The Burglar on the Prowl

Twenty-Five

If it's all the same to you, or even if it's not, I'll omit details for the next half-hour or so. Suffice it to say that there are certain things which, unlike a taste for Laphroaig, don't wear off and needn't be reacquired. Things which, once learned, are never forgotten. Like falling off a bicycle, or drowning.

"One thing's certain," she said. "It wasn't you."

"What wasn't me?"

"Wednesday night. I mean, I knew it wasn't, but now I really know."

"How's that?"

"If it had been you," she said, "I'd have remembered."

"If it had been me," I said, "I wouldn't have waited until tonight to refresh your memory."

"It was the damnedest thing, Bernie. I woke up with a splitting headache, and of course I'd forgotten to set the alarm, so I had to rush to get to the office. I swallowed some aspirin and took a quick shower and was out the door without my usual cup of coffee. I hopped in a cab, hit the Starbucks across the street from my office, and was at my desk at nine o'clock."

"I'm impressed."

"And I sat there wondering what had happened. I knew I'd been talking with somebody at the bar, but I couldn't picture him or remember anything about him. And the next thing I remembered was waking up with a headache."

"So maybe you didn't bring him home after all."

She shook her head. "I thought of that myself, but when I got home last night I could tell that someone had been here the night before. Whoever he was, he'd evidently made himself at home. It's sort of creepy. I mean, he'd been in my things, and he'd moved stuff around."

"Creepy's the word for it."

"My jewelry was arranged differently from the way I'd left it. But he must have just poked around, because he didn't take anything. But you know what he did take?"

"What?"

"Well, you're going to think I'm crazy, but he took my electric shaver."

"I don't think you're crazy. I think he's crazy. Why would he-"

"I know, it's strange, isn't it? But I looked everywhere and I can't find it, and it's always in the same spot, on the shelf in the bathroom. A little Lady Remington, shaped to fit a dainty feminine hand. I mean, what kind of man would want something like that?"

I took her dainty feminine hand in mine. "Not the kind who'd want to come home with you in the first place."

"Exactly. The only thing I could think of is he took it home for his girlfriend."

"Talk about creepy."

"Well, if he wanted a souvenir, wouldn't he take something more intimate, like panties or a bra?"

"That's a point."

"He went through my purse, but he didn't take any money. I actually had more money than I thought I did. So he wasn't your basic crook. Have you ever been robbed?"

A couple of times, but rather than recount either of them I made one up. "A few years ago," I said. "A burglar came in off the fire escape. He dragged my TV over to the window, but I guess he decided it was too heavy to carry and left it there. He took a combination radio and CD player that I'd just bought, along with the CD that was in it at the time, and which I had a hard time replacing." It's funny how a lie can build up a momentum all its own. I reined it in, and, if you'll allow a change of metaphors, turned the wheel hard right. "He got a few dollars, too, whatever I had around the house. But the thing that bothered me, because there was no way I could replace it, is he took my high school ring."

"That's really funny."

"It is? It didn't seem funny at the time."

"No, funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. Because I can't findmy class ring."

"You're kidding. You don't think it was the same guy, do you?"

We both laughed, and she said she wasn't sure he'd taken it, that it might have disappeared a while ago. "Because he left a really good pair of earrings, and a watch, and a bracelet I never wear, but it's gold, and there are all these gold coins on it. I mean, anyone who looked at it would know it was worth some money. And class rings, well, the gold is no better than ten karat, and the stone is glass."

"Sounds like the one I lost. If it brought ten bucks in a hock shop, the pawnbroker was generous. What color was it? Maybe he liked the way it went with your pink electric shaver." I rolled onto my side, put a hand on her. "Barbara, those GTs have worn off by now, right? I mean, you'll remember this in the morning?"

"How could I forget?"

"I was just thinking that maybe we should make sure."

"Oh," she said, and reached for me. "Oh, my. What a lovely idea."

Afterward I got into my clothes while she lay in bed with her eyes closed. She'd taken her hair down when we'd walked in the door, just before she turned to come into my arms, and it was spread out on the pillow now the way it had been when I got my first look at her. She'd been naked then, too, but this time I didn't feel the need to cover her with the sheet. Somehow it no longer felt invasive to enjoy the view.

I was heading for the door when she said, "Bernie? How'd you know it was pink?"

I didn't know what she was talking about. The only pink thing I could think of at the moment…well, never mind.

"My shaver," she said. "The one he took. How'd you know it was pink?"

Oh, hell. "You said it was pink," I said.

"I did?"

"You must have."

"But I always thought of it as fuchsia. That's what the manufacturer called it, so if I described it that's what I would have said."

"Maybe you did, and I just registered it as pink."

"Yeah, but I don't think I did."

"Oh," I said. "Are you sure you didn't black it out? No, really, I may have just assumed it was pink. I don't think I've ever seen a woman's razor that wasn't. Do they even come in other colors?"

"Sure."

"Oh. I thought they were all pink. Why? What difference does it make?"

"No difference," she said, sleepily. "I just wondered, that's all."