The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,26
to one side, and her mouth was open, which never helps one to look one’s best, but it was the same woman, no question about it, and she’d have struck me as prettier if she’d been less pitiable. She was naked, and that bothered me enough so that I covered her with a sheet, even at the risk of waking her. But of course it didn’t wake her. She was alive, her breathing was deep and even, and she was in no danger of waking up, not for hours.
I went through her wallet and saw that he’d left her credit cards. Her bank card was there, too. He couldn’t use it at an ATM unless he knew her PIN number, but he might have taken it anyway, and I was glad to see he hadn’t. He was an amateur, it was clear to me, and not a real thief at all. There are some burglars who will rape a woman if they encounter her in the course of a burglary, not because they’re rapists by inclination but because she’s there and they like her looks so what the hell. Similarly, there are some rapists who, having enjoyed a woman’s favors, feel they might as well put a few dollars in their pocket. He was in the latter category, and that’s why she still had her credit cards, but that’s also why the place was such a mess; it was all part of the rape.
And of course there was no money in her wallet.
I put her purse in order, with the wallet in it. I found the various drawers he’d upended, restored their contents, and put them back where they’d come from. It seemed to me that he’d taken some of the jewelry I’d passed up, but I was glad to see he’d missed the locket with her parents’ pictures, although he’d managed to take her class ring, the son of a bitch.
In her bathroom, he’d hurled a couple of bottles against the wall, but all but one were plastic and didn’t break. I cleaned up the one broken bottle, and got rid of the shards of glass so she wouldn’t cut herself. I found her Lady Remington that he’d switched on and then hurled to the floor, and wasn’t surprised to discover that it no longer worked. The pink plastic case was cracked, and when I moved the switch nothing happened. I laid it in the wastebasket, then changed my mind, wrapped it in a paper towel, and tucked it away in a jacket pocket.
I got the place as neat as I could, short of scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees, and then I went in for a last look at her. It was the closest I’d been to a naked woman in longer than I cared to remember, and all I felt was sad.
I went to the door, opened it. Then I sighed heavily and returned to the bedroom for one final stab at chivalry. It didn’t take long, maybe five minutes, after which I let myself out of Barbara Creeley’s apartment, picked her locks shut, and went home.
Ten
If Crandall Oaktree Mapes is a shitheel—”
“Crandall Rountree Mapes.”
“Whatever. If he’s a shitheel just for taking Marty’s girlfriend away from him, Bern, what does that make this guy?”
“There must be a word,” I said, “but I can’t think of it.”
“Well, for openers,” Carolyn said, “I’d have to say he’s a prick. You never got a look at him?”
“For all the time he was there, I was under the bed. All I got a look at were the dust bunnies.”
“It’s good you didn’t sneeze.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It’s good I didn’t even think about sneezing, because it was unpleasant enough without having that to worry about. But no, I never got a look at him. I decided he was six-four with a washboard stomach and shoulders out to here, but that was my imagination. All I really know is he had a deep voice.”
“I know women with deep voices, Bern. You can’t tell too much from a deep voice.”
It was Thursday, a few minutes after noon, and we were having lunch at my bookstore. Carolyn had gone clear over to the Second Avenue Deli for sandwiches piled high with the best corned beef and pastrami and tongue in town. What, I’d asked her, was the occasion, and she’d replied that there was no occasion beyond the fact that she’d spent much of the previous night dreaming about delicatessen.