The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza - By Lawrence Block Page 0,3
who’d dial 911 if they spotted you after dark will simply assume you’ve showed up at last to tend to the leaky faucet. Give me a clipboard or a toolbox and an hour between noon and four and the staunchest citizen crime-fighter on the block will hold the door for me and tell me to have a nice day. All things being equal, the best time for a residential burglary is the middle of the afternoon.
But when are all things ever equal? The cloak of darkness is comforting garb to the burglar, if not to the householder, and when one operates a legitimate business one hesitates to close it abruptly in the middle of the day for no good reason. The Colcannons’ schedule, too, favored a nocturnal visit. We knew they would be away overnight, and knew too that the premises would be unencumbered by handymen or cleaning women (handy persons? cleaning persons?) once the sun was over the yardarm.
The sun had long since crossed the yardarm and disappeared somewhere in New Jersey by the time we ventured forth. From the Bum Rap we’d taken a couple of subway trains and walked a block to my building at Seventy-first and West End, where I shucked the jeans and sweater I’d worn at the store and put on flannel slacks and a tie and jacket. I filled my pockets with useful odds and ends, packed another couple of articles into my Ultrasuede attaché case, and took a moment and manicure scissors to snip the palms out of a fresh pair of rubber gloves. With rubber gloves one leaves no tattletale fingerprints behind, and with the palms out one is less likely to feel that one has abandoned one’s hands in a sauna. Sweaty palms are bad enough in Lover’s Lane; one tries to avoid them when burgling. Of course there’s always the chance of leaving a tattletale palm print, but it wouldn’t be burglary without the occasional risk, would it now?
We were almost on our way again before I remembered to change my shoes. I’d been wearing Weejun penny loafers at the store, for both nostalgia and comfort, and I switched to a pair of capable-looking Puma running shoes. I certainly had no intention of moving faster than a brisk walk, but you never know what life has in store for you, and the Pumas with their rubber soles and springy insoles let me move as soundlessly as, well, as a panther, I suppose.
Carolyn lives on Arbor Court, one of those oblique little streets in a part of the West Village that must have been laid out by someone on something stronger than Perrier. Until a couple of months ago she had been sort of living with another woman named Randy Messinger, but they’d had the last of a series of notable battles in early February and Randy had moved everything to her own place on Morton Street. It was May now, late May, and every evening the sun took a little longer to get over the yardarm, and the breach showed no signs of healing. Every now and then Carolyn would meet somebody terrific at Paula’s or the Duchess, but true love had not yet bloomed, and she didn’t seem to mind.
She put some coffee up, tossed a salad, warmed up a couple wedges of leftover quiche. We both ate sparingly and drank a lot of the coffee. The cats polished off their own food and rubbed against our ankles until they got the unfinished quiche, which they promptly finished. Ubi, the Russian Blue, settled in my lap and got into some serious purring. Archie, his Burmese buddy, stalked around and did some basic stretching to show off his muscles.
Around eight the phone rang. Carolyn answered it and settled into a long gossipy conversation. I got a paperback and turned its pages, but the words didn’t really register. I might as well have been reading the phone book.
When Carolyn hung up I did read the phone book, long enough to look up a number, anyway. I dialed, and Abel Crowe picked up midway through the fourth ring. “Bernie,” I said. “I turned up a book I think you might like. Wondered if you’d be home tonight.”
“I have no plans.”
“I thought I might stop by around eleven, twelve o’clock.”
“Excellent. I keep late hours these days.” You could hear the Mittel Europa accent over the phone. Face to face, it was barely detectable. “Will your charming friend be with you?”