Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

“Just my cat,” she said. “Just an animal I happen to love.”

“You want a hankie?”

“What I want is to stop being an idiot. Shit, I can’t help it. Gimme the hankie. Where am I gonna get a quarter of a million bucks, Bern?”

“You could start by taking all your old deposit bottles back to the deli.”

“They add up, huh?”

“Little grains of water, little drops of sand. That’s another thing that’s crazy. Who would figure you could come up with that kind of money? Your apartment’s cozy, but Twenty-two Arbor Court isn’t the Charlemagne. Anyone bright enough to get in and out and lock up after himself-he really locked up after himself?”

“Swear to God.”

“Who has keys to your place?”

“Just you.”

“What about Randy Messinger?”

“She wouldn’t pull this kind of shit. And anyway the Fox lock is new since she and I were lovers. Remember when you installed it for me?”

“And you locked it when you left, and unlocked it when you came back.”

“Definitely.”

“You didn’t just turn the cylinder. The bar moved and everything.”

“Bernie, trust me. It was locked and I had to unlock it.”

“That rules out Randy.”

“She wouldn’t have done it.”

“No, but somebody could have copied her keys. Do I still have my set?” I went and checked, and I still had them. I turned, saw my attaché case propped up against the sofa. If I sold its contents for their full market value, I might have two-fifths of the price of a secondhand Burmese cat.

Oh, I thought.

“Take a couple of aspirin,” I said. “And if you want another drink, have it with hot water and sugar. You’ll sleep better.”

“Sleep?”

“Uh-huh, and the sooner the better. You take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’ll take the couch. Except I won’t because I don’t want to go to sleep and I can’t stay here anyway. They said they would call me in the morning.”

“That’s why I want you to get to sleep. So you’ll be clearheaded when they call.”

“Bernie, I got news for you. I’m not gonna be clearheaded in the morning. I’m gonna have a head like a soccer ball that Pelé got pissed at.”

“Well, I’ll be clearheaded,” I said, “and one head is better than none. The aspirin’s in the medicine cabinet.”

“What a clever place for it. I bet you’re the kind of guy who keeps milk in the fridge and soap in the soap dish.”

“I’ll fix you a hot toddy.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I have to be at my place for when they call.”

“They’ll call here.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because you don’t have a quarter of a million dollars,” I said, “and who could mistake you for David Rockefeller? So if they want a hefty ransom for Archie they must expect you to steal it, and that means they must know you’ve got a friend in the stealing business, and that means they’ll call here. Drink this and take your aspirin and get ready for bed.”

“I didn’t bring pajamas. Have you got a shirt or something that I can sleep in?”

“Sure.”

“And I’m not sleepy. I’ll just toss and turn, but I guess that’s all right.”

Five minutes later she was snoring.

Asign on the counter said the suggested contribution was $2.50. “Contribute more or less if you prefer,” it counseled, “but you must contribute something. ” The chap immediately in front of us plunked down a dime. The attendant started to tell him about the suggested contribution, but our lad wasn’t open to suggestion.

“Read your own sign, sonny,” he said sourly. “How many times do I have to go through this with you vermin? You’d think it was coming out of your own pockets. They haven’t got you on commission, have they?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I’m an artist. The dime’s my widow’s mite. Take it in good grace or in the future I’ll reduce my contribution to a penny.”

“Oh, you can’t do that, Mr. Turnquist,” the attendant said archly. “It would throw our whole budget out of whack.”

“You know me, eh?”

“Everybody knows you, Mr. Turnquist.” A heavy sigh. “Everybody.”

He took Turnquist’s dime and gave him a little yellow lapel pin for it. Turnquist faced us as he fastened the pin to the breast pocket of his thrift shop suit jacket. It was a sort of gray, and came reasonably close to matching his thrift shop trousers. He smiled, showing misaligned tobacco-stained teeth. He had a beard, a ragged goatee a little redder than his rusty brown hair and a little more infiltrated with gray, and the rest of his face was two or three days away from a shave.

“Little tin gods on wheels,” he advised us. “That’s all these people are. Don’t take any crap from them. If Art can be intimidated, it ain’t Art.”

He moved on and I laid a five-dollar bill on the counter and accepted two lapel pins in return. “An artist,” the attendant said meaningfully. He tapped another sign, which announced that children under the age of sixteen were not admitted, whether or not accompanied by an adult. “We ought to amend our policy,” he said. “No children, no dogs, and no artists.”

I’d awakened before Carolyn and went directly to a liquor store on West Seventy-second, where I bought a replacement bottle of Canadian Club. I took it home and knocked on Mrs. Seidel’s door, and when my knock went unanswered I let myself in and cracked the seal on the bottle, poured an ounce or so down the sink drain, capped the bottle and put it back where I’d found its fellow the night before. I let myself out and met Mrs. Hesch in the hallway, the inevitable cigarette burning unattended in the corner of her mouth. I stopped at her apartment for a cup of coffee-she makes terrific coffee-and we talked, not for the first time, about the coin-operated laundry in the basement. She was exercised about the driers, which, their dials notwithstanding, had two temperatures-On and Off. I was vexed with the washers, which were as voracious as Pac-Man when it came to socks. Neither of us said anything about the fact that I’d just let myself out of Mrs. Seidel’s place.

I went back to my apartment and listened to Carolyn being sick in the bathroom while I put a pot of coffee on. She came out looking a little green and sat in the corner of the couch holding her head. I showered and shaved and came back to find her staring unhappily at a cup of coffee. I asked her if she wanted aspirin. She said she wouldn’t mind some Extra-Strength Tylenol, but I didn’t have any. I ate and she didn’t and we both drank coffee and the phone rang.

A woman’s voice, unaccented, said, “Mr. Rhodenbarr? Have you spoken to your friend?”

I thought of pointing out that the question was implicitly insulting, presuming that I only had one friend, that I was the sort of person who couldn’t possibly have more than a single friend, that I was lucky to have one and could probably expect to be deserted by her when she wised up.

I said, “Yes.”

“Are you prepared to pay the ransom? A quarter of a million dollars?”

“Doesn’t that strike you as a shade high? I know inflation’s murder these days, and I understand it’s a seller’s market for Burmese cats, but-”

“Do you have the money?”

“I try not to keep that much cash around the house.”

“You can raise it?”

Carolyn had come over to my side when the phone rang. I laid a reassuring hand on her arm. To my caller I said, “Let’s cut the comedy, huh? Bring the cat back and we’ll forget the whole thing. Otherwise-”

Otherwise what? I’m damned if I know what kind of a threat I was prepared to make. But Carolyn didn’t give me the chance. She clutched my arm. She said, “ Bernie -”