The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) (3 page)

Oh, hell. The sunglasses. It wasn’t even a sunny day, but that was beside the point, because what kind of clueless clown wears sunglasses in a museum? No wonder Rembrandt’s sneering subject looked more somber than I remembered.

If the shirt was for people to notice, the cap and the shades were for the benefit of the security cameras. They’d help conceal my face, so that I’d look anonymous and unidentifiable to anyone reviewing the tapes. But if they drew all this attention before the fact . . .

To my left, a woman of a certain age kept her eyes on the portrait, and I could feel her determination not to look at me. If there’s one thing every New Yorker learns early on, it’s not to make eye contact with a lunatic, and that can be especially challenging when you can’t see the lunatic’s eyes, because his madness has led him to conceal them behind dark glasses.

Retinitis pigmentosa,
I thought.
I’ll say that’s what I’ve got, it’s genetic, it makes you abnormally light-sensitive, and eventually it’ll lead to blindness, so I want to see every Rembrandt I can in the time that’s left to me, and—

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said aloud, and took off my sunglasses, shaking my head at my own absentmindedness. Even as I tucked them into my shirt pocket, I could feel my companion relax. Her eyes never left the painting, but her relief was palpable: I wasn’t mad after all, I was merely inattentive, and order had been restored to her universe.

One thing I’d determined on my earlier visit was the location of the restroom. I went there now, but instead of going in I tried the unmarked door immediately opposite it, which opened onto a flight of descending stairs. I took a few hesitant steps and saw what I’d hoped to see, a labyrinth of tables and boxes and file cabinets.

I saw, too, a young woman who grasped the situation at once. “You’re looking for the restroom,” she said. “You turned right when you should have turned left.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “How foolish of me.”

“It happens all the time,” she said. “And it’s our fault for not marking the door. This door, I mean. The restroom door’s already marked. There’s a sign on it that says ‘Restroom.’ ”

“I guess it should have been obvious,” I said, “but I never saw it. I saw
this
door, and—”

“And it’s unmarked, so you thought it was the room you were looking for and we were simply being discreet. We really ought to hang a sign on this door, don’t you think? But what would it say?”

“Hmm. How about ‘Not the Restroom’?”

“Or maybe ‘Turn Around’.”

For God’s sake, she was flirting with me. And, let it be said, I with her. She was a pert and perky blonde with a nice mouth and a pointed chin, and her nerdy eyeglasses gave her the look of a hot librarian—which may well have been part of her job description. There’s nothing wrong with flirting, but there’s a time and a place for it, and this was neither.

“Well,” I said. “I’d better, uh . . .”

I turned and fled.

On our earlier visit I’d had to wait for the restroom, but this time it was conveniently unoccupied. I locked myself in—actually, it was more a matter of locking other people out—and I put a hand in a pocket and drew out my burglar tools.

And went to work on the window.

The main floor of the Galtonbrook was five or six steps below street level, and that put the bottom of the bathroom window just about even with the pavement outside. A substantial window guard of stainless steel mesh admitted daylight while blocking everything else. A dozen bolts held it in place, and an intricate web of wires tied it into the building’s alarm system.

I’d had a good chance to examine it Thursday afternoon, and supplemented my memory with an iPhone snapshot. Now I went right to work.

First, the burglar alarm. It was unarmed now, of course, and would remain that way until they closed for the night, so I could meddle at will without setting off sirens. All I had to do was disconnect a couple of wires and hook them up differently, so that the window could be opened and closed without raising an electronic hue and cry. That was complicated, and required a knowing hand and a delicate touch, but it wasn’t terribly difficult.

Next was the mesh window guard. The bolts were solid and well anchored, but they were slotted to accommodate a screwdriver, and I already knew I could turn them. I hadn’t had a screwdriver the first time around, but I had a dime, and it was just the right size. Even with the limited leverage a coin afforded, I’d budged the bolt I tried. Now, with my screwdriver, there was nothing to it.

Halfway through, I ran into a bolt that was slightly more obdurate than its fellows, and wouldn’t you know that was just the time someone tried the door, found it locked, and knocked sharply on it.

“I’ll be a few minutes,” I said.

But not too many of them, as it turned out, because my next effort got the bolt turning, and the rest of them yielded readily enough. I transferred the lot of them to my pocket, freed the window guard, turned the window lock, and braced myself against a window that had very likely not been opened in years.

I can’t say it was eager to move, but I put all my strength into it, and up it went, though not without giving voice to its feelings. If the noise it made was audible to others, I can only suppose they chalked it up to the same intestinal crisis that was keeping me in the restroom.

It pained me to close the window after all it had taken to open it, but I did, and this time the resultant sound effects were minimal. I fitted the mesh in place, but instead of replacing any bolts I secured it with a couple of one-inch squares of duct tape, just enough to keep it from falling down. It would yield at once to prying fingers, but whose fingers were likely to pry? It was, my watch assured me, just ten minutes to closing time. The restroom might have another customer before they shooed us all out of the building, and an employee or two might use the facilities before heading for home, but it was long odds against anybody meddling with my little arrangement.

I took a moment to wipe the surfaces I might have touched. I’d somehow forgotten gloves, but even if I’d remembered them I couldn’t have put them on until I was locked in the bathroom, and they’d have cost me something in the way of dexterity. Easy enough to use a paper towel and wipe up after myself.

I took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. It seemed to me I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t figure out what it might be. Burglar tools? Right hand trouser pocket. Window bolts? Left hand trouser pocket, along with my wallet. Sunglasses? Breast pocket. Mets cap? On my head. Parrot shirt? I was wearing it.

What else? The Spanish-language newspaper? I’d tossed it.

I unlocked the door. Whoever had knocked had either overcome the urge or found an alternative venue for satisfying it. The place had pretty much emptied out already, with just a few minutes remaining until they locked the doors. I gave the Rembrandt a passing glance, tugged the ball cap down over my forehead, and had my sunglasses on and my head lowered when I cleared the threshold.

I walked a block at a pace that was deliberately casual, waiting for any of several unwelcome things—a voice raised in alarm, a hand on my elbow, the shrill squeal of a police whistle. I didn’t really expect anything of the sort, but you never do.

Nothing. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d forgotten something.

I walked two and a half blocks before the penny dropped. Hell.

I’d forgotten to use the bathroom.

Hell.

I walked three more blocks and found a bar with an Irish name and a predominantly Latino clientele. A soccer game played silently on the TV. The bartender, a heavy-set fellow with a drooping moustache, didn’t look happy to be there, nor did my presence raise his spirits. I was still wearing the sunglasses, and that may have had something to do with it, because what did he need with a weirdo wearing shades in a dark ginmill?

Or maybe he was a Yankees fan.

I didn’t want anything, but I had to buy my passage to the men’s room. I couldn’t have a beer, not with my day’s work only half done, and I somehow knew this was no place to order Perrier. I said I’d have a Coke, and his expression darkened. While he was loading up a glass with ice cubes, I found the room I wanted. Since I had no other chores to distract me, I did what I’d gone there to do.

I went back to the bar, paid for my Coke, had a sip, set it down and headed for the door.

“Hey.”

I turned.

“Something wrong with it?”

“I’m trying to quit,” I said, and got the hell out of there.

I took a different train home, and walked from Broadway and 72
nd
to my apartment on West End and 70
th
. I’d bestowed my Mets cap on the young boy on the subway who’d admired it, and I’d thought about shucking the parrot shirt, but it seemed simpler to wear it home, with the sunglasses resting snugly in its pocket.

My doorman didn’t give me or my shirt a second glance. I went upstairs, took off the parrot shirt and everything else, and spent a rewarding fifteen minutes under the shower. I emerged with the urge to phone someone—Carolyn, say, or my client. I decided I didn’t want to call either of them in midstream. In a few hours, when my day’s work was done, my calls would be triumphant.

Unless it all went pear-shaped, in which case I’d use my one phone call on Wally Hemphill, my lawyer.

Meanwhile, I suppose I could have called a girlfriend. If only I’d had one . . .