The Burglar on the Prowl

Thirty-Three

It was after ten when I left Marisol's apartment. I walked back to Ninth Avenue and hailed a cab, something I seemed to have been doing a lot that day. Sometimes I'll go weeks without taking a taxi, and all of a sudden I was flagging them left and right.

This one let me off in front of Parsifal's, where an owlish young fellow looked as though he couldn't believe his luck, either at having a cab drop right into his lap that way or at the young woman who was draped on his arm and ready to share it with him. I wished them well and went on inside.

Sigrid's shift hadn't started yet when I'd come in earlier, but she was behind the bar now, serving drinks to the Thank God Monday's Over crowd. I eyeballed the room, then went and found a spot at the bar. She came over and said, "It's either Laphroaig or Pellegrino. What kind of a mood are we in tonight?"

I felt more like a glass of brandy-it had been a long day-but it would have been gauche to suggest it. I went with the Laphroaig, and when she brought it I crooked a forefinger and motioned her in close. "Late Friday night," I said, "I was talking with a woman named Barbara. Dark hair, had it up in a bun-"

"I remember."

"You were starting to tell us about a guy who came on strong earlier in the evening," I said, "and then you did a quick one-eighty and changed the subject."

"Oh?"

"It was pretty smooth," I said. "She didn't notice it, but I did, and that might be because I was looking for it. My guess is you were behind the stick two nights earlier, and he was the same guy she went home with that night, and as soon as you made the connection you dropped the subject."

"That's your guess, is it?"

"It's an educated guess."

"Well, you seem like an educated guy. Maybe you're even smart enough to tell me why you and I are having this conversation."

"I'm hoping you'll help me find him."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I know his name," I said. "Mine is Bernie Rhodenbarr, and that's all you'd have to know in order to track me down. But his is William Johnson, and he's not the only one in Manhattan."

"You know more about him than I do," she said. "I didn't even know his name until just now. And you still haven't said why I should help you find him."

"He took Barbara home and fed her a couple of Roofies, and when she passed out he raped her."

"Christ in the foothills."

"Then he helped himself to a few souvenirs and went home."

"What a son of a bitch," she said. "I wondered what his game was. I knew there was something creepy about him, but that goes beyond creepy."

"I don't think it's the first time he's used that kind of pharmaceutical assistance," I said, "and I don't think it'll be the last. I'd like to do something about it."

"Jesus, I'll say. Something that involves surgery, I would hope. Hang on a second."

She went down the bar to attend to someone who'd run dry, and I worked on my Laphroaig. "I don't know how you can drink that," she said on her return. "It tastes like medicine to me."

"Strong medicine," I agreed.

"The thing about alcohol," she said, "is it doesn't wear out its welcome. You work in a pizza place, within a couple of months you lose your taste for pizza. You tend bar, you drink as much as ever."

"Have something."

"Not till my shift ends, but thanks. You said you wanted me to help you find God's gift to women. I'm game, but I can't think how. You're not a cop, are you?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. You could be a private eye. I've known six of them, and I swear the only thing they've got in common is the state gave all six of them a license."

"That lets me out," I told her. "They'd never give me one."

"Bad moral fiber?"

"Worse than that. A felony conviction."

"No kidding. It wasn't rape, was it, or something nasty like that? Then I won't ask what for. I still don't know how I can help."

"You could describe the guy. I don't have a clue what he looks like."

"Barbara won't tell you?"

"Barbara doesn't remember a thing."

"Then how in hell do you know his name? And how doI know it's the same guy as the one who hit on me?"

"You saw the two of them leave the bar together, remember?"

"Oh, right. But maybe she ditched him and went somewhere else and picked up some other boy wonder, and he was the one who fed her the Roofies. I just wish you could mention one thing about him so I was sure we were talking about the same person."

"He has a very deep voice."

"Yeah, that's him, the son of a bitch. Now how on earth do you happen to know that?"

"That's confidential."

"Confidential, huh? Hang on." She went away and came back just as I was having another sip of my medicine. "I could describe him," she said. "He's about six-three, very big in the chest and shoulders, with the kind of muscular development you get in the gym, and probably not without anabolic steroids. Biceps like Popeye when he's full of spinach."

"Tall and muscular," I said.

"Dark complexion, as if he goes straight from the gym to the tanning salon. Black hair, and he parts it on the side and slicks it down with mousse or goo or something, so it wouldn't move in a hurricane. Has a big jaw, not enough to remind you of Jay Leno, but it's out there. Eyes are set deep, with a little bit of a slant to them."

"That's a pretty good description."

"You think? It seems to me it would fit a lot of people. You couldn't pick him out of a lineup, could you? Oh, I know!"

She turned around and came back with an order pad and a pencil, tore a sheet from the pad and turned it over on top of the bar. "I took a course," she said. "Drawing on the right side of the brain. The trick is getting into a right-brain mode. Do you mind?" She picked up my glass of Laphroaig and downed it in a single swallow. "Yuck, I don't know how you can stand that stuff. Just give it a minute. Okay, I think I'm shifting into a right-brain frame of mind."

She began sketching, and I watched, fascinated, as Barbara's date-rape date took shape upon the slip of paper. "He's a good-looking guy," I noted. "You wouldn't think he'd have trouble getting girls on his own."

"I suppose so. Not my type, though." She turned the pencil around, erased an area around the mouth, then tried it again. "I like older men."

"He's thirty-four."

"Well, he was born about thirty years too late. 'If you're not gray, please go away.' That's my motto."

"Really."

"Older men know how to treat a woman," she said. "On the one hand they pamper you, and at the same time they see right through your bullshit. They may think it's charming, but they know it's crap. The worst thing about this job is the crowd's too young. I never meet anybody I'm interested in."

"The only older guys I know," I said, "are either married or gay."

"You can keep the gay ones, but married's fine. I'm a lot happier with a man who's got a wife to go home to." She frowned at the drawing, turned it to face me. "It's getting close," she said, "but it's not quite right, and-well, fuck me with a stick." She picked up her drawing, crumpled it in her fist, and flipped it over her shoulder onto the back bar, where it nestled between bottles of Jim Beam and Maker's Mark.

"Hey," I said. "Even if it's not Van Gogh, I could use it."

"You don't need it. Don't turn around, not just yet. You'll never believe who just walked in the door."

Of course I believed it. I should have expected it. With the long arm of coincidence rolling the dice, how could William Johnson fail to make an appearance just as Sigrid was putting the finishing touches on his portrait?

And, granted a look at the original, I have to say she'd turned out an excellent likeness. Up close and in living color, there was a quality of spoiled self-indulgence she hadn't quite captured, a look around the mouth reminiscent of some of the Roman emperors. And not Marcus Aurelius, either. More like Nero, say, or Caligula.

He was wearing a muscle tee, sleeveless to display his delts and triceps and skintight to showcase his pecs, along with tight black jeans to show off his glutes. He had a deep tan already, and it wasn't even summer yet. He surveyed the room purposefully, then headed for the back, where two women were seated together at the bar.

"Here we go," Sigrid said. "He's found his quarry."

"That's if he can split them up."

"If he drugs them," she said, "he may not have to. He can take them both home."

"They've got short hair," I pointed out.

"So? Oh, they might be gay? I don't think so, but once he slips them the Roofies, does it really matter?"

"Good point. What do we do?"

"I don't know. Don't you have a plan?"

"I was going to follow him home," I said, "and find out where he lives. But that won't work if he goes home with them instead."

"And it won't be the evening they're hoping for, either. C'mon."

"C'mon? C'mon and do what?"

"Improvise," she said. "Go help him hit on them while I take care of everybody's drinks."

She was, as I already knew, an actress and a model. She'd also demonstrated an enviable facility for drawing faces. I was willing to believe she had multiple talents, some of the more interesting of which I'd never learn about because I was too young for her. One of them, it turned out, was close-up magic. I don't know how she did it, but after two rounds of drinks Audrey and Claire and I were clearheaded enough to drive an obstacle course, while William Johnson was a coma looking for a place to lie down.

The two women, who'd thought Johnson and I were at least promising, found his sudden lapse into word-slurring eye-rolling idiocy more than a little disconcerting. Sigrid acted as though he pulled this all the time.

"Oh, not again," she said, in a voice that carried throughout the room. "He's a nice enough guy, but that's the last time he's getting a drink in here. Bernie, grab him, will you? Before he slides off the stool and lands on his empty head."

She came around from behind the bar, deputized one of her regulars to cover for her, and the two of us each got an arm under one of his and walked him out the door. He was a big guy, but she was a big girl, and must have had muscles even if they didn't show the way his did. Between the two of us, we had surprisingly little trouble walking him down the block and around the corner. There was a narrow alley on 37th Street, running between a pair of apartment buildings; I'd spotted it while on the prowl, and that's where we took him now.

Some of the city's native fauna scuttled out from among the garbage cans when we maneuvered him to the rear of the alley. We got maybe three-fourths of the way there, turned him around, and gave him a light shove, and he landed on his rear end and clunked his head on the brick wall. He wound up sprawled there, his oversized jaw slack, with drool leaking out of the side of his mouth.

"Jesus, what a charmer," she said.

I bent over him, came up with his wallet. Without thinking I scooped out the bills, gave half to her, and stuck the rest in my pocket. "He got drunk," I explained, "and passed out in an alley, and some lowlife rolled him." She looked at the money for a moment, then put it away, while I went through his wallet looking for a current address. His driver's license had him living on 40th just off Lexington, and he'd renewed it less than a year ago, so it was probably current. I was going to write it down, but it was easier to take the license along with me, and while I was at it I took his credit cards.

That brought a raised eyebrow from Sigrid. "I'm not going to use them," I said, "but he won't know that, will he? He'll have to go through the hassle of calling the card companies."

"Good," she said. "Look at him, the misogynistic son of a bitch. I could kick him in the balls and he wouldn't even feel it. Or would he?" She decided to find out, and the result of the experiment was inconclusive. He groaned, but didn't really stir.

"He'll feel it when he wakes up," I said.

"God, I hope so. Look at him, will you? He makes an almost perfect picture. It's just a shame he didn't puke on himself." She thought a moment, said, "Well, I can fix that," and stuck a finger down her throat, anointing him generously with the missing element.

"Adolescent bulimia," she explained. "I outgrew it years ago, but you never forget how. Like falling off a bicycle."

"Or drowning."

"Exactly. I'd better get back to Parsifal's before Barry gives away the store." She pinched my cheek. "You're cute. It's a shame you're not twenty years older."

"I'm aging as fast as I can."

"You haven't got an uncle with a roving eye, have you? Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. That noise when we first walked into the alley, sort of something scuttling away? Was that rats?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Good," she said. "Let's hope they're hungry."