The Burglar in the Rye - By Lawrence Block Page 0,2
written it down as Jeffrey Peters.”
I said it was a natural mistake, fairly certain as I spoke that the mistake was mine. I’d somehow managed to screw up my own alias. Inverting the first and last names was a natural consequence of picking an alias consisting of two first names, which in turn is something amateurs tend to do all the time. And that was more dismaying than the mistake itself. For what was I if not a professional? And where was I if I started behaving like an amateur?
I filled out the card—an address in San Francisco, a departure date three days off—and said I’d be paying cash. Three nights at $155 a night plus tax, and a deposit for the phone, came to somewhere around $575. I counted out six hundreds and the fellow ran a finger over his upper lip, grooming the mustache he didn’t have, and asked me if I would be wanting a bear.
“A bear?”
He nodded at a trio of Paddington Bears, perched atop a filing cabinet and looking quite like the bear over the fireplace. “You may think this is all too cute for words,” he said, the English accent gone now, “and perhaps you’d be right. It started after Eddie’s painting brought the hotel a new burst of fame. He collected teddy bears, you know, and after he died his collection brought ridiculous prices at Sotheby’s. A Horvath Collection pedigree is for a bear what a few hours around Jackie O’s neck is for a string of cultured pearls.”
“And these three bears were his?”
“On, no, not at all. They’re ours, I’m afraid, purchased by the management from FAO Schwartz or Bears R Us. I don’t really know where we get them. Any guest who wants can have the company of a bear during his stay. There’s no charge.”
“Really.”
“You needn’t think it’s sheer altruism on our part. A surprising number of guests decide they’d rather take Paddington home with them than get their deposit back. Not everyone takes a bear upstairs in the first place, but of those who do, few want to give them up.”
“I’ll take a bear,” I said recklessly.
“And I’ll take a fifty-dollar deposit, cheerfully refunded on checkout, unless you want him to share your life forever.”
I counted out a few more bills and he wrote out a receipt and handed over the key to Room 415, then scooped up the trio of Paddingtons and invited me to select one.
They all looked the same to me, so I did what I do in such circumstances. I took the one on the left.
“A good choice,” he said, the way the waiter does when you say you’ll have the rack of lamb with new potatoes. What, I often wonder, are the bad choices? If they’re so awful, what are they doing on the menu?
“He’s a cute little fellow,” I started to say, and in midsentence the cute little fellow slipped out of my arms and landed on the floor. I bent over and came up with him in one hand and a purple envelope in the other. ANTHEA LANDAU, it said, in block capitals, and that was all it said. “This was on the floor,” I told the clerk. “I’m afraid I’ve stepped on it.”
He curled his lip, then took a Kleenex from a box on the ledge behind the desk and wiped at the mark my shoe had left. “Someone must have left it on the counter,” he said, rubbing briskly, “and someone else must have knocked it off. No harm done.”
“Paddington seems to have survived the experience.”
“Oh, he’s a durable chap,” he said. “But I must say you surprised me. I didn’t really think you’d take a bear. I play a little game with myself, trying to guess who will and who won’t, and I ought to give it up because I’m not very good at it. Almost anyone’s apt to take a bear, or not to take a bear. Men on business trips are least likely to be bear people, but they’ll surprise you. There’s one gentleman from Chicago who’s here twice a month for four days at a time. He always has a bear and never takes the little fellow home. And he doesn’t seem to care if it’s the same bear every time. They’re not identical, you know. They vary in size, and in the color of their hats and coats and wellies. Most of the wellies are black, but the pair in the picture are yellow.”