The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (14 page)

“I hope the cards don’t wind up smelling like meat.”

“Meat? Oh, right, I told you how he used it for shoplifting. But I’ll bet that’s what he did. He put on his one decent suit, he shaved his larcenous little rat face, he packed up his attaché case, and—”

“What’s the matter?”

She ran to the closet. “Where’s his suit? Shit. Son of a bitch.”

“What’s the matter?”

“His suit’s gone. You don’t see a suit, do you? The son of a bitch took it with him.”

“You said he probably got an acting job out of town. Maybe they told him to bring a suit because the part called for it.”

She shook her head. “Bad casting. If the part called for a suit, you’d get a different actor. Did he take the attaché case? That’s the real question, isn’t it?”

“Where did he keep it, Doll?”

“In the closet,” she said. “Isn’t that where you’d keep it?”

“I might. What other luggage did he have?”

“I don’t know. We never went anywhere together. All he really wanted to do was go to bed. The bed!”

“What about it?”

“Under it,” she said, diving to the floor. I stood by as she fished things out—an olive-drab duffel bag, a maroon backpack, a carryall of light blue parachute nylon. There were other things, too—a couple of athletic shoes, a tennis racket, a sock. No attaché case.

“Shit,” she said. “I give up. They’re not here. If he had the cards in the first place.”

“You think he didn’t?”

“I don’t know what to think. I was positive, but now I don’t know. And if he did have them, they’re not here now.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We don’t? This is a tiny little one-bedroom apartment, Bernie. And we searched it from top to bottom. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll show you how to search a place.”

The thing is, you can’t just dash around. You have to proceed methodically, taking it a room at a time, going through each room in a deliberate fashion. You don’t necessarily spend more time that way but you spend it wisely, and when you quit a place you know you haven’t missed anything.

Within reason, that is. If you put a little thought and effort into it, you can hide stuff so that it won’t be found other than by a crew of professionals with time on their hands. Of course, the right dog will sniff out drugs or explosives in nothing flat, but otherwise you’re safe.

I was willing to assume, though, that Luke had not enlisted a carpenter to build in some really good hiding places, in a baseboard, say, or as a false back to a cupboard or closet. The fact that he had three large bottles of pills in his freezer and a plastic bag full of some dried herb underneath the sugar in his sugar canister suggested to me that he probably stuck to the tried and true. Most people do.

I spent half an hour at it, and when I was done I’d have been prepared to swear that there was neither an attaché case nor a quantity of baseball cards in that apartment. I didn’t say a word during the entire half hour, and, after a few conversational ventures that I ignored, neither did Doll. When I gave up at last and let my shoulders sag in defeat, I realized that she was staring at me with something akin to awe. I asked her what was the matter.

“You’ve done this before,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m impressed, you’re obviously a pro at this. What did you think I meant?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know what I thought,” I said. “It’s frustrating. The best sort of burglary is when you know exactly what you’re looking for and just where it is, and you go in and it’s there and you take it and you’re gone.”

“That’s how I thought this was going to be.”

“I know. So did I. The second-best burglary is when you go in without any expectations whatsoever, and there’s the thrill of discovery whenever you find something. But this is the worst kind, because…well, no, that’s not true, is it? The worst kind is when you get caught.”

“Don’t even say that, Bernie!”

“The next-to-worst kind,” I said, “is when there’s something you’re looking for and it’s not there, and even if you do find something else you don’t really give a damn because it’s not what you wanted. Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s a hundred and twenty dollars,” I said. “It’s exactly half of what he had stashed in an empty jelly jar in the fridge. There was some change, too, but I left it. Go ahead, take it. We’re partners, remember?”

“It seems strange to take it.”

“It would seem stupid to leave it. I think we should get the hell out of here. You checked the duffel and the carryall, didn’t you? And the little red backpack?”

“I reached inside them. Why?”

“Check ’em good,” I said. “One reason I’ve been going through things so thoroughly is I don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.” I picked up the duffel bag, opened the long zipper, ran my hands around the inside. “Maybe he stuffed the attaché case, cards and all, into a locker somewhere. Maybe he gave it to a checkroom attendant and walked away with a claim check.”

“Wouldn’t it be in his wallet?”

“Probably,” I said. I tossed the duffel bag aside and grabbed the carryall. “Check the backpack,” I told her. “It’s got a whole batch of compartments, same as this stupid thing. We might as well be thorough.”

And I set about being thorough, and so did she, and wouldn’t you know it?

“Bernie,” she said, dropping the backpack to the floor, turning to me with something in her hand. “Bernie, what’s this?”

“Let’s see,” I said. “Well, it’s a baseball card, isn’t it? And an old one, too, from the looks of it. Black-and-white photo on the front. Lousy printing, too, but the card’s in good shape, wouldn’t you say?”

“Bernie—”

“ ‘A Stand-up Triple!’ And there’s our hero, standing up at third base. Recognize the guy?”

“Which one?”

“Well, not the third baseman or the umpire. The other guy, the one planted on third with his hands on his hips and a belligerent glare on his face. I never saw him play, but I can recognize him.” I turned the card over. “ ‘Chalmers Mustard.’ Can we smell the mustard? No, but I swear there’s the faintest trace of Havana tobacco.”

“From Marty’s humidor.”

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” I said. “The card’s from a special Ted Williams series. It’s a specialized item, so it’s not worth a fortune, but it’s rare. And Marty owns it, or at least he did until your friend Luke paid him a visit.” I gazed ruefully at the hunk of cardboard, then tucked it away in my breast pocket. “Half of this is yours,” I said, “but I’d just as soon keep it intact for the time being. The cards were here, Doll. This proves it. Luke took them and brought them here.” I sighed. “And then the son of a bitch took them somewhere else.”

“H
ere we are,” I said. “The 1950 Chalmers Mustard Ted Williams series. ‘A lengthy—some would say overlong—set of cards produced and distributed locally in Boston. Public interest flagged as the season wore on, and the later cards received a tepid reception, perhaps reflecting their subject’s lukewarm performance on the playing field.’ ” I looked up. “I guess the Splendid Splinter had an off year. I didn’t know that ever happened to him. I saw a baseball record book a minute ago. We could look it up.”

“Do we have to?”

“I guess not,” I said. “What difference could it make, anyway? I just thought it would be easy to do, since we’re here.”

We were at Shakespeare & Co., a bookstore six or seven blocks north of Luke Santangelo’s ransacked apartment. We’d walked up Broadway, made our way through the mob of Sunday noshers waiting to get into Zabar’s, and were now checking things out in a baseball card encyclopedia. It billed itself as complete, and I could believe it. The thing weighed as much as Hank Aaron’s bat.

Every newsstand along our route had had a supply of sports card price guides in magazine form, but they were pretty much limited to the post-1948 sets issued by the more prominent national manufacturers. Our card fit the time frame, but it was much too local and esoteric for the magazines to give it space. The books Ray Kirschmann had found at my store would probably have had the Chalmers set listed, but Ray and that po-faced lout of an ADA had confiscated them.

Just as well. They were out of date, anyway. And I wouldn’t have wanted to make another trip to the store. I’d have just wound up feeding the cat again.

“And here’s our card,” I said. “ ‘A Stand-up Triple!’ Number thirty-four, and that makes it one of the good ones.”

“What’s it worth?”

“A hundred and twenty dollars. That’s in NM condition. It’s only thirty bucks in VG. NM is near mint, and VG is very good.”

“What’s ours?”

“I guess it’s near mint. I don’t know how they grade these things, but that’s what I would call it.”

“When you come right down to it,” she said, “who cares? After all we went through today, we’ve got a piece of cardboard that’s worth somewhere between thirty and a hundred twenty dollars. Suppose we wanted to sell it. What could we get for it?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Doll.”

“Twenty dollars?”

“I’m sure we could get twenty.”

“Fifty?”

“Probably not. It’s worth more than that, but the average dealer wouldn’t break out into a cold sweat at the sight of it. It’s just one card out of a set that most collectors aren’t interested in. If we took it to Boston—”

“Oh, great,” she said. “We’ll grab the shuttle to Boston so we can get a hot fifty dollars for the fucking card.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we do that. I was speaking hypothetically.”

“I know. I’m sorry I snapped. Let’s get out of here, okay? And put the book back before they arrest you for shoplifting.”

What a thought. “I think I’ll buy it,” I said.

“For God’s sake, why?”

“I guess the money’s burning a hole in my pocket. You know, my half of the two-forty from Luke’s jelly jar. Anyway, I like books. And this one brings back memories. I collected baseball cards when I was a kid, did I happen to mention it?”

“Yes,” she said. “You happened to mention it.”

We wound up walking all the way to her place.

Did I mention that it was a beautiful day? It was a perfect September afternoon, and we took a rambling walk across Central Park. The minute we crossed Central Park West and entered the park, the landscape shifted from Norman Mailer (or maybe Norman Bates) to Norman Rockwell. Families spread checkered cloths on the lawn and opened picnic baskets. Lovers walked hand in hand, sat close on benches, or lay unashamed in one another’s arms. Toddlers toddled, infants mewled and puked, and boys hurled sticks for dogs to fetch. (You’d be wasting your time trying that with a cat.)

Now, I know perfectly well it was an illusion. I even knew it at the time. Half the kids making wheelies on their bikes had very likely acquired those bikes at gunpoint from other kids. Half the folks gazing placidly into the middle distance were too stoned to blink. Some of the lovers would murder their partners by nightfall, while others were doing all they could to spread disease and increase the population. The families were dysfunctional, the toddlers were incest survivors in the making, and all the dogs had fleas.

But the illusion worked all the same. We bought into it, walking those tree-lined paths, leaving them to trip lightly over the greensward. We were no longer a pair of unrepentant felons griping about the minimal return yielded by our criminal enterprise. Instead we became a charming young couple, with a spring in our step, with a song on our lips, and with love and not larceny in our hearts.

Somewhere along the way we stopped and took seats on a slatted green bench. On another bench opposite us, an old woman with a shawl sat feeding Cracker Jacks to a couple of gray squirrels. We watched for a while. Then I started talking (it doesn’t matter what about) and Doll listened (it doesn’t matter how closely). I finished whatever I was saying and put my arm around her, and she turned to look up at me.

And we kissed.

We clung together, breathless, until we had to pause for breath. I looked across the path and caught the old lady watching us. She beamed at me, threw the last of the caramel corn to the squirrels, clucked at them or at us, and waddled off.

“Oh, Bernie,” Doll said.

I stood up. She started to rise, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “You wait here,” I said.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back. Wait for me.”

“Oh, I will,” she said.

As if divinely guided, I followed the path around its first bend. Before I’d gone fifty yards I came upon a young Asian couple with their two children. They had finished their picnic and repacked their straw hamper, all but the picnic blanket. The man and woman were giving it a shake and preparing to fold it. The kids were watching, fascinated.

“That’s a wonderful blanket,” I told the young father. “I’ll give you fifty dollars for it.”

As I walked off, the blanket over my shoulder, I could hear the little girl asking why the man had taken their blanket. “The man got lucky,” her brother suggested. “Charles!” their mother cried. “Did you hear what he said? Where do they
learn
things like that?” “Where indeed?” Charles said, and I moved on out of hearing range.

Doll was where I’d left her. “A blanket,” she said as I hove into view. “Bernie, you’re a genius.”

And she rose and took my arm, and we went off to spread our blanket beneath the trees.

We left the park at Ninetieth Street and Fifth Avenue, quitting Norman Rockwell’s world for Norman Schwarzkopf’s (or maybe it was Norman Lear’s). I still had the baseball card encyclopedia in the Shakespeare & Co. shopping bag, and Doll had the articles of clothing she’d salvaged from Santangelo’s apartment, but we’d left the picnic blanket for whoever needed it next. If we were back in urban reality now, we yet retained a glow imparted by our bucolic idyll. It had us holding hands when we crossed streets, which was something we hadn’t done before our sojourn.

We stopped along the way at an Italian place on Second Avenue. They had half a dozen tables set up on the sidewalk, and we sat at one of them and drank coffee and split a sandwich of cheese and Parma ham on focaccia. Doll recommended it, as she’d picked the place. We were on her turf now, just a few blocks from her apartment.

She grabbed the check when it came. “No arguments,” she said. “You paid for the blanket.”

“The best fifty dollars I ever spent.”

“You’re a sweet man, Bernie.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“I just wish…”

She let the thought trail off. “If wishes were horses,” I said, “burglars would ride. But they’re not and we don’t. This afternoon was a gift, Doll.”

“I know.”

Her building on Seventy-eighth turned out to be an Italianate brownstone closer to First than Second. At the stoop she said, “This is where I get off. Do you want to come up for a few minutes? The place is a mess, but I can stand it if you can.”

In the vestibule, I scanned the column of buzzers while she fumbled in her purse for her keys. The buzzer for 5-R said
G Cooper
on the little card. Doll started to fit her key in the lock, then asked me if I’d care to get out my tools and show off my skills.

“I don’t even need tools,” I said. “You could crack this thing with a popsicle stick.” I got a plastic calendar from my wallet, my annual gift from a man named Michael Godshaw who lives in hope that someday I’ll buy a life insurance policy from him. It’s a more flexible plastic than most credit cards. And if I wrecked it, so what?

I didn’t, though. I opened the door at least as quickly as Doll could have managed with the key. “No excuse for that,” I said. “The lock’s a decent one, but you really need a strip of steel attached here or a two-year-old could card his way in. Any locksmith can do it for you. Don’t even bother asking the landlord. Just hire somebody to do it.”

When you live in a fifth-floor walk-up you get used to the stairs. But I didn’t and I hadn’t, and it had been a long day. I didn’t quite pause for breath at the landings, but I thought about it.

Her own door was secured by three locks, one of them a Fox police lock. It looked safe enough, and neither of us was in a mood to test it. She unlocked all three locks and led me inside. There were two rooms, one of them an eat-in kitchen with a tin-topped table and two caned chairs, the other what the English call a bed-sitter, meaning, I suppose, that you can sit in it or go to bed in it, whatever your pleasure. I suppose you could do anything else you wanted there, too, including swing a cat, but just barely.

“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee. Or would you rather have a glass of wine?”

I told her that sounded good. I was done burgling for the day, so why not? She came back from the kitchen with two glasses of something red and gave one of them to me. “Cheers,” I said. “I guess the elves dropped by earlier. I hope they got to my place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said your place was a mess. It looks to me as though elves came in and cleaned it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, this is as messy as it gets, actually. I tend to be neat.”

“I noticed that tendency earlier,” I said. “On West End Avenue.”

“I wanted to make a mess there,” she said. “I was mad at him for taking Marty’s cards.”

“You were even angrier by the time we got out of there.”

“I know. I still think we should have flushed the pills and the dope down the toilet.”

“Why not paint satanic slogans on the walls while we were at it? Why not set the bed on fire?”

“Gee, I didn’t even think of that,” she said.

She put on the TV and we sat side by side on the narrow bed and watched it. (Maybe that’s why they call it a bed-sitter. The bed’s there, and you sit on it.) We watched the tail end of
60 Minutes
and switched to one of the PBS channels to watch a British miniseries based on a John Gardner espionage novel. The characters all wore moth-eaten cardigans and lived in bed-sitters, so you knew it was cultural.

It ended, finally, and she changed the channel. She went into the kitchen for more wine, even as a woman with one of those patented anchorwoman smiles was saying, “—identification of the nude corpse on the Upper West Side. Film at eleven.”

Doll came back with the wine and said, “What was that? Something about a nude corpse?”

“Headless Corpse in Topless Bar,” I said, quoting everybody’s favorite
Post
headline. “Film at eleven. What time is it, nine?” I looked at my watch. “Ten? Is it really ten o’clock?”

“That’s what I’ve got.”

“That was a two-hour program? I thought it was just a very long hour. Oh, hell.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m late. Hell.”

“Late for what?”

“I have to go to a poetry reading on the Lower East Side,” I said. “It starts at ten.”

“You’re not making that up,” she said. “No one would. Don’t forget your book.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And Bernie? I had a nice time today.”

“Me too, Doll.”

She reached out a hand, gave mine a squeeze. Either of us could have said something. Neither of us did.

I left, and as I reached the fourth-floor landing I heard her door swing shut.