Lawrence Block: The Burglar on the Prowl

And you won't read Proust, either, or War and Peace, or any of the worthy works you've promised yourself you'd get around to if you only had the time. You'll have plenty of time, but it's noisy inside, noisy all the time, with people yelling and banging things and doors slamming. If Oz had shown that aspect of prison life realistically, nobody could have heard the snappy dialogue. The background roar would have drowned it out.

The right or wrong of it aside, burglary just doesn't make sense. I know I should give it up, and believe me, I've tried. I couldn't tell you how many times I've sworn off. Once I actually managed to stay away from it for a couple of years, and then I knocked off an apartment, and I was hooked again. It's an addiction, a compulsion, and so far I haven't found a 12-Step program that addresses it. I suppose I could start up a chapter of Burglars Anonymous, and we wouldn't even have to find a church willing to rent us a meeting place. We could just break into a loft somewhere.

Until then, the best I can do is remember the lesson I learned in prison. It wasn't the one they hoped to teach me- Thou Shalt Not Steal -but a pragmatic variation thereof- Don't Get Caught.

The way to avoid getting caught is to keep risk to a minimum, and the way to manage that is to size up each potential job in advance and do as much planning and preparation as possible. Consider the Mapes house, if you will. I'd been provided in advance with some useful information about Mapes-the location of his safe, the likelihood that it would contain cash, and the happy knowledge that it was cash he hadn't reported to the government, which meant he might very well choose not to report the burglary to the authorities. I'd established who lived in the house-just Mapes and his wife, his kids were grown and had long since moved away-and learned that Mr. and Mrs. Mapes had season tickets to the Met, and that's where they'd be come Friday night. I'd dropped by Lincoln Center -it's just five minutes from my apartment-and determined that the opera they were seeing would keep them in their seats until close to midnight.

And then, two nights before the event, I'd gone up for a look-see. I'd assessed the locks and the alarm system, probed the defenses, and kept at it until I saw a way through them. Then I'd gone home, prepared to devote another two days to refining my plan and working out the details.

That didn't mean nothing could go wrong. Here's another maxim: Something can always go wrong. Either of the Mapeses could come down with a migraine and decide that it was no night for Mozart. Mapes's daughter-in-law could have kicked her spouse out of the house-if he was a shitheel like his father, God knows she'd have ample cause-prompting the junior Mapes to come home with his tail, among other things, between his legs, ready to hole up in his old room until his wife came to her senses. I could let myself in and find him there, a former college athlete who still worked out regularly at the gym, and who'd lately added a course in martial arts, all the better to defend the family home against a hapless burglar.

I could go on, but you get the point. Something can always go wrong, but that doesn't mean you just plunge blindly ahead, kicking in the first door you come to.

And here I was, on the prowl. Walking the darkened streets, gloves in one pocket, tools in another, risking life and liberty for no good reason. I knew what I was doing, and I damn well should have known better.

I was acting out, that's what I was doing. I felt crummy because I didn't have a girlfriend and I was leading a purposeless existence, and I wanted to do something to change my mood, and I didn't have the urge to get drunk or chase women, somehow knowing that neither would do me any good.

I caught a cab, had the driver drop me at the corner of Park Avenue and 38th Street. I walked the streets of Murray Hill, knowing I was making a big mistake, knowing nothing good could come of this, knowing I was courting disaster.

And here's the worst part of all: It felt wonderful.

The first place that looked good to me was a house on the south side of 39th Street a little ways east of Park. I studied it from across the street and decided nobody who lived there had to worry where his next meal was coming from. I crossed the street for a closer look and spotted a plaque that identified the place as the Williams Club. (That meant that the members had all attended Williams College, not that they were all guys named Bill.)

For a moment or two I found myself thinking it over. On the plus side, I could pretty much take it for granted that the place would be empty. They'd shut down for the night, and there was no nonsense about leaving a light on to ward off intruders. The windows on all four floors were dark as a burglar's conscience. Some clubs, I knew, had sleeping rooms they kept available for out-of-town members, or local members with marital problems, but any such residents would be lodged on the top floor, and they'd never hear me moving around below, or do anything about it if they did.

Nor did I expect to encounter a state-of-the-art security system. As far as I knew, there had never been a break-in at a private club in New York, so why spend a few thousand dollars of membership funds to prevent something that wasn't going to happen? There'd be a lock on the door, and I was sure it would be a good one, but so what? The better the lock, the greater the satisfaction when the tumblers tumble. Where's the fun if they leave the door wide open for you? Where's the sense of accomplishment?

But it's not enough to get in. You have to get out, too, and with something to show for your efforts. I was fairly sure they had a decent wine cellar, and a cozy billiard room, and a welcoming bar, but I couldn't see myself waltzing out of there with a couple of bottles in hand, however splendid the vintage.

There wouldn't be any cash. You don't part with cash at a private club. You don't even need plastic, you just sign for everything, and write a check once a month. There'd be paintings on the walls, no doubt in elaborately carved and gilded frames, but they'd likely be portraits of whatever Williams had founded the school, along with various college presidents, distinguished alumni, and star athletes. If you wanted to turn them into cash, you'd have to cut them out of their frames-and then sell the frames, because no one would give you anything for the portraits.

I walked on. Not without some reluctance, I have to say, because I'd already imagined the pleasure I'd take walking silently through the darkened rooms of the club, a fine if somewhat worn carpet underfoot, the heavy drapery redolent with the aroma of expensive cigars. Maybe there'd be a humidor of cigars behind the bar, and I could take one to the reading room, along with a glass of tawny port or a small snifter of brandy. I could sit in an overstuffed leather club chair with my feet on a matching ottoman and a lamp lit at my shoulder, and I could dip into one of the books from the club library, and-

Go home,an inner voice suggested, but I barely heard it.

I wanted a brownstone.

In the loosest sense of the word, that is. Strictly speaking, a New York brownstone is a structure three or four or five stories tall, with a façade made of-surprise!-brown stone. The term, however, has stretched to cover similar structures fronted in other materials, including limestone and even brick.

If brownstones can vary some on their outsides, it is within their exterior walls that they approach infinite variety. Many were built originally as single-family homes; typically there's a parlor floor, usually a half flight up from street level, with a higher ceiling than the two floors above (where the bedrooms are) or the semi-basement below. Others started out as three-or four-family residences, with one apartment per floor. (Tenements, with four apartments to a floor, sometimes sport façades of brown stone, which does tend to confuse things.)