Lieberman's thief

Stuart M. Kaminsky
The Burglar Prowls

George Patniks hated his nickname, "Pitty-Pitty." There was no dignity in a name like Pitty-Pitty Patniks, but then Alex Sewell, the boss of cell block C, hadn't been concerned about George's dignity. Sewell had a great nickname, "Steelhead." It implied that nothing could penetrate Sewell's head, not a tool shop knife made from a toothbrush, not a V bar loosened from the bottom of a bunk, not a thought or idea. Steelhead was a risky nickname. It gave a target and defied the other cons to go after it.

But Pitty-Pitty, what the hell sense did that make? George, whose real name was Gregor Eupatniaks, was sure mat Steelhead Sewell, who was serving two life sentences for murdering a pair of runaway girls in Moline, hadn't thought about the nickname he bestowed on the skinny kid who had just done the first month of time for his first felony, breaking and entering.

But the name stuck. George couldn't shake it. It followed him to Chicago's Near North Side neighborhood where he had spent his life, except for the two years he had done for breaking and entering and the two more years he had done for breaking and entering again and the year he had done for possession of a weapon, a dinky piece, a.22 he carried in his tool belt under his jacket. It was really the burglary tools in the belt that they had gotten him for, not the Friday night nothing-special, but they couldn't nail him on the tools so they got him for the gun.

Even the police called him Pitty-Pitty. A grown man, now pushing forty-six, with almost six years of down time on three felonies. That was one of the worst things about being picked up, cops yelling his nickname across a squad room.

George considered himself one of the most successful burglars in Cook County. He wasn't sure how many houses, businesses, and apartments he had plucked-two hundred? Maybe three hundred? Maybe more? You'd think he'd keep count, but he didn't, like a movie star on Jay Leno who can't remember how many movies he's been in.

George hadn't worked an honest day in his life since his sixteenth birthday, but the dishonest ones had added up over the years. He practiced his profession once every three or four weeks for a few hours-not counting set-up time- and devoted the rest of his time to eating, sleeping, hanging out with his brother when he was around, and trying, sometimes successfully, to pick up women or girls at Unikle's Tap or the Blue Truck Bar. But what he liked to do most was something that he had picked up in prison. George's passion was painting. He had always liked to draw, but in prison an artist from Chicago named Joplin-guy in denims, hair hanging over his eyes, mess of a beard-had conducted a six-week class in painting. George had taken to it. He was a natural. He could paint what was in his head from the moment he picked up the brush.

Most people thought Steelhead Sewell had given him the name Pitty-Pitty because it was what Steelhead thought it sounded like when George was painting. Trouble was, George was sure Steelhead Sewell did not know he was taking the class or painting.

Joplin the painter had told George that he had talent Years later, when George was exhibiting in an art fair in Lincoln Park, he ran into Joplin, who was showing his own stuff. They talked. Joplin said he had been out of town a few years. His hands shook. Rummy. Joplin's paintings were for shit. Who had he been to tell George Patniks that he was a good painter? George had a better grasp on reality man that.

George looked at his own paintings-cons leaning lonelily against concrete block walls, smoking and looking at nothing, buildings that looked so tired they might tumble over with a pat on the back from a good wind off Lake Michigan, kids playing in the park on the merry-go-round but not looking like they were having fun. George knew he had the eye. But he didn't have the magic. Wasn't there. No avoiding the truth. No use crying. George could paint. He could paint what he saw, but he was never going to be anything but a summer exhibitor looking for a park district ribbon.

That was fine with George. No kicks. Life was good. Work once every couple of weeks. Make the good score, sometimes big cash in the back of a drawer inside a pair of socks. Sometimes a good sale to one of the pawnshops on Devon or Milwaukee that fenced on the back and down side. You get caught once in a now and then. That was the price. You took it straight up. It was usually bad luck that got you. At least it had been bad luck that got George each time he had been caught, a really good silent alarm connected to a security service, neighbors when there shouldn't have been, a small green-stoned necklace hidden under the floorboard of his apartment and lucked on by an overeager detective on his first case.

But George was older now. A lot older. He had learned from his mistakes. He never talked about his jobs. He cased each one far beyond what any pro might consider reasonable. He'd get the book hard and heavy and not across his knuckles the next time he stood before a judge with decent evidence on the table. George had to be careful.

He pulled out his wallet and extracted the sheet of paper on which he had written a phone number. Then he dialed the number. It rang four times. Music in the background. Classical. George recognized it but couldn't give a name.

"Good evening," the woman said softly.

"Mr. Harvey Rozier," George said, disguising his voice by going an octave higher and a bit slower and more precise than his normal. "Or Mrs. Rozier."

"The concert is about to begin," the woman said.

"Very important," George insisted. "Mr. Rozier won't want to miss this call."

"One moment," the woman said, and George found himself listening to the faint music again. Not his kind. George had a quiet collection of CDs, for him alone, torchy stuff, definitely off limits to his mother, stuff to paint by, Dinah Washington, Linda Ronstadt, Liza Minnelli. Some things just don't…

"Yes," came a voice over the phone almost whispering.

"It's me," George said, his voice still disguised. "You asked me to call you at ten. I'm calling you."

"Who is this?"

"Burt Chambers from the Tool and Die," said George.

"I don't know what the hell…"

"Look, Mr. Dozier, I'm just doing what-"

"Dozier?"

"Are you Carl Dozier?" asked George.

"Harvey Rozier," the man said with exasperation that George thought was fully justified.

"Look," said George. "Is this or isn't this three-one-two-one-one-one-one?"

"No," said Rozier, looking at the number on the phone. "It is not."

"I'm sorry," George said with a sigh. "I'm having a bad day."

Rozier hung up. So did George.

He had watched the Rozier house for three weeks. Every night Looking for a house in Saginaw Park with signs of money, a wall or tall trees, and no dogs. The Rozier house, a red brick that looked a little like a castle, stood at the end of a cul-de-sac and down a drive. George had had his handyman card ready when he approached the house the first time, right after the mailman left. George had been ready to whip the card out in case he had overlooked a maid, a pool man, a relative. He'd driven right to the front door and rung the bell. No answer, but George was just setting up, taking no chances. Nice place. Big. He went for the mail, found out he was at the home of Harvey and Dana Rozier.

George returned to the street every few days and nights but never to the cul-de-sac. It wasn't the only house he checked out. He had six others on the line in suburbs as far north as Highland Park and as far south as Morgan Park. It was part of the job. He found Rozier's name and office number in the Chicago White Pages-Harvey N. Rozier, Investment Consultant. The home phone was unlisted. No big problem to go to Rozier's office on LaSalle Street near City Hall, find out what kind of car the man had, and get a look at him. Rozier was a big man, maybe George's age, probably a little younger. Good looking. Worked out. Serious guy with a fake smile. Losing his hair and combing it forward. Good clothes.

Two days after first seeing Rozier, George saw Dana Rozier. Harvey had a tasteful '94 Lexus. She had a red Mazda sports car. From a distance she looked younger than her husband. Up close, when he checked her out when she went out shopping, she looked tight, blond, maybe a little too skinny, at least for George's taste, but sending out signals of money. Just the jewelry she wore for an afternoon out would have been enough to keep George in food, rent, paint, and nights in the local bars for half a year, even if he got only a nickel on the dollar.

The Roziers had no kids and no live-in maid. A couple of black women-looked like mother and daughter-came to the house Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Stayed all day. Left at five on the dot. Had their own key. George was sure they'd be the number-one suspects the night he cleaned the place out.

One night when he was watching the Roziers, a Tuesday, Harvey came out to the Lincoln dressed like Fred Astaire and his wife like Ginger. Tux, gown, the works. George followed them downtown, where they let a valet park them in front of the Bismarck. George considered making it back to their house in Saginaw and doing it fast, but he had learned to be careful. Two times downtime for felony made a thief careful. Maybe they were just picking someone up, having a few drinks, and then having a party at home. Maybe a hell of a lot of things. George wasn't the valet parking kind, but he didn't want to lose the Roziers.

He pulled into a loading zone and jumped out as the couple moved slowly into the hotel. It would probably mean a ticket, but it might not if he was fast. A ticket might make George think twice. What if he became a suspect and they found he had been parked in front of the hotel where the burglary victims were on the same night? What if? What if? What if? If he had a ticket when he came out, George would cross off the Rozier house.

George wasn't dressed for a downtown hotel but he didn't look bad either. He was shaved, wore black denim slacks and a button-down pale gray shirt with a low-key black leather zippered jacket The lobby was full of men in tuxes and women with gowns and jewels whose addresses George would have loved to have.

George asked a kid bellhop what was going on.

"Chamber series," he said.

"Music?"

"I guess," said the kid, looking impatient.

"You said series?"

"Every Tuesday this month, next month. There's a program in front of the door," the kid said. "All I know."

George had checked. A black-and-white photograph of a Chinese or Korean or something girl with long hair and a cello between her legs was stuck to the tripod in front of the door through which couples were hurrying.

They were being nodded in by a tall, no-nonsense woman in her fifties whose black-with-white streaked hair was pulled back tight and topped by a tiara worth no more than a few hundred dollars, tops.

"Single tickets?" George had asked innocently.

"Series only," the woman said, nodding more people in, though most of them didn't pause for her approval.

George nodded and checked the schedule on the tripod. There were none being distributed.

It was perfect. Every Tuesday. No holidays hi the way. Concert went from eight to eleven. George didn't have a ticket when he went out to his car.

It looked perfect. Still, George was taking no chances. He was in the lobby of the Bismarck the following week. The Roziers showed up just before eight with another couple, older, maybe in their sixties, dignified. The man was tall, neatly trimmed white hah- and mustache, and the woman a little on the thin side but good looking for her age. For most pros this would have been enough, but not for George. He checked them on the following Tuesday. The Roziers and the old couple were there, and George noted that the woman with the tight hair greeted them by name. He stayed far from the door so she didn't see him, but he could hear her confident voice syruping across the lobby. Someone called her Mrs. Gabriel. It was enough.

Time. George tore up the scrap of paper with the number of the Bismarck concert room phone and flushed it down the toilet. His mother had turned off the television more than two hours earlier and had screamed down to George that she was going to sleep and if he got hungry there was a noodle pudding in the fridge he could stick hi the microwave.

George looked around his room, checked his watch. Blanket roDed down on the bed, paintings stacked against the walls, green chair that had been his father's near the window, battered dresser needing glue for loose drawers. Not much, but it beat a cell.

George didn't hide his tools anymore and he didn't use traditional burglary gear. He carried everything in a padded toolbox, only things a decent mechanic, plumber, or handyman might carry: tubing cutter, glass cutter, and minicutter, rib-joint pliers, adjustable-end wrench, a pair of screwdrivers, an Allen wrench, a close-quarters hacksaw, a curved-claw hammer, a wood chisel, a utility knife, and a rasp. Handyman. That was his cover. Hard to shake, even with the two neatly folded linen laundry bags at the bottom of the toolbox. Ex-con trying to make it as handyman, claiming that all of his work was small and for cash if he got caught. Always an angle. Call a guy down the street from where you were breaking. Ask if you could come over and give him a no-obligation estimate on fixing his front steps or loose-shingled roof. Bluebots pick you up and you claim you're at the wrong house. Walked right in after you knocked. The door was open. Way beyond suspicious but hard to prove, even if they nailed you inside, providing you weren't carrying goods. Criminal trespass was the worst he figured he could get, He looked in the bathroom mirror.

Thin guy in the mirror looked OK. Clean shaven, jaw a little weak, blue-gray eyes, clean but not-so-even teeth, a full head of brown-gray hair. Work clothes. Not black, to blend in and wind up looking suspicious, but faded jeans, red-and-black flannel shirt. Shoes, three-year-old faded Rockports. Sneakers might make someone suspicious.

Checked the watch again, not one he'd stolen. One he had paid twenty-five bucks and change for, about what your not-successful ex-con handyman trying to make a living might wear.

Satisfied, George picked up his toolbox and saw something on the canvas resting on the easel near the window. The left eye of the woman at the bar was too large. He would have to correct that or at least check to see if the morning light gave him a better perspective. George went out the door and into the cool spring night He had a private entrance to his mother's house. After George's father had died, Wanda Eupatniaks had married her husband's best friend, Laslo Skutnik, a widower with a pension from the slaughterhouse, a Swift and Company employee for almost forty years. Wanda and Laslo had vegetated together in front of the television till Laslo died a year and a day after George's father, leaving Wanda a new name and a comfortable, mortgage-paid house.

When he first got out, George had rented a small apartment in the house of the Vivlachkis, a few blocks away off of Diversey. The Vivlachkis were a nice old couple who knew George's mother. They called him Gregor. They went to sleep early and didn't hear too well. They liked Gregor. He painted a portrait of then- dead son, Stanley, from an old photograph. It hung over the mantelpiece right next to Jesus Christ Almighty his own self. But money had gotten a little tight. A few jobs had to be canceled. Too many risks. And old man Vivlachki started to get too curious about George's sources of income and late nights out. It was easier to move in with his mother, who couldn't make it down the stairs to his rooms and who watched television most of the day, went to bed early, slept like a mountain, and snored like a volcano.

George shivered with the chill. Couldn't have been more than forty-five degrees. Fine for a Chicago spring. Sky dark, looking like it couldn't make up its mind to piss or snow. If the temperature dropped and it snowed while he was on the way to the job, George would turn around and go home or maybe head for Unikle's bar, maybe get lucky and run into Mary Ann Zdrubecki, whose husband, Cinch, was doing four short ones for holding up a 7-Eleven.

Snow was too many chances. Rain had its problems too, but rain kept people off the streets where they might remember seeing a man with a toolbox.

Among the skills George had picked up was bringing the dead back to life. Dead cars. Both of his brothers were mechanics, Ernie at a Volvo dealer on Elston, Sandor with his own gas station up north on Howard Street. Before he retired with emphysema, George's father had been a mechanic for a series of Brunswick bowling alleys owned by Davey Moran, who was just as big a Litvak as any Eupatniaks but knew which side his alley was buttered on.

George's car was a Toyota Corolla, dark green, three years old. Nothing suspicious on the outside, but it ran almost as silent as a submarine. Part of the job. Keep your tools clean and silent. The Toyota was a tool. Tools don't work and you take an extra chance.

Toolbox sat on the seat next to him. Right in the open. Windows closed on a cool night. Radio playing some talk show guy saying it was fine to look at women's asses and mink about how they'd move. Guy was right. Natural to look and think. Can't stop looking and thinking.

He drove past a series of bombed-out two-stories with hot dog, fried fish, or auto parts on the street level. Apartment or two above. Woman over Wynette's Fried Shrimp in the window. Skinny. A shadow, hugging herself. Fear? Cold? What? And he was gone, almost bumper-to-bumper with a dirty white van. He'd paint that scene when he finished (he painting he was working on, the one of the lonely woman at the bar. He could see the woman over Wynette's, little more than a shadow, the night lights of the fish house below her casting yellow on the street. He wanted to capture the smell of the place and the lonely sag of her thin body.

And the guy on the radio with a raspy voice said, "How about breasts?" George didn't like music. He liked voices, people talking; keeping him company. He didn't have to talk to them. They told the news or talked in cycle two, nonstop, nervous talk, saying nothing. In the Patniks analysis, developed during his years in the joint, cycle one was fear coming out as anger or depression. That could last anywhere from a month to a year. Cons seemed to vary their cycles depending on the length of their sentences. A murder one could be angry for years. Cycle three was the most dangerous and looked the least like trouble, In cycle three the con gets mellow, shows no emotion, looks as if his mind is off somewhere listening to Sade. There's a space around these cons. It's the place they've found a troubled peace. Break in on it and they've got no place to retreat and nothing much to lose. Cycles one and two you see coming. Cycle threes…

The hard gray and dusty red of squat city buildings gave way to hulking factories and then the expressway. Concrete and green exit signs. Cars with drivers minding their own business. The sound of swishing tires and radio voices.

George got off at Peterson, turned onto Lincoln, and drove past hot dog stands, one-fuck motels, and Jew bookstores. A Buick dealer and a barbecue restaurant on his left, Goodyear tire center on his right, and then Devon. Different world. Trees, houses with space between them even on the main drag, too cold for people to be walking or meeting with their neighbors over the fence.

When he got to the Roziers' street, George checked for dog walkers. Unpredictable. Always a problem. Dog walkers. Who could predict the bladder control of a poodle? George knew of two burglars personally who had been turned up because of dog walkers with notebooks or good memories.

He pulled into the driveway of the Rozier house at the end of the cul-de-sac. He drove over the neatly fitted red bricks and sat for a few seconds looking at the lights in the house. He was sure the Roziers had left the lights on to discourage people like George Patniks. They had left the lights on every week when they went to the chamber music series.

"In for it all now, George," he said to himself, as he had said before every job he had done in the last two decades. He stepped out of his car.

He hurried around the side of the house to the kitchen. George could hear music inside the house. He didn't stop. He knew the radio was on a timer, that the station would change every fifteen or twenty minutes as if someone were fooling with the dials.

The dining room window at the side of the house was wired as he remembered and expected. It wasn't a bad system, connected to both the local police and the Everwatch System office. George put down the toolbox, took the glass cutter from his pocket, checked the second hand on his watch, took a breath, and moved quickly to cut a more or less round hole in the glass. From the moment he began the cut, George knew he had to hurry. Everwatch Security gave the homeowner a full twenty-five seconds to get to the phone and turn off the system. He reached in and opened the window and climbed in. The music was loud, something classical, light, breaking champagne glasses and giggles that were implied rather than released. He hurried through the dining room with its eight high-backed wooden chairs around a table with spindly animal legs and went right through the kitchen door, heading for the phone on the wall near the back door. He put the tool chest down, opened it almost silently, and pulled out the wire cutter. He pulled the phone from the hook on the wall, turned it over, found the wires he was looking for, and snipped neatly. He was breathing hard as he checked his watch. Sixteen seconds.

George had made it with nine seconds to spare.

A sound from above, like footsteps. Somebody home? A creaking step or floorboard? Hard to tell over the blaring music. George stood for twenty seconds or so until he was reasonably satisfied that no one was there. He hurried across the kitchen floor.

George needed no flashlight The Roziers had provided him with all the light he needed and more than he wanted. He planned to move fast, check the case spots, go for the jewelry, and forget the big things. If he was lucky, the Roziers would come home, maybe have a drink, and head for bed without noticing the small hole in the window and not discovering that the kitchen phone was out of order at least till the next morning.

George had his hand on the kitchen door when his world exploded.

Voices. From beyond the door. Two. Arguing. Sounded like a man and woman. Coming downstairs. Coming fast.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Go for the window. Too late. Too far. They were heading for the kitchen. Fast. The kitchen was big. One night-light near the sink. Table, modern, and six chairs around it to his left. Working table in the middle of the room. Big butcher's block. Walls lined with cupboards, dishwasher, refrigerator. Door. A pantry or closet. George stepped inside.

Pantry. No window. The toolbox. His toolbox. It was out mere, sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Well, maybe not the middle, but still hard to miss. Too late. The kitchen door was opening. George closed the pantry door, praying mat it was well oiled and that the toolbox would be overlooked.

The kitchen door burst open.

"Harvey, Harvey," the woman wept as George pressed his back against a shelf of cans. "Please."

Harvey didn't answer. And the woman sounded weird.

What were they doing home? What the hell were they…?

Something scratched across the tile floor.

"God, no. Please."

George moved from the wall of cans and pitty-pittied to the pantry door, opening it a crack. Pitty-pitty on frightened little cat Rockports.

The white nightgown of Dana Rozier was bright with Wood and open to her stomach. She staggered backward toward the kitchen door. Harvey Rozier strode silently toward her. He wore some kind of white floor-length smock that made him look like a mad scientist George had seen in some English horror movie about zombies on channel 32.

Dana Rozier was going for the door. She had no chance of making it without help, and George was sure that if he stepped out of the pantry he'd be covered in his own blood within a couple of heartbeats. Rozier was too big for him, in better shape, and carrying the biggest fucking knife George Patniks had ever seen.

George pushed the door open a little more, wondering what the hell Rozier was planning to do. That was when Rozier tripped over George's toolbox. The knife flew out of his hand and spun across the floor. Rozier went sprawling, smock billowing awkwardly.

Dana Rozier went for the door, losing strength. Too many bolts. She reached for the phone as her husband got to his knees and scrambled for the bloody knife.

"No, no, no," Dana Rozier panted, unwilling, unable to turn her back on her husband.

George, standing in the pantry doorway, watched her hit three numbers, 911 for sure. But she heard nothing as Rozier found the knife. There was nothing she could hear because George had cut the phone wires.

Too late. Too late now. Rozier was on top of her, pulling his wife from the phone, plunging the knife in wherever her flailing arms let him through. Face, eye, scalp, chest, arms. She crumpled, whimpering, and Rozier went on.

George didn't move, couldn't move. Rozier knelt over what was left of his dying wife, panting, his white smock splotched like a bloody Rorschach.

George watched the exhausted man's face and heaving body and knew what was about to happen. Rozier looked back across the room to see what had tripped him. His eyes found the toolbox. He panted heavily, not understanding, and his eyes moved across the room, finding George almost instantly.

Their eyes met. Rozier puzzled, weary, confused. George Patniks in panic. Rozier tried to rise, using the knife to prop himself up like an old man with a cane.

George's legs were trembling and nausea tickled inside his stomach and went for his throat A sound came from George and he knew he was running, his feet sliding on the tile floor, knowing that if he went down, Rozier's knife would get him, that the dead woman's blood would snare and bind him. His back was turned to Rozier now, and he had no idea how close the man might be. George sucked in air and ran for the window through which he had cut the hole. He tucked his head between his arms and threw his body against glass and wood, hoping it would shatter, but it didn't, not completely. He tumbled into cool air, rolling on his back, arm cut. He caught a glimpse of Rozier's shadow at the window, a ghostly, sheeted shadow carrying a bloody knife, panting.

George got to his feet and ran, ran for his car, forgetting about cuts, slashes, and murder, forgetting his tool case, and ignoring the certainty that he had fouled his underwear and legs.

He slid into the driver's seat of the Toyota, cracking his knee against the steering wheel, and locked the door with one hand as he turned the key with the other. Rozier wasn't at the door. Not yet. He threw the car in reverse and tried to keep calm, keep from hitting the birdbath or the bushes and slamming into the trees mat lined the driveway.

He let his eyes move upward quickly as he screeched backward into the night, and what he saw was as frightening as the murder he had witnessed.

Rozier hadn't moved from the window. He stood, motionless, looking directly at George Patniks. Their eyes met again as George hit the gas and swirled madly and loudly down the red-brick driveway. George wouldn't swear, but he was pretty goddamn sure that Harvey Rozier was smiling at him.