Lawrence Block - The Burglar In The Closet

Jillian clutched her own heart, her small hand pressing high on the left-hand side of the navy sweater. She was following the line as if it were a movie and she were seeing it on TV.

“Then he came on into the bedroom,” I went on. “First thing he saw was my attaché case standing against the wall under the French woman’s portrait. He went over and-”

“What French woman?”

“It’s not important. A picture on Crystal’s wall. But he didn’t see the picture because he only had eyes for the attaché case. See, he figured an attaché case is an attaché case. He assumed it was full of the counterfeit money and this was his chance to swipe it back.”

“But the money was in a black vinyl case, wasn’t it?”

“Black Naugahyde. Right. But how would Grabow know that?”

“Wouldn’t he have packed it like that to begin with?”

“Maybe, but how do we know that? Maybe he gave Crystal the money in a Bloomingdale’s shopping bag. That’s what I usually use on burglaries. It looks like you belong, striding along with a Bloomie’s bag full of somebody else’s property. Suppose he just knew someone had transferred it to an attaché case, and here was an attaché case, the very item he was looking for. The natural thing would be for him to grab it and get the hell out and worry later what was in it.”

“And later, when he opened the case-”

“It probably confused the daylights out of him. For a minute he must have thought Crystal was some kind of medieval alchemist who managed to transmute paper into gold and diamonds. Then when he had it figured he had to go back for the money. That would explain the second break-in, the burglary after the police had already sealed the apartment. Grabow went back for the money, broke the seals, searched the place, and went home empty-handed. Because the counterfeit bills were all packed up at Knobby Corcoran’s apartment, sitting on a shelf in the closet.”

Jillian nodded, then frowned. “What happened to the jewels?”

“I suppose Grabow held onto them. People tend to retain jewelry rather than leave it for the garbage man. I didn’t see them around his loft, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The jewels are evidence and he wouldn’t leave them lying around because they’d lock him into the murder.”

“He kept the dental tools around.”

“That’s different. There’s no way to explain the jewelry and he’d have to realize that. He must have stashed it somewhere. It’s possible he tucked it away right there on King Street. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult to hide the jewels under the floorboards or inside the modular furniture where I wouldn’t find them on a routine search. As far as that goes, I found a safe-deposit key among his other stuff. It’s possible the jewels are already in the bank. He could have gone Friday before the banks closed and stashed them in his safe-deposit box. Or he might even have fenced them. That’s not inconceivable. As a counterfeiter, the odds are he knows somebody who knows somebody who fences stolen gems. It’s no harder to find a fence in this town than it is to place a football bet or buy a number or score drugs. But there’s really no reason to speculate about the jewels. There’s already enough evidence against Grabow to put him away for years.”

“You mean the dental tools?”

“That’s a start,” I said. “I moved things around at his place, just in case he decides to get rid of the evidence. I put some of the twenties where you’d have to search to find them. Same with a few dental instruments. If he panics and throws out the instruments, there’ll be a few he won’t find that the police would turn up easily on a search. And I hid the printing plates. That might make him panic if he goes looking for them, but the way I left things he’ll never believe a burglar set foot in the place. I even picked the lock on my way out to relock it, and that’s a service relatively few burglars perform for you. I left his loft empty-handed, you know. In fact I walked out of there with less than I brought, since I planted those fake twenties on him. If I did that all the time I’d have a problem coming up with the rent every month.”

She giggled. “My mother used to say that if burglars came to our house they’d leave something. But you’re the only one I ever heard of who actually did.”

“Well, I’m not going to make a habit of it.”

“Have you been a burglar all your life, Bernie?”

“Well, not all my life. I started out as a little kid, just like everybody else. I love the way you giggle, incidentally. It’s very becoming. I guess I’ve been a burglar since I got done being a kid.”

“I don’t think you ever did get done being a kid, Bernie.”

“I sometimes have that feeling myself, Jillian.”

And I got to talking about myself and my crazy criminous career, how I’d started out sneaking into other people’s houses for the sheer thrill of it and learned before long that the thrill was all the keener if you stole something while you were at it. I talked and she listened, and somewhere in the course of things we finished the coffee and she broke out a perfectly respectable bottle of Soave. We drank the chilled white wine out of stemmed glasses and sat side-by-side on the couch, and I went on talking and wished the couch would do its trick of converting into a bed. She was lovely, Jillian was, and she was a most attentive listener, and her hair smelled of early spring flowers.

Around the time the bottle became empty she said, “What are you going to do now, Bernie? Now that you know who the killer is.”

“Find a way to get information to the cops. I suppose I’ll run the play through Ray Kirschmann. It’s not his case but he smells money and that’ll make him bend procedures like pretzels. I don’t know how he’s going to make a dollar out of this one. If the jewels turn up they’ll be impounded as evidence. But if there’s a buck in it he’ll find it, and that’ll be his problem not mine.”

“I know he wants you to call him.”

“Uh-huh. But not now, I’m afraid. It’s the middle of the night.”

“What time is it? Oh, it really is the middle of the night. I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“I’ll have to find someplace to stay. I’m afraid my own apartment’s no good for the time being. They probably don’t have it staked out but I’m not going to risk it now, not if they’ve got a pickup order out on me. I can get a hotel room.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You figure that might be ridiculous? I suppose you’re right. Hotels don’t get that many check-ins at this hour and it might look suspicious. Well, there’s something else I could always try. Just scout an empty apartment, one where the tenants are gone for the weekend, and make myself right at home. That worked well enough for Goldilocks.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You stayed here last night and you can stay here again. I don’t want you to take a chance of getting arrested.”

“Well, Craig might-”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Craig won’t be coming over and I wouldn’t let him in if he did. I’m pretty angry with Craig, if you want to know. I think he behaved terribly and he may be a great dentist but I’m not sure he’s a very wonderful human being.”

“Well, that’s great of you,” I said. “But this time I’ll take the chair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, you’re not going to sit up in that thing, for God’s sake. I’m not going to let you give up your bed again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Huh? I don’t-”

“Bernie?” She gazed up at me from beneath those long eyelashes. “Bernie, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh,” I said, and looked deeply into her eyes, and smelled her hair. “Oh.”