Burglars Can't Be Choosers Read online

  “Everyone does.”

  “If my agent had a machine instead of a service I’d get a new agent.”

  “I didn’t know you had an agent.”

  She colored. “If I had one. If we had some ham we could have ham and eggs if we had some eggs.”

  “We’ve still got some eggs. In the fridge.”

  “Bernie—”

  “I know.” I looked again in the phone book. No Wesley Brill, but there were a couple of Brill, W’s. The first two numbers answered and reported that there was no Wesley there. The third and last went unanswered, but it was in Harlem and it seemed unlikely that he’d live there. And telephone listings with initials are almost always women trying to avoid obscene calls.

  “We can find out if he has an unlisted number,” Ruth suggested. “Information’ll tell you that.”

  “An actor with an unlisted number? I suppose it’s possible. But even if we find out that he does, what good will it do us?”

  “None, I suppose.”

  “Then the hell with it.”

  “Right.”

  “We know who he is,” I said. “That’s the important thing. In the morning we can call his agent and find out where he lives. What’s really significant is that we’ve found a place to start. That’s the one thing we didn’t have before. If the police kick the door in an hour from now it’d be a slightly different story from if they’d kicked it in two hours ago. I wouldn’t be at a complete dead end, see. I’d have more than a cockeyed story about a round-shouldered fat man with brown eyes. I’d have a name to go with the description.”

  “And then what would happen?”

  “They’d put me in jail and throw the key away,” I said. “But nobody’s going to kick the door in. Don’t worry about a thing, Ruth.”

  She went around the corner to a deli and picked up sandwiches and beer, stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of Teacher’s. I’d asked her to pick up the booze, but by the time she came back with everything I’d decided not to have any. I had one beer with dinner and nothing else.

  Afterward we sat on the couch and drank coffee. She had a little Scotch in hers. I didn’t. She asked to see my burglar tools and I showed them to her, and she asked the name and function of each item.

  “Burglar tools,” she said. “It’s illegal to have them in your possession, isn’t it?”

  “You can go to jail for it.”

  “Which ones did you use to open the locks for this apartment?” I showed her and explained the process. “I think it’s remarkable,” she said, and gave a delicious little shiver. “Who taught you how to do it?”

  “Taught myself.”

  “Really?”

  “More or less. Oh, once I was really into it I got books on locksmithing, and then I took a mail-order course in it from an outfit in Ohio. You know, I wonder if anybody but burglars ever sign up for those courses. I knew a guy in prison who took one of those courses with a correspondence college and they sent him a different lock every month by mail with complete instructions on how to open it. He would just sit there in his cell and practice with the lock for hours on end.”

  “And the prison authorities let him do this?”

  “Well, the idea was that he was learning a trade. They’re supposed to encourage that sort of thing in prison. Actually the trade he was learning was burglary, of course, and it was a big step up for him from holding up filling stations, which was his original field of endeavor.”

  “I guess there’s more money in burglary.”

  “There often is, but the main consideration was violence. Not that he ever shot anybody but somebody took a shot at him once and he decided that stealing was a safer and saner proposition if you did it when nobody was home.”

  “So he took a course and became an expert.”

  I shrugged. “Let’s just say he took the course. I don’t know if he became an expert or not. There’s only so much you can teach a person, through the mails or face to face. The rest has to be inside him.”

  “In the hands?”

  “In the hands and in the heart.” I felt myself blushing at the phrase. “Well, it’s true. When I was twelve years old I taught myself how to open the bathroom door. You could lock it from inside by pressing this button on the doorknob and then the door could be opened from the inside but not from the outside. So that nobody would walk in on you while you were on the toilet or in the tub. The usual privacy lock. But of course you can press the button on the inside and then close the door from the outside and then you’ve locked yourself out of it.”

  “So?”

  “So my kid sister did something along those lines, except what she did was lock herself in and then just sit there and cry because she couldn’t turn the knob. My mother called the Fire Department and they took the lock apart and rescued her. What’s so funny?”

  “Any other kid who went through that would decide to become a fireman. But you decided to become a burglar.”

  “All I decided was I wanted to know how to open that lock. I tried using a screwdriver blade to get a purchase on the bolt and snick it back, but it didn’t have the flexibility. I could almost manage it with a table knife, and then I thought to use one of those plastic calendars insurance men pass out that you keep in your wallet, you know, all twelve months at a glance, and it was perfect. I figured out how to loid that lock without even having heard of the principle involved.”

  “Loid?”

  “As in celluloid. Any time you’ve got a lock that you can lock without a key, you know, just by drawing the door shut, then you’ve got a lock that can be loided. It may be hard or easy depending on how the door and jamb fit together, but it’s not going to be impossible.”

  “It’s fascinating,” she said, and she gave that little shivery shudder again. I went on talking about my earliest experiences with locks and the special thrill I’d always found in opening them, and she seemed as eager to hear all this as I was to talk about it. I told her about the first time I let myself into a neighbor’s apartment, going in one afternoon when nobody was home, taking some cold cuts from the refrigerator and bread from the bread drawer, making a sandwich and eating it and putting everything back the way I’d found it before letting myself out.

  “The big thing for you was opening locks,” she said.

  “Opening locks and sneaking inside. Right.”

  “The stealing came later, then.”

  “Unless you count sandwiches. But it didn’t take long before I was stealing. Once you’re inside a place it’s a short step to figuring out that it might make sense to leave with more money than you brought with you. Opening doors is a kick, but part of the kick comes from the possibility of profit on the other side of the door.”

  “And the danger?”

  “I suppose that’s part of it.”

  “Bernie? Tell me what it’s like.”

  “Burglary?”

  “Uh-huh.” Her face was quite intense now, especially around the eyes, and there was a thin film of perspiration on her upper lip. I put a hand on her leg. A muscle in her upper thigh twitched like a plucked string.

  “Tell me how it feels,” she said.

  I moved my hand to and fro. “It feels very nice,” I said.

  “You know what I mean. What’s it like to open a door and sneak into somebody else’s place?”

  “Exciting.”

  “It must be.” Her tongue flicked at her lower lip.

  “Scary?”

  “A little.”

  “It would have to be. Is the excitement, uh, sexual?”

  “Depends on who you find in the apartment.” I laughed a hearty laugh. “Just a joke. I suppose there’s a sexual element. It’s obvious enough on a symbolic level, isn’t it?” My hand moved as I talked, to and fro, to and fro. “Tickling all the right tumblers,” I went on. “Stroking here and there, then ever so gently easing the door open, slipping inside little by little.”

  “Yes—”

  “Of course your crud
e type of burglar who uses a pry bar or just plain kicks the door in, he’d be representative of a more direct approach to sex, wouldn’t he?”

  She pouted. “You’re joking with me.”

  “Just a little.”

  “I never met a burglar before, Bernie. I’m curious to know what it’s like.”

  Her eyes looked blue now and utterly guileless. I put a finger under her chin, tipped her head up, placed a little kiss upon the tip of her nose. “You’ll know,” I told her.

  “Huh?”

  “In a couple of hours,” I said, “you’ll get to see for yourself.”

  It made perfect sense to me. She was remarkably good at getting people to tell her things over the phone, and maybe she could worm Wesley Brill’s address out of his agent first thing in the morning, but why wait so long? And why chance the agent’s passing the word to Wesley? Or, if the agent was in on the whole thing, why set his teeth on edge?

  On the other hand, Peter Alan Martin’s office was located on Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, and if there was anything easier than knocking off an office building after hours I didn’t know what it was. At the very least I’d walk out of the building with Brill’s address a few hours earlier than we’d get it otherwise, and without arousing suspicions. And if I got lucky—well, it had the same attraction as any burglary. You didn’t know what you might find, and it could always turn out to be more than you’d hoped for.

  “But you’ll be out in the open,” Ruth said. “People might see you.”

  “I’ll be disguised.”

  Her face brightened. “We could get some make-up. Maybe Rod has some around. I’ll make you up. Maybe a false moustache for a start.”

  “I tried a real moustache this afternoon and I wasn’t crazy about it. And make-up just makes a person look as though he’s wearing make-up, and that’s the sort of thing that draws attention instead of discouraging it. Wait here a minute.”

  I went to the closet, got the wig and cap, took them into the bathroom and used the mirror to adjust them for the best effect. I came out and posed for Ruth. She was properly appreciative, and I bowed theatrically, and when I did so the cap and wig fell on the rug in front of me. Whereupon she laughed a little more boisterously than I felt the situation absolutely required.

  “Not that funny,” I said.

  “Oh, nonsense. It was hysterical. A couple of bobby pins will make sure that doesn’t happen. It could be embarrassing if your hair fell off on the street.”

  Nothing happened last night, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t mentioned that I’d gone out on my own and I felt it would be awkward to bring it up now.

  It was around nine when we left the apartment. I had my ring of tools in my pocket along with my rubber gloves and a roll of adhesive tape I’d found in the medicine cabinet; I didn’t think I’d have to break any windows, but adhesive tape is handy if you do and I hadn’t cased Martin’s office and didn’t know what to expect. Ruth had found some bobby pins lurking in the bottom of her bag and she used them to attach the blond wig to my own hair. I could bow clear to the floor now and not worry about dislodging the wig. Of course I’d lose the cap, and she wanted to pin the cap to the wig as well, but I drew the line there.

  Outside the door I took Rod’s spare keys from her and locked all three locks, then gave them back to her. She looked at them for a moment before dropping them back into her bag. “You opened all those locks,” she said. “Without keys.”

  “I’m a talented lad.”

  “You must be.”

  We didn’t run into anyone on the way out of the building. Outside the air was fresh and clear and not a touch warmer than it had been the night before. I almost said as much until I remembered I hadn’t been out the night before as far as she was concerned. She said it must feel good to be outside after spending two days cooped up, and I said yeah, it sure did, and she said I must be nervous being on the streets with every cop in the city gunning for me, which was something of an exaggeration, and I said yeah, I sure was, but not too nervous, and she took my arm and we headed north and east.

  It was a lot safer with her along. Anybody looking at us saw a guy and a girl walking arm in arm, and when that’s what meets your eye it doesn’t occur to you to wonder if you’re eyeballing a notorious fugitive from justice. I was able to relax a good deal more than I had the past night. I think she was edgy at first, but by the time we’d walked a few blocks she was completely at ease and said she couldn’t wait until we were inside the agent’s office.

  I said, “What you mean we, kemosabe?”

  “You and me, Tonto. Who else?”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “Not a chance. I’m the burglar, remember? You’re the trusted confederate. You stay on the outskirts and guard the horses.”

  She pouted. “Not fair. You have all the fun.”

  “Rank has its privileges.”

  “Two heads are better than one, Bernie. And four hands are better than two, and if we’re both checking Martin’s office things’ll go faster.”

  I reminded her about too many cooks. She was still protesting when we reached the corner of Sixteenth and Sixth. I figured out which was Martin’s building and spotted a Riker’s coffee shop diagonally across the street from it. “You’ll wait right there,” I told her, “in one of those cute little booths with a cup of what will probably not turn out to be the best coffee you ever tasted.”

  “I don’t want any coffee.”

  “Maybe an English muffin along with it if you feel the need.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Or a prune Danish. They’re renowned for their prune Danish.”

  “Really?”

  “How do I know? You can hold up lanterns in the window. One if by land, two if by sea, and Ruth Hightower’ll be on the opposite shore. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Two If By Sea. That’s the show Rod’s in, did you know that? Anyway, I’ll be on the opposite shore, and I won’t be terribly long. Get in and get out, quick as a bunny. That’s my policy.”

  “I see.”

  “But only in burglary. It’s not my policy in all areas of human endeavor.”

  “Huh? Oh.”

  I felt lighthearted, even a little lightheaded. I gave her a comradely kiss and steered her toward the Riker’s, then squared my shoulders and prepared to do battle.

  Chapter

  Ten

  The building was only a dozen stories high, but the man who built it had probably thought of it as a skyscraper at the time. It was that old, a once-white structure festooned with ornamental ironwork and layered with decades of grime. They don’t build them like that anymore and you really can’t blame them.

  I looked the place over from across the street and didn’t see anything that bothered me. Most of the streetside offices were dark. Only a few had lights on—lawyers and accountants working late, cleaning women tidying desks and emptying trash-baskets and mopping floors. In the narrow marble-floored lobby, a white-haired black man in maroon livery sat at a desk reading a newspaper, which he held at arm’s length. I watched him for a few minutes. No one entered the building, but one man emerged from the elevator and approached the desk. He bent over it for a moment, then straightened up and continued on out of the building, heading uptown on Sixth Avenue.

  I slipped into a phone booth on the corner and tried not to pay attention to the way it smelled. I called Peter Alan Martin’s office and hung up when the machine answered. If you do that within seven seconds or so you get your dime back. I must have taken eight seconds because Ma Bell kept my money.

  When the traffic light changed I trotted across the street. The attendant looked up without interest as I made my way through the revolving doors. I gave him my Number 3 smile, warm but impersonal, and let my eyes have a quick peek at the building directory on the wall while my feet carried me over to his desk. He moved a hand to indicate the ledger and the yellow pencil stub I was to use to sign my name in
it. I wrote T. J. Powell under Name, Hubbell Corp. under Firm, 441 under Room, and 9:25 under Time In. I could have written the Preamble to the Constitution for all the attention the old man gave it, and why not? He was an autograph collector and not a hell of a lot more, a deterrent for people who deterred easily. He’d been posted in the lobby of a fifth-rate office building where the tenants probably had an annual turnover rate of thirty percent. Industrial espionage was hardly likely to occur here, and if the old man kept the junkies from carting off typewriters, then he was earning the pittance they paid him.

  The elevator had been inexpertly converted to self-service some years back. It was a rickety old cage and it took its time getting up to the fourth floor, which was where I left it. Martin’s office was on six, and I didn’t really think my friend in the lobby would abandon his tabloid long enough to see if I went to the floor I’d signed in for, but when you’re a professional you tend to do things the right way whether you have to or not. I took the fire stairs up two flights—and they were unusually steep flights at that—and found the agent’s office at the far end of the corridor. There were lights burning in only two of the offices I passed, one belonging to a CPA, the other to a firm called Notions Unlimited. No sound came from the accountant’s office, but a radio in Notions Unlimited was tuned to a classical music station, and over what was probably a Vivaldi chamber work a girl with an Haute Bronx accent was saying, “…told him he had a lot to learn, and do you know what he said to that? You’re not going to believe this…”

  The door to Peter Alan Martin’s office was of blond maple with a large pane of frosted glass set into it. The glass had all three of his names on it in black capitals, and Talent Representative underneath them. The lettering had been done some time ago and needed freshening up, but then the whole building needed that sort of touch-up work and you knew it wasn’t ever going to get it. I could tell without opening the door that Martin wasn’t much of an agent and Brill couldn’t have much of a career these days. On the outside the building still retained an air of faded grandeur, but in here all of the grandeur had faded away.