The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

by Lawrence Block

  “It must be a miracle.”

  “You ordered them,” she said. “You ordered them while I was on the phone.”

  “It’s still a miracle.”

  “Bern—”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” I said. “If you can’t handle yours, I’ll drink ’em both.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t think…Bern, what’s that music?”

  I cocked an ear. “Galway Bay,” I said. “That’s The Late Great Bing Crosby singing. I played it.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It turns out Maxine had quarters,” I said, “with Washington on one side and a bird on the other. She let me have four of them for a dollar.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Well, I don’t know. How’s she gonna make a living that way? Be like selling ‘B’ Is for Burglar for eighty-six sixty. How’s she gonna pay the rent? God, don’t you just love ‘Galway Bay’?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’ll like the next one. ‘Mother Machree.’ ”

  “Oh, God,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  “The rent’s only part of it,” I said. “There’s more to it than that. I miss breaking and entering. Sometimes I forget how much I miss it, but the minute something comes along to raise the old anxiety level, well, this old burglar remembers in a hurry.”

  “What is it you miss, Bern?”

  “The excitement. There’s a thrill I get when I let myself into somebody else’s home that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. You tickle a lock and tease it into opening, you turn a knob and slip through a half-open door, and then at last you’re inside and it’s as if you’re trying another person’s life on for size. You’re Goldilocks, sitting in all the chairs, sleeping in all the beds. You know, I never understood the end of that story. Why did the bears get so angry? Here’s this sweet little blond girl sleeping like a lamb. You’d think they’d want to adopt her, and instead they’re royally pissed. I don’t get it.”

  “Well, she wasn’t a very good houseguest, Bern. She ate their food, remember? And she broke the baby bear’s chair.”

  “One lousy bowl of porridge,” I said. “And when she ate it it was Just Right, remember? So by the time the bears got home it would have been Too Cold, just like the mama bear’s. And I’ve always wondered about that chair, now that you mention it. What kind of chair supports a husky young bear but buckles under the weight of a little slip of a girl?”

  “How do you know she was such a little slip of a girl, Bern? Maybe she was a real porker. Look how she tucked into that porridge.”

  “She was never chubby in any of the illustrations I ever saw. If you ask me, there was something wrong with the chair. It was ready to collapse the minute anybody sat on it.”

  “So that’s your take on ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears,’ Bern? The chair was defective?”

  “Must have been.”

  “I like that,” she said. “It adds a whole new dimension to the story. Sounds to me as though she’d have a damn good negligence case.”

  “I suppose she could have filed suit, come to think of it.”

  “Maybe that’s why she ran all the way home. She wanted to call her lawyer before he left the office. I’ll tell you one thing, Bernie. You proved your point.”

  “What point was that?”

  “That you’ve still got burglary in your soul. Who else but a born burglar would see the story that way?”

  “The negligence case was your idea,” I said, “and only a born lawyer—”

  “Watch it, Bern.”

  “The thing is,” I said, “I’m pretty honest in ordinary circumstances. I call people back when they walk off without their change. When a waiter forgets to charge me for dessert I generally call it to his attention.”

  “I’ve seen you do that,” she said, “and I’ve never understood it. What do you do when a pay phone gives you an extra quarter back? Send it to them in stamps?”

  “No, I keep it. But I never shoplift, and I pay my taxes. I’m really only a crook when I’m out burgling. So I’m not a born thief, but I guess you’re right, I guess I’m a born burglar. ‘Born to Burgle.’ That would be the perfect tattoo for me.”

  “Don’t get a tattoo, Bern.”

  “Hey, not to worry,” I said. “I’m not that drunk.”

  “Yes you are,” she said. “But don’t do it.”

  Truth to tell, I was barely drunk at all. We were in a no-nonsense Italian restaurant in a basement of Thompson Street two blocks south of Washington Square. We had ruled out Indian and Thai food because I didn’t think my stomach could handle it, not after the attack of stomach flu Carolyn had invented for me. (Mexican, of course, was out of the question.) The fresh air on the way over from the Bum Rap had cleared my head considerably, and now, after a big plate of spaghetti marinara and two cups of espresso, I was pretty close to sober.

  It was 9:17 when Carolyn waved at the waiter and made a scribbling motion in the middle of the air. I know this because I immediately glanced at my watch. “It’s still early,” I told her. “You want to have another espresso?”

  “I didn’t want the last one,” she said. “No, I want to get home and check the cats and feed the mail. What’s the matter?”

  “Check the cats and feed the mail?”

  “Is that what I said? Well, you know what I meant. Whatever it is, I want to go do it. It’s been a long day.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “Just let me make a phone call.”

  “Don’t, Bern.”

  “Huh?”

  “If you were going to call Patience, don’t. I called her and broke the date for you, remember?”

  “As if it were yesterday. I wasn’t going to call her, but I suppose I could, couldn’t I?”

  “Dont.”

  “Miracle recovery, hit me like a ton of bricks and then it was over in nothing flat, blah blah blah. You think it’s a bad idea, huh?”

  “Trust me.”

  “I guess you’re right. She’d just think I wasn’t sick in the first place, and she’d probably figure I went out with some other woman. And, come to think of it, she’d be right, wouldn’t she?”

  I got up and walked past the waiter, who was struggling with a column of figures, and used the phone. When I got back to the table, Carolyn was frowning at the check. “I guess this is right,” she said. “With handwriting like this the guy should have been a doctor.” We split the check and she asked me if I’d made my call. “Because you weren’t on the phone long,” she said.

  “Nobody home.”

  “Oh.”

  “I got my quarter back. But I didn’t get an extra quarter, so I didn’t have to wrestle with a moral dilemma.”

  “That’s just as well,” she said. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”

  We headed west, crossed Sixth Avenue. As we were passing a quiet bar on one of the side streets, I suggested stopping for a drink.

  “In that place? I never go there.”

  “Well, neither do I. Maybe it’s nice.”

  She shook her head. “I looked in the door once, Bern. Old guys in thrift-shop overcoats, all of them carefully spaced a few stools apart. You’d think they were watching a porn movie.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t think they’d let us in, Bern. Neither of us has been through detox even once. I think that’s an entrance requirement.”

  “Oh. How about the place on the next corner? The Battered Child.”

  “All college kids. Loud, rowdy, spilling beer on everybody.”

  “You’re hard to please,” I said. “One joint’s too quiet and the other’s too noisy.”

  “I know, I’m worse than Goldilocks.”

  “There’s a phone,” I said. “Let me try that number again.” I did, and nobody answered, and this time I didn’t get my quarter back, either. I hit the side of the phone a couple of times with the heel of my hand, the way you do, and it
held onto my quarter, the way it does.

  “Dammit,” I said. “I hate when that happens.”

  “Who’d you call?”

  “The Gilmartins.”

  “They’re at the theater, Bern.”

  “I know. The final curtain’s not until ten thirty-eight.”

  “You really did research this, didn’t you?”

  “Well, it wasn’t all that tricky. I went to the play myself, remember? So all I had to do was look at my watch when it was over.”

  “So why are you trying to reach them? Am I missing something here, Bern? You decided not to break into their apartment, remember?”

  I nodded and lowered my eyes to gaze at the pavement, as if I expected to find my quarter there. “That’s why I’ve been calling,” I said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “As soon as they’re home,” I said, “I’ll be able to relax, because I won’t be in any danger of acting on impulse. And as long as I’m with somebody, having a meal or a drink or a cup of coffee, I’m out of harm’s way. That’s why I made the date with Patience in the first place. I figured I’d be with her until they were home from the theater, and then I could go home myself.”

  “Unless you got lucky.”

  “If I just get through the night without committing a felony, that’s as lucky as I want to get. I thought I’d make sure by having a drink after work, but I made a little too sure and got drunk, and you had to break the date for me. Which I appreciate, don’t get me wrong, because I was in no condition to see her, but now it’s”—I checked my watch—“not quite ten and the play doesn’t end for another forty minutes and God knows what they’ll do afterward. Suppose they go out for a late supper? They might not get home for hours.”

  “You poor guy.” She put a hand on my arm. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

  “I’m making a big deal out of nothing,” I said, “but I guess you could say I’m experiencing a little anxiety.”

  “So walk me home,” she said. “You can have a drink or a cup of coffee and watch a little TV. You can try the Gilmartins every five minutes if you want, and you won’t need a quarter. If they make a late night of it you can spend the night on the sofa. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds wonderful,” I said. “Thank God you’re a lesbian.”

  “Huh?”

  “Because you’re the best friend anybody ever had, and if you were straight we’d get married, and that would ruin everything.”

  “It generally does,” she said. “C’mon, Bern. Let’s go home.”

  At a quarter to twelve I picked up Carolyn’s phone for the umpteenth time—or was it the zillionth? I poked the redial button and listened to half a dozen rings before hanging up.

  “I can’t believe they don’t have an answering machine,” I said.

  “Maybe they had one,” she suggested, “until a burglar broke in and stole it. Are you about ready to bed down for the night, Bern? Because I’m starting to fade myself.”

  “I’m afraid the coffee worked too well.”

  “You’re wired, huh?”

  “Sort of. But you go ahead. I’ll just sit here in the dark.”

  She gave me a look, then turned her attention back to the television set, where Charlie Rose was asking thoughtful, probing questions of an earnest chap who looked terribly knowledgeable and seriously constipated. I paid what attention I could, tearing myself away every five minutes to hit the redial button, and the fourth or fifth time I did this someone finally answered the phone. It was a man, and he said, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Gilmartin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, thank God,” I said. “I was starting to worry about you.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Just someone with your best interests at heart. Look, you’re home now, and that’s what counts. How was the play?”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. Then, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “I’ve got twelve-oh-nine, but I’ve been running a minute or so fast lately. Hey, lighten up, Marty. I just wanted to wish you and Edna the best. You get some sleep now, okay?”

  I hung up and turned to see Carolyn shaking her head at me. “So I got carried away,” I said. “So I had a little harmless fun at Marty G’s expense. Well, I figured he owed me one. Look what I went through just to keep him from getting burgled tonight.”

  “I see what you mean. Are you going, Bern? You don’t have to, you can still stay over.”

  I thought about it. It was late, and if I stayed the night at Carolyn’s West Village apartment I could walk to work in the morning. But I decided I wanted a change of clothes in the morning and my own bed that night.

  Fateful decision, that.

  I made a second fateful decision when a couple of drunken tourists beat me to a cab on Hudson Street. The hell with it, I decided, and I walked over to Sheridan Square and caught the subway. I rode uptown to Seventy-second Street, bought a copy of tomorrow’s Times, and waited for the light to change so I could go home and read it.

  “Excuse me…”

  I turned toward the voice and was looking at a slender, dark-haired woman with a heart-shaped face. She had small regular features and a complexion out of a soap ad, and she was wearing a dark business suit and a red beret. She looked terrific, and my first thought was that I was going to be profoundly disappointed when she turned out to be selling flowers for the Reverend Moon.

  “I hate to bother you,” she said, “but you live here in the neighborhood, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. You looked familiar to me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you around. I feel ridiculous saying this, but I just got off a bus and I was on my way to my apartment, and I had the feeling someone was stalking me. That sounds melodramatic now that I hear myself saying it, but that’s what it felt like. And I live so close it seems silly to take a cab, and…”

  “Would you like me to walk you home?”

  “Would you? Unless it’s completely out of your way. I’m at Seventy-fourth and West End.”

  “I’m on West End, too.”

  “Oh, that’s great!”

  “At Seventy-first Street.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That means you’d be walking two blocks completely out of your way, and then two blocks back. That’s an extra four blocks. No, I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Of course you can. People have asked far more of me than that.”

  “Are you sure? There’s a cab now. Why don’t I just take a cab?”

  “To go two blocks? Come on.”

  “Well, if you were to walk me to West End,” she said, “and then, when we did go our separate ways, I’d just have those two short blocks on my own, and—”

  “Stop it,” I said. “I’ll walk you all the way home. I really don’t mind.”

  Fateful, fateful.

  She didn’t usually get home this late, I learned. She’d had a class, and it ran a little later than usual, and then she’d gone out for coffee with a couple of her classmates, and the discussion got so spirited it had been easy to lose track of the time.

  I asked what the discussion was about.

  “Everything,” she said. “We started out talking about one of the scenes we’d done earlier, and then we got onto the ethical implications of the Method, and then, oh, one thing led to another.”

  It usually does. “You’re an actress.”

  “Well, it’s an acting class,” she said. “And maybe I’m an actress, but we don’t know that yet. Which is one of the reasons I’m taking the class. To find out.”

  “And in the meantime—”

  “I’m a lawyer. Except that’s not quite true, either. What I really am is a paralegal, but I’m studying to become a lawyer. I’m taking classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at Manhattan Law School.”

  “And acting classes on Thursdays?”

  “Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “And you work day
s as a paralegal?”

  “Five days a week from nine to five at Haber, Haber & Crowell. And they just about always want me to come in Saturdays, and I almost always do. You’re probably thinking I’ve got a very heavy schedule, and I do, but I prefer it that way, at least for now. I think I’m happier if I don’t have a great deal of unscheduled time these days. I know that’s cryptic and that one typically tells one’s life story to a total stranger, but I’m a little shy about that, maybe diffident’s a better word, a little diffident, and anyway you’re not a total stranger because you live right here in the neighborhood. And this is West End Avenue, where we would go our separate ways if you weren’t such a gentleman. You never told me your name. But then how could you? I’ve done all the talking. My name’s Gwendolyn Cooper, and yours is…”

  “Bernie Rhodenbarr.”

  “Short for Bernard. But people call you Bernie?”

  “Usually.”

  “With Gwendolyn you get a choice. I can be Gwen or Wendy or even Lyn.”

  “Or Doll,” I suggested.

  “Doll? Oh, the second syllable. Doll Cooper. Or Dolly, but no, that doesn’t really work. Doll Cooper. Can you see that on a playbill?”

  “Easier than I can see it on a law school diploma.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid that’s going to read ‘Gwendolyn Beatrice Cooper.’ Assuming I hang around long enough to get it. Doll Cooper. You want to know something? I like it.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “Better than that, it’s me. What do you do, Bernie? If that’s not too invasive a question.”

  “I’m a bookseller.”

  “Like at Dalton or Waldenbooks?”

  “No, I have my own store.” I told her what it was called and where it was located and it turned out that was her favorite fantasy, to own and operate a used-book store.

  “And in the Village,” she said. “It sounds totally perfect. I bet you love it.”

  “I do, as a matter of fact.”

  “You must go to work every morning with a song on your lips.”

  “Well—”

  “I know I would. Ah, here’s where I live, the one with the canopy. Are you actually going to walk me to my front door? I wondered where the true gentlemen were these days. It turns out they’re down in the Village selling books.”