Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Rye

“I don’t know, Ray,” I said. “What did he say about the dog?”

“It bites, Bern. An’ so does your story, rentin’ a hotel room to meet some girl. There’s only one reason a guy like you’d shell out good money for a room, an’ it goes by the name of grand larceny. You were on those premises lookin’ for somethin’ to steal.”

“Maybe I was.”

“ Bern…”

“Carolyn,” he said, “didn’t they learn you not to interrupt?”

“They tried hard to learn me,” she said, “but I was always a slow teacher. Bern, he Mirandized you last night, remember? So watch what you say, because it can be used as evidence. He could stand up in court and swear you said it.”

“I could anyway,” he said reasonably, “whether Bernie here said it or not. A man who’s not willin’ to stretch a point on the witness stand is a man’s got no business bein’ a cop. But this ain’t about court, Bern. It’s about you an’ me comin’ out of this in good shape. Now do you want me to keep talkin’ or should I take a hike?”

“Do I get to vote?”

He glared at Carolyn, and I took a last sip of my cream soda. “Keep talking,” I said.

“You were in this hotel,” he said, “an’ it wasn’t romance brought you there. An’ you were up on the sixth floor, ’cause that’s where you ran into Goat Ear.”

“Goat Ear?”

“You forget her already? The black girl, the one that hollered when you tried to sneak out through the lobby.”

“Isis Gauthier.”

“Right, like I said. Goat Ear.”

“I met her in the hall,” I said, “and I thought we hit it off reasonably well.”

“Let’s say you made an impression, Bern. She went straight to the desk clerk and told him to quit puttin’ shoe polish on his hair an’ call 911, because there’s a suspicious person creepin’ the place.”

“I don’t know how she could call me suspicious,” I said. “I never suspected a thing.”

“What you were,” he said, “is cooler than a cucumber, even if it’s a dill pickle. Speakin’ of which, you gonna eat that one?” I shook my head and he snatched it off my plate, polishing it off in a couple of chomps. “Thanks,” he said. “What you did, Bern, you heard about this Landau woman and these letters of hers. You went lookin’ for ’em, an’ you walked in on a corpse.”

“You mean it wasn’t me who killed her.”

“Of course not, Bern. You ain’t a killer. What you are’s a burglar, an’ you’re one of the best, but when it comes to violence you’re Mahatma Gandhi rolled into one.”

“That’s me,” I said.

“So there’s Landau,” he said, “an’ she’s dead. And you let yourself out an’ lock up after yourself, chain bolt an’ all, same as you always do. It’s a trademark of yours, Bern.”

“I’m neat by nature,” I admitted, “but-”

“Lemme finish. You let yourself in, find a dead woman, an’ let yourself out. An’ run smack into a live one.”

“Isis Gauthier.”

“The black one,” he agreed, “with the French name. She’s on her way out. Now why don’t you hop on the elevator with her an’ get away from the crime scene? That way you’re home in your own bed by the time the blue uniforms hit the hotel lobby.”

“I’m sure you have the answer, Ray.”

“Sure,” he said. “The dog.”

“What dog?”

“The quiet one. We searched you, Bern. Turned you upside down an’ turned your room on the fourth floor inside out. An’ you know what we came up with?”

“Some socks and underwear,” I said. “And a teddy bear, unless one of New York ’s Finest stole it for himself.”

“You got some high opinion of the police, Bern. Nobody stole your teddy bear, which ain’t yours in the first place, bein’ as it’s the property of the hotel. What we came up with was empty hands, an’ what we didn’t find none of was burglar’s tools.”

“So?”

“So where were they?”

“Search me.”

“We did, remember?”

“Vividly.”

“You didn’t leave ’em home,” he said, “or how would you open Landau’s door, or lock up after you left? Anyhow, they’re your American Express card. You never leave home without ’em. But you knew you stood a chance of bein’ frisked, so you dumped ’em somewhere.”

“And if we only knew where they were,” I said, “we could use them to break into the Pentagon and steal government secrets.”

“If we knew where they were,” he said, “we could find more’n a set of burglar’s tools. We could find those letters, too. An’ don’t ask what letters, Bern. You’d know from reading the papers this morning, as if you didn’t know in the first place. Letters from this famous writer I never heard of, so how famous can he be? It’s not like you see the guy on the talk shows. How’s anybody supposed to know who he is?”

“You could try reading his books.”

“If I want to read, I’ll stick with Wambaugh and Caunitz and Ed McBain. Guys who know what it’s all about, not some jerk who writes all his letters on purple paper. The letters were gone, Bern. We searched her rooms the way you’d expect, it bein’ a crime scene an’ all. No letters.”

“And no burglar’s tools.”

“Like I just said.”

“And no dog,” I said. “Ray, you already said I didn’t kill her. Remember?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“And it was homicide, wasn’t it? Or did she die of natural causes?”

“Somebody hit her over the head,” he said, “an’ then stuck a knife in her chest, which naturally caused her to die. The killer took the knife along with him. I suppose he coulda left it behind, an’ you coulda picked it up an’ put it the same place you put the burglar tools an’ the letters, but why would he leave it an’ why would you pick it up? It don’t make no sense.”

“Few things do,” I said. “I thought she was shot.”

“Why’d you think that?”

Because I’d smelled the gunpowder. “I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “I must have heard it.”

“Well, you heard wrong. But even if she was shot, it wasn’t you that shot her, on account of we gave you a paraffin test last night an’ you passed it with flyin’ colors.” He tugged at his lower lip. “Of course you coulda worn gloves. Remember how you always used to wear those rubber gloves with the palms cut out for ventilation? Another trademark of yours, like locking up after the horse is stolen.”

“I know Bernie,” Carolyn said, “and I’ll tell you this right now, Ray. He didn’t steal a horse.”

He gave her a look. “Those rubber gloves wouldn’t help you beat a paraffin test,” he went on, “’cause you’d wind up with nitrate particles on your palms. But nowadays you wear those disposable gloves, made of that plastic film.” A smile began to form on his lips. “Except you weren’t wearing any gloves last night, Bern. Were you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“You left a print.”

How? I distinctly remembered sliding my hands into my Pliofilm gloves before I turned the bolt to lock myself in Andrea Landau’s chambers. And, gloved, I’d promptly wiped the knob and the surfaces of door and jamb I might have touched. The gloves had stayed on my hands until I was out of the apartment altogether. I was on the fire escape, a floor below the crime scene, before I took them off.

“Ain’t you gonna ask where, Bern?”

“I would,” I said, “but I have the feeling you’ll tell me anyway.”

“On one of the envelopes.”

“Oh,” I said, and frowned. “On one of what envelopes?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I thought so.”

“You thought what?”

“That you didn’t even know you left ’ em behind. Two purple envelopes, both of ’em addressed to Anthea Landau. What kind of a name is Anthea, anyway?”