The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,58
well enough for Goldilocks.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You stayed here last night and you can stay here again. I don’t want you to take a chance of getting arrested.”
“Well, Craig might—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Craig won’t be coming over and I wouldn’t let him in if he did. I’m pretty angry with Craig, if you want to know. I think he behaved terribly and he may be a great dentist but I’m not sure he’s a very wonderful human being.”
“Well, that’s great of you,” I said. “But this time I’ll take the chair.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Well, you’re not going to sit up in that thing, for God’s sake. I’m not going to let you give up your bed again.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Huh? I don’t—”
“Bernie?” She gazed up at me from beneath those long eyelashes. “Bernie, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh,” I said, and looked deeply into her eyes, and smelled her hair. “Oh.”
CHAPTER
Eighteen
It must have been around ten when we woke up the next morning. There were a few churches on the block and it kept being some denomination’s turn to ring bells. We lay in bed for the next two hours, sometimes listening to the church bells and sometimes ignoring them. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday morning.
Finally she got up and put on a robe and made coffee while I set about getting into the same clothes I seemed to have been wearing forever. Then I got on the phone.
Ray Kirschmann’s wife said he was out. Working, she said. Did I want to leave a message? I didn’t.
I tried him at the precinct. He had the day off, somebody told me. Probably at home with his feet up and a cold beer in his fist and a ball game on television. Was there anybody else I would talk to? There wasn’t. Did I want to leave a message? I didn’t.
Did I dare go home? I wanted a shower but there wasn’t much point taking one if I had to put on the same clothes again. And it was Sunday, so I couldn’t go out and buy a shirt and socks and underwear.
I picked up the phone again and dialed my own number.
The line was busy.
Well, that doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Somebody else could have called me a few seconds before I did; he’d get an unanswered ring while I got a busy signal. So I hung up and gave him a minute to get tired of the game, and then I dialed my number again, and it was still busy.
Well, that didn’t prove anything either. Perhaps I’d had a visitor who knocked the phone off the hook. Perhaps phone lines were down on the West Side. Perhaps—
“Bernie? Something wrong?”
“Yes,” I said. “Where’s the phone book?”
I looked up Mrs. Hesch and dialed her number. When she answered I heard her television set in the background, then her dry cigarette-hardened voice. I said, “Mrs. Hesch, this is Bernard Rhodenbarr. Your neighbor? Across the hall?”
“The burglar.”
“Uh, yes. Mrs. Hesch—”
“Also the celebrity. I seen you on television maybe an hour ago. Not you personally, just a picture they had of you. It must have been from prison, your hair was so short.”
I knew the picture she meant.
“Now we got cops all over the building. They was here asking about you. Do I know you’re a burglar? they asked me. I said all I know is you’re a good neighbor. I should tell them anything? You’re a nice young man, clean cut, you dress decent, that’s all I know. You work hard, right? You make a living, right?”
“Right.”
“Not a bum on welfare. If you take from those rich momsers on the East Side, do I care? Did they ever do anything for me? You’re a good neighbor. You don’t rob from this building, am I right?”
“Right.”
“But now there’s cops in your apartment, cops in the halls. Taking pictures, ringing doorbells, this, that and the other thing.”
“Mrs. Hesch, the cops. Was there—”
“Just a minute, I got to light a cigarette. There.”
“Was there a cop named Kirschmann?”
“Cherry.”
“Jerry?”
“No, Cherry. That’s Kirsch in German. Kirschmann he told me, Cherry Man is what went through my mind. He could lose thirty pounds and he wouldn’t miss it.”
“He’s there?”
“First two of them came to my door, a million questions they had for me, and then this Kirschmann came with the same questions and a hundred others. Mr. Rhodenbarr, you ain’t a killer, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s what I told them and what I said to myself, that’s what I always said about you.