Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

"Yes?"

I turned around. The man who stood there looked as out of place as I did. He was huge, maybe three hundred pounds, wearing a caftan that made him look like a pop-open tent with a built-in aluminum frame. He was in his sixties with a face that needed to be taken up. His eyelids drooped and he had a sagging mouth and a big double chin. What was left of his hair had slipped down around his ears. I wasn't certain, but I thought he made a rude noise under his skirt.

"I'd like to talk to you about a past-due account," I said.

"I got a bookkeeper handles that. She's out."

"Someone left a twelve-thousand-dollar lynx coat here to be cleaned and recut. She never paid her bill."

"So?"

This guy didn't have to get by on good looks alone. He was gracious too.

"Is Jacques here?" I asked.

"That's who you're talking to. I'm Jack. Who are you?"

"Kinsey Millhone," I said. I took out a card and handed it to him. "I'm a private investigator from California."

"No fooling," he said. He stared at the card and then at me. He glanced around suspiciously like this might be a "Candid Camera" gag. "What do you want with me?"

"I'm looking for information about the woman who brought the coat in."

"You got a subpoena?"

"No."

"You got the money she owes?"

"No."

"Then what are you bothering me for? I don't have time for this. I got work to do."

"Mind if I talk to you while you do it?"

He stared at me. His breathing made that wheezing sound that fat people sometimes make. "Yeah, sure. Why not? Suit yourself."

I followed him into the big cluttered back room, taking in his scent. He smelled like something that spent the winter in a cave.

"How long have you been cutting fur?" I asked.

He turned and looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues.

"Since I was ten," he said finally. "My father cut fur and his father before him."

He indicated a stool and I sat, setting my big canvas handbag at my feet. There was a long worktable to my right, with a coarse brown-paper pattern laid out on it. The right front portion of a mink coat had been put together and he was apparently still working on it. The wall on the left was lined with hanging paper patterns and there were various quite ancient-looking sewing machines to my right. Every available surface was covered with pelts, scraps, unfinished coats, books, magazines, boxes, catalogues. Two dress forms stood side by side, like twins posing self-consciously for a photograph. The place reminded me of a shoe-repair shop, all leather smell and machinery and the feel of craftsmanship. He took up the coat and examined it closely, then reached for a cutting device with a nasty curved blade. He glanced up at me. His eyes were the same shade of brown as the mink.

"So what do you want to know?"

"You remember the woman?"

"I know the coat. Naturally, I remember the woman who brought it in. Mrs. Boldt, right?"

"That's right. Can you tell me when you saw her last?"

He dropped his gaze back to the fur. He made a cut. He crossed to one of the machines, motioning me to follow. He sat down on a stool and began to sew. I could see now that what had looked at first like an old-fashioned Singer was actually a machine especially designed for the stitching of fur. He lined up the two cut pieces vertically, fur-side in, and caught them in the grip of two flat metal disks, like large silver dollars set rim to rim. The machine whipped the leather edges together with an overhand stitch while he deftly tucked the fur out of the way so it wouldn't get caught in the seam. The whole maneuver took about ten seconds. He spread the seam, smoothing it with his thumb on the backside. There were maybe sixty similar cuts in the leather, a quarter-inch apart. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but I didn't want to distract him.

"She came in in March and said she wanted to sell the coat."

"How'd you know it was really hers?"

"Because I asked for some identification and the bill of sale." The irritable tone was back, but I ignored it.

"Did she say why she was selling it?"

"Said she was bored with it. She wanted mink, maybe blond, so I offered her credit against something in the store, but she said she wanted the cash, so I told her I'd see what I could do. I wasn't that anxious to pay cash for a used coat. Ordinarily, I don't deal in secondhand fur. There's no market for it here and it's a pain in the ass."

"I take it you made an exception for her."

"Well yeah, I did. The thing is, this lynx coat was in perfect condition and my wife's been after me to get her one for years. She's already got five coats, but when this one came in, I thought… what the hell? Make the old broad happy. What's it to me? Mrs. Boldt and I haggled and I finally got the coat for five thousand, which was a good deal for both of us, especially since I got the matching hat. I told her she'd have to pay to have the coat cleaned and recut."

"Why recut?"

"My wife is on the down side of five feet. She's four foot eleven, if you want her exact height, but don't ever tell her I told you that. She considers it some kind of birth defect. You ever noticed that? Short women get that way. From the time they're teenagers, they start wearing funny shoes, trying to look like tall people when they're not. Know what she finally did? Learned to roller skate. She said it was the only time she really felt like a real human being. Anyway, I thought I'd give her this lynx. Gorgeous. You know the coat?"

I shook my head. "I've never seen it."

"Hey, come on. You ought to take a look. I've got it right back here. I haven't cut it yet."

He moved toward the rear and I trotted obediently behind. He opened the massive metal door to his vault. Cold air wafted out as though from a meat locker. There were fur coats hanging on both sides in double racks, sleeves almost touching, like hundreds of women lined up with their backs to us. He moved down the aisle checking coats as he went, wheezing from the effort. He really needed to lose some weight. His breathing sounded like someone sitting down on a leather couch and it couldn't connote good health.

He took a fur down off the top rack and we moved back out of the cold-storage room, the door shutting behind us with a clang. He held Elaine Boldt's coat up for me to inspect. The lynx was two shades-white and gray in a luscious blend, with the pelts arranged so that each panel ended in a tapering point at the hem. He must have guessed from the look on my face that I'd never seen a coat that expensive close up.

"Here. Try it on," he said.

I hesitated for a moment and then eased into the coat. I pulled it around me and looked at myself in the mirror. The coat hung almost to my shins, the shoulders protruding like protection pads for some strange new sport.

"I look like the Abominable Snowman," I said.

"You look great," he said. He looked from me to the image in the mirror. "So we take it in a little bit. Shorten the sleeves. Or maybe you'd look better in fox if this doesn't suit."

I laughed. "On my income, I think it's high-class to have a sweatshirt with a zipper up the front." I took the coat off and handed it to him, getting back to the subject. "Why'd you pay her for the coat before she paid you? Why not deduct your costs from the five grand and give her a check for the balance?"

"The bookkeeper wanted it the other way. Don't ask me why. Anyhow, it's not going to cost that much to clean the coat, and the alterations I'm doing myself, so what's it to me? I got a good deal. Adele probably bugged her for payment as a matter of course, but I can't get that upset over the whole thing."

While he returned the coat to cold storage, I went over to my bag and took out the Polaroid picture of Elaine and Marty that Tillie Ahlberg had given me.