The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

by Lawrence Block

  “Good for you, Carolyn.”

  “—I pick up the phone and call the police. ‘I just defended my home,’ I say, ‘so will you please send somebody over to get this stiff out of here.’ That’s what I do. I don’t go away and lock the door and hope he’ll vanish while I’m gone.”

  “The elves’ll take care of it,” I said, “after they’re done at my place.”

  Ray gave me a look. “I thought of that,” he said. “Not that shit about elves, but what you just said, Carolyn. Why not report it? What occurs to me, maybe the gun’s unregistered. Guy’s burglarizin’ your premises, you got an iron-clad right to shoot the son of a bitch, but you better make sure you got a license for the gun. Even so…”

  “It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” I finished for him. “And didn’t I hear that the Nugents were out of the country?”

  He nodded. “Due back tomorrow or the next day. Question is, when did they take off?”

  “There you go,” Carolyn said. “Say I’m Nugent. I’m on my way to the airport, and I wonder did I leave a pot cooking on the stove? So I go back, and what do I find but a burglar. So I pull out my unregistered gun and shoot him, and then I have to leave to catch a plane, so there’s no time to call the police. Instead I pull off the guy’s clothes, throw him in the tub, take the clothes with me, and catch the next plane to…where?”

  “Tajikistan,” I suggested.

  “Forget Nugent,” Ray said.

  “Done.”

  “Say another burglar killed him. Say you, for example, Bernie.”

  “Me?”

  “Just for the sake of argument, okay?”

  “Fine. I killed him. But you can’t quote me on that because you haven’t read me my rights yet.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “This is just a discussion, okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Ray.”

  “He lives right there, he knows the Nugents are out of town, an’ he closes his eyes an’ sees dollar signs. But he needs somebody who can make a lock sing an’ dance, an’ that’s Mrs. Rhodenbarr’s little boy Bernie.”

  “Why doesn’t he just jimmy it, Ray?”

  “Maybe he don’t know how. But jimmyin’ leaves marks, an’ there weren’t any, so we know he didn’t do that. No, he knows you from the neighborhood, whatever, so he tips you to the job, an’ the two of you go in together.”

  “Just my style, Ray.”

  “When I say you,” he said, “I don’t mean you. Okay, Bernie? I know you work alone, an’ I know you don’t shoot people. Forget you, okay? Some other fuckin’ burglar is his partner for the day, an’ the other fuckin’ burglar opens the door for him, an’ him an’ the other fuckin’ burglar both go in, an’ then you shoot him.”

  “It’s back to me again, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just too much trouble savin’ it the other way is all. But if it bothers you that much—”

  “No, it’s all right. Why do I shoot him?”

  “So you won’t have to split with him. Say you really score big an’ it’s like the Lufthansa job where there’s so much money you can’t afford to split it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Why is he naked?”

  “So they won’t identify the clothes.”

  “Get real.”

  “Okay, maybe you’re both naked.”

  “He seduces me, Ray. Then I realize what I’ve done. I’m racked with guilt, and instead of killing myself I lash out at him. He’s taking a shower, washing away the traces of our evil lust, and I find a gun in the desk drawer and punch his ticket for him.”

  He sighed. “It don’t make a whole lot of sense,” he said.

  “Gee, Ray, what makes you say that? And why are we even having this conversation? Don’t get me wrong, Carolyn and I always enjoy it when you drop around, but what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that clears it up.”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Call it a policeman’s intrusion.”

  “That’s exactly what I’d call it,” I said, “but I think the word you want is intuition.”

  “Whatever. There’s somethin’ tells me you know more about this than meets the eye, an’ if you don’t you could find out. An’ I got the feelin’ it could be very good for the both of us.”

  “How do you mean, Ray?”

  “That I couldn’t tell you. That’s the trouble with feelin’s, at least the kind I get. They ain’t much on specifics. I don’t know what figures to be in it for me, whether it’s something as basic as a good collar or something more negotiable. But you an’ me, Bernie, we done each other some good over the years.”

  “And you’re just a sentimental guy, Ray. That’s why you got all choked up the other day when you threw me in a cell.”

  “Yeah, I was bitin’ back tears.” He stood up. “You give it some thought, Bern. I bet you come up with somethin’.”

  “Ray’s right, Bern.”

  “My God,” I said, “I never thought I’d hear you say that. I ought to write it down and make you sign it.”

  “He thinks you ought to work out what happened, and he doesn’t even know you were there. How can you just turn your back on the whole thing?”

  “Nothing to it.”

  “You have information Ray doesn’t have, Bern.”

  “Indeed I do,” I said. “About almost everything.”

  “What about your civic duty?”

  “I pay my taxes,” I said. “I separate my garbage for recycling. I vote. I even vote in school board elections, for God’s sake. How much civic duty does a person have to have?”

  “Bern—”

  “Oh, look at the time,” I said. “Don’t rush, take your time and finish your drink. But I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home to shower and change clothes.”

  “And then?”

  “Got a date. Bye.”

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  The car slowed. I pressed a button to lower the window and had a good look at the house in front of me—or as good a look as possible under the circumstances. There were trees in the way, and a vast expanse of lawn, but what I saw through the trees and beyond the lawn was a house not unlike its neighbors. We were, after all, in a subdivision. A subdivision of million-dollar homes, but a subdivision nonetheless. This particular million-dollar home had its porch light on, and light showed through a curtained upstairs window, and in two rooms downstairs as well.

  I thought what I’ve often thought in similar circumstances. How considerate of them, I thought, to leave a light for the burglar.

  “Circle the block,” I said, and sat back while we did just that. The car was last year’s Lincoln, smooth red leather within, hand-rubbed black lacquer without, the air climate-controlled, the engine noise no more than a Rafflesian purr. It was more comfortable by far than a bus, a subway, or a Tajik taxi, but none of those would have got me here. I was north of the city, in Westchester County. The subways don’t go this far, and Hashmat Tuktee couldn’t have found his way in a million years.

  On our second time past the house I reached to take the automatic garage door opener from the driver’s visor. I stuck it out the window, pointed it at the garage, and clicked it. Nothing happened.

  “You never know,” I said, and handed it back. We rode on, and I got out at the first stop sign and walked back. I was wearing a glen plaid sport jacket—it was time, I’d decided, to give the blazer a rest—and a pair of dark trousers. I had a tie on, too, but not the one that had received such good reviews at lunch.

  I went right up the front walk, mounted the porch steps and rang the bell, then rang it again. Nothing happened. I had a look at the lock and shook my head at it. New York apartment dwellers know about locks, Poulards and Rabsons and Fox police locks, and gates on the windows and concertina wire at the tops of fences. In the suburbs, where the houses stand apart and each one has a dozen ground-floor windows, it’s sor
t of pointless to knock yourself out making your door hard to get through. And this one wasn’t. I was through it in a minute, tops.

  The instant I breached the threshold, the alarm went off. It let out that high-pitched whine, that shrill insistent nagging squeal that puts a burglar right off his feed. I’ll tell you, if you had a kid who made a sound like that, you’d strangle the little monster.

  I had forty-five seconds. I passed quickly through the foyer, angled left through the large cathedral-ceilinged living room, entered the dining room. A Jacobean breakfront on the far wall was flanked by two doors. I opened the one on the right. Within it was a cupboard containing table linen, table pads, and sets of poker chips and mah-jongg tiles. And, right there on the wall, was a numeric keypad, its red light flashing hysterically.

  I pushed 1-0-1-5.

  The results could hardly have been more gratifying. The flashing red light went out, to be replaced by a steady light of a soothing green. The demonic sound ceased as abruptly as if a celestial hand had placed a pillow over that squalling electronic mouth. I let out the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. I put my set of picks in my pocket—they were still in my hand—and put on my gloves. Then I wiped the few surfaces my unprotected fingers might have touched—the key pad, the closet door and knob, and the door and knob at the front entrance. I closed the door, locked up, and went to work.

  The den was on the first floor at the rear of the house, with windows overlooking the garden. I drew the drapes shut before flicking a light on. To the right of the desk stood a three-tiered glassed-in bookcase, and above the bookcase hung an oil painting of a tall ship on the high seas. I took it down from the wall to reveal the circular door of a wall safe with a combination lock.

  There is a knack to opening combination locks. A stethoscope is sometimes helpful, but you have to have the touch.

  I had that, but I had something better, too. I had the combination.

  I spun the dial right and left and right and left again, and damned if the door didn’t open right up. I hauled out a dozen boxes, each two inches square and a foot long, all of them chock full of two-by-two kraft envelopes and the odd two-by-two Lucite holder, each of which held a small metal disk.

  Coins. Besides the boxes, there were proof sets and uncirculated rolls, a couple of Library of Coins albums, and a custom-made black plastic holder in the shape of a shield, housing an almost-complete collection of Seated Liberty dimes, from 1837 to 1891. And there was some U.S. currency as well, a banded packet half an inch thick.

  I emptied the safe, piling the numismatic material on the desk and stacking the other items—wills, deeds, various official-looking documents—to the side. I took the set of dimes with me and found my way to the kitchen. I opened the door leading to the attached garage, entered the garage with the set of dimes, and came back without them, locking up after myself.

  In a hall closet I found a bag that would do, a battered leather satchel with nothing in it but memories. It held the coin collection with room to spare. I packed it, zipped it up, and set it down alongside the front door.

  Now the part I hated.

  From the hardware drawer in the kitchen I equipped myself with a hammer, a chisel, and a mean-looking screwdriver. I returned to the den and proceeded to beat the crap out of the wall safe, prying the dial loose from the door, banging away at the hardware, and making a hell of a racket and a horrible mess. When I’d completed the job of ruining a perfectly satisfactory safe, I took the various documents it had contained, the wills and deeds and all, and left them strewn in and out of the safe, kicking them around the carpet. I pulled out the desk’s five unlocked drawers and spilled their contents onto the floor, and I was all poised to open the remaining drawer with hammer and chisel.

  “No,” I said aloud and laid those crude tools aside and opened the drawer with my picks. It was almost as fast that way. I dumped the drawer, then bent down to pick up a hundred dollars in twenties. I put it in my pocket, where I found the roll of uncirculated 1958-D nickels I’d set aside earlier. They were in a sealed plastic tube, which I cracked open by knocking it sharply against the edge of the desk. I let the coins spill into my palm and tossed a handful of them at the open safe. Some landed inside, while others rained down over the bookcase and onto the floor.

  Perfect.

  I walked to the front door, checked my watch, and flicked the porch light on and off three times. I hoisted the satchel, opened the door, set the latch so it wouldn’t lock behind me, and walked to the street. I got there just as the Lincoln was pulling up. I opened the door, tossed the bag inside, and returned to the house.

  One final outrage to perform. I took up hammer and chisel again and had at the poor innocent front door, gouging the jamb, ruining the lock. I went back to the kitchen, put the tools where I’d found them, and went back to the dining room, where I entered 1-0-1-5 on the keypad. The green light went off and the device beeped seven times. I now had something like forty-five seconds to quit the premises and lock the door, after which time the alarm would be armed and dangerous.

  I went out on the porch and drew the door almost but not quite shut, counting seconds in my head. I guess my count was a shade fast, because I’d completed it and nothing was happening. I wondered if I’d done something wrong, and then it began, that horrible high-pitched whistling whine.

  We’d have forty-five seconds of that, but I didn’t have to stand around and endure it I walked quickly down the flagstone path to the curb, once again reaching it just as the black Lincoln pulled up. “Twenty-three,” I said, opening the door. “Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.”

  “Everything go all right?”

  “Like clockwork,” I said, as we pulled away from the curb. “Thirty-one. Thirty-two.”

  “And the set of dimes in plastic?”

  “In the garage,” I said. “On a high shelf all the way over on the right, in a box marked ‘Games.’ About halfway down in the box, between Parcheesi and Stratego. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.”

  By the time I got to forty-five we had turned a corner and covered a couple hundred yards. I had the window down, and when the alarm went off I could hear it clearly. If we’d had Luke Santangelo stuffed in the trunk, it would have been enough to wake him. They’d hear it all over the neighborhood, even as they’d see the board light up in the offices of the security company in the next town over.

  But before anybody could do anything about it, Marty Gilmartin and I would be back in Manhattan.

  I got out at the corner. No need for my talkative doorman to see me hop out of a Lincoln.

  “I’ll want to see exactly what we’ve got here,” I said, laying a hand on the satchel. “I know a man who’s very good with coins, but even so I like to know what I’m selling. I’ve got last years Red Book upstairs, which is all I need to price the U.S. material. I’ll have to trust him on the foreign, but there didn’t look to be too much of that. Oh, that reminds me.” I unzipped the bag, fished around for the packet of currency, and tore off the paper wrapper.

  “What’s that?”

  “Money,” I said, dealing out hundred-dollar bills like a hand of gin rummy, one for him, one for me, one for him, one for me. “Something like five thousand would be my guess, but we’ll just divvy it up.”

  “You were just going to take the coin collection. That was the agreement.”

  “Well, it has to look right,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe what a mess I made, all for the sake of creating the proper appearance. Did you want me to spoil the illusion by leaving a wad of cash in the safe?”

  “No, but—”

  “In New York,” I said, “if I left cash lying around you could count on the cops to take it. Maybe they’re honest here, in which case they’d report it to the IRS and let Mr. McEwan explain where it came from.” One for him, one for me, one for him, one for me. “You think he’d prefer it that way?”

  “No, you’re quite right. But maybe you should keep all the cash for yo
urself. You found it, after all.”

  I shook my head. “It’s share and share alike. There, it comes out even. Oh, one more thing.” I got five twenties from my pocket. “In the desk. Again, how would it look if I left them? Two for you and two for me, and have you got a ten by any chance? Wait a minute, I’ve got it. There you go.”

  He looked at the bills he was holding. He said, “The dimes are in a box of games in the garage? Between the Parcheesi and…what was the other one you mentioned?”

  “Stratego.”

  “I’ll make a note of that. The dimes are the only collection Jack cares about. His father gave him one he’d found in a drawer when Jack was a boy, and that started him collecting. I think the set’s worth forty or fifty thousand dollars. At least that’s what they’re insured for.”

  “I didn’t examine them too closely,” I said, “but the condition looked good, and there were only a couple of dates missing.”

  “It must have been hard to leave them behind.”

  I shook my head. “That was the deal. Besides, you’d take a beating fencing anything that specialized. No, the hard part was wrecking the safe and leaving a mess. But I forced myself.”

  I watched as he put the money in his jacket pocket. He’d already participated fully in a felony, but actually taking the money evidently had some strong symbolic value for him, because he straightened up behind the wheel and gave a little sigh when he had done so.

  “Jack’s in Atlanta,” he said. “He and Betty flew down for the golf. Said he almost didn’t go this year, the way the market’s been behaving. Said he’d thought about selling the coins, but how would that look? And he’d have hated to part with those dimes.”

  “Now he won’t have to. But he’d better figure on keeping them out of sight for a year or two.”

  “I’ll make sure he knows that.” A slow smile spread on his face. “What’s the line from Casablanca? At the very end, Bogart to Claude Rains.”

  “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”