Lawrence Block - The Burglar in the Rye

Paddington Bear lay beside me. I’d taken off all of my clothes. He’d kept his on, including his boots. I tried to keep my mind on Paddington, but it would have none of it.

It kept insisting on returning to Room 303, and what I’d encountered there. Well, no, there hadn’t been an actual encounter, and thank God for that, but I’d glimpsed her through a plastic shower curtain and heard her through an open door.

The glimpse didn’t tell me much more than that she sat down to pee. The unmistakable cries of passion, cries that had previously resounded within the walls of my own apartment, they told me a good deal more.

The luggage tag swore she was Karen Kassenmeier. But I knew better.

She was Alice Cottrell.

Remarkably enough, I was open for business a few minutes after ten. Raffles met me at the door and rubbed up against my ankles, assuring me he was on the brink of starvation. It was a convincing performance, but it didn’t stop me from calling Carolyn at the Poodle Factory.

“I didn’t feed him,” she said. “I just opened up myself a few minutes ago. It was a long night.”

“For me, too.”

“I know,” she said, “because I tried to reach you and I couldn’t. I called late, too. Where were you, anyway?”

Someone was at the door. “I’ll tell you during lunch. What kind of food should I get?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing too far out, okay? I couldn’t face breakfast this morning, so that’ll give you an idea. Lean towards bland.”

I don’t know what kind of a night Raffles had had, but he had no trouble facing breakfast. My first customer was joined by a second, and while they poked around in different corners of the shop I went through the bag of books Henry Walden had persuaded a woman to leave for my appraisal. They’d looked good at first glance the previous afternoon, and they looked even better after a thorough examination. No great rarities, no Tamerlane and Other Poems, but good salable books in decent shape, the sort that look good on my shelves and move quickly off of them.

I made notes and jotted down numbers and worked out how high I could safely go for the books, and I’d just come up with a figure when Henry Walden stepped over my threshold, looking as though he’d spent the previous night meditating at a Zen temple instead of knocking them back at the Bum Rap. He was wearing a different sport jacket and a clean shirt, and his eyes were bright and his skin clear. His silver beard and mustache were, as always, perfectly groomed, and his tan beret was cocked at a rakish angle.

“Good morning,” he said. “That was enjoyable last evening.”

“I enjoyed it myself,” I said. “As much as I remember of it, anyway. The drinks hit me pretty hard.”

“Really? You didn’t show it.”

That was nice to hear, but I didn’t want to put too much stock in it. People say it all the time. “Oh, really? Both the dog and your mother-in-law? That’s funny, because you didn’t seem drunk at all.” Yeah, right.

We chatted a bit, and then he found some books to look at while I made a couple of phone calls. I reached Marty Gilmartin at his office and told him the books he was looking for-I didn’t want to say rubies-were in a safe place. I didn’t add that the safe place was halfway to the bottom of a sack of dry cat food in my back room.

“But don’t say anything,” I said. “To either of them.”

“John or Isis,” he said. “Not until we know what we’re going to do with the, uh, books.”

I rang off and tried Alice Cottrell’s number, or at least the number she had given me, which now seemed no more credible than anything else she’d told me. There was no answer, and I can’t say I was surprised.

The woman who’d left the bag of books still hadn’t turned up at noon. I hung the cardboard clock face in the window, indicating I’d be back at one, and asked Henry if he felt up to giving me a hand with the table. I wound up leaving the table out on the sidewalk and retrieving my clock sign.

“I’ve got a shop-sitter,” I told Carolyn. “A customer with time on his hands. I can’t afford to pay him anything, but he doesn’t seem to want to be paid. He likes hanging around, and he says he’s learning the business.”

“I had that guy Keith,” she said. “Remember him? He wanted to be my apprentice. He was happy to do all the shit work if I’d just teach him the dog-grooming game. It would have been a good deal, but I couldn’t stand having him around. He got on my nerves.”

“I don’t think Henry’ll get on my nerves,” I said. “He didn’t this morning, and they’re pretty raw.”

“Your nerves?”

I nodded. “Rough night.”

“You and me both.”

“I thought you were with Erica.”

“I was.”

“I thought you stayed with Lavoris and soda when you were with her.”

“I thought so, too,” she said. “What’s for lunch, Bern? I couldn’t face breakfast, so I’m pretty hungry.”

“Me too,” I said. “I don’t know what’s for lunch.”

“You bought it and you don’t know what it is?”

“I went to the Uzbek place.”

“Two Guys from Tashkent?”

“Right, and you know what that’s like. The menu’s on the blackboard, but who knows what any of the words mean? I just pointed at things and handed them money, and one guy gave me food and the other guy gave me change.”

“That makes two guys, all right.” She opened a container, sniffed. “Somehow,” she said, “I don’t think this is going to be bland.”

“Oh, hell,” I said. “I forgot.”

She took a forkful and her eyes widened. “A long way from bland,” she announced.

“Leave it. I’ll get you something else.”

“No, stay where you are. Maybe that’s the wrong move entirely, eating bland food when you feel like this. Maybe spicy food is what you really need.”

“Well, this is spicy. I think it would take rust off old pipes.”

“My pipes are getting older even as we speak. This is tasty, isn’t it? I bet it fixes me right up.”

“I hope so.”

“And if it makes me any worse, I’ll go home. And that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, either. What do you figure this is, Bern?”

“No idea.”

“Maybe we’re happier not knowing. That’s probably a lot of crap, bland food for an upset stomach. Like bland food for an ulcer.”

“You haven’t got an ulcer.”

“I will,” she said, “if we keep eating Uzbek food. How come you had a rocky morning?”

“I had drinks with Marty,” I said, “and then I had drinks with Henry.”

“Henry the shop-sitter.”

“Right. Marty and I had Kessler’s, and Henry and I had Old Overcoat.”

“Old Overholt.”

“Whatever. They both liked rye just fine, and they both handled it okay, too. But I wound up with a snootful.”

I told her how the night had ended, only to begin again at half past three in the morning and end a second time when I got back to bed an hour or so later.

“Gee,” she said. “I thought I had a wild evening.”

“What happened?”

“Erica had a business triumph to celebrate,” she said. “So she took me to the Lorelei Room.”

“Sixty floors up? Posher than posh? Views beyond description? That Lorelei Room?”

“That’s the one. I was wearing this outfit she made me buy, and I felt really weird, but she kept telling me I looked beautiful, and halfway through my second Rob Roy I started to believe her.”

“Where did the Rob Roys come from?”

“The waiter brought them. Oh, why Rob Roys and not Campari? Because it was a celebration. That made it a special occasion, so it was okay for us to get a little tiddly.”