Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“Soup?”

I rolled reluctantly over and blinked at her. She was at the side of the bed. She had the split-leaf philodendron back on its perch and she was pouring water at its roots. The plant didn’t look any the worse for wear and she looked terrific.

Hair short and dark, a high forehead, and very precisely measured facial features with just the slightest upward tilt to her nose and just the right amount of determination in her jawline. A well-formed mouth that, if not generous, was by no means parsimonious. Little pink ears with well-defined lobes. (I’d recently read a paperback on determining character and health from ears, so I was noticing such things. Her ears, according to my source, would seem to be ideal.)

She was wearing white painter’s pants which showed good judgment by hugging her tightly. They were starting to go thin at the knees and in the seat. Her shirt was denim, one of those Western-style numbers with pearlish buttons and floral print trim. She had a red bandanna around her neck and deerskin moccasins upon her little feet.

The only thing I could think of that was wrong with her was that she was there in my apartment. (Well, Rod’s apartment.) She was watering his plants and jeopardizing my security. Yet when I thought of all the mornings I had awakened alone and would have been delighted to have had this very person in the room with me-ah, the injustice of it all. Women, policemen, taxis, newscasts, none of them on hand when you want them.

“Soup?” She turned her face toward me and smiled a tentative smile. Her eyes were either blue or green or both. Her teeth were white and even. “What kind of soup?”

“Almost any kind you’d want. Black bean soup, chicken noodle soup, cream of asparagus soup, tomato soup, cheddar cheese soup-”

“You’re kidding about the cheddar cheese soup.”

“Have I ever lied to you? It’s in the cupboard if you don’t believe me. If Campbell ’s makes it, Rod stocks it. And nothing else except for some roach-ridden rice.”

“I guess he’s not terribly domestic. Have you known him long?”

“We’re old friends.” A lie. “But I haven’t seen very much of him in the past few years.” A veritable truth.

“College friends? Or back in Illinois?”

Damn. What college? Where in Illinois? “College,” I ventured.

“And now you’ve come to New York and you’re staying at his place until-” the blue or green eyes widened “-until what? You’re not an actor, are you?”

I agreed that I wasn’t. But what in hell was I? I improvised a quick story, sitting up in bed with the sheet covering me to the throat. I told her how I’d been in the family feed business back home in South Dakota, that we’d been bought out at a good price by a competitor, and that I wanted to spend some time on my own in New York before I decided what turn my life should take next. I made the story very sincere and very dull, hoping she’d lose interest and remember a pressing engagement, but apparently she found my words more fascinating than I did because she hung on every one of them, sitting on the edge of my bed with her fingers interlaced around her knees and her eyes wide and innocent.

“You want to find yourself,” she said. “That’s very interesting.”

“Well, I never even suspected that I was lost. But now that I’m really at loose ends-”

“I’m in the same position myself, in a way. I was divorced four years ago. Then I was working, not a very involving job, and then I quit, and now I’m on unemployment. I paint a little and I make jewelry and there’s a thing I’ve been doing lately with stained glass. Not what everybody else does but a form I sort of invented myself, these three-dimensional free-form sculptures I’ve been making. The thing is, I don’t know about any of these things, whether I’m good enough or not. I mean, maybe they’re just hobbies. And if that’s all they are, well, the hell with them. Because I don’t want hobbies. I want something to do and I don’t have it yet. Or at least I don’t think I do.” Her eyelashes fluttered at me. “You don’t really want soup for breakfast, do you? Because why don’t I run around the corner for coffee, it won’t take me a minute, and you can put on some clothes and I’ll be right back.”

She was on her way out the door before I had any chance to object. When it closed behind her I got out of bed and went to the toilet. (I would avoid mentioning this, but it was the first time in a long time that I knew what I was doing.) Then I put on yesterday’s clothes and sat in my favorite chair and waited to see what came through my door next.

Because it might well be the plant-watering lady with the coffee come to serve breakfast to the earnest young man from South Dakota.

Or it might be the minions of the law.

“I’ll just run around the corner for coffee.” Sure. Meaning she’d just recognized the notorious murdering burglar, or burgling murderer (orbungling mumbler, or what you will), and was taking this opportunity to (a) escape his clutches and (b) let Justice be done.

I thought about running but couldn’t see any real sense in it. As long as there was a chance she wasn’t going to the cops, then this apartment was a damn sight safer than the streets. At least that’s how my reasoning went, but I suspect the main factor was inertia. I had a bloodstream full of last night’s lousy Scotch and a head full of rusty hardware and it was easier to sit than to run.

I could drag this out, but why? I didn’t have to wait for the door to open to know she’d come back alone. I heard her steps on the stairs, and there is just no way that a herd of cops can ascend a staircase and sound in the process like a diminutive young lady. So I was relaxed and at ease long before the door opened, but when it did in fact open and her pert and pretty face appeared, I must confess it pleased me. Lots.

She had bought real coffee, astonishingly enough, and she now proceeded to make a pot of it. While she did this we chatted idly and easily. I’d had a chance to practice my lies during her absence, so when she told me her name was Ruth Hightower I was quick to reply that I was Roger Armitage. From that point on we ruthed and rogered one another relentlessly.

I said something about the airlines having lost my luggage, tossing the line in before it could occur to her to wonder at my lack of possessions. She said the airlines were always doing that and we both agreed that a civilization that could put a man on the moon ought to be able to keep track of a couple of suitcases. We pulled up chairs on either side of a table and we drank our coffee out of Rod’s chipped and unmatched cups. It was good coffee.

We talked and talked and talked, and I fell into the role so completely that I became quite comfortable in it. Perhaps it was the influence of the environment, perhaps the apartment was making an actor out of me. Rod had said the landlord liked actors. Perhaps the whole building swarmed with them, perhaps it was something in the walls and woodwork…

At any rate I was a perfect Roger Armitage, the new boy in town, and she was the lady I’d met under cute if clumsy circumstances, and before too long I found myself trying to figure out an offhand way to ask her just how well she knew Rod, and just what sort of part he played in her life, and, uh, shucks Ma’am-

But what the hell did it matter? Whatever future our relationship had was largely in the past. As soon as she left I’d have to think about clearing out myself. This was not a stupid lady, and sooner or later she would figure out just who I was, and when that happened it would behoove me to be somewhere else.

And then she was saying, “You know, I was trying so hard to take care of those plants and get out before I woke you, and actually what I should have done was just leave right away because you would have taken care of the plants yourself, but I didn’t think of that, and you know something? I’m glad I didn’t. I’m really enjoying this conversation.”