Lawrence Block - The Burglar In The Closet

“And what’s your business exactly, Ray?”

“Now there’s another good question.” A light turned and he hung a right turn, his fleshy hands caressing the wheel. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I think there’s a reason I’m still wearin’ a uniform after all these years on the force, and I think the reason’s I never been a subtle guy. My trouble is I notice the obvious first and foremost. I see a ticket stub happens to be in somebody’s pocket and what comes to mind is a planned alibi. And I look at the guy in question and he’s a fellow that’s spent his whole life liftin’ things out of other people’s houses, what comes to mind is a burglary. Here we got a burglar who went to some trouble settin’ hisself up with an alibi, and the next morning we find him in the office of the dentist who just cooled out his wife, and the morning after that one he’s tiptoein’ out of the dentist’s nurse’s bedroom, and I don’t know what a subtle plainclothes man would make of all that, but old Ray here, he gets right down to cases.”

Ahead of us, a UPS van had traffic tied up. Some of the other drivers around us were using their horns to ventilate their feelings. But Ray was in no hurry.

I said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Well, what the hell, Bernie. Here we are, just you and me and a traffic jam, so let’s us get down to carpet tacks. The way I figure it, you decided the Sheldrake dame looked like an easy score. Maybe you kept your ears open when you were gettin’ your teeth drilled, or maybe you got hipped by the nurse that you been havin’ a romance with, one way or another, but you decided to drop over to Gramercy and open a couple of locks and see what was loose. Now maybe you were in and out before Sheldrake came callin’, but then how would you know you needed an alibi? No, I’ll tell you the way I figure it. You got there and opened the door and found her with her heart stopped. You took a minute to fill your pockets with pretty things and then you got the hell out, and on the way home you stopped at the Garden and picked a stub off the floor. Then first thing the next mornin’ you hopped over to Sheldrake’s office to keep in touch with what was happenin’ and make sure your own neck wasn’t on the block.”

“What makes you think something was stolen?”

“The dead woman had more jewelry than Cartier’s window. There’s nothin’ in the apartment but prizes out of Cracker Jack boxes. I don’t figure it walked away.”

“Maybe she kept it in a bank vault.”

“Nobody keeps it all in a bank vault.”

“Maybe Sheldrake took it.”

“Sure. He remembered to turn the place inside out and carry off all the jewels but he was so absentminded that he left his whatchacallit, his scalpel, he left it in her heart. I don’t think so.”

“Maybe the cops took it.”

“The investigatin’ officers?” He clucked his tongue at me. “Bernie, I’m surprised at you. You think a couple of guys checkin’ out a homicide are gonna stop to rob the dead?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Honestly? I think it’s a hell of a thing. But it didn’t happen this time because the downstairs neighbor was on hand when they cracked the Sheldrake woman’s door. You don’t steal when somebody’s watchin’ you. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Well, you don’t go ahead and commit a burglary if you have to step over a corpse to get to the jewels, Ray. And I’m surprised you didn’t know that. ”

“Maybe.”

“More than maybe.”

He gave his head a dogged shake. “Nope,” he said. “Maybe’s as far as I’d go on that one. Because you know what you got? You got the guts of a burglar, Bernie. I remember how cool you were when me and that crud Loren Kramer walked in on you over in the East Sixties, and there’s a dead body in the bedroom and you’re actin’ like the apartment’s empty.”

“That’s because I didn’t know there was a body in the bedroom. Remember?”

He shrugged. “Same difference. You got the guts of a burglar and all bets are off. Why else would you fix yourself an alibi?”

“Maybe I actually went to the fights, Ray. Ever think of that?”

“Not for very long.”

“And maybe I set up an alibi-which I didn’t because I really was at the fights-”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“-because I was working some other job. I’m not that crazy about jewels. They’re getting tougher and tougher to sell, the fences are turning vicious, you know that. Maybe I was out lifting somebody’s coin collection and I established an alibi just as a matter of course, because I know you people always come knocking on my door when a coin collection walks out of its owner’s house.”

“I didn’t hear nothin’ about a coin collection stolen the other night.”

“Maybe the owner was out of town. Maybe he hasn’t missed it yet.”

“And maybe what you robbed was a kid’s piggy bank and he’s too busy cryin’ to tell the cops about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe shit don’t stink, Bernie. I think you got the Sheldrake woman’s jewels.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, you gotta say that. That don’t mean I gotta believe it.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, sure. You spent the night with Sheldrake’s nurse because you didn’t have no better place to stay. I believe everything you tell me, Bernie. That’s why I’m still in a blue uniform.”

I didn’t answer him and he didn’t say anything more. We drove around for a while. The UPS truck had long since gotten out of the way and we were drifting in the stream of traffic, turning now and then, taking a leisurely ride around the streets of midtown Manhattan. If all you noticed was the weather, then you might have mistaken it for a nice fall day.

I said, “Ray?”

“Yeah, Bern?”

“There’s something you want?”

“There always is. There’s this book, they ran a hunk of it in the Post. Looking Out for Number One. Here’s a whole book tellin’ people to be selfish and let the other guy watch out for his own ass. Imagine anybody has to buy a book to learn what we all grew up knowin’.”

“What is it you want, Ray?”

“You care for a smoke, Bernie? Oh, hell, you already told me you quit. It bother you if I smoke?”

“I can stand it.”

He lit a cigarette. “Those jewels,” he said. “Sheldrake’s jewels that you took from her apartment.”

“I didn’t get them.”

“Well, let’s suppose you did. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Well,” he said, “I never been greedy, Bern. All I want is half.”

Spyder’s Parlor was dark and empty. The chairs perched on top of the tables. The stools had been inverted and set up on the bar. A menu in the window indicated that they opened for lunch during the week, but today was Saturday and they wouldn’t turn the lights on until mid-afternoon. I stayed with Lexington a block or two uptown to a hole in the wall where the counterman mugged and winked and called his female patrons dear and darling and sweets. They ate it up. I ate up a sandwich, cream cheese on date-nut bread, and drank two cups of so-so coffee.

Grabow, Grabow, Grabow. In a hotel lobby I went through the Manhattan telephone directory and came up with eight Grabows plus two who spelled it without the final letter. I bought dimes from the cashier and tried all ten numbers. Six of them didn’t answer. The other four didn’t know anything about any artist named Grabow. One woman said her husband’s brother was a painter, exteriors and interiors, but he lived upstate in Orchard Park. “It’s a suburb of Buffalo,” she said. “Anyway he didn’t change his name, it’s still Grabowski. I don’t suppose that helps you.”