Burglar on the Prowl

by Lawrence Block

  "Laphroaig?"

  "Pellegrino water. You can't really develop a taste for it, but you don't need one."

  "You just drink it. And you liked it here and came back."

  "Uh-huh."

  "After work, you said. What kind of work?"

  "I have a bookstore."

  "Really? Are you Mr. Barnes or Mr. Noble?"

  "Well, nobody ever called me Mr. Noble. Actually I'd have to say I'm more like Mr. Strand. It's a secondhand bookstore. But a whole lot smaller than the Strand."

  "It sounds like fun. Half the lawyers I know would love to quit and open a used bookstore. The other half can't read. Where is it? Right here in the neighborhood?"

  "Eleventh Street between Broadway and University."

  "And you dropped in here after work?"

  She was wasted on real estate deals, I decided. She should have been taking depositions and cross-examining witnesses. I'd been in the neighborhood delivering a book to a good customer, I told her, and Parsifal's had caught my eye.

  "And you popped in for a Pellegrino."

  "For a Perrier, actually, but Pellegrino's what they had."

  "And you're adaptable." She put her hand on mine. It was just conversational, but I've noticed something. When a woman starts touching you, it is a Good Sign.

  "This is really strange," she said. "See, I didn't go home alone Wednesday night."

  "You're just saying that to shock me."

  "Silly," she said, and touched my hand again. "There's no reason for you to be shocked, butI am, a little. Not at the idea of going home with somebody. I mean, if two grownups get a sort of mutual urge, what's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing that I can think of."

  "But I don'tremember it, Bernie! I don't know who the guy was or what happened, andthat shocks me. In fact it scares me a little. Who the hell did I bring home? It could have been Mr. Goodbar." She'd been looking down, and now she raised her eyes to mine. "It wasn't you, was it?"

  "I wish."

  "That's the second really sweet thing you've said in, what, ten minutes? Bernie, I know it wasn't you, there's no way it could have been you, you've never even been here before. But why do I have the feeling we've been-"

  "Lovers?"

  "Well, intimate, emotionally if not physically. I had that feeling the minute I walked in here."

  "Past lives," I said. "Karmic ties."

  "You think?"

  "What else could explain it?"

  "Do you feel the same way, Bernie?"

  Somehow I'd taken her hand, and I liked the way it felt in mine. There was something going on, and it had been so long that I didn't recognize it at first.

  "This apartment you took someone home to," I said. "Is it nearby?"

  "Right around the corner."

  "I wonder," I said, "if I'll have the feeling I've been there before."

  "Do you think it's possible, Bernie?"

  "I think we should find out."

  "I think you're right," she said. "I think we owe it to ourselves."

  Twenty-Five

  If it's all the same to you, or even if it's not, I'll omit details for the next half-hour or so. Suffice it to say that there are certain things which, unlike a taste for Laphroaig, don't wear off and needn't be reacquired. Things which, once learned, are never forgotten. Like falling off a bicycle, or drowning.

  "One thing's certain," she said. "It wasn't you."

  "What wasn't me?"

  "Wednesday night. I mean, I knew it wasn't, but now I really know."

  "How's that?"

  "If it had been you," she said, "I'd have remembered."

  "If it had been me," I said, "I wouldn't have waited until tonight to refresh your memory."

  "It was the damnedest thing, Bernie. I woke up with a splitting headache, and of course I'd forgotten to set the alarm, so I had to rush to get to the office. I swallowed some aspirin and took a quick shower and was out the door without my usual cup of coffee. I hopped in a cab, hit the Starbucks across the street from my office, and was at my desk at nine o'clock."

  "I'm impressed."

  "And I sat there wondering what had happened. I knew I'd been talking with somebody at the bar, but I couldn't picture him or remember anything about him. And the next thing I remembered was waking up with a headache."

  "So maybe you didn't bring him home after all."

  She shook her head. "I thought of that myself, but when I got home last night I could tell that someone had been here the night before. Whoever he was, he'd evidently made himself at home. It's sort of creepy. I mean, he'd been in my things, and he'd moved stuff around."

  "Creepy's the word for it."

  "My jewelry was arranged differently from the way I'd left it. But he must have just poked around, because he didn't take anything. But you know what he did take?"

  "What?"

  "Well, you're going to think I'm crazy, but he took my electric shaver."

  "I don't think you're crazy. I think he's crazy. Why would he-"

  "I know, it's strange, isn't it? But I looked everywhere and I can't find it, and it's always in the same spot, on the shelf in the bathroom. A little Lady Remington, shaped to fit a dainty feminine hand. I mean, what kind of man would want something like that?"

  I took her dainty feminine hand in mine. "Not the kind who'd want to come home with you in the first place."

  "Exactly. The only thing I could think of is he took it home for his girlfriend."

  "Talk about creepy."

  "Well, if he wanted a souvenir, wouldn't he take something more intimate, like panties or a bra?"

  "That's a point."

  "He went through my purse, but he didn't take any money. I actually had more money than I thought I did. So he wasn't your basic crook. Have you ever been robbed?"

  A couple of times, but rather than recount either of them I made one up. "A few years ago," I said. "A burglar came in off the fire escape. He dragged my TV over to the window, but I guess he decided it was too heavy to carry and left it there. He took a combination radio and CD player that I'd just bought, along with the CD that was in it at the time, and which I had a hard time replacing." It's funny how a lie can build up a momentum all its own. I reined it in, and, if you'll allow a change of metaphors, turned the wheel hard right. "He got a few dollars, too, whatever I had around the house. But the thing that bothered me, because there was no way I could replace it, is he took my high school ring."

  "That's really funny."

  "It is? It didn't seem funny at the time."

  "No, funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. Because I can't findmy class ring."

  "You're kidding. You don't think it was the same guy, do you?"

  We both laughed, and she said she wasn't sure he'd taken it, that it might have disappeared a while ago. "Because he left a really good pair of earrings, and a watch, and a bracelet I never wear, but it's gold, and there are all these gold coins on it. I mean, anyone who looked at it would know it was worth some money. And class rings, well, the gold is no better than ten karat, and the stone is glass."

  "Sounds like the one I lost. If it brought ten bucks in a hock shop, the pawnbroker was generous. What color was it? Maybe he liked the way it went with your pink electric shaver." I rolled onto my side, put a hand on her. "Barbara, those GTs have worn off by now, right? I mean, you'll remember this in the morning?"

  "How could I forget?"

  "I was just thinking that maybe we should make sure."

  "Oh," she said, and reached for me. "Oh, my. What a lovely idea."

  Afterward I got into my clothes while she lay in bed with her eyes closed. She'd taken her hair down when we'd walked in the door, just before she turned to come into my arms, and it was spread out on the pillow now the way it had been when I got my first look at her. She'd been naked then, too, but this time I didn't feel the need to cover her with the sheet. Somehow it no longer felt invasive to enjoy the view.

  I was heading for the door when she said
, "Bernie? How'd you know it was pink?"

  I didn't know what she was talking about. The only pink thing I could think of at the moment.well, never mind.

  "My shaver," she said. "The one he took. How'd you know it was pink?"

  Oh, hell. "You said it was pink," I said.

  "I did?"

  "You must have."

  "But I always thought of it as fuchsia. That's what the manufacturer called it, so if I described it that's what I would have said."

  "Maybe you did, and I just registered it as pink."

  "Yeah, but I don't think I did."

  "Oh," I said. "Are you sure you didn't black it out? No, really, I may have just assumed it was pink. I don't think I've ever seen a woman's razor that wasn't. Do they even come in other colors?"

  "Sure."

  "Oh. I thought they were all pink. Why? What difference does it make?"

  "No difference," she said, sleepily. "I just wondered, that's all."

  Twenty-Six

  The trouble with Thank God It's Friday, I've occasionally thought, is that it's all too often followed by Oh Rats It's The Weekend. Free time is only a godsend when you've got something interesting to do with it. If you've got nothing to do, decent weather lets you do it outdoors, and if you've got time on your hands at the beach or in the park, you may not even notice how bored you are. But when all it does is rain there's no escaping it.

  It started raining an hour or two before dawn Saturday, just about the time I was getting out of a cab on West End Avenue. Edgar was manning the door, and he greeted me with a warm smile and an umbrella, though without a mustache. He told me I hadn't had any visitors, and I was glad to hear it.

  I went to bed, and when I got up it was still raining, and the apologetic young woman on the local news channel said it was likely to keep on doing just that until Monday morning at the earliest. The sports guy said something about dampened enthusiasms, and the anchorman groaned, and I turned off the set.

  I went out for breakfast, although what they were serving by then was lunch. Whatever they wanted to call it, I ate an omelet and drank some coffee and read theTimes. The news was boring or horrible or both, and the movie listings held nothing that I felt like seeing.

  When I got home the phone was ringing. It was Carolyn, reporting that no one had broken in to raid the bathtub while she slept. "But don't think I didn't check," she said, "and I didn't just lift the lid. I stuck my arm down into the Kitty Litter and made sure there were bags under there."

  "I'm surprised you didn't haul them out and count the money."

  "I might have, if I'd thought of it. Listen, when can we get rid of it?"

  "Get rid of it?"

  "You know what I mean. Oh, before I forget-I don't know if you're planning to open up the bookstore today, but I fed your cat, so don't let him con you into opening a second can for him."

  "That cinches it," I said. "Nobody's going to brave a downpour to buy a secondhand book. I'm not going to bother opening up. How about you? You doing any business?"

  "I'm not even trying. I decided to give myself a mental health day. And no, I didn't make a special trip just to feed Raffles. I had some appointments booked, and I needed to call them and cancel. They were relieved, because who wants to take out a dog on a day like this?"

  "The Mets are rained out at Shea," I said, "and I couldn't find a movie I want to see."

  "There's always the John Sandford. Oh, you left it down here. And you've got another copy at the store, don't you? But you're not going there. Well, as of last night you're in the chips, Bern. Do you feel rich enough to buy another copy?"

  "Rich enough, but not crazy enough. I don't want three copies. I've only got two eyes."

  "And one pair of lips to move. You should have taken my copy along with you last night. In fact I thought you did, but it's right here where you left it."

  "I didn't want to carry it around."

  "What, carry? Didn't you just get in a cab?"

  "Right."

  She thought about it. "But you didn't go straight home."

  "Right again."

  "Oh, that's right-you said you were going to a bar. You also said you weren't going to get drunk."

  "And I didn't. And I know you're going to find this contrary to nature, but all I had was one drink."

  "So you got home at a reasonable hour."

  "No," I said, "because I didn't go straight home from the bar."

  "Oh, God. Don't tell me you went on the prowl again, not after the haul we made last night. You'd have to be out of your mind."

  "I went on the prowl," I said, "but not to burgle."

  "What else would you.oh, I get it. Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Well, did you get lucky?"

  "A gentleman never tells," I said. "Yes, I got lucky."

  "Anybody I know?"

  "Almost."

  "Almost? What the hell does that mean?"

  "Well, she works at a law firm at 45th and Madison," I said, "but not as a paralegal. She's a full-fledged lawyer, insofar as lawyers get fledged, and she's in the same firm with GurlyGurl."

  "That's impossible."

  "Why? Because there are eight million people in New York?"

  "It's just a pretty big coincidence, that's all. I have a Date-a-Dyke date with one woman, and the same night you get to go home with somebody from the same law firm."

  "I gather it's a good-sized firm. Even so, it's a pretty big coincidence. But I know a bigger one."

  "What's that?"

  "She took me home to her apartment," I said, "but what she didn't know was that I'd been there before."

  "You'd been to her apartment but she didn't know it. Oh, for God's sake. Don't tell me."

  "Okay."

  "Are you kidding?Tell me!"

  I told her in person, but before I made the trip downtown I called 1-800-FLOWERS, then hung up while they were telling me my call might be monitored. She lived in a brownstone, with no doorman and a grouch for a downstairs neighbor, so I didn't want to send flowers unless I knew she'd be home to receive them.

  So I called her and caught her on her way out the door. She had a wedding to go to out on the island and she was running late. "But I thought it might be you," she said, "so I picked up the phone."

  I told her I just wanted to say what a good time I'd had, and she said the same, and I suggested dinner the following evening. She said she'd be staying over that night, and there was a brunch on Sunday she was supposed to go to, and it was hard to say how late it would run, or whether she'd get a ride back or have to take the train. We left it that she'd call when she got in, or knew when she was going to get in, and if it wasn't too late and I hadn't made other plans, we'd get together.

  So I didn't have to call 1-800-FLOWERS after all. No point-they'd only waste their fragrance on the desert air.

  The way it was raining I'd have been happy to take a cab to Carolyn's, but enough other New Yorkers felt the same way to drop the number of empty cabs below the Mendoza line. I couldn't find one, and I didn't waste too much time trying. I had my umbrella, and it kept me dry all the way to the subway.

  "It's a pretty big coincidence that they both work at the same place," Carolyn said, "but it's not a coincidence you went home with her. Because you were looking for her, weren't you?"

  "Well, kind of. Parsifal's struck me as the kind of place she'd be likely to go, but I figured I was about as likely to run into him as her."

  "Him? Oh, the date-rapist. How would you know it if you did?"

  "By his voice, if I heard him talk. I have a feeling he was in there earlier, and that I didn't miss him by much."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Just a hunch. Anyway, it's not important. Boy, do I hate rainy weekends."

  "You and everybody else, Bern."

  "Especially this one. But I'd hate this weekend even if the sun were out. Everything's just stuck."

  "Stuck?"

  "The money's stuck in the bathtub. We
can't rent a safe-deposit box and put it in the bank because the banks are all closed until Monday. And everything else is stuck, too. Barbara's stuck out in Long Island at a wedding, and Ray's not working. He sometimes works weekends, but not this one, naturally. I called the precinct, and they said he was off today, and I called his house in Sunnyside and nobody answered."