The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,22

the other, told me that she slept alone, and always on the right-hand side of the bed.

Yes, I checked. Yes, I pulled back the covers and felt each side of the mattress for firmness. Not out of prurient interest, I assure you, but out of a fierce curiosity that may well be every bit as shameful. I disturbed her bedclothing, I thrust my gloved hands into her linen. Of course I made the bed again afterward, but that didn’t erase the psychic stain, did it?

Some years ago a friend of Carolyn’s was burglarized. Whoever it was who did it didn’t take much—he couldn’t, she didn’t have much—but she told us that what she’d lost was the least of it. “He was in my place,” she said, shuddering. “He was touching my things. I feel like burning all my clothes and having the place tented and fumigated. I feel like moving out, I feel like going back to Nebraska, and you know how I feel about Nebraska. God, I feel so utterly violated.”

I understood completely. I’d had the same feeling myself, when my own apartment had been inexpertly tossed. Tossed, I might say, was the operative word; the swine had taken all the books off my shelves and scattered them in a heap on the floor. I’d realized in a rush just what I inflicted upon the people I visited. I told myself it wasn’t the same, that I never made a mess or damaged anything I left behind, but so what? The violation was the same.

Ah, well. Someday I’ll reform. In the meantime, I might as well enjoy it.

I got to work.

There’s a line that originated in the Army Corps of Engineers and has since had widespread circulation on T-shirts and bumper stickers and such. The wording varies, but the gist of it is that, when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your original purpose was to drain the swamp.

Similarly, when I’m immersed in another person’s life, or at least the glimpse of it I get by rummaging through their furnishings and worldly goods, I’m in danger of forgetting what brought me there in the first place. Which, pure and simple, is greed.

Crooks are greedy. It’s not nice to admit it, but there’s no way around it. Otherwise we’d be content to live on what came to us honestly, but we’re not. We want more, and what I wanted—what had brought me here—was whatever Barbara Creeley had that was worth taking.

She made a decent living, that was clear from her address and from the clothes in her drawers and closet, but that didn’t necessarily tell me she had anything I wanted. Maybe she saved her money, or spent it on travel and high living. Maybe she kept all her money in the bank and anything valuable in a safe-deposit box.

I gave her three rooms a systematic search. By the time I was ready to call it a night, I had turned up the following: a pair of earrings, with what looked to be rubies and diamonds, set in what was definitely gold; a watch for evening wear, a Graubunden, with a platinum case and band; a gold charm bracelet with eight or ten charms in the shape of different animals, along with fifteen gold coins attached as charms, none of them of any particular numismatic value but all of them, like the bracelet itself, worth their weight in gold; and, in the freezer compartment of her refrigerator, in among enough steaks and chops and roasts to comfort Dr. Atkins in the hereafter, a brown manila bank envelope containing $1240 in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.

That wasn’t the only jewelry she had, of course. There was a high school class ring, gold and onyx, that was not without value, and a whole array of earrings and bracelets. There was a gold locket on a gold chain, and in it were pictures of a man and woman whom I took to be Barbara Creeley’s parents.

All of these things were worth taking from a pure dollars-and-cents standpoint, but I’ve found that I tend to balance the cash value of an artifact against its likely sentimental value to its owner. Why deprive this woman of her class ring and her locket for the few dollars they would bring me? I’d be hurting her far more than I’d be helping myself, and it didn’t seem right.

Now if my unwitting hostess had been not Barbara Creeley but Elizabeth Taylor, say, and