The Burglar in Short Order Read online

  “You went through my desk.”

  He spread his hands apologetically. “I meant nothing personal,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t even know you.”

  “That’s a point.”

  “And searching an empty desk isn’t that great an invasion of privacy, is it? Nothing to be seen beyond paper clips and rubber bands and the odd felt-tipped pen. So if you’ve come to clean out that lot—”

  “I meant it metaphorically,” she explained. “There are things in this office that belong to me. Projects I worked on that I ought to have copies of to show to prospective employers.”

  “And won’t Mr. Tavistock see to it that you get copies?”

  She laughed sharply. “You don’t know the man,” she said.

  “And thank God for that. I couldn’t rob someone I knew.”

  “He would think I intended to divulge corporate secrets to the competition. The minute he reads my letter of resignation I’ll be persona non grata in this office. I probably won’t even be able to get into the building. I didn’t even realize any of this until I’d gotten home tonight, and I didn’t really know what to do, and then—”

  “Then you decided to try a little burglary.”

  “Hardly that.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have a key.”

  “And I have a cunning little piece of spring steel, and both perform the signal function of admitting us where we have no right to be.”

  “But I work here!”

  “Worked.”

  “My resignation hasn’t been accepted yet. I’m still an employee.”

  “Technically. Still, you’ve come like a thief in the night. You may have signed in downstairs and let yourself in with a key, and you’re not wearing gloves or padding around in crepe-soled shoes, but we’re not all that different, you and I, are we?”

  She set her jaw. “I have a right to the fruits of my labor,” she said.

  “And so have I, and heaven help the person whose property rights get in our way.”

  She walked around him to the three-drawer filing cabinet to the right of the desk. It was locked.

  She turned, but Bernie was already at her elbow. “Allow me,” he said, and in no time at all he had tickled the locking mechanism and was drawing the top drawer open.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t thank me,” he said. “Professional courtesy. No thanks required.”

  She was busy for the next thirty minutes, selecting documents from the filing cabinet and from Tavistock’s desk, as well as a few items from the unlocked cabinets in the outer office. She ran everything through the Xerox copier and replaced the originals where she’d found them. While she was doing all this, her burglar friend worked his way through the office’s remaining desks. He was in no evident hurry, and it struck her that he was deliberately dawdling so as not to finish before her.

  Now and then she would look up from what she was doing to observe him at his work. Once she caught him looking at her, and when their eyes met he winked and smiled, and she felt her cheeks burning.

  He was attractive, certainly. And likable, and in no way intimidating. Nor did he come across like a criminal. His speech was that of an educated person, he had an eye for clothes, his manners were impeccable—

  What on earth was she thinking of?

  By the time she had finished she had an inch-thick sheaf of paper in a manila file folder. She slipped her coat on, tucked the folder under her arm.

  “You’re certainly neat,” he said. “A place for everything and everything right back in its place. I like that.”

  “Well, you’re that way yourself, aren’t you? You even take the trouble to lock up after yourself.”

  “It’s not that much trouble. And there’s a point to it. If one doesn’t leave a mess, sometimes it takes them weeks to realize they’ve been robbed. The longer it takes, the less chance anybody’ll figure out whodunit.”

  “And here I thought you were just naturally neat.”

  “As it happens I am, but it’s a professional asset. Of course your neatness has much the same purpose, doesn’t it? They’ll never know you’ve been here tonight, especially since you haven’t actually taken anything away with you. Just copies.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Speaking of which, would you care to put them in my attaché case? So that you aren’t noticed leaving the building with them in hand? I’ll grant you the chap downstairs wouldn’t notice an earthquake if it registered less than seven-point-four on the Richter scale, but it’s that seemingly pointless attention to detail that enables me to persist in my chosen occupation instead of making license plates and sewing mail sacks as a guest of the governor. Are you ready, Elaine? Or would you like to take one last look around for auld lang syne?”

  “I’ve had my last look around. And I’m not much on auld lang syne.”

  He held the door for her, switched off the overhead lights, drew the door shut. While she locked it with her key he stripped off his rubber gloves and put them in the case where her papers reposed. Then, side by side, they walked the length of the corridor to the elevator. Her footsteps echoed. His, cushioned by his crepe soles, were quite soundless.

  Hers stopped, too, when they reached the elevator, and they waited in silence. They had met, she thought, as thieves in the night, and now were going to pass like ships in the night.

  The elevator came, floated them down to the lobby. The lobby guard looked up at them, neither recognition nor interest showing in his eyes. She said, “Hi, Eddie. Everything going all right?”

  “Hey, how ya doin’,” he said.

  There were only three entries below hers on the register sheet, three persons who’d arrived after her. She signed herself out, listing the time after a glance at her watch: She’d been upstairs for better than an hour and a half.

  Outside, the wind had an edge to it. She turned to him, glanced at his attaché case, suddenly remembered the first schoolboy who’d carried her books. She could surely have carried her own books, just as she could have safely carried the folder of papers past Eagle-eye Eddie.

  Still, it was not unpleasant to have one’s books carried.

  “Well,” she began, “I’d better take my papers, and—”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Seventy-sixth Street.”

  “East or west?”

  “East. But—”

  “We’ll share a cab,” he said. “Compliments of petty cash.” And he was at the curb, a hand raised, and a cab appeared as if conjured up, and then he was holding the door for her.

  She got in.

  “Seventy-sixth,” he told the driver. “And what?”

  “Lexington,” she said.

  “Lexington,” he said.

  Her mind raced during the taxi ride. It was all over the place and she couldn’t keep up with it. She felt in turn like a schoolgirl, like a damsel in peril, like Grace Kelly in a Hitchcock film. When the cab reached her corner she indicated her building, and he leaned forward to relay the information to the driver.

  “Would you like to come up for coffee?”

  The line had run through her mind like a mantra in the course of the ride. Yet she couldn’t believe she was actually speaking the words.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’d like that.”

  She steeled herself as they approached her doorman, but the man was discretion personified. He didn’t even greet her by name, merely holding the door for her and her escort and wishing them a good night. Upstairs, she thought of demanding that Bernie open her door without the keys, but decided she didn’t want any demonstrations just then of her essential vulnerability. She unlocked the several locks herself.

  “I’ll make coffee,” she said. “Or would you just as soon have a drink?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Scotch? Or cognac?”

  “Cognac.”

  While she was pouring the drinks he walked around her living room, looking at the pi
ctures on the walls and the books on the shelves. Guests did this sort of thing all the time, but this particular guest was a criminal, after all, and so she imagined him taking a burglar’s inventory of her possessions. That Chagall aquatint he was studying—she’d paid five hundred for it at auction and it was probably worth close to three times that by now.

  Surely he’d have better luck foraging in her apartment than in a suite of deserted offices.

  Surely he’d realize as much himself.

  She handed him his brandy. “To criminal enterprise,” he said, and she raised her glass in response.

  “I’ll give you those papers. Before I forget.”

  “All right.”

  He opened the attaché case, handed them over. She placed the folder on the coffee table and carried her brandy across to the window. The deep carpet muffled her footsteps as effectively as if she’d been the one wearing crepe-soled shoes.

  You have nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. And you’re not afraid, and—

  “An impressive view,” he said, close behind her.

  “Yes.”

  “You could see your office from here. If that building weren’t in the way.”

  “I was thinking that earlier.”

  “Beautiful,” he said, softly, and then his arms were encircling her from behind and his lips were on the nape of her neck.

  “‘Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable,’” he quoted. “‘Elaine the lily maid of Astolat.’” His lips nuzzled her ear. “But you must hear that all the time.”

  She smiled. “Oh, not so often,” she said. “Less often than you’d think.”

  The sky was just growing light when he left. She lay alone for a few minutes, then went to lock up after him. And laughed aloud when she found that he’d locked up after himself, without a key.

  It was late but she didn’t think she’d ever been less tired. She put up a fresh pot of coffee, poured a cup when it was ready, and sat at the kitchen table reading through the papers she’d taken from the office. She wouldn’t have had half of them without Bernie’s assistance, she realized. She could never have opened the file cabinet in Tavistock’s office.

  “Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable. Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat.”

  She smiled.

  A few minutes after nine, when she was sure Jennings Colliard would be at his desk, she dialed his private number.

  “It’s Andrea,” she told him. “I succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. I’ve got copies of Tavistock’s complete marketing plan for fall and winter, along with a couple of dozen test and survey reports and a lot of other documents you’ll want a chance to analyze. And I put all the originals back where they came from, so nobody at Tavistock’ll ever know what happened.”

  “Remarkable.”

  “I thought you’d approve. Having a key to their office helped, and knowing the doorman’s name didn’t hurt any. Oh, and I also have some news that’s worth knowing. I don’t know if George Tavistock is in his office yet, but if so he’s reading a letter of resignation even as we speak. The Lily Maid of Astolat has had it.”

  “What are you talking about, Andrea?”

  “Elaine Halder. She cleaned out her desk and left him a note saying bye-bye. I thought you’d like to be the first kid on your block to know that.”

  “And of course you’re right.”

  “I’d come in now but I’m exhausted. Do you want to send a messenger over?”

  “Right away. And you get some sleep.”

  “I intend to.”

  “You’ve done spectacularly well, Andrea. There will be something extra in your stocking.”

  “I thought there might be,” she said.

  She hung up the phone and stood once again at the window, looking out at the city, reviewing the night’s events. It had been quite perfect, she decided, and if there was the slightest flaw it was that she’d missed the Cary Grant movie.

  But it would be on again soon. They ran it frequently. People evidently liked that sort of thing.

  The Burglar Who Dropped in on Elvis

  “I know who you are,” she said. “Your name is Bernie Rhodenbarr. You’re a burglar.”

  I glanced around, glad that the store was empty save for the two of us. It often is, but I’m not usually glad about it.

  “Was,” I said.

  “Was?”

  “Was. Past tense. I had a criminal past, and while I’d as soon keep it a secret I can’t deny it. But I’m an antiquarian bookseller now, Miss Uh—”

  “Danahy,” she supplied. “Holly Danahy.”

  “Miss Danahy. A dealer in the wisdom of the ages. The errors of my youth are to be regretted, even deplored, but they’re over and done with.”

  She gazed thoughtfully at me. She was a lovely creature, slender, pert, bright of eye and inquisitive of nose, and she wore a tailored suit and flowing bow tie that made her look at once yieldingly feminine and as coolly competent as a Luger.

  “I think you’re lying,” she said. “I certainly hope so. Because an antiquarian bookseller is no good at all to me. What I need is a burglar.”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “You can.” She laid a cool-fingered hand on mine. “It’s almost closing time. Why don’t you lock up? I’ll buy you a drink and tell you how you can qualify for an all-expenses-paid trip to Memphis. And possibly a whole lot more.”

  “You’re not trying to sell me a time-share in a thriving resort community, are you?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Then what have I got to lose? The thing is, I usually have a drink after work with—”

  “Carolyn Kaiser,” she cut in. “Your best friend, she washes dogs two doors down the street at the Poodle Factory. You can call her and cancel.”

  My turn to gaze thoughtfully. “You seem to know a lot about me,” I said.

  “Sweetie,” she said, “that’s my job.”

  “I’m a reporter,” she said. “For the Weekly Galaxy. If you don’t know the paper, you must never get to the supermarket.”

  “I know it,” I said. “But I have to admit I’m not what you’d call one of your regular readers.”

  “Well, I should hope not, Bernie. Our readers move their lips when they think. Our readers write letters in crayon because they’re not allowed to have anything sharp. Our readers make the Enquirer’s readers look like Rhodes scholars. Our readers, face it, are D-U-M.”

  “Then why would they want to know about me?”

  “They wouldn’t, unless an extraterrestrial made you pregnant. That happen to you?”

  “No, but Bigfoot ate my car.”

  She shook her head. “We already did that story. Last August, I think it was. The car was an AMC Gremlin with a hundred and ninety-two thousand miles on it.”

  “I suppose its time had come.”

  “That’s what the owner said. He’s got a new BMW now, thanks to the Galaxy. He can’t spell it, but he can drive it like crazy.”

  I looked at her over the brim of my glass. “If you don’t want to write about me,” I said, “what do you need me for?”

  “Ah, Bernie,” she said. “Bernie the burglar. Sweetie pie, you’re my ticket to Elvis.”

  “The best possible picture,” I told Carolyn, “would be a shot of Elvis in his coffin. The Galaxy loves shots like that, but in this case it would be counterproductive in the long run, because it might kill their big story, the one run they month after month.”

  “Which is that he’s still alive.”

  “Right. Now the second-best possible picture, and better for their purposes overall, would be a shot of him alive, singing ‘Love Me Tender’ to a visitor from another planet. They get a chance at that picture every couple of days, and it’s always some Elvis impersonator. Do you know how many full-time professional Elvis Presley impersonators there are in America today?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I, but I have a feeling Holly Danahy could probably supply a figure, and that it w
ould be an impressive one. Anyway, the third-best possible picture, and the one she seems to want almost more than life itself, is a shot of the King’s bedroom.”

  “At Graceland?”

  “That’s the one. Six thousand people visit Graceland every day. Two million of them walked through it last year.”

  “And none of them brought a camera?”

  “Don’t ask me how many cameras they brought, or how many rolls of film they shot. Or how many souvenir ashtrays and paintings on black velvet they bought and took home with them. But how many of them got above the first floor?”

  “How many?”

  “None. Nobody gets to go upstairs at Graceland. The staff isn’t allowed up there, and people who’ve worked there for years have never set foot above the ground floor. And you can’t bribe your way up there, either, according to Holly, and she knows because she tried, and she had all the Galaxy’s resources to play with. Two million people a year go to Graceland, and they’d all love to know what it looks like upstairs, and the Weekly Galaxy would just love to show them.”

  “Enter a burglar.”

  “That’s it. That’s Holly’s masterstroke, the one designed to win her a bonus and a promotion. Enter an expert at illegal entry, a burglar. Le burglar, c’est moi. Name your price, she told me.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars. You know why? All I could think of was that it sounded like a job for Nick Velvet. You remember him, the thief in the Ed Hoch stories who’ll only steal worthless objects.” I sighed. “When I think of all the worthless objects I’ve stolen over the years, and never once has anyone offered to pay me a fee of twenty-five grand for my troubles. Anyway, that was the price that popped into my head, so I tried it out on her. And she didn’t even try to haggle.”

  “I think Nick Velvet raised his rates,” Carolyn said. “I think his price went up in the last story or two.”

  I shook my head. “You see what happens? You fall behind on your reading and it costs you money.”

  Holly and I flew first class from JFK to Memphis. The meal was still airline food, but the seats were so comfortable and the stewardess so attentive that I kept forgetting this.