Burglars Can't Be Choosers - By Lawrence Block Page 0,81

burglar’s out now, and up to his old tricks, and has had the ill fortune to happen on a murder scene, at once becoming its leading suspect and a fugitive from justice. He wants the detective to clear him. I wrote the opening chapter, took a good look at what I’d written, tore it up and threw it out and drove to Sardis, Mississippi. Don’t ask why.

Two months later I was in LA, finally, living in a place called the Magic Hotel. I couldn’t figure out what the hell to do. For over fifteen years I’d made my living writing, and now I seemed unable to do that.

Don’t rule out crime, a little voice said.

Crime had much to recommend it. You didn’t have to cobble up a resumé or provide references. There were no forms to fill out, no taxes and Social Security withheld from your pay. You just took money and ran.

And suppose you got caught? Well, for heaven’s sake, they fed you and clothed you and housed you. Not the worst thing that could happen to a person, was it?

Hmmm.

But what kind of crime could I possibly commit? Nothing violent, certainly. Nothing where I might be called upon to hurt somebody, or, worse yet, where somebody might be called upon to hurt me. Nothing with guns or sharp objects. Nothing like con games, either, that involved duplicitous interaction with others. Indeed, nothing that involved any interaction with others. I didn’t seem to be all that good at interaction just then.

Burglary, I thought. Go in when nobody’s home, get out before they return. You work alone, and in pleasant surroundings—Robin Hood, after all, had just shown good sense in stealing from the rich. You avoid all human contact. You don’t shoot anyone, and no one shoots you.

How seriously did I entertain the notion? Beats me. I did go so far as to try to learn to open my motel-room door without the key, utterly ruining a credit card in the process. (No great loss, that. That card had long since ceased to open any doors for me.)

Then I thought about the plot notion I’d gotten nowhere with back in Mobile. Maybe if I lost the detective and just told the burglar’s story, maybe something would come of it.

So I sat down at the typewriter to see what would happen.

I never thought it would come out funny. The notion I had in mind seemed like pretty serious business, but on the very first page Bernie appeared full-blown, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. (Well, maybe not much like Athena. And maybe from somewhere other than the brow….)

I wrote three or four chapters and a vague outline. All I needed was a title, and I found that while I was proofreading. Burglars can’t be choosers, Bernie mused, and I looked up, startled. I didn’t remember writing the line, but I knew a title when I saw one.

I sent it to my agent, who sent it to Lee Wright at Random House, who sent me a contract. I went back to work on the book. In July my kids came out to LA to spend the summer with me. They joined me for a month at the Magic Hotel, and then we spent August driving back east. Now and then we’d stay someplace for several days in a row so that I could get in some work on the book. One place we stopped was Yellow Springs, Ohio, where we stayed with my friends Steve and Nancy Schwerner. I talked to them about the book and said I was having problems with the solution. “Oh, that’s easy,” Steve said, and told me who he figured had dunnit. I decided he was right.

I dropped the girls with their mother in New York and wound up finishing the book in Greenville, South Carolina. (Don’t ask why.) I was very pleased with the way the book had turned out, but I never thought I’d be writing anything else about Bernie. Shows what I know.

—Lawrence Block

Greenwich Village

July 1994

About the Author

Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards. His fifty-plus books include the fifteen Matthew Scudder novels, all of which are available as e-books from HarperCollins—along with two Keller volumes, Hit List and Hit Man; the Bernie Rhodenbarr mysteries, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers and The Burglar on the Prowl; Enough Rope, a collection of Mr. Block’s classic short stories; and Small Town, a novel of New York. Please visit www.lawrenceblock.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Praise for

Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

and the Bernie Rhodenbarr novels

by award-winning, New York Times bestseller

Lawrence Block

“WONDERFULLY FUNNY…

Having a burglar for a hero is tricky, to say the least. Is he a bad good guy or a good bad guy, and does crime pay or doesn’t it?…Block maneuvers around these moral S-curves with great agility…Block’s effortless first-person narrative and zippy dialogue is as pleasing as escapist fare ever gets.”

Los Angeles Times Book Review

“HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

for aficionados of one of the finest mystery writers of our time.”

Houston Chronicle

“BERNIE RHODENBARR IS THE PERFECT COMPANION

if you’re spending a week at the beach, catching a plane to Omaha, or just seeking an escape from the demands of the day.”

Tampa Tribune

“GOOD FUN…

It’s the mark of an innovative storyteller to turn a normally reprehensible character into a hero—of sorts. Author Lawrence Block’s Bernie the burglar series aren’t just good mysteries, they are supreme escapism.”

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“MASTERFUL…

Good mystery and good comedy, mined from the same vein Dashiell Hammett tapped for his ‘Thin Man.’ Block’s ‘The Burglar Who’ series is one of crime fiction’s best.”

South Bend Tribune

“BLOCK IS A MASTER

of making the reader root for the bad guys…He pulls readers in…His written dialogue has the honesty of a conversation overheard on a bus…Bernie Rhodenbarr is a lot-of-laughs burglar.”

USA Today

“SIDE-SPLITTING…

His canny survival instincts combined with his irresistible sense of humor make Bernie Rhodenbarr one of detective fiction’s most engaging heroes.”

Minnesota Star Tribune

“Mystery writers with a comic touch are rare, and BLOCK IS ONE OF THE BEST.”

Washington Post Book World

“BLOCK IS A MASTER

of witty dialogue, plotting and pace, and the series’ wacky, offbeat characters make great companions.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer

“WE WERE DELIGHTED…

Reading Rhodenbarr is about as light and easy as drinking lemonade on a hot day, and it’s a whole lot more fun.”

Syracuse Post-Standard

“FUNNY AND FEISTY…

Beyond the jokes, there’s a dark edge to the Burglar books that gives them an added kick. Safe in our chairs, we can savor with Bernie the illicit thrills of his profession, the ‘quickening of the pulse, a tingling in the fingertips, a lightness in the chest.’ ”

San Francisco Chronicle

“BERNIE IS SO ENDEARING,

the reader has no choice but to applaud.”

Kansas City Star

“HAVE YOU READ BLOCK’S [RHODENBARR] MYSTERIES?

You should. They are a real kick.”

Denver Rocky Mountain News

“LAWRENCE BLOCK IS A MASTER

of the art of the mystery…Bernie’s a great burglar and a funny guy.”

New Orleans Times-Picayune

Books by Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block’s

Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries

BURGLARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS (E-BOOK)

THE BURGLAR IN THE CLOSET

THE BURGLAR WHO LIKED TO QUOTE KIPLING

THE BURGLAR WHO STUDIED SPINOZA

THE BURGLAR WHO PAINTED LIKE MONDRIAN

THE BURGLAR WHO TRADED TED WILLIAMS

THE BURGLAR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BOGART

THE BURGLAR IN THE LIBRARY

THE BURGLAR IN THE RYE

THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL (E-BOOK)

Available as HarperCollins e-books:

The Matthew Scudder Novels

HIT LIST

HIT MAN

ENOUGH ROPE: COLLECTED STORIES

SMALL TOWN: A NOVEL

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BURGLARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS. Copyright © 1977 by Lawrence Block. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First HarperTorch paperback printing: March 2004

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada