The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr)

by Lawrence Block

“I thought the message was something about getting a good job. I guess there were different versions.”

  “Must have been. Remember SpeedReading?”

  “Evelyn Wood, Bern. Read a whole book as quickly as you can turn the pages.”

  “I wonder if anybody ever took both courses. SpeedWriting and SpeedReading.”

  “Maybe that woman who writes twenty reviews a day for Amazon. I forget her name.”

  “You must have read it too quickly. Skimmed right over it.”

  “I guess.”

  “Or she left out the vowels. ‘F U CN RD HRRT KLSNR, U CN GT A GD RVW.’ ”

  “Bern, we’re getting off the subject here. All we know is she prints. What else?”

  “She’s honest.”

  “Because she didn’t take the two dollars. She’s more than honest, she’s considerate.”

  “Because she put them out of sight, so nobody else would take them.”

  “And said so in the note, and spelled it ‘Czech’ so you’d know to look in the book.”

  “So she’s clever, too, and given to wordplay.”

  “Are you gonna leave her a note?”

  “You think I should?”

  “It’s only polite, Bern. Besides, you’re wondering about her. You’re hoping she’s cute.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. I drank some of my drink, which was mostly melted ice. “I thought about a note,” I admitted, “when I was closing up. But I couldn’t leave my table out all night. That would be suggesting that I wanted somebody to take it away.”

  “Or you’d get a summons for littering. You could tape a note to the window.”

  “ ‘SORRY, STILL CLOSED.’ ”

  “Maybe not. Next time you leave the table out—”

  “I’ll leave a note. If I remember.”

  “So it wasn’t murder,” she said.

  We’d left the Bum Rap, and not a moment too soon, and were walking in the general direction of Arbor Court, which was also the general direction of the Seventh Avenue subway.

  “It was natural causes,” I said.

  “And a burglar with a key just happened to pick that time to show up.”

  “Whoever the intruder was,” I said, “and whatever he was looking for, there was nothing wrong with his timing. It was her timing that threw things off. If she hadn’t left the opera early—”

  “She’d still be alive?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “and maybe not, depending on how she got the peanuts into her system. But she wouldn’t have been home and on the floor when he unlocked her door.”

  “It sounds as if you’re blaming the victim,” she said, “but how can you blame anybody for giving up on Wagner?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Mark Twain said his music’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “I thought Mick Jagger said that about Barry Manilow.”

  “You may be right. Something bothers me.”

  “About Chloe? You think she might get caught?”

  “No, she won’t get caught.”

  “About the woman who left you the notes?”

  “No, either she’ll turn up or she won’t, and either way it’s not important. No, what bothers me is the whole way she died.”

  “The peanut lady.”

  “Mrs. Ostermaier.”

  “Right. Well, of course it bothers you. It’s sad, a nice woman like that. And you know what’s really terrible, Bern? It’d be funny, except a woman’s dead, so how can it be funny?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The song,” she said. “The goddam song, the ad jingle. I can’t get the damn thing out of my head.”

  “What song?”

  “Oh, like I’m the only one with the jingle running through my mind? ‘I wish I was an Ostermaier wiener, that is what I really want to be, ’cause if I was an Ostermaier wiener, everyone would be in love with me.’ Come on, Bern. Don’t tell me it’s not running in your head the same as it is in mine.”

  “Well, it is now,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  When you can’t get a song out of your head, when it’s Muzak and your mind’s the elevator, when it keeps repeating on you like a decimal or a bad burrito, there’s a word for it. You’ve got what’s called an earworm, and sooner or later it will go away. But until it does, well, it doesn’t.

  Carolyn’s take on the Oscar Meyer jingle grabbed ahold and wouldn’t let go. The subway was crowded and noisy—I know, it’s hard to believe—and I didn’t get a seat until it thinned out some at Penn Station. I tried to divert myself with the ads, but not even Dr. Zizmor’s offer to improve my complexion could stifle the Ostermaier Wiener.

  I got off at 72nd Street, and I don’t suppose it was entirely coincidental that I stood at the counter at Papaya King and let a pair of hot dogs serve as dinner.

  I went home and played music, which didn’t help, and tried TV, which didn’t help either. I picked up a book and read about Bill Bryson’s adventures in Australia, and kept finding passages I’d have read aloud, if I hadn’t been alone in my apartment. I went on reading, and I chuckled some, and nodded in occasional agreement, and all the while the earworm went on burrowing in my consciousness.

  I tried other jingles, the most annoying ones I could recall. That seemed dangerous, because what if the cure proved more enduring than the disease? I tried the Pepsi jingle, a bare childhood memory (Pepsi-Cola hits the spot / Two full glasses, that’s a lot) and my mind quickly segued into the parody (Christianity hits the spot / Twelve apostles, that’s a lot) and that sent me back to apostle spoons, and Button Gwinnett, and Chloe Miller, and I did a certain amount of thinking and worrying and wondering, and underneath it all was the Ostermaier jingle, ever the relentless background music to my rumination, and harder to shake than a summer cold.

  I got undressed. I had a shower. I got in bed with the Bryson book and a cup of chamomile tea, read one and drank the other. When I closed the book and switched off the lamp, my earworm was still hard at work. I decided it must hold the secret of the universe, and I meditated upon it one word at a time, and while I was at it I fell asleep.

  When I woke up it was gone.

  I opened up around ten. After my usual chores on Raffles’ behalf (spooning out cat food, freshening his water dish, flushing the toilet) I dragged my bargain table out onto the street. When I got back inside the phone was ringing.

  It was Ray. “I called ten minutes ago,” he said. “You didn’t pick up.”

  “I wasn’t here.”

  “That’s what I figured. You know, I almost called you late last night.”

  “I wasn’t here then, either.”

  “At home.”

  “Well, you’d have reached me there, but if it was late I can’t say I’d have welcomed your call. I went to bed early with an earworm.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing, Bernie. A man takes his life in his hands when he leaves the city, and if it’s not Lyme disease or bees flyin’ up your nose, it’s worms in your ears. Where’d you pick it up?”

  “Actually,” I said, “I got it from Carolyn.”

  “From Shorty? I can’t say I’m surprised, the places she goes and the degenerates she hangs out with. You seein’ a doctor?”

  “It’s all better now, Ray.”

  “You sure? A thing like that, if it comes back—”

  God forbid. “I’ll take measures,” I assured him. “You said you almost called last night. Why?”

  “I had somethin’ on my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “And it’s from somethin’ you said.”

  “Oh?”

  “Or didn’t say. This Ostermaier case, which isn’t even a homicide anymore, on account of you can’t get an indictment against a peanut.”

  “It’d be different,” I said, “if it was a ham sandwich. What was it I said?”

  “Intruder.”

  “Huh?”

  “What you figured out,”
he said, “and all credit to you for it, because it’s helpful, is that the old lady was already dead when the burglar got there.”

  “Well, it certainly looks that way to me, Ray, but—”

  “No, it does to me, too, now that you laid it out for me. She came home and dropped dead, and an hour later he came callin’. The intruder.”

  “So?”

  “That’s what you called him, Bernie. The intruder.”

  “Well,” I said, “he was intruding, wasn’t he?”

  “You never once called him a burglar. And it’s not like it’s a word you’ve never heard before, bein’ as you been one yourself for all the years I’ve known you.”

  “I always called him an intruder?”

  “Every time.”

  “And never a burglar.”

  “Not once, Bernie.”

  I looked over at Raffles, who had been stalking something invisible to the human eye, and who was now gathering himself to pounce on it.

  “It must have been unconscious,” I said.

  “So I should just forget about it?”

  “No, because it has to mean something. Ray, I guess I just don’t think of the guy as a burglar.”

  “Because he had a key.”

  “There have been times,” I said, “when I had a key.”

  “You’re sayin’ this was different.”

  “All those objects scattered around.”

  “The cigarette lighter. The little ivory Chinaman. The figurines.”

  “Everything,” I said. “And nothing broken, as though they’d been deliberately arranged that way.”

  “Why would anybody do that?”

  “To make it look like a burglary,” I said. “And the only reason anybody would carefully stage a scene to look like a burglary—”

  “Is if it wasn’t.”

  “Right.”

  “Four children,” he said.

  “They all must have had keys.”

  “They used to live there, Bernie. And why wouldn’t they have keys to their mother’s house?”

  “It would be interesting to know more about them.”

  There was a pause. “Well, I was gonna type up a report,” he said, “and it’s too nice a day for that. I already talked to all of ’em once. Maybe I’ll talk to ’em some more.”

  A few minutes later the phone rang again. I’d thought it might be Chloe the first time, and I thought so again, and this time it was Mowgli. “Just wanted to make sure you’re open,” he said. “Okay if I come by in like five minutes?”

  It was more like ten, and he didn’t spend much more time than that in the shop, scanning my shelves with a practiced eye, picking out ten books and paying the marked price without a murmur. Then he left, and the phone rang a third time, and it was Carolyn.

  “Barnegat Books,” I said, and she asked me what was the matter.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was I snarling? I didn’t mean to. I keep expecting it to be Chloe, and it keeps being somebody else.”

  “That’s why I was calling, Bern. To see if you’d heard from her, but I guess I know the answer.”

  “She didn’t say she’d call,” I said. “She said she’d come by, and sometime in the afternoon.”

  “But it’s on your mind.”

  “It’s hard not to think of all the things that could go wrong.”

  “I can imagine. Look, the other part of why I’m calling is I know it’s your turn to pick up lunch and bring it over here, but why don’t I switch with you? You want to be around if the phone rings.”

  “Or if the door opens,” I said. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  “Not a problem. Uh, as far as what kind of food—”

  “Surprise me,” I said.

  “Juneau Lock,” I said, an hour or so later. “What a surprise.”

  “You don’t look surprised,” she said, “but you don’t look disappointed, either. I was all set to go somewhere else, and I had this vision of Chloe turning up sometime this afternoon.”

  “I hope it proves prophetic.”

  “No you don’t, Bern, because in the vision she’s wearing handcuffs, and there’s a cop on either side of her.”

  “Oh.”

  “And they take you away,” she said, “and what did you have for your last meal as a free man? A soggy Reuben sandwich from the deli? Some vegan slop from Transcendental Tofu?”

  “You did the right thing,” I said, “right up until the point where you told me about your vision.”

  “Oh, it’s not really a vision, Bern. Just a fleeting thought. By the way, our girlfriend at Two Guys seemed surprised to see me. I think she keeps track of whose turn it is.”

  Lunch was almost good enough to take my mind off Chloe and the silver spoon, which could turn up someday as the title of a children’s book, but probably won’t. If she did show up handcuffed to a cop, I’d have a lot of explaining to do, and how would I explain the $20,000 I was carrying?

  “If everything works out,” I told Carolyn, “then it’s a good investment. I give her twenty thousand—”

  “Plus the five you already gave her.”

  “Right. And Barton pays me fifty thousand for the spoon.”

  “So you double your money without having to do anything.”

  “It seemed that way,” I said, “when I thought of it. I’d been to Leopold’s apartment, I knew I couldn’t possibly spirit the spoon out of there, and I was ready to give up. Then all of a sudden there was a way after all, and she’d do the work and run all the risk, and I’d split the money with her. But I forgot my number one rule.”

  “Never have a partner.”

  “Especially an amateur,” I said, “and particularly an amateur who’s never done this before. There’s only one thing that gives me hope.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her attitude,” I said. “I think she just might be a natural-born thief.”

  The phone rang once during lunch, and I moved more quickly than usual to get to it. A woman wanted to know how long I’d be open. I said five-thirty, and she rang off without another word.

  I reported the conversation to Carolyn, and she asked if it could have been Chloe.

  “It didn’t sound like her,” I said. “And why would she be so cryptic?”

  “Maybe Leopold was standing next to her and she didn’t want to give anything away.”

  “Well, she didn’t,” I said. “Not to him and not to me either. Anyway, her voice is deeper than the one I heard just now. That’s four calls today, which is more than I usually get in a week.”

  “The Universe knows you’re expecting a call,” she said, “and it’s doing all it can to fulfill your expectations.”

  “Did you really say that? You know, if this food didn’t taste as good as it does, I’d think you picked it up at Transcendental Tofu.”

  I had two more phone calls within an hour of Carolyn’s departure for the Poodle Factory and a pressing appointment with a Kerry Blue terrier. One was a wrong number, a drunk who couldn’t believe I wouldn’t put the mayor on the phone. “I know he’s there,” he said. “All right, never mind the high-hat sonofabitch. Lemme talk to FDR.”

  I would have liked to hear what else he had to say, but I wanted to keep the line open. And, sure enough, the phone rang again a few minutes later, and this time it was my client.

  “I hope I’ll have some news soon,” I told him.

  He would have liked a more informative answer, but that was all he was going to get.

  I picked up a book, read two pages, put it down again. I walked over to a bank of shelves and rearranged some books. I crumpled a ball of paper and tossed it to Raffles, who ignored it utterly.

  And then the door opened, and there she was.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I was wondering if you’d come.”

  “What time is it?” She glanced at her wrist and answered her own question. “I’m right on time. In fact it’s two twenty-eight, so I’m two minutes early.”


  “So you are,” I said. “But you didn’t call.”

  “Was I supposed to?”

  She was wearing jeans, though lighter in color than the pair she’d worn to Three Guys, and she’d left the denim jacket home. Her top was a man’s dress shirt in French blue, and my client would have approved of the button-down collar. I’ve called it a man’s shirt, but it had clearly been cut for a woman, and I suppose it had the buttons on the other side.

  And who do you suppose thought that one up? “Now here’s my idea, Chuck. For guys, whether it’s a shirt or a coat, we’ll put the buttons on the right and the buttonholes on the left. And with women, see, we’ll do it the other way around. Why? Gee, I dunno. It just, like, feels somehow right to me, ya know?”

  “No,” I said. “But I thought you might, although I don’t suppose there was any reason why you should. I guess it’s just that I was concerned that something might have gone wrong. That you’d change your mind, or that you might, um, encounter some difficulty.”

  “Like get caught in the act, you mean.”

  “Or get away with it, only to have him notice the spoon’s absence.”

  She nodded, thinking about it. “Well, first of all,” she said, “I didn’t change my mind. I knew I wasn’t going to, but there was no way for you to know that, so I can see why you might worry. But I didn’t. Didn’t change my mind, I mean, but what I also didn’t do was worry. I just went ahead and did what I said I was going to do.”

  “And the spoon is—”

  She patted her handbag. Somewhere within its confines was an eReader with a Frank Norris novel on it, and a spoon with a teardrop-shaped bowl.

  “You brought it,” I said.

  “Yeah, isn’t that what we said? I’d bring the spoon and you’d have the money for me?” Her brow clouded. “That didn’t change overnight, did it? The price?”

  “No, no,” I said. “I have it. Here, with me.”

  It was just too straightforward and simple, I thought. Too easy.

  “What happens,” I wondered aloud, “when he notices that it’s missing? That there are only three spoons where there used to be four?”

  “Oh, he knows,” she said.

  “He knows?”