The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,7

to do this more often, all the things good up-to-date people say instead of I love you. Then the man said, “Christ, it’s later than I thought. Half-past ten already. I better get going.”

“Running back home to what’s-her-name?”

“As if you didn’t remember her name.”

“I prefer to forget it. There are moments, my sweet, when I actually manage to forget her existence altogether.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Of course I’m jealous, baby. Does that come as a surprise to you?”

“Oh, come on, Crystal, you aren’t really jealous.”

“No?”

“Not a chance.”

“Think it’s just a role I play? Maybe you’re right. I couldn’t say. Your tie’s crooked.”

“Mmm, thanks.”

They went on like this, not saying anything I had any enormous need to hear. I had trouble keeping all of my mind on their conversation, not only because it was duller than a Swedish film but because I kept waiting for one or the other of them to stub a toe on the attaché case and wonder aloud how it happened to be there. This, however, did not happen. There was more chitchat, and then she walked him to the door and let him out and locked up after him, and I think I heard the sound of her snicking the sliding bolt shut. Fine precaution to take, lady, I thought, with the burglar already tucked away in your clothes closet.

Then I heard nothing at all for a while, and then the phone rang twice and was answered, and there was a conversation which I couldn’t make out. More silence, this time followed by a temper tantrum of brief duration. “Stinking sonofabitch bastard,” Crystal roared, out of the blue. I had no way of knowing whether she was referring to her recent bedmate, her ex-husband, her telephone caller, or someone else altogether. Nor did I too much care. She yelled out just once, and then there was a thudding sound, perhaps of her heaving something at a wall. Then calm returned.

And so did Crystal, retracing her steps from living room to bedroom. I guess she had replenished her drink somewhere along the way, because I heard ice cubes clinking. By now, however, I no longer actively wanted something wet. I just wanted to go home.

The next thing I heard was water running. There was a lavatory in the hallway off the living room, a full bathroom off the bedroom. The bathroom had a stall shower and that’s what I was hearing. Crystal was going to erase the patina of love-making. The man had left and Crystal was going to take a shower and all I had to do was pop out of the closet and scoop up my jewel-laden attaché case and be gone.

I was just about to do this when the shower became suddenly more audible than it had been. I shrank back behind the rack of dresses and sundry garments, and footsteps approached me, and a key turned, neatly locking me in the closet.

Which of course was not her intent. She wanted to unlock the door, and she had left it locked and assumed it was still locked, so she’d turned the key, and—

“Funny,” she said aloud. And paused, and then turned the key in the opposite direction, this time unlocking the closet, and reached in to take a hooded lime-green terry-cloth robe from a hanger.

I did not breathe while this was happening. Not specifically to escape detection but because breathing is impossible when your heart is lodged in your windpipe.

There was Crystal, ash-blond hair stuffed into a coral shower cap. I saw her but she didn’t see me, and that was just fine, and in the wink of an eye (if anyone’s eye winked) she was closing the door again.

And locking it.

Wonderful. She had a thing about closets. Some people can’t leave a room for five minutes without turning off the lights. Crystal couldn’t walk away from an unlocked closet. I listened as her footsteps carried her back to the bathroom, listened as the bathroom door closed, listened as she settled herself under her pulsating massagic shower head (no speculation; I’d looked in the bathroom and she had one of those jobbies).

Then I stopped listening and poked between the dresses and turned the doorknob and pushed, and when the door predictably refused to budge I could have wept.

What an incredible comedy of errors. What a massive farce.

I stroked the lock with my fingertips. It was laughable, of course. A good kick would have sent the door flying open, but that would involve more noise than I