Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“So am I, Ruth.”

“You’re easy to talk to. Usually I have trouble talking to people. Especially to men.”

“It’s hard to believe you’re not at ease with everyone.”

“What a nice thing to say!” Her eyes-I’d learned by now that they ranged from blue to green, varying either with her mood or with the way the light hit them-her eyes, as I was saying way back at the beginning of this sentence, gazed shyly up at me from beneath lowered lashes. “It’s turned into a nice day, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has.”

“It’s a little chilly out but the sky is clear. I thought about picking up some sweet rolls but I didn’t know whether you’d want anything besides just coffee.”

“Just coffee is fine. And this is good coffee.”

“Another cup? Here, I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks.”

“What should I call you, Bernie or Bernard?”

“Whichever you like.”

“I think I’ll call you Bernie.”

“Most people do,” I said. “Oh, sweet suffering Jesus,” I said.

“It’s all right, Bernie.”

“God in Heaven.”

“It’s all right.” She leaned across the table toward me, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth, and she placed a small soft-palmed hand atop mine. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said.

“There isn’t?”

“Of course not. I know you didn’t kill anybody. I’m an extremely intuitive person. If I hadn’t been pretty sure you were innocent I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of knocking the plant over in the first place, and-”

“You knocked it over on purpose?”

“Uh-huh. The stand, anyway. I picked up the plant itself so nothing would happen to it, and then I kicked the stand so that it bounced off the wall and fell over.”

“Then you knew all along.”

“Well, your name’s all over the papers, Bernie. And it’s also all over your driver’s license and the other papers in your wallet. I went through your pockets while you were sleeping. You’re one of the soundest sleepers I’ve come across.”

“Do you come across that many?”

Incredibly enough, the minx blushed. “Not all that many, no. Where was I?”

“Going through my pockets.”

“Yes. I thought I recognized you. There was a photo in the Times this morning. It’s not a very good likeness. Do they really cut a person’s hair that short when they send him to prison?”

“Ever since Samson pushed the temple down. They’re not taking any chances.”

“I think it’s barbaric of them. Anyway, the minute I looked at you I knew you couldn’t have murdered that Flaxford person. You’re not a murderer.” She frowned a little. “But I guess you’re a genuine burglar, aren’t you?”

“It does look that way.”

“It certainly does, doesn’t it? Do you really know Rod?”

“Not terribly well. We’ve played poker together a few times.”

“But he doesn’t know what you do for a living, does he? And how come he gave you his keys? Oh, I’m being dull-witted now. What would you need with keys? I saw your keys in your pants pocket, and all those other implements. I must say they look terribly efficient. Don’t you need something called a jimmy to pry doors open with?”

“Only if you’re crude.”

“But you’re not, are you? There’s something very sexual about burglary, isn’t there? How on earth did you get into a business like that? But the man’s supposed to ask the girl that question, isn’t he? My, we have a lot to talk about, and it should be a lot more interesting than all that crap about Roger Armitage and the feed business in South Dakota, and I’ll bet you’ve never even been to South Dakota, have you? Although you do string out a fairly convincing pack of lies. Would you like some more coffee, Bernie?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think I would.”

By six twenty-four that evening the chaps at Channel 7 had said all they were likely to say about the five-state manhunt now under way for Bernard Rhodenbarr, gentleman burglar turned blood-crazed killer. I set one of the foxy old Colonel’s better chicken legs on my plate and crossed the room to turn off Rod’s Panasonic. Ruth sat cross-legged on the floor, a chicken leg of her own unattended while she muttered furiously about the perfidy of Ray Kirschmann. “The gall of that man,” she said. “Taking a thousand dollars of your hard-earned money and then saying such horrible things about you.”

In Ray’s version of the proceedings, I’d crouched in the shadows to take him and Loren by surprise; only his daring and perseverance had enabled him to identify me during the fracas. “I’ve felt for years that Rhodenbarr was capable of violence,” he’d told the reporters, and it seemed to me that his baleful glower had been directed not at the TV cameras but through them at me.

“Well, I let him down,” I said. “Made him look foolish in front of his partner.”

“Do you think he really believed what he said?”

“That I killed Flaxford? Of course he does. You and I are the only people in the world who think otherwise.”

“And the real killer.”

“And the real killer,” I agreed. “But he’s not likely to speak up and nobody’s going to take my word for anything, and you can’t do much in the way of proving your case. As a matter of fact, I don’t see why you believe me to begin with.”

“You have an honest face.”

“For a burglar, maybe.”

“And I’m a very intuitive person.”

“So I’ve been given to understand.”

“J. Francis Flaxford,” she said.

“May he rest in peace.”

“Amen. You know, I can never bring myself to trust men who turn their first name into an initial that way. I always feel they’re leading some sort of secret life. There’s just something devious about the way they perceive themselves and the image they present to the world.”

“That’s quite a generalization, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Look at the record. G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt-”

“Fellow burglars, both of them.”

“Do you have a middle name, Bernie?”

I nodded. “Grimes,” I said. “My mother’s maiden name.”

“Would you ever call yourself B. Grimes Rhodenbarr?”

“I never have. Somehow I doubt I ever shall. But if I did it wouldn’t mean I was trying to hide something. It would mean I had taken leave of my senses. B. Grimes Rhodenbarr, for God’s sake! Look, plenty of people have first names they’re not nuts about, and they like their middle names, so-”

“Then they can drop their first names entirely,” she said. “That’s open and aboveboard enough. It’s when they keep that sneaky little initial out in front there that I don’t trust them.” She showed me the tip of her tongue. “Anyway, I like my theory. And I wouldn’t dream of trusting J. Francis Flaxford.”

“I think you can trust him now. Being dead means never having to do anything sneaky.”

“I wish we knew more about him. All we really know is that he’s dead.”

“Well, it’s the most salient fact about him. If he weren’t dead we wouldn’t have to know anything at all about the sonofabitch.”

“You shouldn’t call him that, Bernie.”

“I suppose not.”

“ De mortuis and all that.”

De mortuis indeed. She gnawed the last of the meat from her chicken bone, then gathered together all of our leavings and carried them to the kitchen. I watched her little bottom as she walked, and when she bent over to deposit the chicken bones in the garbage I got a lump in my throat, among other things. Then she straightened up and set about pouring two cups of coffee and I made myself think about the late Francis Flaxford, with a J. in front of his name and an R.I.P. after it.