Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

Chapter Five

I don’t know just when I got to sleep. A little after midnight a wave of exhaustion hit me and I got out of my clothes and into Rod’s bed. I was just on the verge of sleep when I sensed an alien presence hovering at the bedside. I told myself I was being silly, and you know how well that sort of thing works, and I opened my eyes and saw that the alien presence was a split-leaf philodendron on a small stand by the side of the bed. It had as much right to be there as I did, if not more, but by the time we’d taken each other’s measure I was awake again, my mind spinning around in frenzied circles and not getting anywhere.

I switched on the radio part of Rod’s stereo, set the volume low, and perched in a chair waiting for the music to end and the news to come on. You know how when you want music there’s a newscast every fifteen minutes? Well, the reverse is just as true. Cops, taxis, newscasts, nothing’s ever there when you want it.

Ultimately there was a newscast, of course, and I listened intently to any number of items in which I had no interest whatsoever, and the round-voiced announcer did not have Word One to say about a burglary and murder on East Sixty-seventh Street. Nada. Zip.

I switched to another station but of course I had half an hour to wait for their newscast, having just missed it, and they were playing a bland sort of folk-rock. When the singer started telling me that his girl’s voice was a stick of chalk drawn across the blackboard of his soul (I swear I’m not making this up) I remembered I was hungry. I went to the kitchen and opened drawers and cabinets and peered inside the fridge, and you’d have thought Old Mother Hubbard lived there. I managed to turn up half a box of Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice (formerly Buddhist and now Presbyterian, I suppose), a discouraging-looking can of Norwegian sardines in mustard sauce, and a lot of little jars and tins of herbs and spices and sauces which could have perked up food if there had been any around. I decided I’d make myself some rice, but a look into the box showed me that I was not the first uninvited guest to take note of it, and Uncle Ben had been further converted, this time from rice to roach shit.

In another cupboard I found an unopened box of spaghetti, which I decided might be palatable with olive oil provided that the oil wasn’t rancid, which it was. At this stage I began to think that perhaps I wasn’t hungry after all, and then I opened another cupboard and discovered that Rodney Hart was a soup fiend. There were sixty-three cans of Campbell ’s soup in that cupboard, and I know the exact number because I counted them, and I counted them because I wanted to know just how long I could stay alive without leaving the apartment. At the concentration-camp rate of a can a day I was good for two months, and that was plenty of time, I told myself, because long before my soup ran out the police would arrest me and in no time at all I’d be serving a sentence for first-degree murder, and feeding me would be the state’s problem.

So there was really nothing to worry about after all.

I started to shake a little but forced myself to concentrate on the process of opening the can. Rod’s can opener was pretty primitive, considering that soup was the mainstay of his existence, but it did the job. I dumped concentrated Chicken With Stars soup into a presumably clean saucepan, added water, heated the mess on the stove, pepped it up with a little thyme and a dash of soy sauce, and was sitting down to eat it just as the folk-rock station came through with a five-minute news summary. It repeated some of the items I’d already heard on the jazz station, told me far more than I needed to know about the weather, since I didn’t dare go out in it anyway, and had nothing to say about the late J. F. Flaxford or the murderous burglar who had done him in.

I finished my soup and tidied up in the kitchen. Then I went through some more cupboards until I found Rod’s booze collection, which consisted in the main of things like a bottle of ancient blackberry brandy with perhaps an ounce of the crud left in the bottom of it. That sort of treasure. But there was, incredibly, a fifth of Scotch about two-thirds full. Now this particular Scotch was some liquor store’s private label, and it had been bottled over in Hackensack, so what we had here was not quite in the Chivas and Pinch class.

But burglars can’t be choosers. I sat up for what was probably a long time, sipping Scotch and watching the really late movies on Channel 9, switching every half hour (when I remembered) to check out the radio news. Nothing about J. Francis, nothing about me, though after a while I probably could have heard the item and not paid any attention to it.

In one of those drab hours just before dawn I managed to kill the television set (having already done as much for the bottle) and insert myself a second time between Rodney’s sheets.

The very next thing I knew there was a crashing noise and a girl’s voice saying, “Oh, shit!”

No one ever returned more abruptly to consciousness. I had been deep in dreamless sleep and now I was jarringly awake. And there was someone in the apartment with me, someone female, and judging by her voice she was in rather close proximity to my no-longer-sleeping form.

I lay very still, trying to go on breathing as one breathes in sleep, hoping that she had not noticed my presence even as I realized that this was impossible. Who was she, anyway? And what the hell was she doing here?

And how was I going to get out of this mess?

“Shit,” she said again, taking the word right out of my mouth. This time the syllable was addressed not to the Fates but to me. “I woke you up, didn’t I? I was trying not to. I was being so quiet, just slipping around watering the plants, and then I had to go and knock the stupid thing over. I hope I didn’t hurt the plant. And I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“It’s all right,” I told my pillow, keeping my face to it.

“I guess my plant-watering talents won’t be needed anymore,” she went on. “Will you be staying here for a while?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“Rod didn’t mention anything about anyone staying here. I guess you just got in recently, huh?”

Damn her, anyway. “Late last night,” I said.

“Well, I’m terribly sorry I woke you up. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make us a cup of coffee.”

“There’s just soup.”

“Soup?”

I rolled reluctantly over and blinked at her. She was at the side of the bed. She had the split-leaf philodendron back on its perch and she was pouring water at its roots. The plant didn’t look any the worse for wear and she looked terrific.

Hair short and dark, a high forehead, and very precisely measured facial features with just the slightest upward tilt to her nose and just the right amount of determination in her jawline. A well-formed mouth that, if not generous, was by no means parsimonious. Little pink ears with well-defined lobes. (I’d recently read a paperback on determining character and health from ears, so I was noticing such things. Her ears, according to my source, would seem to be ideal.)

She was wearing white painter’s pants which showed good judgment by hugging her tightly. They were starting to go thin at the knees and in the seat. Her shirt was denim, one of those Western-style numbers with pearlish buttons and floral print trim. She had a red bandanna around her neck and deerskin moccasins upon her little feet.

The only thing I could think of that was wrong with her was that she was there in my apartment. (Well, Rod’s apartment.) She was watering his plants and jeopardizing my security. Yet when I thought of all the mornings I had awakened alone and would have been delighted to have had this very person in the room with me-ah, the injustice of it all. Women, policemen, taxis, newscasts, none of them on hand when you want them.

“Soup?” She turned her face toward me and smiled a tentative smile. Her eyes were either blue or green or both. Her teeth were white and even. “What kind of soup?”

“Almost any kind you’d want. Black bean soup, chicken noodle soup, cream of asparagus soup, tomato soup, cheddar cheese soup-”

“You’re kidding about the cheddar cheese soup.”

“Have I ever lied to you? It’s in the cupboard if you don’t believe me. If Campbell ’s makes it, Rod stocks it. And nothing else except for some roach-ridden rice.”

“I guess he’s not terribly domestic. Have you known him long?”

“We’re old friends.” A lie. “But I haven’t seen very much of him in the past few years.” A veritable truth.

“College friends? Or back in Illinois?”

Damn. What college? Where in Illinois? “College,” I ventured.

“And now you’ve come to New York and you’re staying at his place until-” the blue or green eyes widened “-until what? You’re not an actor, are you?”

I agreed that I wasn’t. But what in hell was I? I improvised a quick story, sitting up in bed with the sheet covering me to the throat. I told her how I’d been in the family feed business back home in South Dakota, that we’d been bought out at a good price by a competitor, and that I wanted to spend some time on my own in New York before I decided what turn my life should take next. I made the story very sincere and very dull, hoping she’d lose interest and remember a pressing engagement, but apparently she found my words more fascinating than I did because she hung on every one of them, sitting on the edge of my bed with her fingers interlaced around her knees and her eyes wide and innocent.

“You want to find yourself,” she said. “That’s very interesting.”

“Well, I never even suspected that I was lost. But now that I’m really at loose ends-”

“I’m in the same position myself, in a way. I was divorced four years ago. Then I was working, not a very involving job, and then I quit, and now I’m on unemployment. I paint a little and I make jewelry and there’s a thing I’ve been doing lately with stained glass. Not what everybody else does but a form I sort of invented myself, these three-dimensional free-form sculptures I’ve been making. The thing is, I don’t know about any of these things, whether I’m good enough or not. I mean, maybe they’re just hobbies. And if that’s all they are, well, the hell with them. Because I don’t want hobbies. I want something to do and I don’t have it yet. Or at least I don’t think I do.” Her eyelashes fluttered at me. “You don’t really want soup for breakfast, do you? Because why don’t I run around the corner for coffee, it won’t take me a minute, and you can put on some clothes and I’ll be right back.”

She was on her way out the door before I had any chance to object. When it closed behind her I got out of bed and went to the toilet. (I would avoid mentioning this, but it was the first time in a long time that I knew what I was doing.) Then I put on yesterday’s clothes and sat in my favorite chair and waited to see what came through my door next.

Because it might well be the plant-watering lady with the coffee come to serve breakfast to the earnest young man from South Dakota.

Or it might be the minions of the law.

“I’ll just run around the corner for coffee.” Sure. Meaning she’d just recognized the notorious murdering burglar, or burgling murderer (orbungling mumbler, or what you will), and was taking this opportunity to (a) escape his clutches and (b) let Justice be done.

I thought about running but couldn’t see any real sense in it. As long as there was a chance she wasn’t going to the cops, then this apartment was a damn sight safer than the streets. At least that’s how my reasoning went, but I suspect the main factor was inertia. I had a bloodstream full of last night’s lousy Scotch and a head full of rusty hardware and it was easier to sit than to run.

I could drag this out, but why? I didn’t have to wait for the door to open to know she’d come back alone. I heard her steps on the stairs, and there is just no way that a herd of cops can ascend a staircase and sound in the process like a diminutive young lady. So I was relaxed and at ease long before the door opened, but when it did in fact open and her pert and pretty face appeared, I must confess it pleased me. Lots.

She had bought real coffee, astonishingly enough, and she now proceeded to make a pot of it. While she did this we chatted idly and easily. I’d had a chance to practice my lies during her absence, so when she told me her name was Ruth Hightower I was quick to reply that I was Roger Armitage. From that point on we ruthed and rogered one another relentlessly.

I said something about the airlines having lost my luggage, tossing the line in before it could occur to her to wonder at my lack of possessions. She said the airlines were always doing that and we both agreed that a civilization that could put a man on the moon ought to be able to keep track of a couple of suitcases. We pulled up chairs on either side of a table and we drank our coffee out of Rod’s chipped and unmatched cups. It was good coffee.

We talked and talked and talked, and I fell into the role so completely that I became quite comfortable in it. Perhaps it was the influence of the environment, perhaps the apartment was making an actor out of me. Rod had said the landlord liked actors. Perhaps the whole building swarmed with them, perhaps it was something in the walls and woodwork…

At any rate I was a perfect Roger Armitage, the new boy in town, and she was the lady I’d met under cute if clumsy circumstances, and before too long I found myself trying to figure out an offhand way to ask her just how well she knew Rod, and just what sort of part he played in her life, and, uh, shucks Ma’am-

But what the hell did it matter? Whatever future our relationship had was largely in the past. As soon as she left I’d have to think about clearing out myself. This was not a stupid lady, and sooner or later she would figure out just who I was, and when that happened it would behoove me to be somewhere else.

And then she was saying, “You know, I was trying so hard to take care of those plants and get out before I woke you, and actually what I should have done was just leave right away because you would have taken care of the plants yourself, but I didn’t think of that, and you know something? I’m glad I didn’t. I’m really enjoying this conversation.”

“So am I, Ruth.”

“You’re easy to talk to. Usually I have trouble talking to people. Especially to men.”

“It’s hard to believe you’re not at ease with everyone.”

“What a nice thing to say!” Her eyes-I’d learned by now that they ranged from blue to green, varying either with her mood or with the way the light hit them-her eyes, as I was saying way back at the beginning of this sentence, gazed shyly up at me from beneath lowered lashes. “It’s turned into a nice day, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has.”

“It’s a little chilly out but the sky is clear. I thought about picking up some sweet rolls but I didn’t know whether you’d want anything besides just coffee.”

“Just coffee is fine. And this is good coffee.”

“Another cup? Here, I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks.”

“What should I call you, Bernie or Bernard?”

“Whichever you like.”

“I think I’ll call you Bernie.”

“Most people do,” I said. “Oh, sweet suffering Jesus,” I said.

“It’s all right, Bernie.”

“God in Heaven.”

“It’s all right.” She leaned across the table toward me, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth, and she placed a small soft-palmed hand atop mine. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said.

“There isn’t?”

“Of course not. I know you didn’t kill anybody. I’m an extremely intuitive person. If I hadn’t been pretty sure you were innocent I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of knocking the plant over in the first place, and-”

“You knocked it over on purpose?”

“Uh-huh. The stand, anyway. I picked up the plant itself so nothing would happen to it, and then I kicked the stand so that it bounced off the wall and fell over.”

“Then you knew all along.”

“Well, your name’s all over the papers, Bernie. And it’s also all over your driver’s license and the other papers in your wallet. I went through your pockets while you were sleeping. You’re one of the soundest sleepers I’ve come across.”

“Do you come across that many?”

Incredibly enough, the minx blushed. “Not all that many, no. Where was I?”

“Going through my pockets.”

“Yes. I thought I recognized you. There was a photo in the Times this morning. It’s not a very good likeness. Do they really cut a person’s hair that short when they send him to prison?”

“Ever since Samson pushed the temple down. They’re not taking any chances.”

“I think it’s barbaric of them. Anyway, the minute I looked at you I knew you couldn’t have murdered that Flaxford person. You’re not a murderer.” She frowned a little. “But I guess you’re a genuine burglar, aren’t you?”

“It does look that way.”

“It certainly does, doesn’t it? Do you really know Rod?”

“Not terribly well. We’ve played poker together a few times.”

“But he doesn’t know what you do for a living, does he? And how come he gave you his keys? Oh, I’m being dull-witted now. What would you need with keys? I saw your keys in your pants pocket, and all those other implements. I must say they look terribly efficient. Don’t you need something called a jimmy to pry doors open with?”

“Only if you’re crude.”

“But you’re not, are you? There’s something very sexual about burglary, isn’t there? How on earth did you get into a business like that? But the man’s supposed to ask the girl that question, isn’t he? My, we have a lot to talk about, and it should be a lot more interesting than all that crap about Roger Armitage and the feed business in South Dakota, and I’ll bet you’ve never even been to South Dakota, have you? Although you do string out a fairly convincing pack of lies. Would you like some more coffee, Bernie?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think I would.”