The Burglar Who liked to Quote Kipling

CHAPTER Fifteen

When he came to the phone I apologized for the intrusion. “Your wife didn’t want to disturb you,” I said, “but I told her it was important.”

“Well, I got Wake Forest and ten points,” he said. “So all I been doin’ is watch twenty bucks go down the chute.”

“Who are they playing?”

“ University of Georgia. The Bulldogs got what they call the Junkyard Dog defense. All it means is they’re chewin’ the ass offa poor Wake Forest.” There was a long and thoughtful pause. “Who the hell,” he said, “is this?”

“Just an old friend and enemy who needs a favor.”

“Jesus, it’s you. Kid, I seen you step in it before, but I swear this time you got both feet smack in the middle of God’s birthday cake. Where are you callin’ from, anyway?”

“The Slough of Despond. I need a favor, Ray.”

“Jesus, that’s the truth. Well, you came to the right place. You want me to set up a surrender, right? First smart move you made since you iced the Porlock dame. You stay out there and it’s just a question of time before somebody tags you, and what do you want to get shot for? And the word is shoot first on you, Bern.” He clucked at me. “That wasn’t too brilliant, you know. Shootin’ a cop. The department takes a dim view.”

“I never shot him.”

“C’mon, kid. He was there, right? He saw you.”

“He saw a clown with a beard and a turban. I never shot him and I never shot her either.”

“And all you do is sell books. You told me the whole story, remember? How you’re straight as a javelin and all? Listen, you’ll be okay now. I’ll set up a surrender, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it. Makes me look good, no question about it, and it saves your ass. You get yourself a decent lawyer and who knows, you might even beat the whole thing in court. Worst comes to worst, so you do a couple of years upstate. You done that before.”

“Ray, I never-”

“One thing that’s not so good, this Rockland kid’s young and feisty, you know? If it was an old-timer you shot, he’d probably take a couple of kay to roll over in court and fudge the testimony. ’Course, if it was an old-timer, he probably woulda shot you instead of waitin’ to get hisself shot in the foot. So I guess you break even on that one, Bern.”

We went a few more rounds, me proclaiming my innocence while he told me how I could cop a plea and probably get off with writing “I won’t steal no more” one hundred times on the blackboard after school. Eventually I shifted gears and told him there was something specific I wanted from him.

“Oh?”

“I have three phone numbers. I want you to run them down for me.”

“You nuts, Bernie? You know what’s involved in tracin’ a call? You gotta set up in advance, you gotta be able to reach somebody at the phone company on another line, and then you gotta keep the mark on the phone for a couple of minutes and even then they sometimes can’t make the trace work. And then if you-”

“I already know the three numbers, Ray.”

“Huh?”

“I know the numbers, I want to know the locations of the phones. As if I already traced the calls successfully and I want to know where I traced them to.”

“Oh.”

“You could do that, couldn’t you?”

He thought it over. “Sure,” he said, “but why should I?”

I gave him a very good reason.

“I don’t know,” he said, after we’d discussed my very good reason for a few minutes. “Seems to me I’m takin’ a hell of a chance.”

“What chance? You’ll make a phone call, that’s all.”

“Meanwhile I’m cooperatin’ with a fugitive from justice. That’s not gonna go down too good if anybody ever hears about it.”

“Who’s going to hear?”

“You never know. Another thing, how in the hell are you ever gonna deliver? You make it sound good, but how can you deliver? If some rookie with high marks on the pistol range whacks you out, Bern, where does that leave me?”

“It leaves you alive. Think where it leaves me.”

“That’s why I’m sayin’ you oughta surrender.”

“Nobody’s going to shoot me,” I said, with perhaps a shade more confidence than I possessed. “And I’ll deliver what I promised. When did I ever let you down?”

“Well…”

“Ray, all you have to do is make a phone call or two. Isn’t it worth a shot? For Christ’s sake, if Wake Forest is worth a twenty-dollar investment-”

“Don’t remind me. My money’s gurglin’ down the drain and I’m not even watchin’ it go.”

“Look at the odds I’m giving you. All you got with Wake Forest is ten points.”

“Yeah.” I listened while his mental wheels spun. “You ever tell anybody we had this conversation-”

“You know me better than that, Ray.”

“Yeah, you’re all right. Okay, gimme the numbers.”

I gave them to him and he repeated them in turn.

“All right,” he said. “Now gimme the number where you’re at and I’ll get back to you soon as I can.”

“Sure,” I said. “The number here.” I was about to read it off the little disc on the telephone when Carolyn grabbed my arm and showed me a face overflowing with alarm. “Uh, I don’t think so,” I told Ray. “If it’s that easy for you to find out where a phone’s located-”

“ Bern, what kind of a guy do you think I am?”

I let that one glide by. “Besides,” I said, “I’m on my way out the door, anyway. Best thing is if I call you back. How much time do you need?”

“Depends what kind of cooperation I get from the phone company.”

“Say half an hour?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds good. Try me in half an hour, Bernie.”

I cradled the receiver. Carolyn and both cats were looking at me expectantly. “A camera,” I said.

“Huh?”

“We’ve got half an hour to get a camera. A Polaroid, actually, unless you know somebody with a darkroom, and who wants to screw around developing film? We need a Polaroid. I don’t suppose you’ve got one?”

“No.”

“Is there one you could borrow? I hate the idea of running out and buying one. The midtown stores are likely to be crowded and I don’t even know if there’s a camera place in the Village. There’s stores on Fourteenth Street but the stuff they sell tends to fall apart on the way home. And there’s pawnshops on Third Avenue but I hate to make the rounds over there with a price on my head. Of course you could go over there and buy one.”

“If I knew what to buy. I’d hate to get it home and find out it doesn’t work. What do we need a camera for, anyway?”

“To take some pictures.”

“I never would have thought of that. It’s a shame Randy walked in when she did. She’s got one of those new Polaroids, you take the picture and it’s developed before you can let go of the shutter.”

“Randy’s got a Polaroid?”

“That’s what I just said. Didn’t I show you pictures of the cats last week?”

“Probably.”

“Well, she took them. But I can’t ask her to borrow it, because she’s convinced we’re having an affair and she’d probably think I wanted us to take obscene pictures of each other or something. And she’s probably not home, anyway.”

“Call her and see.”

“Are you kidding? I don’t want to talk to her.”

“Hang up if she answers.”

“Then why call in the first place?”

“Because if she’s not home,” I said, “we can go pick up the camera.”

“Beautiful.” She reached for the phone, then sighed and let her hand drop. “You’re forgetting something. Remember last night? I gave her keys back.”

“So?”

“Huh?”

“Who needs keys?”

She looked at me, laughed, shook her head, “Far out,” she said, and reached for the phone.

Randy lived in a tiny studio on the fifth floor of a squat brick apartment house on Morton Street between Seventh Avenue and Hudson. There’s an article in the New York building code requiring an elevator in every structure of seven or more stories. This one was six stories tall, and up the stairs we went.

The locks were candy. They wouldn’t have been much trouble if I’d been limited to my drugstore tools. Now that I had my pro gear, I went through them like the Wehrmacht through Luxembourg. When the penny dropped and the final lock snicked open, I looked up at Carolyn. Her mouth was wide open and her blue eyes were larger than I’d ever seen them.

“God,” she said. “It takes me longer than that when I’ve got the keys.”

“Well, they’re cheap locks. And I was showing off a little. Trying to impress you.”

“It worked. I’m impressed.”

We were in and out quicker than Speedy Gonzales. The camera was where Carolyn thought it would be, in the bottom drawer of Randy’s dresser. It nestled in a carrying case with a shoulder strap, and an ample supply of film reposed in the case’s zippered film compartment. Carolyn hung the thing over her shoulder, I locked the locks, and we were on our way home.

I’d told Ray I would call him in half an hour and I didn’t miss by more than a few minutes. He answered the phone himself this time. “Your friend moves around,” he said.

“Huh?”

“The guy with the three phone numbers. He covers a lot of ground. The Rhinelander number’s a sidewalk pay phone on the corner of Seventy-fifth and Madison. The Chelsea number’s also a pay phone. It’s located in the lobby of the Gresham Hotel. That’s on Twenty-third between Fifth and Sixth.”

“Hold on,” I said, scribbling furiously. “All right. How about the Worth number?”

“Downtown. I mean way downtown, in the Wall Street area. Twelve Pine Street.”

“Another lobby phone?”

“Nope. An office on the fourteenth floor. A firm called Tontine Trading Corp. Bern, let’s get back to the coat, huh? You said ranch mink, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you say the color was?”

“Silver-blue.”

“And it’s full-fashioned? You’re sure of that?”

“Positive. You can’t go wrong with this one, Ray. It’s carrying an Arvin Tannenbaum label, and that’s strictly carriage trade.”

“When can I have it?”

“In plenty of time for Christmas, Ray. No problem.”

“You son of a bitch. What are you givin’ me? You haven’t got the coat.”

“Of course not. I retired, Ray. I gave up burglary. What would I be doing with a hot coat?”

“Then where’d the coat come from?”

“I’m going to get it for you, Ray. After I get myself out of the jam I’m in.”

“Suppose you don’t get out of it, Bern? Then what?”

“Well, you better hope I do,” I said, “or else the coat’s down the same chute as your twenty-buck bet on Wake Forest.”