The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,3
that shmendrick of a cop. Pure camouflage.” She shrugged. “Now, I can certainly understand why she’d be in the closet. She’d lose a lot of readers otherwise. But who knows what she gets mixed up in between books?”
“Did you ask Sue Grafton?”
“Are you kidding? I could barely bring myself to speak. The last thing I was gonna do was ask her what Kinsey liked to do in bed. She signed her book for me, Bern. In fact, she inscribed it to me personally.”
“That’s great.”
“Isn’t it? I said, ‘Miss Grafton, my name’s Carolyn, I’m a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ And she inscribed it, ‘To Carolyn, a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ ”
“That’s pretty imaginative.”
“I’ll say. Well, the woman’s a writer, Bern. Anyway, I’ve got a signed copy of one of her books, but I don’t suppose it’ll ever be worth a thousand dollars, because there must be a ton of them. The line that day reached all the way to the corner. It’s the book about the doctor. Have you read it yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you can’t borrow my copy, because it’s autographed. You’ll have to wait for the paperback. Since you haven’t read it I won’t say anything about the murder method, but I have to tell you it’s a shocker. The guy’s a proctologist, if that gives you a hint. Why can’t I ever remember the titles?”
“‘H’ Is for Preparation.”
“That’s it. Wonderful book. I think she’s gay, though, Bern. I really do.”
“Carolyn.”
“What?”
“Carolyn, she’s a character. In a book.”
“I know that. Bern, just because somebody happens to be a character in a book, do you think she can’t have a sexual preference?”
“But—”
“And don’t you think she might decide to keep it to herself? Do you figure there aren’t any closets in books?”
“But—”
“Never mind,” she said. “I understand. You’re upset about the rent, about maybe losing the store. That’s why you’re not thinking clearly.”
It was around six in the evening, some three hours after Borden Stoppelgard had paid me a fifth of fair market value for my copy of the second novel about that notorious dyke Kinsey Millhone, and I was with Carolyn Kaiser in the Bum Rap, a shabby little ginmill at Eleventh and Broadway. While it may hearken back to the days when Fourth Avenue was given over largely to dealers in secondhand books, Barnegat Books itself is situated on Eleventh Street about halfway between Broadway and University Place. (You could say it’s a stone’s throw from Fourth Avenue, but it’s a block and a half, and if you can throw a stone that far you don’t belong on Fourth Avenue or East Eleventh Street. You ought to be up in the Bronx, playing right field for the Yankees.)
Also on Eleventh Street, but two doors closer to Broadway, is the Poodle Factory, where Carolyn earns a precarious living washing dogs, many of them larger than herself. We met shortly after I bought the store, hit it off from the start, and have been best friends ever since. We usually have lunch together, and we almost always stop at the Bum Rap after work for a drink.
Typically I’ll nurse a bottle of beer while Carolyn puts away a couple of scotches. Tonight, though, when the waitress came over to ask if we wanted the usual, I started to say, “Yeah, sure,” but stopped myself. “Wait a second, Maxine,” I said.
“Oh-oh,” Carolyn said.
“Eighty-six the beer,” I said. “Make it scotch for both of us.” To Carolyn I said, “What do you mean, ‘oh-oh’?”
“False alarm,” she said. “Eighty-six the oh-oh. You had me worried for a second, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
“I was afraid you were going to order Perrier.”
“And you know that stuff makes me crazy.”
“Bern—”
“It’s the little bubbles. They’re small enough to pierce the blood-brain barrier, and the next thing you know—”
“Bern, cut it out.”
“Most people,” I said, “would be apprehensive if they thought a friend was about to order scotch, and relieved if he wound up ordering soda water. With you it’s the other way around.”
“Bern,” she said, “we both know what it means when a certain person orders Perrier.”
“It means he wants a clear head.”
“And nimble fingers, and quick reflexes, and all the other things you need if you’re about to go break into somebody’s house.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Plenty of times I’ll have a Coke or a Perrier instead of a beer. It doesn’t always mean I’m getting ready to commit a felony.”
“I know that. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I know it’s true.”