The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - By Lawrence Block Page 0,20
bars,” I said, “and fitted them back into place afterward.” I tugged on a couple more. They made the Rock of Gibraltar seem like a shaky proposition in comparison. “These aren’t going anyplace,” I said. “They’re illegal, you know. If there’s ever a fire inspection they’ll make you take them out.”
“I know.”
“Because if there’s ever a fire, that’s the only window and you’d never get out it.”
“I know. I also know I’m in a ground floor apartment facing out on an airshaft and the burglars would trip over each other if I didn’t have bars on the window. I could get those window gates that you can unlock in case of fire but I know I’d never find the key if I had to, and I’m sure burglars can get through those gates. So I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.”
“I don’t blame you. Nobody got in this way unless he’s awfully goddamn skinny. People can get through narrower spaces than you’d think. When I was a kid I could crawl through a milk chute, and I could probably still crawl through a milk chute, come to think of it, because I’m about the same size I was then. And it looked impossible. It was about ten inches wide by maybe fourteen inches high, but I made it. If you can get your head through an opening, the rest of the body will follow.”
“Really?”
“Ask any obstetrician. Oh, I don’t suppose it works with really fat people.”
“Or with pinheads.”
“Well, yeah, right. But it’s a good general rule. Nobody got in this window, though, because the bars are what? Three, four inches apart?”
“You can leave the window open, Bern. It’s stuffy in here. They didn’t get in through the window and they didn’t pick the locks, so what does that leave? Black magic?”
“I don’t suppose we can rule it out.”
“The flue’s blocked on my fireplace, in case you figured Santa Claus pulled the job. How else could they get in? Up from the basement through the floor? Down through the ceiling?”
“It doesn’t seem likely. Carolyn, what did the place look like when you came in?”
“Same as it always looks.”
“They didn’t go through the drawers or anything?”
“They could have opened drawers and closed them again and I wouldn’t have noticed. They didn’t mess anything up, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t even know I’d had anybody here until I couldn’t find the cat. I still didn’t know somebody’d been in here, not until I got the phone call and realized somebody stole the cat. He didn’t just disappear on his own, Bernie. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe somebody hooked my keys out of my purse. It wouldn’t be that hard to do. Somebody could have come in while I was at the Poodle Factory, got ahold of my key ring, had a locksmith copy everything, then dropped the keys back in my bag.”
“All without your noticing?”
“Why not? Say they swipe the keys while they’re inquiring about getting a dog groomed, and then they come back to make an appointment and return the keys. It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“You leave your bag where anybody can get at it?”
“Not as a general rule, but who knows? Anyway, what the hell difference does it make? We’re not just locking the barn after the horse has been stolen. We’re checking the locks and dusting the bolt for fingerprints.” She frowned. “Maybe we should have done that.”
“Dusted for prints? Even if there’d been any, what good would they have done us? We’re not the cops, Carolyn.”
“Couldn’t you get Ray Kirschmann to run a check on a set of fingerprints?”
“Not out of the goodness of his heart, and you can’t really run a check on a single print unless you’ve already got a suspect in hand. You need a whole set of prints, which we wouldn’t have even if whoever it was left prints, which they probably didn’t. And they’d have to have been fingerprinted anyway for a check to reveal them, and—”
“Forget I mentioned it, okay?”
“Forget you mentioned what?”
“Can’t remember. Well, let’s just—shit,” she said, and moved to answer the phone. “Hello? Huh? Hold on, I just—shit, they hung up.”
“Who?”
“The Nazi. I’m supposed to look in the mailbox. I looked, remember? All I got was my Con Ed bill and that was enough bad news for one day. And there was nothing in the slot at the Poodle Factory except a catalog of grooming supplies and a flier from one of the animal cruelty organizations.