The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,40
questions about the ins and outs of burglary. Finally we managed to fight our way to the door. We said our goodbyes all around, and then Gert hung back a little while Artie caught at my sleeve in the doorway.
“Say, Bernie,” he said, “we all squared away now?”
“Sure thing, Artie.”
“As far as the insurance company’s concerned…”
“Don’t worry about a thing. The coat, the watch, the other stuff. I’ll back your claim.”
“That’s a relief,” he said. “I must have been crazy, putting in that claim, but I’d look like a horse’s ass changing it now, and why did we pay premiums all those years anyway, right?”
“Right, Artie.”
“The thing is, I hate to mention this, but while you were downstairs Gert was wondering about the bracelet.”
“How’s that, Artie?”
“The bracelet you took. It was Gert’s. I don’t think it’s worth much.”
“A couple of hundred.”
“That much? I would have said less. It belonged to her mother. The thing is, I wondered what’s the chance of getting it back?”
“Oh,” I said. “I see what you mean. Well, Artie, I’m kind of pressed right now.”
“I can imagine.”
“But when things are back to normal, I’m sure we can work something out.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s terrific,” he said. “Listen, take all the time you need. There’s no rush.”
CHAPTER
Twelve
The Pontiac, untowed and unticketed, waited for us at the bus stop. The suitcase huddled undisturbed on the floor in back. All of this surprised Carolyn, but I’d expected nothing less. There was something about that car that inspired confidence.
On the way downtown I learned what Gert Blinn had told her. While I was a floor below in Madeleine Porlock’s apartment, Gert had maneuvered Carolyn into the kitchen, presumably to copy down a recipe but actually to dish a little dirt. The late Madeleine Porlock, she’d confided, was no better than she should be.
“Gert was vague,” Carolyn said. “I don’t know that Porlock was a hooker exactly, but I got the impression that her life tended to revolve around men. Whenever Gert met her on the stairs she was with some man or other, and I gather that’s how her rent got paid.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Well, it surprises me,” she said. “I never saw Porlock, but the way you described her she was the furthest thing from slinky. The woman you were talking about sounded like she could play the mean matron in all the old prison movies.”
“That’s on a bad day. On a good day she could have played the nurse in Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Uh-huh. Bern, I admit I don’t know what men go for, because it’s never been a burning issue with me, but she doesn’t sound the type to get her rent paid.”
“You didn’t go through her drawers and closets.”
“Oh?”
A cab stopped abruptly in front of us. I swung the wheel to the right and slipped neatly around it. No question, I thought. The Pontiac and I were made for each other.
“Lots of sexy underwear,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Wispy things. Scarlet gauze and black lace. Peekaboo bras.”
“Men really go for that crap, huh?”
“So it would seem. Then there were a few garter belts, and a couple of tight corsets that you’d have to be a graduate engineer to figure out.”
“Tight corsets?”
“A couple of pairs of boots with six-inch stiletto heels. Lots of leather stuff, including those cunning wrist and ankle bracelets decorated with metal studs.”
“A subtle pattern begins to emerge.”
“Doesn’t it? And I haven’t even mentioned the small but tasteful wardrobe in skintight black latex or the nifty collection of whips and chains. Or the whole dresser drawer full of gadgets which we might euphemistically designate as marital aids.”
She twirled an imaginary mustache. “This Porlock creature,” she said, “was into kink.”
“A veritable mistress of kink,” I said. “It was beginning to get to me, prowling around in all that weirdness.”
“I’m surprised it didn’t make the papers. ‘Dominatrix Slain in East Side Pleasure Pad’—that should be good for page three in the Daily News any day of the week.”
“I thought of that. But nothing was out in plain sight, Carolyn, and when I was up there the first time, all I saw was a tastefully decorated apartment. Remember, the cops had an open-and-shut case, a woman shot in her own apartment by a burglar she’d evidently caught in the act. They didn’t have any reason to toss her apartment. And she really lived there, it wasn’t just her office. She had street clothes there, too, and there were dishes in the kitchen cupboards and Q-tips and dental floss in the