The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) (17 page)

Outside on the stoop, I finally got a good look at the lock. I straightened up and told Ray that our intruder had a key.

“It wasn’t forced,” I said. “It’s a good lock, it’d be tough to pick, and you’d probably leave scratches around the keyhole. And would you want to stand out there in plain sight poking around at a lock? I’ll bet he had a key.”

“Maybe he made himself really small, Bernie.”

“And slithered through the keyhole? Didn’t Plastic Man do that in the comics?”

“It sounds like something he’d pull, all right.”

“And what would he see when he did?”

I stepped inside for a minute, and the air freshener smell hit me anew, along with its undercurrent. What the hell was that? Not the smell of death and decomposition, which you’d expect, but something else.

“Bernie?”

“Oh, right,” I said, and returned to the stoop. “ ‘Rats, I can’t take the carpet, because somebody went and left a dead woman on it. I’ll throw things around until I find something else to steal.’ ”

“You’re hipped on that carpet, aren’t you? Is it really good enough to steal?”

“You tell me. Doyle auctioned a Trent Barling a lot like this for something like twelve thousand. And it was smaller, nine by twelve, and this one has to be twelve by fifteen.”

“If you say so.”

“And that was four or five years ago, so if you want a ballpark figure—”

“Twenty grand?”

“Close enough. Of course you’d need two men and a van, and somebody to take it off your hands. So I think I’ll pass. No, if I was going to walk off with something it’d be the little Chinese gentleman.”

“That ivory thing? It’s valuable?”

“It could be,” I said. “The carving’s fine enough. But I don’t know orientalia, and most of it’s pretty reasonable, and I’d frankly be surprised if it’s worth more than a few hundred dollars. No, I’d take it because I like it.”

“You’d take it and keep it.”

“And put it on a shelf, and have to remind myself to dust it. But it’s nice. I wouldn’t mind having it around just to look at.”

He was replacing the crime-scene tape, and paused. “You want it, Bernie? You could slip inside right now and put it in your pocket, and I bet I wouldn’t notice a thing.”

“Um—”

“You just did me a favor,” he said, “and it’s unofficial, plus I broke all those rules bringin’ you here in the first place. So the city can’t pay you a consultant’s fee, so why don’t you take a Chinaman’s chance and bring home a souvenir?”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Ray.”

“Hey, it’s not like it’s costing me anything.”

“Even so, I appreciate it. But I think I’ll pass.”

He finished reattaching the tape, slipped the padlock in place. “You sure, Bernie?”

I said I was, and he snapped the padlock shut.

“I’m not hungry, Ray. And after last night I really want to make this an early one.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to owe you one, Bernie. You did me a favor, even if you don’t come up with anything. But if you get a brainstorm—”

“I’ll let you know.”

Upstairs in my apartment, I spent ten minutes on the phone bringing Carolyn up to date and ten more in the shower, washing away of what had certainly felt a lot like burglary, even if I’d done it in Ray’s company.

I put on khakis and a blazer, this one from Bloomingdale’s. (Would it have made a difference if Janine had known I owned more than one blazer? Probably not.) I made another phone call, and this time I had to check the number, because I had never dialed it before. It went straight to Voice Mail, and the message was generic, inviting me to leave a number.

But I didn’t. Instead I got my tools from my hidey hole, stuck a pair of Pliofilm gloves in my hip pocket, and went out in the hall to ring for the elevator.

But when it came I didn’t get in, and when the doors had shut I went over and knocked on Mrs. Hesch’s door. No response. I could hear her TV, but sometimes she dozed off in front of it, and I didn’t want to disturb her. I was about to turn when I heard the pitter patter of little old feet.

“So?”

“It’s Bernie,” I said.

As far as I know, Mrs. Hesch is the only one in the building who knows I have a second career. It’s my good fortune that she’s not bothered by it. As far as she’s concerned, I live on the west side and prey exclusively upon the rich momsers on the east side, and what’s so bad about that? Besides, I’m useful to have around, especially when she locks herself out.

“So,” she said again, drew the door open. “I don’t suppose you want to borrow a cup of chicken fat.”

“No, but I’d like to look out your window.”

“What’s out my window?”

“I won’t know until I look.”

“Ah,” she said, and stood aside. My own apartment is in the back, and Mrs. Hesch, across the hall from me, looks out on West End Avenue. And a moment later so did I, from her living room window.

“So what do you see?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“This is good?”

“It’s what I was hoping for,” I said. “And what I expected, because why would he hang around? I guess I was just being paranoid.”

“What I always say,” she said, “is you never know, and a person can’t be too paranoid. You in a rush, Bernard? You got time for a piece of flanken?”

“I wish,” I said. “But I’ve really got to go. Can I take a rain check?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll eat it myself.”

This time when the elevator came I boarded it, but Mrs. Hesch’s words rang in my head. I rode it down past the lobby to the basement and let myself out the rear service entrance, mounted the steps to the rear courtyard, and made my circuitous way out to the street.

A person can’t be too paranoid.

They’re thoughtful enough to do this work at night, and after ten o’clock some local trains stop running, and some express trains run on local tracks, and some people take taxis who’d otherwise save the money, while others wind up in Midwood when they were hoping for Parkchester.

But it was just a little after nine when I got to the corner of Broadway and 72
nd
, so I had nothing to worry about. Not, that is, until I got off the One train at Sheridan Square.

That put me a few minutes from Carolyn’s apartment on Arbor Court, but that’s not where I was going, nor did I look for her in any of her regular watering holes. Instead I headed for Testinudo’s, where Janine and I had dined so well, if at such expense. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and if I’d been a cat I’d be treating my owner to an ankle rub, but I wasn’t on my way to dinner, either.

The house I was looking for was on the opposite side of the street from the restaurant, and twenty or thirty yards closer to Fifth Avenue. It was a brownstone, originally built to house a single family. Now it accommodated four in as many floor-through apartments, with the half-basement given over to a dealer in oriental antiques. The shop was closed for the night, but I took a moment to wonder what its proprietor would make of the little ivory gentleman I’d so admired on East 92
nd
Street.

I walked past the brownstone and continued past Testinudo’s to University Place, where I chose a pizza parlor over a deli. I ordered a small pie with garlic, and the aroma (which was one of the reasons I’d picked it) wafted up out of my other reason, the unmistakable flat cardboard box.

What’s less suspicious than a man bringing home a pizza?

The brownstone’s entrance was half a flight up from the street. You didn’t need a key for the door to the vestibule, where four mailboxes were mounted on the wall to my left, each with a nameplate and a little button to push, so the occupant could confirm over the intercom that your presence was an agreeable prospect, and buzz you in.

The third mailbox said Wattrous, and it was Melville Wattrous whose number I’d dialed before leaving my apartment. If Mr. Smith was to be believed, Melville and Cynthia Wattrous were chasing the midnight sun on a Seabourn cruise of northern waters. They’d be gone for another week, their yellow Lab was at a kennel that cost almost as much as their stateroom, and their third-floor apartment was vacant.

But that hadn’t stopped me from making the phone call, and it didn’t stop me now from ringing the bell, and waiting a moment, and ringing it again. A friend, using their place during their absence, might have been instructed to let phone calls go to Voice Mail, but would he feel obliged to ignore the doorbell?

No answer. The lock was what you’d expect, and I couldn’t have opened it all that much faster if I’d had a key. I climbed two flights of stairs, one hand on the serpentine banister, the other gripping the pizza box. I hadn’t seen or heard anyone since I entered the vestibule, nor did anyone make an appearance now, so I’d probably wasted a few minutes and as many dollars on my camouflage, but one does like to do things right.