Lawrence Block: The Burglar In The Closet

But why play dog in the manger?

Or I could have told her that burglary wasn’t quite the dead-end profession it might appear to be, and that this case, for all the mess it had been, was by no means leaving me destitute. I might have alluded to the quarter of a million dollars’ worth of queer twenties which, but for a couple thousand planted in Verrill’s desk, still reposed in a locker at Port Authority. They hadn’t gone anywhere with Knobby, of course, all that double-talk notwithstanding. Knobby’d gotten his ass out of town the minute he saw they were gone, because he knew some mob heavies were going to expect him to turn up with either fifty grand in cash or five times that amount in counterfeit, and since he couldn’t do either New York was a lousy place to be.

So I’d find somebody who knew somebody, and if I couldn’t get twenty or thirty grand as my end of the transaction, well, I’d be surprised. Of course I could always decide to do it Grabow’s way and pass the bills myself one at a time, but for that occupation you don’t need the guts of a burglar. You have to have the gall of a con man and the patience of a saint, and that’s a hell of a combination.

For that matter, I could have told her Crystal’s jewels still existed somewhere, that Verrill couldn’t have sold them yet and certainly hadn’t stashed them where the police would trip over them. When things cooled down a little I might have a go at turning them up. So there might not be a future in burglary, and God knows there’s no pension plan and no retirement benefits, but if there’s no future there’s a pretty good present with it, and I was coming out with fair compensation for what had been admittedly a pretty rough couple of days.

So I could have had a shot at changing her mind. But if I had to go through all that then she wasn’t worth it, so the hell with her.

There’s plenty of women in this world.

Like that one I talked to on the phone. Narrowback Gallery. What the hell was her name? Denise. Denise Raphaelson. She’d been lots of fun over the phone, and fun was something Jillian was manifestly not. Cute and cuddly is nice, but after you’ve done the dirty deed a few times it’s nice if you can also lie around and have a few laughs.

Of course she could turn out to be a beast. Or the chemistry in person could be far different from what it had been over the phone. But in a day or three I’d go look at some paintings, and if the signs were right I’d introduce myself, and if it worked that would be nice, and if it didn’t that would be okay, too.

Plenty of women in this world.

But where was I going to find another dentist?

A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, LAWRENCE BLOCK is a four-time winner of the Edgar® and Shamus awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He also received the British Crime Writers’ Association’s prestigious Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in crime writing. The author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, he is a devout New Yorker and enthusiastic world traveler. Visit his website at www.lawrenceblock.com.