The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,14

a final time while the great man checked the results of his handiwork, and then I sat back in the chair while he stood beside me, I examining my remodeled tooth with the inquisitive tip of my tongue, he holding one hand with another and waiting to ask the urgent question.

“Well, Bern? Have we got a deal?”

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. Out of the question.”

I wasn’t just fencing. I damn well meant it.

See, I like to find my own jobs. There are a lot of burglars who love to work on the basis of inside information, and God knows there’s a lot of such information to be had. Fences are a prime source of this sort of data. A fence will oftentimes contact a thief, not merely with a request for a particular item but with the specs and location of the item all written out for him. This is an easy way to work and a lot of burglars are crazy about it.

And the jails are full of them.

Because what do you really know when you’re dealing with a fence? Receivers of stolen goods are a curious breed, and there’s something unquestionably slimy about the greatest portion of them. If I had a daughter, I certainly wouldn’t want her to marry one. A fence does something manifestly illegal but he rarely does a single hour behind bars for his sins, partly because it’s hard to nail him with the evidence, partly because his crime is the sort there’s little public outcry against, and partly because he’s apt to be pretty clever at playing both sides against the middle. He may pay off cops, and if paying them off with cash and furs doesn’t work, he may turn to paying them off by setting up other criminals for them. I don’t say that you’re likely to get set up if you take jobs a fence hands you, but I’ve managed to dope out one thing in my time. If you’re the only one who knows you’re going to pull a particular job, then nobody’s in a position to rat on you. Any trouble you fall into is either your own damn fault or the luck of the draw.

Now I certainly wasn’t worried about Craig setting me up. There was little chance of that. But he liked to talk, accustomed as he was to all those immobile ears, and who could say when it would seem like a good idea to talk about the clever job he and good old Bernie Rhodenbarr had pulled on sluttish Crystal?

Ahem.

Then how did I wind up in the very same Crystal’s apartment while someone was stopping her heart?

Good question.

Greed, I guess. And perhaps a portion of pride. Those were two of the seven deadly sins and between them they’d done me in. The Gramercy Park apartment sounded as though it would yield a sizable score with minimal risk and no special security equipment to overcome. There are no end of apartments every bit as easy to get into but most of them contain nothing more valuable or portable than a color TV. Crystal Sheldrake’s place was a prime grade-A target, the only drawback being that Craig would know about my role in the deal. With the state of my bankroll what it was, which is to say slim indeed, this objection gradually paled to the point of invisibility.

Pride came into it in a curious way. Craig had gone to great lengths to talk about what a groovy thing it was to be a burglar, how it was adventurous and all, and while that may have been largely a buildup to that Like you, Bernie punch line, it still was not without effect. Because, damn it all, I guess I see what I do as glamorous and adventurous and all the rest of it. That’s one reason I find it impossible to stop making surreptitious visits to other people’s residences, that plus the fact that the only job for which I have any training is making license plates, and you have to be behind bars to pursue that career.

A thought occurred to me, although not until later. I may have known all along I was going to go for the deal. I may have acted reluctant in order to keep the World’s Greatest Dentist from expecting too much in the way of a finder’s fee. I don’t think I was aware of that aim, but aware or not it worked pretty well. I don’t know what