The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling Read online

  “And you’ll bring the, uh, the item?”

  “If you’ll have the, uh, cash.”

  “Everything will be taken care of.”

  Odd, I thought, hanging up the phone. I was the one running on four hours’ sleep. He was the one who sounded exhausted.

  I don’t know exactly when the Sikh appeared. He was just suddenly there, poking around among the shelves, a tall slender gentleman with a full black beard and a turban. I noticed him, of course, because one does notice that sort of thing, but I didn’t stare or gawp. New York is New York, after all, and a Sikh is not a Martian.

  Shortly before five the store emptied out. I stifled a yawn with the back of my hand and thought about closing early. Just then the Sikh emerged from the world of books and presented himself in front of the counter. I’d lost track of him and had assumed he’d left.

  “This book,” he said. He held it up for my inspection, dwarfing it in his large brown hands. An inexpensive copy of The Jungle Book, by our boy Rudyard K.

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “Mowgli, raised by wolves.”

  He was even taller than I’d realized I looked at him and thought of What’s-his-name in Little Orphan Annie. He wore a gray business suit, a white shirt, an unornamented maroon tie. The turban was white.

  “You know this man?”

  Punjab, I thought. That was the dude in Little Orphan Annie. And his sidekick was The Asp, and—

  “Kipling?” I said.

  “You know him?”

  “Well, he’s not living now,” I said. “He died in1936.” And thank you, J. R. Whelkin, for the history lesson.

  The man smiled. His teeth were very large, quite even, and whiter than his shirtfront. His features were regular, and his large sorrowful eyes were the brown of old-fashioned mink coats, the kind Ray Kirschmann’s wife didn’t want for Christmas.

  “You know his books?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You have other books, yes? Besides the ones on your shelves.”

  An alarm bell sounded somewhere in the old cerebellum. “My stock’s all on display,” I said carefully.

  “Another book. A private book, perhaps.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  The smile faded until the mouth was a grim line hidden at its corners by the thick black beard. The Sikh dropped a hand into his jacket pocket. When he brought it out there was a pistol in it. He stood so that his body screened the pistol from the view of passers-by and held it so that it was pointed directly at my chest.

  It was a very small gun, a nickel-plated automatic. They make fake guns about that size, novelty items, but somehow I knew that this one wouldn’t turn out to be a cigarette lighter in disguise.

  It should have looked ridiculous, such a little gun in such a large hand, but I’ll tell you something. Guns, when they’re pointed at me, never look ridiculous.

  “Please,” he said patiently. “Let us be reasonable. You know what I want.”

  CHAPTER

  Six

  I wanted to look him in the eyes but I couldn’t keep from staring at the gun.

  “There is something,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got it behind the counter, see, because of a personal interest—”

  “Yes.”

  “But since you’re a fan of Kipling’s, and because your devotion is obvious—”

  “The book, please.”

  His free hand snatched it up the instant I laid it on the counter. The smile was back now, broader than ever. He tried the book in his jacket pocket but it didn’t fit. He set it back on the counter for a moment while he drew an envelope from an inside pocket. He was still pointing the gun at me and I wished he’d stop.

  “For your trouble,” he said, slapping the envelope smartly on the counter in front of me. “Because you are a reasonable man.”

  “Reasonable,” I said.

  “No police, no troubles.” His smile spread. “Reasonable.”

  “Like Brutus.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, he was honorable, wasn’t he? And I’m reasonable.” The book screamed at me from the counter top. “This book,” I said, my hand pawing the air above it. “You’re a stranger in my country, and I can’t let you—”

  He scooped up the book and backed off, teeth flashing furiously. When he reached the door he pocketed the gun, stepped quickly outside, and hurried off westward on Eleventh Street.

  Gone but not forgotten.

  I stared after him for a moment or two. Then I suppose I sighed, and finally I picked up the envelope and weighed it in my hand as if trying to decide how many stamps to put on it. It was a perfectly ordinary envelope of the sort doctors mail their bills in, except that there was no return address in its upper left-hand corner. Just a simple blank envelope, dime-store stationery.

  Rudyard Whelkin had agreed to pay me fifteen thousand dollars for the book he wanted. Somehow I couldn’t make myself believe this little envelope contained fifteen thousand dollars.

  I opened it. Fifty-dollar bills, old ones, out of sequence.

  Ten of them.

  Five hundred dollars.

  Big hairy deal.

  I dragged the bargain table in from the street. Somehow I wasn’t eager to stay open a few extra minutes in order to peddle a few old books at three for a buck. I hung the Closed sign in the window and set about shutting things down, transferring some cash from the register to my wallet, filling out a deposit slip for the check I’d taken in on the Trollope set.

  I folded the ten fifties and buttoned them into a hip pocket. And snatched up a brown-wrapped book from a drawer in the office desk, and let myself out of the store and went through my nightly lock-up routine with the steel gates.

  For a few minutes I just walked, north on Broadway, then east on Thirteenth Street, then uptown on Third Avenue. The corner of Fourteenth and Third was aswarm with persons addicted to any of a variety of licit and illicit substances. Junkies scratched themselves, winos passed pints around, and a methadone enthusiast kept slamming the heel of his hand thoughtfully against a brick building. I straightened the knot in my tie—I’d put the tie on before leaving the store—and walked onward, resisting the temptation to give my hip pocket a reassuring pat.

  Five hundred dollars.

  There’s a big difference between five hundred and fifteen thousand, and while the latter sum represents a very decent return on a night’s labor, the former is small compensation for risking life and limb, not to mention liberty. So a five-hundred-dollar payment for The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow was like no money at all.

  On the other hand, five hundred dollars was a princely sum for the Grosset & Dunlap reprint edition of Soldiers Three, which is what my turbaned and bearded visitor had taken from me at gunpoint. I rather doubt it was what he wanted, but you don’t always get what you want, do you?

  I’d had the book priced reasonably enough at $1.95. And I had the Haggard copy of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow all nicely wrapped in brown kraft paper and tucked under my arm, and wouldn’t Rudyard Whelkin be happy to see it?

  It’s funny how things work out.

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  I was early, of course. My appointment with Whelkin wasn’t until six-thirty and I’d locked up the shop just a few minutes after five, not wanting to stick around in case the Sikh realized his mistake. I had a sign on the wall emphasizing that all sales were final, but I had a feeling he’d expect me to make an exception in his case. So I took my time walking uptown, and I was still twenty minutes early when I reached the corner of Sixty-sixth and Second. A bar on the corner looked inviting, and I accepted the invitation.

  I don’t drink when I’m working. But this wasn’t exactly work, and I’d felt the need for something after staring into the barrel of the Sikh’s automatic. As a matter of fact, I’d stopped for a quick bracer in a Third Avenue ginmill on my way uptown. Now I wanted something a little more civilized, a dry Rob Roy in a st
emmed and frosted glass.

  I sipped it and did a little thinking, ticking off points on my fingers.

  Point One: Only J. Rudyard Whelkin had known I was going to steal the book from the Arkwright house in Forest Hills Gardens.

  Point Two: It was four o’clock before Whelkin knew I had the book. He’d known I was going there, but there’s many a slip between the cup and the whatsit, and it wasn’t until he called me at the bookstore that he knew for certain my trip to Queens had paid off. In all likelihood, Arkwright himself didn’t even know the book was missing yet.

  Point Three: The Sikh had not been a bizarre coincidence, one of those phenomena that make life the ever-exciting proposition it indisputably is. No way. The Sikh had darkened my doorway because he knew I had stolen Arkwright’s copy of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow.

  Hard work, thinking. I checked my watch, took another sip of my Rob Roy.

  Assumption: The Sikh did not have mystical powers. He knew I had the book because the information had somehow reached him via Whelkin.

  Hypothesis: J. Rudyard Whelkin was as reluctant as the next skinflint to part with fifteen grand. Once he’d established that I had the book in my possession, he simply dispatched his faithful native servant to fetch it for him, instructing him to slip me the ten fifties to smooth my ruffled feathers.

  The hypothesis had me clenching my teeth and making a fist at the very thought. I had a little more of my Rob Roy and did some deep breathing.

  Rebuttal: The hypothesis didn’t make sense. If Whelkin was going to rob me, why send someone to the store? He’d already taken pains to set up a meeting on East Sixty-sixth Street, where he could set up an elaborate ambush with ease.

  Alternate Hypothesis: The Sikh was somebody else’s faithful native servant. Hadn’t Whelkin mentioned that several parties had intended to bid on the book at Trebizond’s London auction? Was it not possible that one of them had followed the book to New York, scheming to wrest it away from Arkwright’s possession, only to see it whisked out from under his nose by one B. G. Rhodenbarr?

  That seemed to make more sense, but it still left a stone or two unturned. I found myself wondering what would happen when the Sikh’s employer took a look at Soldiers Three. The sooner I turned the book over to Whelkin and collected my fifteen thousand dollars, the better I’d be able to cope with him. The best way to cope, I felt, would be to take a quick vacation somewhere, spending a portion of the boodle and giving him time to cool off or leave town or, ideally, both.

  I stood up.

  And sat down again.

  Did I have anything to fear from Whelkin? I was pretty sure he hadn’t sent the Sikh, but suppose I was wrong? Or suppose he had not sent the Sikh and indeed knew nothing about the Sikh, but suppose he had his own ideas about doing me out of my fee? Was it possible I’d let myself be snowed by the elegant manner and the Martingale Club membership? The rich, I’ve noted, are no more eager to part with a bundle than anyone else. And here I was, meeting him on his own turf, bringing him the book like a dutiful dog with the evening paper in his mouth. Lord, I couldn’t even testify that Whelkin had fifteen thousand dollars, let alone that he was prepared to hand it over to me.

  I went to the men’s room, book in hand. When I returned I had both hands free. The book was wedged under my belt against the small of my back, out of sight beneath my suit jacket.

  I finished the last of my drink. I’d have liked another, but that could wait until the completion of my business transaction.

  First things first.

  The house on Sixty-sixth Street was an elegant brownstone with a plant-filled bay window on the parlor floor. Taller buildings stood on either side of it, but the old brownstone held its own. I walked up a half flight of stairs and studied a row of bells in the vestibule.

  M. Porlock. 3-D.

  I rang twice. Nothing happened for a moment and I checked my watch again. It said 6:29 and it is a watch that rarely lies. I placed my finger on the bell again, tentatively, and at that instant the answering buzzer sounded and I pushed the door open.

  There were two apartments on the parlor floor, four each on the three floors above it. (The basement had its own entrance.) I mounted two flights of carpeted stairs with an increasing feeling of mingled anticipation and dread. The D apartments were at the rear of the building. The door of 3-D was slightly ajar. I gave it a rap with my knuckles and it was almost immediately drawn open by a square-shouldered woman wearing a muted-plaid skirt and a brass-buttoned navy blazer. Her dark-brown hair was very short and irregularly cut, as if the barber had been either a drunken friend or a very trendy beautician.

  She said, “Mr. Rhodenbarr? Do come in.”

  “I was supposed to meet—”

  “Ruddy Whelkin, I know. He’s expected at any moment. He rang up not ten minutes ago to say he’d been momentarily detained.” She smiled suddenly. “I’m to make you comfortable, you see. I’m Madeleine Porlock.”

  I took the hand she extended. “Bernie Rhodenbarr,” I said. “But you already know that.”

  “Your reputation precedes you. Won’t you have a seat? And may I get you a drink?”

  “Not just now,” I said. To the drink, that is; I seated myself in a tub chair upholstered in glove-soft green Naugahyde. The living room was small but comfortable, with a Victorian rosewood love seat and a floral-slip-covered easy chair in addition to the tub chair. The bold abstract oil over the love seat somehow complemented the furnishings. It was a nice room, and I said as much.

  “Thank you. You’re sure you won’t have a little sherry?”

  “I’ll pass for now.”

  There was classical music playing on the radio, a woodwind ensemble that sounded like Vivaldi. Madeleine Porlock crossed the room, adjusted the volume. There was something familiar about her but I couldn’t think what it was.

  “Ruddy should be here any moment,” she said again.

  “Have you known him long?”

  “Ruddy? Seems like ages.”

  I tried picturing them as a couple. They didn’t bear mentioning in the same breath with Steve and Eydie, or even Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, but they weren’t utterly inconceivable. He was a good deal older than she, certainly. She looked to be in her early thirties, although I’m terrible at judging people’s ages.

  Did I know her from somewhere?

  I was on the verge of asking when she clapped her hands together as if she’d just hit on the principle of specific gravity. “Coffee,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ll have a cup of coffee. It’s freshly made. You will have some, won’t you?”

  I’d turned down the drink because I wanted to remain alert. All the more reason to have the coffee. We agreed on cream and sugar and she went off to prepare it. I settled myself in the tub chair and listened to the music, thinking how nice it would be to be able to play the bassoon. I’d priced bassoons once and they cost a lot, and I understand the instrument’s exceedingly difficult to learn, and I don’t even remember how to read music, so I don’t suppose I’ll ever go so far as to acquire a bassoon and set about taking lessons, but whenever I hear the instrument in a concerto or a chamber work it occurs to me how nice it would be to go to sleep one night and wake up the following morning owning a bassoon and knowing how to play it.

  Things go so much simpler in fantasy. You leave out all the scut work that way.

  “Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

  I took the coffee from her. She’d served it in a chunky earthenware mug ornamented with a geometric design. I sniffed at the coffee and allowed that it smelled good.

  “I hope you like it,” she said. “It’s a Louisiana blend I’ve been using lately. It has chicory in it.”

  “I like chicory.”

  “Oh, so do I,” she said. She made it sound as though our mutual enthusiasm could be the start of something big. The woodwind quintet ended—it was Vivaldi, according to the announcer—and a Haydn symphony replaced it.

&nb
sp; I took a sip of my coffee. She asked if it was all right and I assured her that it was wonderful, although it really wasn’t. There was a slight off-taste discernible beneath the cream and sugar, and I decided that chicory was one of those things I don’t really like but just think I do.

  “Ruddy said you were bringing him something, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  “Yes.”

  “He seemed very anxious about it. You have it with you, of course?”

  I drank more coffee and decided that it wasn’t really all that bad. The Haydn symphony rolled in waves, echoing within the little room.

  “Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  “Nice music,” I said.

  “Do you have the book, Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

  I was smiling. I had the feeling it was a sort of dopey smile but I couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

  “Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

  “You’re very pretty.”

  “The book, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  “I know you from somewhere. You look familiar.” I was spilling coffee on myself, for some reason, and I felt deeply embarrassed. I shouldn’t have had that Rob Roy, I decided, and then Madeleine Porlock was taking the cup away from me and placing it carefully on the glass-topped coffee table.

  “I always walk into those things,” I confided. “Glass tables. Don’t see them. Walk right into them. You have orange hair.”

  “Close your eyes, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  My eyes slammed shut. I pried them open and looked at her. She had a mop of curly orange hair, and as I stared at her it disappeared and her hair was short and dark again. I blinked, trying to make it orange, but it stayed as it was.

  “The coffee,” I said, brilliantly. “Something in the coffee.”

  “Sit back and relax, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

  “You drugged me.” I braced my hands on the arms of the chair and tried to stand. I couldn’t even get my behind off the chair. My arms had no strength in them and my legs didn’t even appear to exist anymore.

  “Orange hair,” I said.

  “Close your eyes, Mr. Rhodenbarr.”