The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,35

up,” she said.

“Randy?”

“Who else? She thought I had company.”

“You do.”

“Yeah, but she thought you were a woman.”

“Must be my high-pitched voice.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t say anything. Oh, I see. It’s a joke.”

“It was trying to be one.”

“Yeah, right.” She looked at the telephone receiver, shook her head at it, hung it up. “She called here all morning,” she said. “And called the store, too, and I was out, obviously, and now she thinks—” The corners of her mouth curled slowly into a wide grin. “How about that?” she said. “The bitch is jealous.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s terrific.” The phone rang again, and it was Randy. I tried not to pay too much attention to the conversation. It ended with Carolyn saying, “Oh, you demand to know who I’ve got over here? All right, I’ll tell you who I’ve got over here. I’ve got my aunt from Bath Beach over here. You think you’re the only woman in Manhattan with a mythical aunt in Bath Beach?”

She hung up, positively radiant. “Gimme the ad,” she said. “Quick, before she calls back. You wouldn’t believe how jealous she is.”

She got the ad in, then answered the phone when they called back to confirm it. Then she was getting lunch on the table, setting out bread and cheese and opening a couple bottles of Amstel, when the phone rang again. “Randy,” she said. “I’m not getting it.”

“Fine.”

“You had this all morning, huh? The phone ringing like that?”

“Maybe eight, ten times. That’s all.”

“You find out anything about Madeleine Porlock?”

I told her about the calls I’d made.

“Not much,” she said.

“Next to nothing.”

“I learned a little about your friend Whelkin, but I don’t know what good it does. He’s not a member of the Martingale Club.”

“Don’t be silly. I ate there with him.”

“Uh-huh. The Martingale Club of New York maintains what they call reciprocity with a London club called Poindexter’s. Ever hear of it?”

“No.”

“Me neither. The dude at the Martingale said it as though it was a household word. The Martingale has reciprocity with three London clubs, he told me. White’s, Poindexter’s, and the Dolphin. I never heard of any of them.”

“I think I heard of White’s.”

“Anyhow, that’s how Whelkin got guest privileges. But I thought he was an American.”

“I think he is. He has an accent that could be English, but I figured it was an affectation. Something he picked up at prep school, maybe.” I thought back to conversations we’d had. “No,” I said, “he’s American. He talked about making a trip to London to attend that auction, and he referred to the English once as ‘our cousins across the pond.’ ”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly. I suppose he could be an American and belong to a London club, and use that London membership to claim guest privileges at the Martingale. I suppose it’s possible.”

“Lots of things are possible.”

“Uh-huh. You know what I think?”

“He’s a phony.”

“He’s a phony who faked me out of my socks, that’s what he is. God, the more I think about it the phonier he sounds, and I let him con me into stealing the book with no money in front. All of a sudden his whole story is starting to come apart in my hands. All that happy horseshit about Haggard and Kipling, all that verse he quoted at me.”

“You think he just made it all up?”

“No, but—”

“Leave me alone, Ubi. You don’t even like Jarlsberg.” Ubi was short for Ubiquitous, which was the Russian Blue’s name. Jarlsberg was the cheese we were munching. (Not the Burmese, in case you were wondering. The Burmese was named Archie.)

To me she said, “Maybe the book doesn’t exist, Bernie.”

“I had it in my hands, Carolyn.”

“Oh, right.”

“I was thinking that myself earlier, just spinning all sorts of mental wheels. Like it wasn’t a real book, it was hollowed out and all full of heroin or something like that.”

“Yeah, that’s an idea.”

“Except it’s a dumb idea, because I actually flipped through that book and read bits and pieces of it, and it’s real. It’s a genuine old printed book in less than sensational condition. I was even wondering if it could be a fake.”

“A fake?”

“Sure. Suppose Kipling destroyed every last copy of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow. Suppose there never was such a thing as a Rider Haggard copy to survive, or suppose there was but it disappeared forever.” She was nodding encouragingly. “Well,” I went on, “suppose someone sat down and faked a text. It’d be a job, writing that long a ballad, but Kipling’s not the