The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,122

list of contributors was virtually a Who’s Who of American letters—from O. Henry and Damon Runyon; Ed McBain and Evan Hunter—two sides of the same coin. The volume reprints E.B. White’s brilliant essay “This Is New York.”

The city permeates the work of a tremendous number of writers—it’s present very vividly, it seems to me, in the work of writers who are not that much associated with the city. We think of Isaac Bashevis Singer, for example, of writing stories of shtetl life in Poland, yet his books set in the city where he lived the latter portion of his life are very evocative of Second Avenue café society. Garcia Lorca, the great Spanish poet—some of his finest work is in a book called Poeta en Nueva York, with some extraordinary poems set in Harlem.

I don’t know that New York is particularly an ideal canvas for crime writers as opposed to fiction writers in general, except insofar as the city has an extraordinary intensity. This may be true of the largest city in any country, but it’s certainly true of New York. Things happen rapidly; they happen vividly; and the energy of the city, it seems to me, tends to inform the fiction written about it. It’s an extraordinarily rich place and one finds people of all sorts here, including some who I’m sure would remind you of people you’ve encountered in fiction.

New Yorkers in the main don’t notice this—one of the most extraordinary things is the extent to which passers-by take no notice of the human dramas which play out right in front of them. I remember one time about fifteen or twenty years ago I was walking down a street in Greenwich Village and a Sikh in full military regalia, wearing a sword and about six-feet-eight tall, was striding down the street. And what was remarkable, even more remarkable than the man’s presence, was that no one took a second look at him!

The Burglar Who Dropped

in on Elvis

“I know who you are,” she said. “Your name is Bernie Rhodenbarr. You’re a burglar.”

I glanced around, glad that the store was empty save for the two of us. It often is, but I’m not usually glad about it.

“Was,” I said.

“Was?”

“Was. Past tense. I had a criminal past, and while I’d as soon keep it a secret I can’t deny it. But I’m an antiquarian bookseller now, Miss Uh—”

“Danahy,” she supplied. “Holly Danahy.”

“Miss Danahy. A dealer in the wisdom of the ages. The errors of my youth are to be regretted, even deplored, but they’re over and done with.”

She gazed thoughtfully at me. She was a lovely creature, slender, pert, bright of eye and inquisitive of nose, and she wore a tailored suit and flowing bow tie that made her look at once yieldingly feminine and as coolly competent as a Luger.

“I think you’re lying,” she said. “I certainly hope so. Because an antiquarian bookseller is no good at all to me. What I need is a burglar.”

“I wish I could help you.”

“You can.” She laid a cool-fingered hand on mine. “It’s almost closing time.

Why don’t you lock up? I’ll buy you a drink and tell you how you can qualify for an all-expenses-paid trip to Memphis. And possibly a whole lot more.”

“You’re not trying to sell me a time-share in a thriving lakeside resort community, are you?”

“Not hardly.”

“Then what have I got to lose? The thing is, I usually have a drink after work with—”

“Carolyn Kaiser,” she cut in. “Your best friend, she washes dogs two doors down the street at the Poodle Factory. You can call her and cancel.”

My turn to gaze thoughtfully. “You seem to know a lot about me,” I said.

“Sweetie,” she said, “that’s my job.”

“I’m a reporter,” she said. “For the Weekly Galaxy. If you don’t know the paper, you must never get to the supermarket.”

“I know it,” I said. “But I have to admit I’m not what you’d call one of your regular readers.”

“Well, I should hope not, Bernie. Our readers move their lips when they think. Our readers write letters in crayon because they’re not allowed to have anything sharp. Our readers make the Enquirer’s readers look like Rhodes scholars. Our readers, face it, are D-U-M.”

“Then why would they want to know about me?”

“They wouldn’t, unless an extraterrestrial made you pregnant. That happen to you?”

“No, but Bigfoot ate my car.”

She shook her head. “We already did that story. Last August, I think it was. The car was an AMC Gremlin with a hundred and ninety-two