Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who liked to Quote Kipling

I apologized for the interference.

“It’s nothing, my boy,” he assured me. “Things are every bit as confused where I am. A Eurasian chap’s sprawled on a bench in what looks to be a drug-induced coma, a wild-eyed old woman’s pawing through a shopping bag and nattering to herself, and another much younger woman’s flitting about taking everyone’s picture. Oh, dear. She’s headed this way.”

“She sounds harmless,” I said.

“One can only hope so. I shall give her a dazzling smile and let it go at that.”

A few minutes later I was back in the Pontiac studying a close-up of Rudyard Whelkin. He was showing all his teeth and they fairly gleamed.

“Subtle,” I told Carolyn.

“There’s a time for subtlety,” she said, “and there’s a time for derring-do. There is a time for the rapier and a time for the bludgeon. There is a time for the end-around play and a time to plunge right up the middle.”

“There’s a Notre Dame fan in the Blarney Rose who would argue that last point with you. I wanted a drink by the time I got out of there. But I had the feeling they were out of Perrier.”

“You want to stop someplace now?”

“No time.”

“What did Whelkin say?”

I gave her the Reader’s Digest version of our conversation as I headed uptown and east again. When I finished she frowned at me and scratched her head. “It’s too damned confusing,” she complained. “I can’t tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

“Just assume everybody’s lying. That way the occasional surprises will be pleasant ones. I’ll drop you at the Blinns’ place. You know what to do?”

“Sure, but aren’t you coming in?”

“No need, and too many other things to do. You know what to do after you’re through with the Blinns?”

“Have a big drink.”

“And after that?”

“I think so. Want to run through it all for me one more time?”

I ran through it, and we discussed a couple of points, and by then I was double-parked on East Sixty-sixth next to a Jaguar sedan with DPL plates and a shamefully dented right front fender. The Jag was parked next to a hydrant, and its owner, safe beneath the umbrella of diplomatic immunity, didn’t have to worry about either ticket or tow.

“Here we are,” I said. “You’ve got the pictures?”

“All of them. Even Atman Singh.”

“You might as well take the camera, too. No sense leaving it in the car. How about the Blinns’ bracelet? Got that with you?”

She took it from her pocket, slipped it around her wrist. “I’m not nuts about jewelry,” she said. “But it’s pretty, isn’t it? Bern, you’re forgetting something. You have to come in with me now if you want to get to the Porlock apartment.”

“Why would I want to get to the Porlock apartment?”

“To steal the lynx jacket.”

“Why would I want to steal the lynx jacket? I’m starting to feel like half of a vaudeville act. Why would I-”

“Didn’t you promise it to the cop?”

“Oh. I was wondering where all of that was coming from. No, what Ray wants for his wife is a full-length mink, and what’s hanging in Madeleine Porlock’s closet is a waist-length lynx jacket. Mrs. Kirschmann doesn’t want to have any part of wild furs.”

“Good for her. I wasn’t listening too closely to your conversation, I guess. You’re going to steal the mink somewhere else.”

“In due time.”

“I see. I heard you mention the furrier’s name and that’s what got me confused.”

“Arvin Tannenbaum,” I said.

“Right, that’s it.”

“Arvin Tannenbaum.”

“You just said that a minute ago.”

“Arvin Tannenbaum.”

“Bernie? Are you all right?”

“God,” I said, looking at my watch. “As if I didn’t have enough things to do and enough stops to make. There’s never enough time, Carolyn. Have you noticed that? There’s never enough time.”

“Bernie…”

I leaned across, opened the door on her side. “Go make nice to the Blinns,” I said, “and I’ll catch you later.”

I called Ray Kirschmann from a sidewalk phone booth on Second Avenue. The Bulldogs had more than doubled the point spread, he informed me dolefully. “Look at the bright side,” I said. “You’ll get even tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I got the Giants. They never got anybody even unless he started out ahead.”

“I’d love to chat,” I said, “but I’m rushed. There’s some things I’d like you to find out for me.”

“What am I, the Answer Man? You want a lot for a coat.”

“It’s mink, Ray. Think what some women have to do to get one.”

“Funny.”

“And it’s not just a coat we’re talking about. You could get a nice collar to go with it.”

“Think so?”

“Stranger things have happened. Got a pencil?” He went and fetched one and I told him the things I wanted him to find out. “Don’t stray too far from the phone, huh, Ray? I’ll get back to you.”

“Great,” he said. “I can hardly wait.”

I got back into the car. I’d left the motor running, and now I popped the transmission in gear and continued downtown on Second Avenue. At Twenty-third Street I turned right, favored the Hotel Gresham with no more than a passing glance, turned right again at Sixth Avenue and left at Twenty-ninth Street, parking at a meter on Seventh Avenue. This time I cut the engine and retrieved my jump wire.

I was in the heart of the fur market, a few square blocks that added up to an ecologist’s nightmare. Several hundred small businesses were all clustered together, sellers of hides and pelts, manufacturers of coats and jackets and bags and accessories, wholesalers and retailers and somewhere-in-betweeners, dealers in trimming and by-products and fastenings and buttons and bows. The particular place I was looking for was on the far side of the avenue a couple doors west on Twenty-ninth Street. There Arvin Tannenbaum occupied the entire third floor of a four-story loft building.

A coffee shop, closed for the weekend, took up the ground floor. To its right was a door opening onto a small hallway which led to an elevator and the fire stairs. The door was locked. The lock did not look terribly formidable.

The dog, on the other hand, did. He was a Doberman, bred to kill and trained to be good at it, and he paced the hallway like an institutionalized leopard. When I approached the door he interrupted his exercise and gave me all his attention. I put a hand on the door, just out of curiosity, and he crouched, ready to spring. I withdrew my hand, but this did not mollify him much.

I wished Carolyn were with me. She could have given the bastard a bath. Clipped his nails, too, while she was at it. Filed his teeth down a bit.

I don’t screw around with guard dogs. The only way I could think to get past this particular son of a bitch was to spray poison on my arm and let him bite me. I gave him a parting smile, and he growled low in his throat, and I went over and broke into the coffee shop.

That wasn’t the easiest thing in the world-they had iron gates, like the ones at Barnegat Books-but it was more in my line of work than doing a wild-animal act. The gate had a padlock, which I picked, and the door had a Yale lock, which I also picked. No alarms went off. I drew the gate shut before closing the door. Anyone who took a close look would see it was unfastened, but it looked good from a distance.

There was a door at the side of the restaurant that led to the elevator, but it unfortunately also led to the dog, which lessened its usefulness. I went back through the kitchen, opening a door at the rear which led into an airless little airshaft. By standing on a garbage can, I could just reach the bottom rung of the fire escape. I pulled myself up and started climbing.