Lawrence Block: The Burglar on the Prowl

All of these things were worth taking from a pure dollars-and-cents standpoint, but I've found that I tend to balance the cash value of an artifact against its likely sentimental value to its owner. Why deprive this woman of her class ring and her locket for the few dollars they would bring me? I'd be hurting her far more than I'd be helping myself, and it didn't seem right.

Now if my unwitting hostess had been not Barbara Creeley but Elizabeth Taylor, say, and the object in question had been not a high school ring but a diamond necklace, I wouldn't care if Richard Burton gave it to her and she couldn't look at it without getting tears in her violet eyes. Sentimental value only goes so far. But I didn't notice a pearl richer than all my tribe in the Creeley jewel box, so I took what I've told you about and left the rest. It's not conscience, not inherent decency, just a sense of proportion.

I tidied up as I went along, and when I was finished I went through the whole apartment, making sure I left everything as I'd found it, except of course for having removed the few items I've mentioned. I took a last look around, turned off the lights in the living room, opened the velvet drapes, and had just turned from that task when I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Hell.

I moved quickly through the apartment, killed a light in the kitchen, switched off the bedside lamp. The footsteps paused at the second-floor landing, and I had a moment where I hoped, all logic notwithstanding, that this was not Barbara Creeley on the stairs but someone planning a late visit to J. Feldmaus.

No such luck. The footsteps resumed, and I heard human speech (What other kind is there? Parrot?) but could not make out what was being said. Either Barbara had company or she was talking to herself. Well, the locks would delay her, and by the time she got past them I'd be down the fire escape.

I opened the curtains, raised one of the blackout shades, and took hold of the window.

And the damned thing wouldn't budge.

I checked to see if it was locked, and learned it was worse than that. The damned thing was nailed shut. Evidently Barbara (or some previous tenant) had been paranoid about an intruder coming in off the fire escape, and had taken up hammer and nails to safeguard herself. Cross-ventilation wasn't a problem, you could still open the window from the top, but you couldn't get out that way. What was she going to do if she had a fire?

More to the point, what was I going to do?

They'd reached the top of the stairs now, and it was clear there were two of them, because I could hear two voices, one basso and one soprano, or perhaps mezzo. So Barbara, who typically slept alone on the right side of the bed, had found someone to bring home with her. That made it her lucky night, but it certainly wasn't mine.

She had trouble with the locks, and I gave thanks for that. It sounded as though she and her companion had had a few drinks, not infrequently the case before two people decide to go home together, and her dexterity had gone the way of her inhibitions. Sooner or later she'd get it right, however, and then where would I be?

I raised the shades, opened the curtains. And now what? The closet? Twice in my career I've hidden in closets, and both times I went undetected, but somehow I knew the third time would be the charm. I couldn't hope to get away with it again.

"Jesus, gimme the fucking keys," said young Lochinvar, and I knew my time was running out.

I hit the floor and dove under the bed.

I tried not to listen.

I'd been willing enough to snoop around in Barbara Creeley's private life earlier, but that was different. She wasn't around at the time, and all I was doing was going through her things and getting what sense I could of the person who owned them. Now, though, she was in the apartment with me, and so was he. It wasn't hard to guess what they were going to do now that they'd managed to get through the door, and unless an excess of passion made them rip off their clothes and do it in the kitchen, they were going to do it right on top of me.

I'd been home, for God's sake. I'd put away my burglar's tools, I'd stowed them in my hidden compartment. I was all settled in for the night. Why couldn't I have gone to bed?

But no, that would have been too easy. So instead of lying comfortably in my own bed I was wedged underneath Barbara Creeley's. There was no room to spare, and there'd be even less when a pair of bodies piled on top of the mattress.

And if anybody looked under the bed, well, then I was sunk. It was not a refuge I could leave in a hurry. All I could do was stay there and wait for the cops to drag me out.

"Kinda sleepy," the woman said.

"Yeah, well, you're gonna get the best night's sleep you ever had," the man said.

"Ca' keep m'eyes open…"

"Roofies'll do that."

"How'd I get here?"

"You live here, you dizzy bitch. Jesus, you're built nice, aren't you? Hang on now, just let me get your clothes off."

"Sleeeeepy…"

In spite of myself I listened, and somewhere along the way it dawned on me what I was listening to. One thing he'd said-"Roofies'll do that"-was enough to clue me in, once I'd allowed it to register. Roofies is one of the names for Rohypnol, that miracle of modern medical science known as the date-rape drug. Barbara Creeley, who'd already been burglarized (even though she didn't know it yet), was about to get raped (even though she didn't know that, either).

It struck me that I ought to do something, but what? If I tried to squirm out from under the bed, I'd alert him long before I was in a position to do anything. I'd gone in headfirst, more or less, so I'd be coming out feet first, and by the time my head cleared the bedframe he'd be in a position to break something over it. And even if I somehow got out before he reacted, well, then what? I never studied martial arts, never put on a pair of boxing gloves, and the last time I was in a fight was when I was eleven years old. My opponent was Kevin Vogelsang, and he gave me a bloody nose, which I probably deserved for chirping "Tweet, tweet, tweet" at him. (His last name means Birdsong. If it had been Feldmaus I'd very likely have gone "Squeak, squeak, squeak" at him, and gotten the same bloody nose. I was a real pain in the ass when I was eleven.)

The point is I've never been much at physical combat, nor am I the hulking sort who can intimidate an opponent by his mere physical presence. In fact I had a feeling it might be the other way around. I hadn't had a look at the Roofies guy, but he had heavy footsteps and a deep and resonant voice, and I'd formed the image of a large fellow who spent a lot of time at the gym lifting heavy metal objects. There was always the chance that my strength would be as the strength of ten because my heart was pure, but what good would that do me? His strength was very likely the strength of eleven, even if his heart was darker than the inside of a cow.

My impulse was chivalrous, but you couldn't have told as much from what I did, which was stay right where I was, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, while the scoundrel had his way with her.

I'll draw a veil over the next ten or fifteen minutes, if it's all the same to you. I couldn't shut out the sounds, nor could I stop my mind from inventing pictures to go with them, but I'm going to keep all that to myself. Barbara Creeley had to endure it, but at least she didn't have to know about it, and neither should you.

I said she didn't know about it, but that's not to say she was unconscious throughout. At one point her voice rang out clear as a bell: "Who are you? What are you doing?"

"Shut up," he explained.

"What's going on?"

"You're getting laid," he said, "but you won't remember a thing in the morning. You'll just wonder why you're sore down there, and where the wet spot in the bed came from."