The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) (12 page)

“I don’t suppose you were able to locate the cabby.”

“Well, you’re wrong for a change, Bernie. He turned up and he remembered the fare. He told us she read his name off the license and guessed he was from Haiti, which he was, and she told him all about a week she and her husband had spent there back when we were all of us a lot younger, herself included. He said she was a very nice lady.”

“And he dropped her at her door, and that’s the last anybody ever saw of her.”

“Except for the guy who was waitin’ for her. Philippe said he offered to walk her to her door, but she said she’d be fine. All the same he hung around at the curb long enough to make sure she got the door open, and only drove off after it closed behind her.”

We were all silent for a moment. Then Carolyn pointed out that there weren’t many rich old ladies nice enough to talk to a cabdriver about his homeland.

“We can’t afford to lose people like that,” I said. “Ray, how was she killed?”

“See, I was plannin’ to ask you that, Bernie. But if you didn’t do it you probably couldn’t come up with the answer.”

“You don’t know the cause of death yet?”

“The cause is pretty clear-cut. The cause is breaking and entering. Otherwise she’d still have a pulse.”

“The medical cause, Ray, and don’t tell me she stopped breathing.”

“Well, she damn well did,” he said, “and that’s about all we know for sure at this point. A couple of uniforms got the call and found her layin’ in the middle of her living room floor. When I got there a gal from the medical examiner’s office was standin’ by to tell me she couldn’t find a bullet hole or a stab wound or any bangs and bruises.”

“Maybe she had a heart attack.”

“First thing I thought of,” he said. “She walks in, some mug’s turnin’ her house upside down, and she’s scared and upset and she can’t catch her breath.”

“Essentially,” Carolyn said, “you’re saying the poor woman was
verklempt
.”

“If that means what it sounds like, then that’s what she was. And you always think of people as gettin’ a big shock and fallin’ over, but is that what gives you a heart attack? Then why are they always blaming it on steak dinners at Peter Luger’s?”

“The shock comes when they bring the bill,” I said, “and you find out they don’t take plastic.”

“So it coulda been her heart, but it coulda been twenty other things, and that’s why we’re waitin’ on the autopsy. But you know the law, Bernie. You’d have to, to break it as often as you do. Even if she died of a bee flyin’ up her nose, the burglar’s goin’ down for murder.”

“ ‘When the commission of a felony leads to a death, the perpetrator of that felony is guilty of homicide.’ ”

“Felony murder,” he said. “When I was at the Police Academy, they had an example that stuck in my mind. A guy’s writin’ out a forged check, and a drop of ink from the pen flies up in the face of the intended mark, and the guy has an allergic reaction and dies on the spot. And the forger goes away on a murder charge. Neat?”

“It couldn’t happen nowadays,” Carolyn said. “You’d pretty much need a fountain pen, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t think it ever happened. The point’s not what happened, it’s how the law works.”

“Haphazardly at best,” I said. “Ray, if you really think I had anything to do with this—”

“Aw, I know you didn’t, Bernie. Let’s say you were there. She pays off the cab, she walks in, and there you are, checkin’ out the valuables.”

“And then what happens?”

“I dunno. I guess she flops on the floor. What else do you do when you get a heart attack?”

“Take aspirin,” I said, “and call 911.”

“I guess she didn’t get the chance. But that’s the thing, Bernie. If you’d been there—”

“Which I wasn’t.”

“Which I know, because what you woulda done is called 911 your own self. Am I right?”

“Well, I wouldn’t just leave her there to die, Ray.”

“See? Case closed. You weren’t there.”

“And yet you,” Carolyn said, “are here.”

He nodded. “I guess I was just wonderin’ if you heard anything, Bernie.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“You did?”

“Just now,” I said. “Right here, from you.”

“Oh. For a minute there—”

“Well, how else would I hear anything? It’s not as though I have friends in the business. I got locked up once, Ray, and one of the things they told me when they let me out was to avoid contact with other criminals.”

“And you took the advice to heart.”

“And followed it to the letter, because nothing could have been easier. I didn’t hang out with criminals
before
I went away, and the ones I met on the inside didn’t make me eager to continue the association.”

Ray nodded. “If you weren’t an incorrigible criminal yourself,” he said, “it’d be hard to believe you were any kind of a crook at all. What did I call you before, Bernie?”

“I think you said I was the last of the gentleman burglars.”

“A vanishin’ breed,” he said, “although I don’t know as there was ever too many of them around. You’re the only one I ever met.”

“There was always Raffles,” Carolyn said.

“Raffles the Cat? Is this warming up to be some joke about cat burglars?”

“A.J. Raffles,” I said. “He was the hero of a series of stories by an English writer named E.W. Hornung, who I believe was related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes. It seems to me that Hornung was his brother-in-law.”

“One of ’em was married to the other one’s sister.”

“I think so,” I said, “but I may be thinking of someone else. I could look it up.”

“Later,” he said, “when I’m miles away from here. What’s this got to do with your cat?”

“My cat was named for A.J. Raffles,” I said, “who’d been an outstanding cricket player in his school days, and who became equally distinguished as an amateur cracksman. In other words, a burglar.”

“And he was the hero?”

“He was suave and debonair,” I said, “and apt to come to the aid of damsels in distress. And, like Robin Hood, he only stole from the rich.”

“Who else? They’re the ones with something to steal. What kind of mope would waste his time stealing from the poor?”

“Landlords,” Carolyn said. “And businessmen, and—”

“All right,” he said, “give it a rest, Shorty. This Raffles, Bernie. This gentleman burglar you think so much of that you named your cat after him. He wasn’t a real person, was he?”

“He was a very well-drawn character, Ray. People are still reading about him over a century later.”

“But he’s a character, right? In a story?”

“Quite a few stories, actually.”

“Stories in a book.”

“More than one book.”

“So when you’re lookin’ to name a gentleman burglar,” he said, “the best you can come up with is a made-up character out of a batch of stories. Case closed, Bernie. You’re a vanishin’ breed and you always were.”

I offered him ten bucks for the lot, and stood firm when he tried to bargain. He took it, as I’d been sure he would, and when he was out the door I found shelf space for them and priced them at $9.99 apiece. Not ten minutes later one of my regulars came in, a hygienist who works for a dentist in the neighborhood, and she was on the new S.J. Rozan like a mongoose on a cobra. “Oh, I love her,” she said. “I’ve been looking for her new one. If you hadn’t had it I would have bought it new.”

So it was a good deal for both of us, I thought, and it was even an acceptable transaction for the Springsteen fan, because he’d no more come by those books honestly than I was Marie of Romania.

And then I remembered the last time I’d heard mention of that charismatic queen, and the context. And that put me right back in the mood I couldn’t seem to shake.

A couple of hours later, after I’d talked through two rounds of drinks at the Bum Rap, Carolyn grabbed my wrist when I started to raise a hand for Maxine.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

She raised her own hand, but only to scribble in the air. Nobody ever signed anything in the Bum Rap, except possibly a ransom note, but the signal for the check is universal, and Maxine brought ours. “I’ll pay,” Carolyn said, “because you’re buying the bottle.”

“What bottle?”

“The fifth of scotch we’re picking up on our way back to my place. You need to get drunk.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t usually get drunk. I have a drink or two, and sometimes I get a little tipsy, but I rarely let go and get drunk. But once in a while, it’s what I need to do.”

“I know.”

“And tonight’s one of those nights, and I didn’t even realize it. But you could tell. Carolyn, you know me better than I know myself.”

“Well,” she said, “somebody has to.”

Carolyn lives on Arbor Court, one of those little private streets in the West Village that tourists don’t know about and cabdrivers can’t find.

We got there and settled in, and I cracked the scotch while Carolyn put out cat food for Archie and Ubi. Then she put out people food for us, filling a couple of bowls with the corn chips and trail mix we’d picked up en route. “Because we have to eat,” she’d said, “but we don’t have to make a whole production out of it.”

I got a pair of rocks glasses, added ice cubes, and covered the ice cubes with scotch. It was Teacher’s Highland Cream, a cut below the top-shelf single malt that would have been my selection. “That’s for sipping,” Carolyn said, taking it from me, then giving it back because she couldn’t reach the top shelf to put it back. “Tonight is not a night for sipping, Bern. I’m not saying it’s a night for swigging, exactly, but we don’t want to devote too much time to appreciating the rich peaty taste. Besides, you don’t want to run through Mr. Smith’s money faster than you have to. It might have to last a while.”

“I’m selling stolen bestsellers,” I reminded her, “and making money hand over fist.”

We settled into our seats, drinks in hand, ice bucket within reach. I raised my glass and couldn’t think of a toast.

“Happy days,” she suggested.

“You’re a dreamer,” I said, and took a drink.