Lawrence Block - Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

“You could be a locksmith.”

“Oh, sure. They break their necks running around handing out licenses to convicted burglars. And the bonding companies are just standing in line to do business with locksmiths with criminal records.”

“You must be qualified for something, Bernie.”

“The state taught me how to make license plates and sew mailbags. This is going to stun you but there’s very little call for either of those skills in civilian life.”

“But you’re intelligent, you’re capable, you can think on your feet-”

“All important qualifications that help me make it as a burglar. Ellie, I’ve got a very good life. That’s something you don’t seem to realize. I work a couple of nights a year and I spend the rest of my time taking things easy. Is that such a bad deal?”

“No.”

“I’ve been a burglar for years. Why should I change?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nobody changes.”

We didn’t have too much to say after that exchange. The time passed about as quickly as the Middle Ages. While we waited, the management kept renting out the room next door to us. Several times we heard footsteps in the hallway and sat motionless, thinking it might be Brill, and then the door next to us would open, and before long bedsprings would creak. Soon the bedsprings would cease creaking and shortly thereafter the footsteps would return to the elevator.

“True love,” Ellie said.

“Well, it’s nice the hotel serves a purpose.”

“It does keep them off the streets. That last chap was in rather a hurry, wouldn’t you say?”

“Probably had to get back to his office.”

Then at last footsteps approached from the elevator but did not stop at the room next door. Instead they stopped directly in front of the door behind which we lurked. I drew a quick breath and got to my feet, padding soundlessly into position at the side of the door.

Then his key turned in the lock and the door opened and it was him all right, Wesley Brill, the man with the soft brown eyes that had never quite met mine, and I stood with my hands poised waist-high at my sides, ready to catch him if he fainted, ready to grab him if he tried to bolt, ready to hang a high hard one on his chin if he decided to get violent.

What he did was stare. “Rhodenbarr,” he said. “This is utterly incredible. How on earth did you manage to find me? And they didn’t tell me anyone was waiting for me.”

“They didn’t know it.”

“But how did you-oh, of course. You’re a burglar.”

“Everybody’s got to be something.”

“Indeed.”

His voice and his whole manner of speaking were completely different. The Runyonesque diction was gone and he no longer bit off his words at their final consonants. There was an archness to his inflections, a lilt that was either theatrical or slightly faggoty or both.

“Bernie Rhodenbarr,” he said. Then he caught sight of Ellie, broadened his grin, raised a hand and lifted a brown trilby hat from his head. “Miss,” he said, then turned his attention to me once more. “Just let me close this door,” he said. “No need to share our business with a whole neighborhood of buyers and sellers. There. How on earth did you ever find me, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I saw you on television.”

“Oh?”

“An old movie.”

“And you recognized me?” He preened a bit. “Which film?”

“The Man in the Middle.”

“Not that dog with Jim Garner? I played a cabdriver in that one. I played a lot of cabdrivers.” His eyes misted up at the memory. “No question about it, those were the days. Last year, God help us all, I drove a cab for a couple of weeks. Not in a film, but in what we call real life.” He swung his arms back and forth, then put his little hands together and rubbed his palms as if to keep warm. “Those days are dead and gone. Let us live in the present, eh? The important thing is that she still wants the box.”

I looked at him.

“That’s why you looked me up, isn’t it? The infamous blue leather box.”

“Leather-covered,” I said. Don’t ask me why.

“Leather, leather-covered, whatever. Just so you’ve got it. As far as killing Flaxford, well, that certainly wasn’t what she had in mind, but it’s my impression she figures it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. What she didn’t know was whether you’d managed to pick up the box before you had to get out of there, but if you did she definitely wants it and she’ll be glad to pay for it.”

I stared at him, but of course his eyes didn’t meet mine. They were aimed over my shoulder, as usual.

“Look, Bernie-” He grinned suddenly. “You don’t mind if I call you Bernie, do you? You know who I am and I don’t have to play the heavy any longer, do I? And you can call me Wes.”

“Wes,” I said.

“Excellent. And I don’t think I’ve met the little lady.”

“C’mon, Wes. You’re slipping back into character. Wesley Brill wouldn’t say that. ‘The little lady.’ ”

“You’re absolutely right.” He faced Ellie and made a rather courtly bow. “Wesley Brill,” he said.

“Ruth Hightower,” I said.

He smiled. “Not really.”

“That’s a private joke,” Ellie said. “I’m Ellie Christopher, Wes.”

“My pleasure, Miss Christopher.”

She said he could call her Ellie, and he told her to call him Wes, which she’d already done, and he added that no one called him Wesley, that indeed his name had originally been John Wesley Brill, his mother having seen fit to name him for the founder of Methodism, a move she might not have dared had she suspected he was destined for an actor’s life. He’d dropped his first name entirely the first time he trod the boards. (That was his phrase, trod the boards.) Ellie assured him that she thought dropping a first name altogether was perfectly all right but that when you retained an initial out in front it was a sign of a devious character. Good ol’ Wes said he couldn’t agree more. Ellie mentioned G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt and Wes chimed in with J. Edgar Hoover. While they were at it I thought of F. Scott Fitzgerald and decided there might be a few weak spots in Ellie’s theory.

“Wes,” I cut in, “the purpose of our call wasn’t entirely social.”

“I’d guess not. You’re up to your neck in it, aren’t you? Killing old J. Francis. That really surprised her because she said you never impressed her as violent. I told her it must have been self-defense. Although I don’t suppose the law calls it self-defense when it happens in the middle of a burglary.”

“The law calls it first-degree murder.”

“I know. It doesn’t seem entirely fair, does it? But the big question, Bernie, is, have you got the box?”

“The box.”

“Right.

I closed my eyes for a minute. “You never actually saw the box yourself,” I said. “Because you described it very precisely but you didn’t know what color blue it was. And you didn’t make up an answer when I asked.”

“Why would I make up an answer?”

“You’d make one up if there was no box in the first place. But there really is a box, isn’t there?”

He peered intently at me and his forehead developed a single vertical line just above the nose like the one David Janssen has in the Excedrin commercial, the one that makes you certain he really does have one rat bastard of a headache.

“The box exists,” I said.

“You mean you thought-”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Which means you don’t-”

“Right. I don’t.”

“Shit,” he said, pronouncing the word as emphatically as if he’d just stepped in it. Then he remembered that the little lady was present. “I beg your pardon,” he said.