Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Rye

“If someone were a burglar,” she said, not looking at me, “one could get hold of the letters before they got into Sotheby’s hands, let alone into their catalog. Isn’t that the sort of thing a skilled and resourceful burglar could do?”

“I suppose I should have seen it coming,” I told Carolyn. “I bought the bookstore thinking that it might be a good place to meet girls, and every once in a while it is. People do wander in, and some of them are female, and some of them are attractive. And it’s natural enough to fall into conversation, about books if nothing else, and sometimes it’s a conversation that can be continued over drinks and even dinner.”

“And once in a while it’s not over until Mel Tormé sings.”

“Once in a while,” I agreed. “Once in a great while. But I should have seen it coming all the same. I mean, it’s not as if I was irresistible that afternoon. All I could talk about was the candiru. That’s some icebreaker.”

“Well, it gets your attention.”

“She’s living in Virginia when she hears from Fairborn,” I said, “and a couple of weeks later she walks into my store, picks a fifth printing of his book off the shelf, and asks what an inscribed first edition would be worth. She’d owned the book for twenty years. Don’t you think she’d have a better idea of its value than I would?”

“It was a way to start a conversation, Bern, and a better one than the candiru. It was a coincidence, her needing a burglar and you happening to be one, but the thing about coincidences is they happen. Look at Erica.”

“I’d better not,” I said. “I looked at Mindy Sea Gull, and I got bawled out for it.”

“I’m talking about coincidence,” she said. “Erica came into my life when I just happened to be in the mood for romance and open to the possibility of a relationship. Wouldn’t you call that a coincidence?”

“Not really.”

“No? Why the hell not?”

“You’re generally in the mood for romance,” I said, “and whenever you see somebody cute, you’re ready to start picking out drapes together.”

“Our eyes met across a crowded room, Bern. How often does that happen?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “It was a remarkable coincidence, and it means the two of you are made for each other. But it wasn’t a coincidence with Alice. She’d managed to learn about me, and maybe that’s not as hard to do as I’d like to think. Sit down at a computer, punch in books and burglar, and whose name is going to pop up?”

“It’s true you’ve had your name in the papers a few times.”

“That’s the trouble with getting arrested,” I said. “All the publicity. If Fairborn wants to find out what invasion of privacy is all about, let him stick up a liquor store. ‘No mug shots, please. I never allow photographs.’ Lots of luck, Gully.”

“I guess that means he’d better not go after the letters himself.”

“I should have seen it coming,” I said again, “and maybe I would have, but Mel Tormé was singing his heart out, and…”

“I understand, Bern. You’re gonna do it, aren’t you? You’re gonna steal the letters.”

“I’d have to be nuts,” I said. “There’s no money in it. The letters may be worth a small fortune, but I’d be returning them to the man who wrote them, and he can’t pay enough to make it worthwhile. And she lives in a hotel, and that’s always tricky. The Paddington’s not Fort Knox, but it’s still risky and there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The only pot is one made out of black clay, and he already gave it to Alice. I’d have to be out of my mind to do it.”

“What did you tell her, Bern?”

“I told her yes,” I said, and picked up my drink. “I must be out of my mind.”

Gulliver Fairborn would have hated it.

They took me to the precinct in handcuffs, which is just plain undignified, and they took my fingerprints and made me pose for pictures, full-face and profile. That’s a clear-cut invasion of privacy, but try telling that to a couple of cops at the end of a long shift. Then they strip-searched me, and then they tossed me in a holding cell, and that’s where I spent what was left of the night.

I’d have slept better at home, or on the office couch at the store, or in Room 415 at the Paddington. As it was I barely slept at all, and I was groggy and grubby when Wally Hemphill showed up first thing in the morning and bailed me out.

“I told them they had nothing,” he said. “You were in a hotel where a woman died. Where’s the crime in that? They said a witness could place you on the floor where the murder took place, and where you had no reason to be. And you were registered under a false name, and you have a sheet with a whole lot of arrests on it.”

“But only one conviction,” I pointed out.

“A judge hears that,” he said, “it’s like telling him you only put the tip in. What I stressed was you’re an established retailer with your own store, and there’s no chance you’re going to cut and run. I tried for Own Recognizance, but the papers teed off on the last judge who let a murderer out without bail, and-”

“I’m not a murderer, Wally.”

“I know that,” he said, “and anyway it’s beside the point, which is that I got bail knocked down to a manageable fifty K.”

“Manageable?”

“You’re out, aren’t you? You can thank me, for cutting my run short and coming down bright and early.” Wally was training for the New York Marathon, upping his weekly mileage as the race approached. Law was his profession, but running was his passion. “And you can thank your friend Marty Gilmartin,” he added. “He put up the dough.”

“Marty Gilmartin,” I said.

“Why are you frowning, Bernie? You remember him, don’t you?”

Of course I did. I’d met Martin Gilmartin a while back, after I’d been arrested for stealing his collection of baseball cards. I hadn’t done it, but my alibi would have been that I was cracking an apartment across town at the time, and I figured I was better off keeping my mouth shut. It all worked out, and Marty and I wound up having a mutually profitable association, breaking effortlessly into houses of friends of his who wanted to collect on their insurance. We each had a good chunk of cash by the time we were done, and mine was enough to buy the building that housed the bookstore. Now I don’t have to worry about grasping landlords, since I’ve had the good fortune to become one myself. You know how they say crime doesn’t pay? They don’t know what they’re talking about.

“I remember him,” I said, “as if I’d seen him only yesterday. If I was frowning it’s because I’d meant to tell you to call him. But I didn’t, did I?”

“No,” Wally said, “and I didn’t, either. Call him, I mean.”

“He called you.”

“Right. Said he’d heard you were in trouble, and what would it take to get you out? I said it would probably take an act of God to get you out of trouble, but all it would take to get you out of jail was ten percent of the bond, which is to say five large. He sent a messenger with fifty hundred-dollar bills in an envelope, which ought to earn him an invitation to your Christmas party. And here you are.”

“Here I am,” I agreed.

“You’re charged with murder,” Wally went on, “but I don’t think they’re serious about it. They can’t possibly make it stick. Of course, life would get a lot simpler if they found the person who actually did kill the Landau woman.”

“If I knew,” I said, “I’d be happy to tell them. Meanwhile I’d better go open the store. I’ve got a cat who hates to miss a meal.”