Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

I squinted through the peephole, saw no one in the hallway, and put my ear to the door and heard no one in the hallway, either. I unlocked the door, eased it open, saw no one in the hallway, and let myself out. I picked the Poulard lock again, locking it this time so as to spare the manufacturer’s feelings. I did not reset the spurious burglar alarm cylinder, just gave it a wink and went on my way, pausing only to smudge whatever prints I might have left on the outside of the door. Then, attaché case in hand, I crossed to the fire door, opened it, passed through it, and let out a long breath as it swung quietly shut behind me.

I climbed one flight, stopped long enough to strip off my rubber gloves and stuff them into my jacket pocket. (I didn’t want to open the attaché case and chance spilling stamps all over the goddamn place.) I climbed three more flights of stairs, slipped the lock on the fire door, emerged in the hallway, and rang for the elevator. While it ascended from the lobby I checked my watch.

Twenty-five minutes to one. It had been close to eleven-thirty when I said good night to Onderdonk, so I’d spent just about an hour in the Appling apartment. It seemed to me that I should have been able to get in and out in half an hour, but I couldn’t have shaved too many minutes off the time I spent going through the albums. I could have stayed out of the bedrooms, perhaps, and I didn’t have to give as much attention as I did to the Tiffany lamps, but what is it they say about all work and no play? I was out of there safely and that was what counted.

A shame, though, that I couldn’t have made my exit before midnight, when service shifts commonly change at apartment buildings. I’d be seen now by a second elevator operator, a second concierge, a second doorman. Otherwise I’d have been seen by the same set a second time, and which was riskier? Not that it mattered, since I’d already given my name, and-

The elevator arrived. As I stepped into the car I turned toward Onderdonk’s closed door. “ ’Night now,” I said. “I’ll have those figures for you as soon as I can.”

The door closed, the car descended. I leaned back against its wood paneling and crossed my legs at the ankle. “Long day,” I said.

“Just starting for me,” the operator said.

I tried to forget about the camera overhead. It was like trying to forget that you’ve got your left foot in a bucket of ice water. I couldn’t look at it and I couldn’t suppress the urge to look at it, and I did a lot of elaborate yawning. It was, actually, a rather quick ride, but it certainly didn’t seem that way.

A brisk nod to the concierge. The doorman held the door for me, then hurried past me to the curb to summon a taxi. One turned up almost immediately. I gave the doorman a buck and told the driver to drop me at Madison and Seventy-second. I paid him, walked a block west to Fifth, and caught another cab back to my place. On the way I balanced the attaché case on my knees and relived some of the hour I’d spent in apartment 11 – B. The moment when the Poulard lock, teased and tickled beyond endurance, threw up its tumblers and surrendered. The sight of that inverted airmail stamp, alone on a page, as if it had been waiting for me since the day they misprinted it.

I tipped the cabby a buck. My own doorman, a glassy-eyed young fellow who worked the midnight-to-eight shift in a permanent muscatel haze, did not rush to open the door of the taxi. I suppose he’d have held the lobby door for me but he didn’t have to. It was propped open. He stayed on his stool, greeting me with a sly conspiratorial smile. I wonder what secret he thought we shared.

Upstairs I fumbled my own key into my own lock, for a change, and opened the door. The light was on. Considerate of them, I thought, to leave a light for the burglar. Wait a minute, I thought. What was this them stuff? I was the one who’d left the light on, except I hadn’t, I never did.

What was going on?

I put a foot inside, then drew it warily back, as if trying to get the hang of a new dance step. I went on in and turned toward the couch and blinked, and there, blinking back at me like a slightly cockeyed owl, was Carolyn Kaiser.

“Well, Jesus,” she said, “it’s about time. Where the hell have you been, Bern?”

I pulled the door shut, turned the bolt. “You picked your way through my Rabson lock,” I said. “I didn’t think you knew how to do that.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t tell me the doorman let you in. He’s not supposed to, and anyway he doesn’t have a key.”

“ I have a key, Bern. You gave me keys to your place. Remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“So I stuck the key in the lock and turned it, and damned if the thing didn’t pop open. You ought to try it yourself sometime. Works like a charm.”

“Carolyn-”

“Have you got anything to drink? I know you’re supposed to wait until it’s offered, but who’s got the patience?”

“There’s two bottles of beer in the fridge,” I said. “One’s going to wash down the sandwich I’m about to make, but you’re welcome to the other one.”

“Dark Mexican beer, right? Dos Equis?”

“Right.”

“They’re gone. What else have you got?”

I thought for a moment. “There’s a little Scotch left.”

“A single malt? Glen Islay, something like that?”

“You found it and it’s gone, too.”

“ ’Fraid so, Bern.”

“Then we’re fresh out,” I said, “unless you want to knock off the Lavoris. I think it’s about sixty proof.”

“Child of a dog.”

“Carolyn-”

“You know something? I think I’m gonna go back to saying ‘son of a bitch.’ It may be sexist but it’s a lot more satisfying than ‘child of a dog.’ You go around saying ‘child of a dog’ and people don’t even know you’re cursing.”

“Carolyn, what are you doing here?”

“I’m dying of thirst, that’s what I’m doing.”

“You’re drunk.”

“No shit, Bernie.”

“You are. You drank two beers and a pint of Scotch and you’re shitfaced.”

She braced an elbow on her knee, rested her head in the palm of her hand and gave me a look. “In the first place,” she said, “it wasn’t a pint, it was maybe six ounces, which isn’t even half a pint. We’re talking about three drinks in a good bar or two drinks in a terrific bar. In the second place, it’s not nice to tell your best friend that she’s shitfaced. Pie-eyed, maybe. Half in the bag, three sheets to the wind, a little under the weather, all acceptable. But shitfaced, that’s not a nice thing to say to someone you love. And in the third place-”

“In the third place, you’re still drunk.”

“In the third place, I was drunk before I drank your booze in the first place.” She beamed triumphantly, then frowned. “Or should that be the fourth place, Bernie? I don’t know. It’s hell keeping track of all these places. In the fifth place I was drunk when I got back to my place, and then I had a drink before I came up to your place, so that makes me-”

“Out of place,” I suggested.

“I don’t know what it makes me.” She waved an impatient hand. “That’s not the important thing.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

“What is?”

She looked furtively around. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody,” she said.

“’To tell anybody what?”

“There aren’t any bugs in this place, are there, Bern?”

“Just the usual roaches and silverfish. What’s the problem, Carolyn?”

“The problem is my pussy’s been snatched.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, God,” she said. “My kid’s been catnapped.”

“Your kid’s been-Carolyn, you don’t have any kids. How much did you have to drink, anyway? Before you got here?”