Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who liked to Quote Kipling

What they had was mostly negative. No information about next of kin. No clue as to where she’d lived before taking the Sixty-sixth Street apartment fourteen months ago. If she’d ever been in Cleveland, or even flown over the State of Ohio, they didn’t know anything about it.

The same call to the News was about as unproductive. The man I talked to said he didn’t know where the Times got off calling Porlock a psychotherapist, that he had the impression she was somebody’s mistress, but that they weren’t really digging into it because all she was was the victim of an open-and-shut burglary turned homicide. “It’s not much of a story for us,” he said. “Only reason we played it at all is it’s the Upper East Side. See, that’s a posh neighborhood and all. I don’t know what the equivalent would be in Cleveland.”

Neither did I, so I let it pass.

“This Rhodenbarr,” the News man went on. “They’ll pick him up tomorrow or the next day and that’s the end of the story. No sex angle, nothing colorful like that. He’s just a burglar.”

“Just a burglar,” I echoed.

“Only this time he killed somebody. They’ll throw the key away on him this time. He’s a guy had his name in the papers before. In connection with homicide committed during a job he was pulling. Up to now he always managed to weasel out of it, but this time he’s got his dick in the wringer.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” I said.

“Huh?”

“I mean you never know,” I said quickly. “The way criminals manage to slip through cracks in the criminal-justice apparatus these days.”

“Jesus,” he said. “You sound like you been writin’ our editorials.”

I no sooner hung up the phone than it started ringing. I put up a fresh pot of coffee. The phone stopped ringing. I went over to it, about to make a call, and it rang again. I waited it out, then used it to call the police. This time I said I was Phil Urbanik of the Minneapolis Tribune . I was tired of Cleveland for the time being. I got bounced from one cop to another, spending a lot of time on Hold in the process, before I managed to establish that nobody around the squad-room knew more about Madeleine Porlock than that she was dead. The last cop I spoke with was sure of one other thing, too.

“No question,” he said. “Rhodenbarr killed her. One bullet, close range, smack in the forehead. M.E.’s report says death was instantaneous, which you don’t have to be a doctor to tell. He left prints in both apartments.”

“He must have been careless,” I suggested.

“Getting old and sloppy. Losing his touch. Here’s a guy, his usual M.O.’s to wear rubber gloves with the palms cut out so he don’t leave a print anywhere.”

“You know him?”

“No, but I seen his sheet. You’d figure him to be pretty slick, plus he always stayed away from violence, and here he’s sloppy enough to leave prints and he went and killed a woman. You know what I figure? What I figure is drugs.”

“He’s involved with drugs?”

“I think he musta been high on them. You get hopped up and you’re capable of anything.”

“How about the gun? Was it his?”

“Maybe he found it there. We didn’t trace it yet. Could be the Porlock woman had it for protection. It wasn’t registered, but what does that mean? Maybe he stole it upstairs. The couple up there said no, but if it was an unregistered weapon they’d deny it. What’s your interest in the gun, anyway?”

“Just making conversation.”

“ Minneapolis, you said?”

“That’s right,” I said smoothly. “Well, I guess that gives us a good hometown angle on the story. All right to say you’re close to an arrest?”

“Oh, we’ll get him,” he assured me. “A crook like Rhodenbarr’s a creature of habit. He’ll be what they call frequenting his old haunts and we’ll pick him up. Just a question of time.”

I was standing behind the door when she opened it. She moved into the room saying my name.

“Behind you,” I said, as gently as possible. She clapped her hand to her chest as if to keep her heart where it belonged.

“Jesus,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t sure it was you.”

“Who else would it be?”

“It could have been Randy.”

“Randy,” she said heavily. Cats appeared and threaded figure eights around her ankles. “Randy. I don’t suppose she called, did she?”

“She might have. It rang a lot but I wasn’t answering it.”

“I know you weren’t. I called twice myself, and when you didn’t answer I figured you weren’t picking up the phone, but I also figured maybe you got cabin fever and went out, and then I came home and you weren’t here and all of a sudden you were behind me. Don’t do that again, huh?”

“I won’t.”

“I had a busy day. What time is it? Almost two? I’ve been running all over the place. I found out some stuff. What’s this?”

“I want you to make a phone call for me.”

She took the sheet of paper I handed her but looked at me instead. “Don’t you want to hear what I found out?”

“In a minute. I want you to call the Times and insert the ad before they close.”

“What ad?”

“The one I just handed you. In the Personal column.”

“You got some handwriting. You should have been a doctor, did anyone ever tell you that? ‘Space available on Kipling Society charter excursion to Fort Bucklow. Interested parties call 989- 5440.’ That’s my number.”

“No kidding.”

“You’re going to put my number in the paper?”

“Why not?”

“Somebody’ll read it and come here.”

“How? By crawling through the wires? The phone’s unlisted.”

“No, it’s not. This place is a sublet, Bernie, so I kept the phone listed under Nathan Aranow. He’s the guy I sublet from. It’s like having an unlisted number except there’s no extra charge for the privilege, and whenever I get a call for a Nathan Aranow I know it’s some pest trying to sell me a subscription to something I don’t want. But it’s a listed number.”

“So?”

“So the address is in the book. Nathan Aranow, 64 Arbor Court, and the telephone number.”

“So somebody could read the ad and then just go all the way through the phone book reading numbers until they came to this one, right, Carolyn?”

“Oh. You can’t get the address from the number?”

“No.”

“Oh. I hope nobody does go through the book, because Aranow’s right in the front.”

“Maybe they’ll start in the back.”

“I hope so. This ad-”

“A lot of people seem to be anxious to get their hands on this book,” I explained. “All different people, the way it looks to me. And only one of them knows I don’t have it. So if I give the impression that I do have it, maybe one or more of them will get in touch and I’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.”

“Makes sense. Why didn’t you just place the ad yourself? Afraid somebody in the Times classified department would recognize your voice?”

“No.”

“And they’d say, ‘Aha, it’s Bernard G. Rhodenbarr the burglar, and let’s go through the telephone wires and take him into custody.’ My God, Bernie, you thought I was being paranoid about the number, and you’re afraid to make a phone call.”

“They call back,” I said.

“Huh?”

“When you place an ad with a phone number. To make sure it’s not a practical joke. And the phone was ringing constantly, and I wasn’t answering it, and I figured the Times would call to confirm the ad and how would I know it was them? Paranoia, I suppose, but it seemed easier to wait and let you make the call, although I’m beginning to wonder. You’ll place the ad for me, won’t you?”