Strangers on a Handball Court Read online

  “I’d like to do it around eight,” he said. “That’s when I normally leave for the poker game. I can do it and be drawing to an inside straight by nine o’clock. How does that sound?”

  I allowed that it sounded good to me.

  “I guess I’ll make it another fake burglary,” he said. “Ransack the place, use a knife. Let them think it’s the same crazy burglar striking again. Or doesn’t that sound good to you?”

  “It might tend to link us,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  “Maybe you could make it look like a sex crime. Rape and murder. That way the police would never draw any connection between the two killings.”

  “Brilliant,” he said. He really seemed to admire me now that I’d committed a murder and won two games of handball from him.

  “You wouldn’t actually have to rape her. Just rip her clothing and set the scene properly.”

  “Is she attractive?” I admitted that she was, after a fashion. “I’ve always sort of had fantasies about rape,” he said, carefully avoiding my eyes as he spoke. “She’ll be home at eight o’clock?”

  “She’ll be home.”

  “And alone?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He folded the slip of paper, put it into his wallet, dropped bills from his wallet on the table, swallowed what remained of his beer, and got to his feet. “It’s in the bag,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”

  “Our troubles are over,” I told Vivian.

  “Oh, darling,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. You’re the most wonderful man in the world.”

  “And a sensational handball player,” I said.

  I LEFT MY house Wednesday night at half past seven. I drove a few blocks to a drugstore and bought a couple of magazines, then went to a men’s shop next door and looked at sport shirts. The two shirts I liked weren’t in stock in my size. The clerk offered to order them for me but I thought it over and told him not to bother. “I like them,” I said, “but I’m not absolutely crazy about them.”

  I returned to my house. My handball partner’s car was parked diagonally across the street. I parked my own car in the driveway and used my key to let myself in the front door. From the doorway I cleared my throat, and he spun around to face me, his eyes bulging out of his head.

  I pointed to the body on the couch. “Is she dead?”

  “Stone dead. She fought and I hit her too hard . . .” He flushed a deep red, then he blinked. “But what are you doing here? Don’t you remember how we planned it? I don’t understand why you came here tonight of all nights.”

  “I came here because I live here,” I said. “George, I’d love to explain but there’s no time. I wish there were time but there isn’t.”

  I took the revolver from my pocket and shot him in the face.

  “THE POLICE WERE very understanding,” I told Vivian. “They seem to think the shock of his ex-wife’s death unbalanced him. They theorize that he was driving by when he saw me leave my house. Maybe he saw Margaret at the door saying goodbye to me. He parked, perhaps with no clear intention, then went to the door. When she opened the door, he was overcome with desire. By the time I came back and let myself in and shot him it was too late. The damage had been done.”

  “Poor George.”

  “And poor Margaret.”

  She put her hand on mine. “They brought it on themselves,” she said. “If George hadn’t insisted on that vicious prenuptial agreement we could have had a properly civilized divorce like everybody else.”

  “And if Margaret had agreed to a properly civilized divorce she’d be alive today.”

  “We only did what we had to do,” Vivian said. “It was a shame about his ex-wife, but I don’t suppose there was any way around it.”

  “At least she didn’t suffer.”

  “That’s important,” she said. “And you know what they say—you can’t break an egg without making omelets.”

  “That’s what they say,” I agreed. We embraced, and some moments later we disembraced. “We’ll have to give one another rather a wide berth for a month or two,” I said. “After all, I killed your husband just as he finished killing my wife. If we should be seen in public, tongues would wag. In a month or so you’ll sell your house and leave town. A few weeks after that I’ll do the same. Then we can get married and live happily ever after, but in the meantime we’d best be very cautious.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “There was a movie like that, except nobody got killed in it. But there were these two people in a small town who were having an affair, and when they met in public they had to pretend they were strangers. I wish I could remember the title.”

  “Strangers When We Meet?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  The End

  The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons

  Chapter One

  Excerpt Copyright © 2013, Lawrence Block

  AROUND 11:15 ON a Tuesday morning in May, I was perched on my stool behind the counter at Barnegat Books. I was reading Jubilate Agno, by Christopher Smart, even as I was keeping a lazy eye on a slender young woman in jeans and sandals. Her khaki shirt had those little tabs to secure the sleeves when you rolled them up, and a scant inch of tattoo peeked out from under one rolled-up sleeve. I couldn’t make out the image, there wasn’t enough showing, and I didn’t bother to guess, or to speculate on what hidden parts of her anatomy might sport further tattoos. I was paying more attention to the capacious tote bag hanging from her shoulder, and the Frank Norris novel that had engaged her interest.

  For I shall consider my cat, Geoffrey, I read, and looked over to the window to consider my own cat, Raffles. There’s a portion of the window ledge that the sun manages to find on clear days, and that’s his favorite spot, rain or shine. Sometimes he stretches, in the manner of his tribe, and sometimes his paws move as he dreams of mice. At the moment he was doing nothing, as far as I could tell.

  My customer, on the other hand, had fetched a cell phone from her tote bag. She’d put the book down, and her thumbs were busy. At length she returned the phone to her bag and, beaming, brought Frank Norris to the counter.

  “I’ve been looking all over for this,” she said, triumphantly. “And I’ve had a terrible time, because I couldn’t remember the title or the author.”

  “I can see how that might complicate things for you.”

  “But when I saw the book,” she said, brandishing the object in question, “it, like, rang a bell.”

  “Ah.”

  “And I looked through it, and this is it.”

  “The very volume you’ve been seeking.”

  “Yeah, isn’t that awesome? And you know what’s even better?”

  “What?”

  “It’s on Kindle. Isn’t that fantastic? I mean, here’s a book more than a hundred years old, and it’s not like it was Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick, you know?”

  Eat your heart out, Frank Norris.

  “Like, they’re popular, so you’d expect to be able to get them in eBooks. But The Pit? Frank Norris? And yet I Googled it and there it was, and a couple of clicks and I own it.”

  “Just like that,” I said.

  “Isn’t it great? And you know what it cost?”

  “Probably less than the book you’re holding.”

  She checked the penciled price on the inside cover. “Fifteen dollars. Which is fair enough, I mean it’s like a hundred years old and a hardcover book and all. But you want to know what I just paid?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Two ninety-nine.”

  “Awesome,” I said.

  CAROLYN KAISER, WHO washes dogs two doors down the street at the Poodle Factory, is my best friend and, more often than not, my lunch companion. Whoever’s turn it is picks up food at a nearby restaurant and brings it to the other’s place of business. It was her turn, and an hour after the girl with the peekaboo tattoo left poor old Frank Norris on my counter, Carolyn breezed in and began dishing out dejeuner a de
ux.

  “Juneau Lock?”

  “Juneau Lock,” she agreed.

  “I wonder what it is.”

  She took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and considered the matter. “I couldn’t even guess the animal,” she said. “Let alone what part of the animal.”

  “It could be almost anything.”

  “I know.”

  “Whatever this dish is,” I said, “I don’t think we’ve had it before.”

  “It’s always different,” she said, “and it’s always sensational.”

  “Or even awesome,” I said, and told her about Frank Norris and the girl with the tattoo.

  “Maybe it was a dragon.”

  “The tattoo? Or our lunch?”

  “Either one. She used your bookshop to figure out what book she wanted, and then she bought the eBook from Amazon and bragged about what a deal she got.”

  “It didn’t come off like bragging,” I said. “She was letting me be a part of her triumph.”

  “And rubbing your nose in it, Bern. And you don’t even seem all that upset.”

  “I don’t?” I thought about it. “Well,” I said, “I guess I’m not. She was so innocent about it, you know? ‘Isn’t it great how I saved myself twelve bucks?’ ” I shrugged. “At least I got the book back. I was afraid she was going to steal it.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said, “she did. But if you’re cool with it, I don’t see why I should be pissed off on your behalf. This is great food, Bern.”

  “The best.”

  “Two Guys From Taichung. I wonder if I’m pronouncing it correctly.”

  “I’m pretty sure you got the first three words right.”

  “The first three words,” she said, “never change.”

  The restaurant, on the corner of Broadway and East Eleventh Street, across the street from the Bum Rap, has had the same sign for almost as long as I’ve had the bookshop. But it’s changed owners and ethnicities repeatedly over the years, and each new owner (or pair of owners) has painted over the last word on the sign. Two Guys From Tashkent gave way to Two Guys From Guayaquil, which in turn yielded to Two Guys From Phnom Penh. And so on.

  We began to take the closings for granted—it was evidently a hard-luck location—and whenever we started to lose our taste for the current cuisine, we could look forward to whatever would take its place. And, while we rarely went more than a few days without a lunch from Two Guys, there were plenty of alternatives—the deli, the pizza place, the diner.

  Then Two Guys From Kandahar threw in the towel, and Two Guys From Taichung opened up shop, and everything changed.

  “I’LL BE CLOSING early,” I told Carolyn.

  “Today’s the day, huh?”

  “And tonight’s the night. I thought I might get back downtown in time to meet you at the Bum Rap, but where’s the sense in that?”

  “Especially since you’d be drinking Perrier. Bern? You want me to tag along?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure? Because it’d be no problem for me to close early. I’ve got a Borzoi to blow dry, and his owner’s picking him up at three, and even if she runs late I can be out of there by three-thirty. I could keep you company.”

  “You were with me on the reconnaissance mission.”

  “Casing the joint,” she said with relish. “Nothing to it. Piece of cake.”

  “I think it’s better if I solo this time around.”

  “I could watch your back.”

  “I don’t want to give their security cameras a second look at you. Once is fine but twice is suspicious.”

  “I could wear a disguise.”

  “No, I’ll be disguised,” I said. “And a key part of my disguise is that this time around I won’t be accompanied by a diminutive woman with a lesbian haircut.”

  “I guess diminutive sounds better than short,” she said. “And it’s not exactly a lesbian haircut, but I take your point. So how about if I hang out down the block? No? Okay, Bern, but I’ll have my cell with me. If you need me—”

  “I’ll call. But that’s not likely. I’ll just steal the book and go home.”

  “Check Amazon first,” she said. “See if it’s on Kindle. Maybe you can save yourself a trip.”

  * * *

  The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons

  About the Author

  Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. His most recent novels are Hit Me, featuring Keller, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff, featuring Matthew Scudder, who will be played by Liam Neeson in the forthcoming film, A Walk Among the Tombstones. Several of his other books have been filmed, although not terribly well. He’s well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, and The Liar’s Bible. In addition to prose works, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

  Website: LB’s Blog

  Facebook: lawrence.block

  Website: lawrenceblock.com

  * * *

  More Story Collections

  available at

  Enough Rope

  The Night and the Music

  Catch and Release

  For a list of all my available fiction, go to Books on the Lawrence Block website.

  And if you LOVE any of these stories, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell your friends—including the friends you haven’t met—by blogging, posting an online review, or otherwise spreading the word.

  Thanks!

  Lawrence Block