The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,38

and wait for the owner to turn up. They don’t check the contents. You could have a dead body in the trunk and they’d never know.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” she said.

“There’s nothing in the trunk.”

“How do you know for sure?”

We went around the corner. No one seemed to be keeping an eye on the elegant little brownstone. A woman stood in the bay window on the parlor floor, watering the plants with a long-spouted watering can. The can was gleaming copper, the plants were all a lush green, and the whole scene was one of upper-middle-class domestic tranquillity. Outside, watching this and getting rained on, I felt like a street urchin in a Victorian novel.

I looked up. There were lighted windows on the third and fourth floors, but they didn’t tell me anything. The apartments that interested me were at the rear of the building.

We entered the vestibule. “You don’t have to come,” I said.

“Ring the bell, Bern.”

“I’m serious. You could wait in the car.”

“Wonderful. I can play it safe by sitting in a stolen car parked at a bus stop. Why don’t I just wait in the subway? I could cling to the third rail for security.”

“What you could do is spend the next half-hour in the bar on the corner. Suppose we walk into an apartment full of cops?”

“Ring the bell, Bernie.”

“It’s just that I hate to see you walk into trouble.”

“So do I, but let’s play the hand out as dealt, huh? I’ll be with the two of them so they can’t get cute while you’re downstairs. We worked it out before, Bern, and it made sense then and it still makes sense now. You want to know something? It’s probably dangerous for us to spend the next six hours arguing in the vestibule, if you’re so concerned with what’s dangerous and what’s not, so why don’t you ring their bell and get it over with?”

First, though, I rang the bell marked Porlock. I poked it three times, waited half a minute, then gave it another healthy tickle. I didn’t really expect a response and I was happy not to get one. My finger moved from the Porlock bell to the one marked Blinn. I gave it a long and two shorts, and the answering buzzer sounded almost at once. I pushed the door and it opened.

“Darn,” Carolyn said. I looked at her. “Well, I thought I’d get to watch you pick it,” she said. “That’s all.”

We went up the stairs and stopped at the third floor long enough to peek at the door of 3-D. As I’d figured it, the cops had sealed it, and the door was really plastered with official-looking material. I could have opened it with a scout knife, but I couldn’t have done so without destroying the seals and making it obvious that I’d been there.

Instead, we went up another flight. The door of 4-C was closed. Carolyn and I looked at each other. Then I reached out a hand and knocked.

The door opened. Arthur Blinn stood with one hand on its knob and the other motioning us in. “Come on, come on,” he said urgently. “Don’t stand out there all night.” In his hurry to close the door he almost hit Carolyn with it, but he got it shut and fussed with the locks and bolts. “You can relax now, Gert,” he called out. “It’s only the burglar.”

They made a cute couple. They were both about five-six, both as roly-poly as panda bears. Both had curly dark-brown hair, although he’d lost most of his in the front. She was wearing a forest-green pants suit in basic polyester. He wore the trousers and vest of a gray glen-plaid business suit. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and his tie was loosened for comfort. She poured coffee and pushed Scottish shortbread at us. He told us, over and over again, what a relief it was to see us.

“Because I told Gert, suppose it’s a setup? Suppose it’s the insurance company running a bluff? Because honestly, Mr. Rhodenbarr, who ever heard of such a thing? A burglar calls up, says hello, I’m you’re friendly neighborhood burglar, and if you cooperate with me a little I won’t rat to the insurance people and tell them your claim is lousy. I figured a burglar with troubles like you got, wanted for killing a woman and God knows what else, I figure you’re not going to knock yourself out shouting you never stole