The Burglar on the Prowl

Six

On the prowl.

The phrase has a wonderful ring to it, doesn't it? It sounds at once menacing and exciting, deliciously attractive in an unwholesome way. Byron, someone observed, was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"-which evidently made the son of a bitch irresistible. Can't you picture him going on the prowl?

When a burglar goes on the prowl, he's improvising. Now improvisation is vastly useful in the arts, and in jazz it's fundamental; when a jazz musician gives himself free rein to improvise, he finds himself playing notes and creating phrases he hadn't thought of, unearthing the music from some inner chamber of his private self. When I play a record and listen to some solo piano by, say, Lennie Tristano or Randy Weston or Billy Taylor, I can get lost in the intricacies and subtleties the pianist is working out on the spot, creating this beauty as he threads his way through the notes.

That's great if you're a musician, and what I really should have done was stay home and play some of my old LPs, admiring the way those fellows could prowl the keyboard. Because improvisation in burglary is different. It's a foolproof method for minimizing rewards while maximizing risk, and what kind of a way is that to run a business?

It is, I should point out, not a career I would recommend for anyone. It's morally reprehensible, for starters, and the fact that I evidently can't give it up doesn't mean I'm not well aware of the disagreeably sordid nature of what I do. Such considerations aside, it's still a poor vocational choice.

Oh, there are attractive elements, and let's acknowledge them right in front. You're your own boss, and you never have to sit through a job interview, never have to convince anyone that you have the requisite experience for the task at hand, or, conversely, that you're not overqualified. No one has to hire you and no one can fire you.

Nor, like the ordinary tradesman, are you dependent upon the good will of your customers. That's just as well, as ill will is what they'd bear you, and it's all to the good if they never know more about you than that you've paid them a visit. But you don't have to drum up business, and you don't have to deal with suppliers, and no avaricious landlord can raise the rent on your business premises, because you don't have any.

Your business is essentially unaffected by booms and busts in the national or world economy. There's a built-in hedge against inflation-the value of what you steal keeps pace with your higher costs-and depression won't throw you out of work. (The competition's a little keener in bad times, as otherwise solid citizens decide to find out what's behind Door Number Three, but that's all right. There's always enough to go around.)

You don't need a license from the city or state, either, and there's no union to join, no dues to pay, and no paperwork to fill out. On the other hand, there's no pension plan, and since you don't pay taxes neither do you qualify for Social Security and Medicare and all the other benefits that sparkle like diamonds in the setting of the golden years. No sick days, either, and no paid vacation. No health care. Bottom line, you're pretty much on your own.

You set your own hours, of course, and you'll never find yourself putting in a forty-hour week. Even allowing for study and research, you're not likely to work forty hours in the course of an entire month. Once you get down to cases, time is of the essence, and burglary, unlike some other pursuits, does not reward the chap who makes the whole thing last as long as possible. The idea is to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

All of this sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Even the drawbacks-no pension, no security, no guaranteed annual wage-are part of the image of the romantic self-sufficient loner, making his rugged-individualist way in the world. You can almost hear country music playing in the background, and Merle Haggard urging you to chuck the effete urban rat race and move to Montana like a man.

Well, there's a downside. For one thing, you never get to feel like a useful and productive member of society, because you're not. Even if you can shrug off the natural guilt that comes from taking things that don't belong to you, even if you rationalize it by arguing with Proudhon that all property is theft, there's nothing to give you a sense of accomplishment.

A construction worker, walking past a skyscraper, can say to himself, "Hey, I built that." An obstetrician, lamenting the endless escalation of his malpractice insurance premiums, can console himself with the thought of all the children he brought into the world. A chef, a hooker, a bartender, even a drug dealer, can rejoice at the day's end with the thought that any number of people feel better for having been his or her customers that day.

And what can a burglar tell himself? "Hey, see that house? I broke into that house, robbed ' em blind. Stole everything but the paint off the walls. Made out like a bandit. And that's just one of my houses…"

Great. And that's not the worst of it, either.

Because here's the thing: you can get caught. And, if they catch you, they'll throw you in prison.

For all I know, you may have romantic ideas about prison. Maybe you figure you'll finally get to read Proust. Maybe you watchedOz, overlooked the less savory aspects, and decided it would be neat to be a part of all that high drama and snappy dialogue. Well, put those notions right out of your head. I've been there-just once, and just briefly, thank God and St. Dismas-and I have to say I learned my lesson.

Because it's really horrible inside. All the freedom that makes burglary attractive is taken away from you, and people are forever telling you what to do. The guards are unpleasant, and your fellow prisoners are no bargain, either. I mean, consider what they did to get locked up there. All in all, I have to say you meet a better class of people on the D train.

And you won't read Proust, either, orWar and Peace, or any of the worthy works you've promised yourself you'd get around to if you only had the time. You'll have plenty of time, but it's noisy inside, noisy all the time, with people yelling and banging things and doors slamming. IfOz had shown that aspect of prison life realistically, nobody could have heard the snappy dialogue. The background roar would have drowned it out.

The right or wrong of it aside, burglary just doesn't make sense. I know I should give it up, and believe me, I've tried. I couldn't tell you how many times I've sworn off. Once I actually managed to stay away from it for a couple of years, and then I knocked off an apartment, and I was hooked again. It's an addiction, a compulsion, and so far I haven't found a 12-Step program that addresses it. I suppose I could start up a chapter of Burglars Anonymous, and we wouldn't even have to find a church willing to rent us a meeting place. We could just break into a loft somewhere.

Until then, the best I can do is remember the lesson I learned in prison. It wasn't the one they hoped to teach me-Thou Shalt Not Steal-but a pragmatic variation thereof-Don't Get Caught.

The way to avoid getting caught is to keep risk to a minimum, and the way to manage that is to size up each potential job in advance and do as much planning and preparation as possible. Consider the Mapes house, if you will. I'd been provided in advance with some useful information about Mapes-the location of his safe, the likelihood that it would contain cash, and the happy knowledge that it was cash he hadn't reported to the government, which meant he might very well choose not to report the burglary to the authorities. I'd established who lived in the house-just Mapes and his wife, his kids were grown and had long since moved away-and learned that Mr. and Mrs. Mapes had season tickets to the Met, and that's where they'd be come Friday night. I'd dropped by Lincoln Center -it's just five minutes from my apartment-and determined that the opera they were seeing would keep them in their seats until close to midnight.

And then, two nights before the event, I'd gone up for a look-see. I'd assessed the locks and the alarm system, probed the defenses, and kept at it until I saw a way through them. Then I'd gone home, prepared to devote another two days to refining my plan and working out the details.

That didn't mean nothing could go wrong. Here's another maxim:Something can always go wrong. Either of the Mapeses could come down with a migraine and decide that it was no night for Mozart. Mapes's daughter-in-law could have kicked her spouse out of the house-if he was a shitheel like his father, God knows she'd have ample cause-prompting the junior Mapes to come home with his tail, among other things, between his legs, ready to hole up in his old room until his wife came to her senses. I could let myself in and find him there, a former college athlete who still worked out regularly at the gym, and who'd lately added a course in martial arts, all the better to defend the family home against a hapless burglar.

I could go on, but you get the point. Something can always go wrong, but that doesn't mean you just plunge blindly ahead, kicking in the first door you come to.

And here I was, on the prowl. Walking the darkened streets, gloves in one pocket, tools in another, risking life and liberty for no good reason. I knew what I was doing, and I damn well should have known better.

I was acting out, that's what I was doing. I felt crummy because I didn't have a girlfriend and I was leading a purposeless existence, and I wanted to do something to change my mood, and I didn't have the urge to get drunk or chase women, somehow knowing that neither would do me any good.

I caught a cab, had the driver drop me at the corner of Park Avenue and 38th Street. I walked the streets of Murray Hill, knowing I was making a big mistake, knowing nothing good could come of this, knowing I was courting disaster.

And here's the worst part of all: It felt wonderful.