The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling

by Lawrence Block

  Randy’s Polaroid captured all of this remarkably well. We studied the result together. “What’s missing,” Carolyn said, “is a cigar.”

  “You don’t smoke cigars.”

  “To pose with. It’d make me look very Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Which of them do you figure you’d look like?”

  “Oh, very funny. Nothing like a little sexist humor to lighten the mood. Are we ready to go?”

  “I think so. You’ve got the Blinns’ bracelet?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “And you’re comfortable with the camera?”

  “It’s about as tricky to operate as a self-service elevator.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  And on the sidewalk I said, “Uh, Carolyn, you may not remind anybody of Faye Dunaway, but you look terrific today.”

  “What’s all this about?”

  “And you’re not bad to have around, either.”

  “What is this? A speech to the troops before going into battle?”

  “Something like that, I guess.”

  “Well, watch it, will you? I could get misty-eyed and run my mascara. It’s a good thing I don’t wear any. Can’t you drive this crate, Bern?”

  On weekends, New York’s financial district looks as though someone zapped it with one of those considerate bombs that kills people without damaging property. Narrow streets, tall buildings, and no discernible human activity whatsoever. All the shops were closed, all the people home watching football games.

  I left the Pontiac in an unattended parking lot on Nassau and we walked down to Pine. Number 12 was an office building that towered above those on either side of it. A guard sat at a desk in the lobby, logging the handful of workers who refused to let the weekend qualify their devotion to the pursuit of profit.

  We stood on the far side of Pine for eight or ten minutes, during which time the attendant had nothing whatever to do. No one signed in or out. I looked up and counted nine lighted windows on the front of the building. I tried to determine if one of these might be on the fourteenth floor, a process made somewhat more difficult by the angle at which I had to gaze and the impossibility of determining which was the fourteenth floor, since I had no way of knowing if the building had a thirteenth floor.

  I couldn’t find a pay phone in line of sight of the building. I went around the corner and walked a block up William Street. At two minutes past four I dialed the number Prescott Demarest had given me. He picked it up after it had rung twice but didn’t say anything until I’d said hello myself. If I’d shown similar restraint the night before we could have had Randy’s Polaroid without breaking and entering to get it.

  “I have the book,” I told him. “And I need cash. I have to leave town. If you’re ready to deal, I can offer you a bargain.”

  “I’ll pay a fair price. If I’m convinced the item is genuine.”

  “Suppose I show it to you tonight? If you decide you want it, then we can work out a price.”

  “Tonight?”

  “At Barnegat Books. That’s a store on East Eleventh Street.”

  “I know where it is. There was a story in this morning’s paper—”

  “I know.”

  “You feel it’s entirely safe? Meeting at this store?”

  “I think so. There’s no police surveillance, if that’s worrying you. I checked earlier this afternoon.” And so I had, driving past slowly in the Pontiac. “Eleven o’clock,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up and walked back to the corner of William and Pine. I could see the entrance of Number 12 from there, though not terribly well. I’d left Carolyn directly across the street in the doorway of a shop that offered old prints and custom framing. I couldn’t tell if she was still there or not.

  I stayed put for maybe five minutes. Then someone emerged from the building, walking off immediately toward Nassau Street. He’d no sooner disappeared from view than Carolyn stepped out from the printshop’s doorway and gave me a wave.

  I sprinted back to the telephone, dialed WOrth 4-1114. I let it ring a full dozen times, hung up, retrieved my dime, and raced back to where Carolyn was waiting. “No answer,” I told her. “He’s left the office.”

  “Then we’ve got his picture.”

  “There was just the one man?”

  “Uh-huh. Somebody else left earlier, but you hadn’t even gotten to the phone by then, so I didn’t bother taking his picture. Then one man came out, and I waved to you after I snapped him, and there hasn’t been anybody since then. Here’s somebody now. It’s a woman. Should I take her picture?”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “She’s signing out. Demarest didn’t bother. He just waved to the guard and walked on by.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. I’ve done that myself, hitting doormen with the old nonchalance. If you act like they know you, they figure they must.”

  “Here’s his picture. What we really need is one of those zoom lenses or whatever you call them. At least this is a narrow street or you wouldn’t be able to see much.”

  I studied the picture. It didn’t have the clarity of a Bachrach portrait but the lighting was good and Demarest’s face showed up clearly. He was a big man, middle-aged, with the close-cropped gray hair of a retired Marine colonel.

  The face was vaguely familiar but I couldn’t think why. He was no one I’d ever seen before.

  On the way uptown Carolyn used the rear-view mirror to check the angle of her beret. It took a few minutes before she was satisfied with it.

  “That was really funny,” she said.

  “Taking Demarest’s picture?”

  “What’s funny about taking somebody’s picture? It wasn’t even scary. I had visions of him coming straight across the street and braining me with the camera, but he never even noticed. Just a quiet little click from the shadows. No, I was talking about last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “When Randy turned up. The ultimate bedroom farce. I swear, if jumping weren’t allowed she’d never get to a conclusion.”

  “Well, from her point of view—”

  “Oh, the whole thing’s ridiculous from anybody’s point of view. But there’s one thing you’ve got to admit.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s really cute when she’s mad.”

  By a quarter to five we were in a cocktail lounge called Sangfroid. It was as elegant as the surrounding neighborhood, its floor deeply carpeted, its décor running to black wood and chrome. Our table was a black disc eighteen inches in diameter. Our chairs were black vinyl hemispheres with chrome bases. My drink was Perrier water with ice and lime. Carolyn’s was a martini.

  “I know you don’t drink when you work,” she said. “But this isn’t drinking.”

  “What is it?”

  “Therapy. And not a moment too soon, because I think I’m hallucinating. Do you see what I see?”

  “I see a very tall gentleman with a beard and a turban walking south on Madison Avenue.”

  “Does that mean we’re both hallucinating?”

  I shook my head. “The chap’s a Sikh,” I said. “Unless he’s a notorious homicidal burglar wearing a fiendishly clever disguise.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  He had entered the telephone booth. It was on our corner, a matter of yards from where we sat, and we could see him quite clearly through the window. I couldn’t swear he was the same Sikh who’d held a gun on me, but the possibility certainly did suggest itself.

  “Is he the man who called you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why’s he in the booth? He’s ten minutes early, anyway.”

  “Maybe his watch is fast.”

  “Is he just going to sit there? Wait a minute. Who’s he calling?”

  “I don’t know. If it’s Dial-A-Prayer, you might get the number from him.”

  “It’s not Dial-A-Prayer. He’s saying something.”

  “Maybe it’s Dial-A-Mantra and
he’s chanting along with the recording.”

  “He’s hanging up.”

  “So he is,” I said.

  “And going away.”

  But not far. He crossed the street and took a position in the doorway of a boutique. He was about as inconspicuous as the World Trade Center.

  “He’s standing guard,” I said. “I think he just checked to make sure the coast was clear. Then he called the man I spoke with earlier and told him as much. Those may have been his very words—The coast is clear—but somehow I doubt it. Here comes our man now, I think.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “The Carlyle, probably. It’s just a block away, and where else would you stay if you were the sort to employ turbaned Sikhs? The Waldorf, perhaps, if you had a sense of history. The Sherry-Netherlands, possibly, if you were a film producer and the Sikh was Yul Brynner in drag. The Pierre maybe, just maybe, if—”

  “It’s definitely him. He’s in the booth.”

  “So he is.”

  “Now what?”

  I stood up, found a dime in my pocket, checked my watch. “It’s about that time,” I said.

  “You’ll excuse me, won’t you? I have a call to make.”

  It was a longish call. A couple of times the operator cut in to ask for nickels, and it wasn’t the sort of conversation where one welcomed the intrusion. I thought of setting the receiver down, walking a few dozen yards, tapping on the phone-booth door and hanging onto my nickels. I decided that would be pound foolish.

  I hung up, finally, and the operator rang back almost immediately to ask for a final dime. I dropped it in, then stood there fingering my ring of picks and probes and having fantasies of opening the coin box and retrieving what I’d spent. I’d never tried to pick a telephone, the game clearly not being worth the candle, but how hard could it be? I studied the key slot for perhaps a full minute before coming sharply to my senses.

  Carolyn would love that one, I thought, and hurried back to the table to fill her in. She wasn’t there. I sat for a moment. The ice had melted in my Perrier and the natural carbonation, while remarkably persistent, was clearly flagging. I gazed out the window. The phone booth on the corner was empty, and I couldn’t spot the Sikh in the doorway across the street.

  Had she responded to a call of nature? If so, she’d toted the camera along with her. I gave her an extra minute to return from the ladies’ room, then laid a five-dollar bill atop the little table, weighted it down with my glass, and got out of there.

  I took another look for the Sikh and still couldn’t find him. I crossed the street and walked north on Madison in the direction of the Carlyle. Bobby Short was back from his summer break, I seemed to recall reading, and Tommie Flanagan, Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist for years, was doing a solo act in the Bemelmans Lounge. It struck me that I couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend a New York evening, and that I hadn’t been getting out much of late, and once this mess was cleared up I’d have to pay another visit to this glittering neighborhood.

  Unless, of course, this mess didn’t get cleared up. In which case I wouldn’t be getting out much for years on end.

  I was entertaining this grim thought when a voice came at me from a doorway on my left. “Pssssst,” I heard. “Hey, Mac, wanna buy a hot camera?”

  And there she was, a cocky grin on her face. “You found me,” she said.

  “I’m keen and resourceful.”

  “And harder to shake than a summer cold.”

  “That too. I figured you were in the john. When you failed to return, I took action.”

  “So did I. I tried taking his picture while you were talking to him. From our table. All I got was reflections. You couldn’t even tell if there was anyone inside the telephone booth.”

  “So you went out and waylaid him.”

  “Yeah. I figured when he was done he’d probably go back where he came from, so I found this spot and waited for him. Either he made more calls or you were talking a long time.”

  “We were talking a long time.”

  “Then he showed up, finally, and he never even noticed me. He passed close by, too. Look at this.”

  “A stunning likeness.”

  “That’s nothing. The film popped out the way it does, and I watched it develop, and it’s really amazing the way it does that, and then I tore it off and put it in my pocket, and I popped out of the doorway, ready to go back and look for you, and who do you think I bumped into?”

  “Rudyard Whelkin.”

  “Is he around here? Did you see him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you say that?”

  “Just a guess. Let’s see. Prescott Demarest?”

  “No. What’s the matter with you, Bern? It was the Sikh.”

  “That would have been my third guess.”

  “Well, you would have been right. I popped out with my camera in my hot little hands and I almost smacked right into him. He looked down at me and I looked up at him, and I’ll tell you, Bernie, I could have used a stepstool.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened is I was incredibly brilliant. A mind like quicksilver. I went all saucer-eyed and I said, ‘Oh, wow, a turban! Are you from India, sir? Are you with the United Nations? Gosh, will you pose for me so I can take your picture?’ ”

  “How did this go over?”

  “Smashingly. Look for yourself.”

  “You’re getting pretty handy with that camera.”

  “You’re no more impressed than he was. He’s going to buy himself a Polaroid first thing Monday morning. I had to take two pictures, incidentally, because he wanted one for a souvenir. Turn it over, Bernie. Read the back.”

  An elegant inscription, with lots of curlicues and nonfunctional loops and whorls. To my tiny princess / With devotion and esteem / Your loyal servant / Atman Singh.

  “That’s his name,” she explained. “Atman Singh.”

  “I figured that.”

  “Clever of you. The guy you were on the phone with is Atman Singh’s boss, which you also probably figured. The boss’s name is—Well, come to think of it, I don’t know his name, but his title is the Maharajah of Ranchipur. But I suppose you knew that too, huh?”

  “No,” I said softly. “I didn’t know that.”

  “They’re at the Carlyle, you were right about that. The Maharajah likes to take people with him when he travels. Especially women. I had the feeling I could have joined the party if I played my cards right.”

  “I wonder how you’d look with a ruby in your navel.”

  “A little too femme, don’t you think? Anyway, Atman Singh likes me just the way I am.”

  “So do I.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “You did beautifully, Carolyn. I’m impressed.”

  “So am I,” she said, “if I say so myself. But it wasn’t just me alone. I could never have done it without the martini.”

  Driving south and east, she said, “It was exciting, doing that number with Atman Singh. At first I was scared and then I didn’t even notice I was scared because I was so completely into it. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Of course I know what you mean. I get the same feeling in other people’s houses.”

  “Yeah, that was a kick. In Randy’s place. I never realized burglary could be thrilling like that. Now I can see how people might do it primarily for the kick, with the money secondary.”

  “When you’re a pro,” I said, “the money’s never secondary.”

  “I guess not. She was really jealous, wasn’t she?”

  “Randy?”

  “Yeah. Hey, when this is all over, maybe you could teach me a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like opening locks without keys. If you think I could learn.”

  “Well, there’s a certain amount a person can learn. I think there’s a knack for lockpick work that you either have or you don’t, but beyond that there are things I could teach you.”

  “How about starting a car w
ithout a key?”

  “Jumping the ignition? That’s a cinch. You could learn that in ten minutes.”

  “I don’t drive, though.”

  “That does make it a pointless skill to acquire.”

  “Yeah, but I’d sort of like to be able to do it. Just for the hell of it. Hey, Bern?”

  “What?”

  She made a fist, punched me lightly on the upper arm. “I know this is like life and death,” she said, “but I’m having a good time. I just wanted to tell you that.”

  By five-fifty we were parked—legally, for a change—about half a block from the Gresham Hotel on West Twenty-third Street. The daylight was fading fast now. Carolyn rolled down her window and snapped a quick picture of a passing stranger. The result wasn’t too bad from an aesthetic standpoint, but the dim light resulted in a loss of detail.

  “I was afraid of that,” I told her. “I booked the Maharajah at five and Whelkin at six, and then when I spoke to Demarest, I was going to set up the call for seven. I made it four instead when I remembered we’d need light.”

  “There’s flashcubes in the carrying case.”

  “They’re a little obvious, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m glad we caught Demarest when it was still light enough out to see him. With Whelkin it may not matter. We may not be able to coax him out of the hotel.”

  “You think he’s staying there?”

  “It’s certainly possible. I’d have called, but what name would I ask for?”

  “You don’t think he’s staying there under his own name?”

  “In the first place, no. In the second place, I have no idea what his right name might be. I’m sure it’s not Rudyard Whelkin. That was a cute story, being named for Kipling and growing up to collect him, but I have the feeling I’m the only person he told it to.”

  “His name’s not Rudyard Whelkin?”

  “No. And he doesn’t collect books.”

  “What does he do with them?”

  “I think he sells them. I think”—I looked at my watch—“I think he’s sitting in a booth in the lobby of the Gresham,” I went on, “waiting for my call. I think I better call him.”

  “And I think I better take his picture.”

  “Be subtle about it, huh?”