointed out.

  “I guess. Bern, the book you took, I forget the author’s name.”

  “Culloden.”

  “It’s real valuable?”

  “What it is,” I said, “is extremely rare. It’s never been reprinted, and none of the rare-book sites on the Internet have a listing. A few university libraries have copies, and for all I know there’s one nobody knows about at the bottom of a box in the Galtonbrook basement.”

  “Along with the last two movements of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.”

  “And the rest of Kublai Khan, and Dickens’ solution to The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I had a look at Culloden’s book. The writing’s hard to get through, but I guess there’s some good information there, if the fine points of American Colonial silver is what keeps you up nights. And there’s a whole section of plates illustrating noteworthy examples from the author’s own collection. Which must have been something, before it was dispersed after his death in 1901.”

  “That wasn’t too long after he published his book.”

  “Just three years. You asked if the book was valuable. The answer’s got to be yes, but it’s hard to put a value on it. There’s virtually no supply, but how much demand is there? It might sit on my bargain table for days without anybody giving it a second glance. Or two people who wanted it could show up at the same auction and bid the price up into four or five figures. But it’s not going to wind up on my bargain table, or on the auction block, either.”

  “I guess Mr. Smith will give it a good home.”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “What would he want with it?”

  An hour later I was back at Barnegat Books, looking at the sheet of paper on which I’d practiced my penmanship. I wadded it up, and the sound the paper made got Raffles’ attention. I gave it a toss, and he pursued it and pounced.

  If he’d been a dog he’d have brought it back, and I could have tossed it again. But he’s a cat, and he did what cats do. He batted it around a few times, decided it was de
ad, recognized it as inedible, and left it there, returning to the sunny spot in the window.

  I picked it up myself and dropped it in the wastebasket. Then I returned to my perch behind the counter and picked up the phone. When a woman told me I’d reached Edwin Leopold’s residence, I asked to speak with Mr. Leopold. She asked for a name, and I had one ready and gave it to her.

  The phone clicked, and I was on Hold, our world’s version of Limbo. At least there was no music, just silence, and it only lasted for a matter of seconds before she clicked back to ask what my call was in reference to.

  “I’m a bookman,” I said. “I’ve just acquired an item that I believe might interest Mr. Leopold.”

  “One moment, please.” Click!

  It was a longer moment than the first one, but then there was another click, followed by a man’s voice, speaking slowly in the Old New York accent you don’t hear much anymore, resonant with culture and good manners. It drew me back into that Childe Hassam painting of Central Park in winter, and carriage rides, and dinners at Delmonico’s.

  “This is Edwin Leopold,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.”

  “It’s Philip Lederer,” I said, “although there’s no reason you should know it, Mr. Leopold. I’m taking the liberty of calling you because I’ve come into the possession of a book I’ve reason to believe might interest you.”

  “So Miss Miller said. I’m not a book collector, sir, although I do have a small and highly specialized library. But why don’t you tell me the name of this volume.”

  “It’s Culloden’s work on Colonial silver,” I said. “That would be Thomas Baird Culloden, and—”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “You actually have a copy in hand?”

  “It’s in front of me right now.”

  “Adventures With Colonial Silver. No, I’ve got that wrong. My Adventures With Colonial Silver. There’s a copy in the library of Trinity College in Hartford. Culloden’s alma mater, he presented them with a copy and they seem to have kept it. They wouldn’t be persuaded either to sell it to me or to have it photocopied. They said I’d be welcome to examine it on their premises. Well, that of course was out of the question. Your copy is sound, Mr. Lederer?”

  “Easily very fine. There’s no dust jacket, but—”

  “I wouldn’t think there was one, would you? A private printing for private distribution? No need for a wrapper to prevent its getting shopworn if it was never to see the inside of a shop. The pages are all there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the plates? Collotype plates, and there should be 24 pages of them.”

  “They’re all here.” I drew a breath. “And there’s an inscription.”

  “Always unfortunate,” he said, “but nothing one can’t live with. Happy Christmas to Celestine from Aunt Mary—something along those lines, I would suppose.”

  “To Hester R. Longbranch,” I read, “to whose illustrious ancestor all of us owe so much. And it’s signed with his initials, T.B.C. I can only assume they’re his initials, and that it’s in his hand, although I can’t verify the latter.”

  “It would have to be,” he said. “Hester R. Longbranch. The middle initial stands for Revere, her illustrious ancestor. Who else but Culloden could have written that inscription? He was honoring one of our greatest patriots, and surely Colonial America’s foremost silversmith. There’s another for whom I have a special affection, but one cannot deny Paul Revere’s greater prominence.”

  “I don’t know anything about silver,” I said. “He’s certainly the one I’ve heard of. One if by land and all that.”

  “ ‘Ready to ride and spread the alarm, To every Middlesex village and farm.’ Have you placed a price on your book, Mr. Lederer?”

  “I thought a thousand dollars.”

  “A nice round sum. Hardly cheap for a volume no one’s ever heard of, but not unreasonable for one on which no one’s ever laid eyes. I’d want to see the book.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t know what you may know about me, but I never leave my residence. I wish I could, but it’s impossible. I could send Miss Miller, but could I ask you to hand a valuable book over to her? Of course she could bring you a check, or even cash, with the understanding that the book can be returned if it turns out to be unacceptable. Though I’m sure it will be just as you describe it, and I’ll be pleased to keep it. How does that sound?”

  Cumbersome, I thought, and not at all what I had in mind. I said, “I’ll bring the book to you, Mr. Leopold. I’m tied up for the rest of the afternoon, but I could come this evening. Say nine o’clock?”

  After I’d ended the call, I had another look at the inscription on the book’s flyleaf. To Hester R. Longbranch . . .

  Who else but Culloden could have written those words? Well, I could, prompted by my man Smith, who’d jotted them down for me. I’d used a calligrapher’s stylus and India ink, and copied them out in the Palmer Method penmanship Miss Rukeyser had drilled into me all those years ago. Wouldn’t the woman be proud of me now?

  Well, probably not, given the circumstances.

  I picked up the phone, made another call. “I’m seeing him tonight,” I said.

  “Oh, good. One doesn’t want these matters to drag out. Though he could hardly have said he’d be out, could he? Did he ask the price?”

  “I told him a thousand dollars.”

  “I rather think he’d have been persuaded to pay a bit more than that. Not that it makes any difference to me. Whatever he pays you is yours to keep. I did tell you that, didn’t I?”

  Indeed he had. Among other things . . .

  It was the previous afternoon when Mr. Smith had paid what I guess was his third visit to Barnegat Books. This time he wore a three-button suit of a medium gray flannel over a red vest of what looked like silk, but may have been rayon. His tie was a lighter gray than his suit, with red polka dots. His shirt was white broadcloth, with a button-down collar.

  He asked me if I knew anything about apostle spoons.

  “Unless they’re what Peter and Paul used to eat their porridge,” I said, “I haven’t got a clue. Why?”

  “This may take a while,” he said, “and we wouldn’t want to be interrupted. There’s a coffee shop on University Place that’s relatively quiet at this hour.”

  “It’s always quiet,” I said. “The food is lousy.”

  “And are the portions small?” He drew a familiar envelope from his pocket. “To make it worth your while,” he said, “to miss an hour’s business.”

  If it held hundreds, like his previous envelopes, then it felt like $5000. Even if they were singles, the next hour was well covered. I put the envelope away without checking its contents, turned the sign in the door from OPEN to CLOSED, locked up, but left the window gates open and the bargain table out on the sidewalk. Let them rob me blind for an hour. What did I care?

  “May I ask you something?”

  We had cups of coffee in front of us, and our slack-jawed waitress was out of hearing range. He nodded, and I asked him about the ¾-inch brass disc attached to his lapel.

  “It’s a button,” he said, and tugged one edge to show me that it was sewn to the fabric.

  “What’s the image?” I leaned closer. “It looks like a little house.”

  “A log cabin, and I’m not wearing it to indicate membership in the Log Cabin Republicans. It’s a campaign button.”

  “I’ve never seen one like it.”

  “That’s because you weren’t old enough to vote in 1840. It was distributed to promote the candidacy of William Henry Harrison, hero of the battle of Tippecanoe.”

  “And Tyler, too,” I said.

  “John Tyler of Virginia was his running mate, and very shortly his successor. Old Tippecanoe delivered an inaugural address of which nothing was recalled later but its inordinate length. They swore in presidents in March in those days, not in January, but it was still very much winter that day in Washington, and the new presi
dent caught his death of cold.”

  “That rings a bell.”

  “He was born in a log cabin,” he said, “of which his Whig supporters made much. Hence the image on the button.”

  “You were wearing something similar before.”

  “I would think so. Which suit was I wearing, do you recall?”

  I had to think. “Your suit was dark, with a chalk stripe,” I said, “but that was the first time I met you. The next time you were wearing a Norfolk jacket.”

  “And each lapel bore a button. You’re an observant man, Mr. Rhodenbarr. And indeed they were different buttons.”

  “I guess they’d have to be, since they’re sewn in place.”

  “The one on the suit,” he said, “is the same size as this one. The image is that of a plumed knight.” I thought of the man in the Galtonbrook’s Rembrandt, until he added, “It supports the 1884 Republican candidacy of James Blaine, who lost a very close election to Grover Cleveland. His supporters called him The Plumed Knight. The Cleveland crowd disagreed. ‘Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine,’ they chanted, ‘the highfalutin’ liar from the state of Maine.’ ”

  “Politics was so much kinder and gentler back then.”

  “The Norfolk jacket, Mr. Rhodenbarr, is credited to an otherwise unremarkable Duke of Norfolk, although it is almost certainly his unremembered tailor whose design it was. ‘Be nice if you could make me one with a belt,’ His Grace may have mused, so perhaps it was indeed his inspiration. And the one you saw me wearing was the genuine article, in that the buttons which close the belt in the back may be undone, then refastened after the belt’s been brought around to the front.”

  “I always thought the belt was just for decoration.”

  “And so it is,” he said, “because all fastening the belt in front does is make one look foolish. The Duke would seem to have been a fop, and a ninny in the bargain, yet his jacket has established itself over time as a classic. Do you suppose there’s a lesson there?”

  I said it wouldn’t surprise me.

  “The button attached to my Norfolk jacket is also of brass, and larger than the others, almost twice the diameter of Old Tippecanoe’s log cabin. Did you note the image?”