The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) (33 page)

Outside, the rush hour traffic had thinned enough to make a cab seem sensible, and I wasn’t worried about leaving a trail. The driver’s radio was blaring in a language I didn’t recognize, and he was yammering into a no-hands cell phone in what may have been the same language, and the smoke in the cab’s interior was thick enough to skate on, and only some of it was tobacco. This guy wasn’t going to remember our meeting, and if I took a couple of deep breaths, neither would I.

I had him go through the park and drop me at 90
th
and Lexington, more out of habit than real concern; he hadn’t made a note on his trip sheet when I got in, and was unlikely to do so now. I walked two blocks uptown and spotted the Ostermaier house right off, still wearing its garland of crime-scene tape.

I remember how Ray had approached the place on our earlier visit, mounting the steps and unfastening the tape as if he had every right in the world to be there. There’s a way cops have of walking, and I figured I’d look bogus if I set out to imitate it, but I took a couple of deep breaths and tried at least for an aura of confident nonchalance, or perhaps nonchalant confidence.

The padlock was as easy as I thought it would be, and once I’d opened it I was in. I brought the padlock inside with me, put on my gloves, bolted the door from within, and got busy.

It took me a little longer than I’d have preferred. It was 7:18 when I cracked the padlock, 7:41 when I snapped it in place and reattached the yellow tape. I was still wearing gloves, but that fit the image, and now that I’d had my look at the crime scene I peeled them off the way any cop would and stuffed them back in my pocket.

I guess I looked a little bit like a cop, because a young guy walking a dog gave me the sort of wave designed to assure me that he too was on the side of the law. I decided he had to be holding some form of mood-altering substance, probably of vegetable origin, because why else would he bother?

I stayed in character. I dismissed him with a glance I’d seen often enough on Ray’s face, and walked off confidently and nonchalantly in the other direction.

My phone had vibrated while I was in the Ostermaier house, but I’d been in too much of a hurry to check it. I did so as I rounded the corner at Third Avenue. It was Carolyn, and I called her back.

“Hello,” she said. “Bern, I’ve been waiting all my life for a chance to say that.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “You say it all the time.”

“Huh?”

“‘Hello.’ You say it every time you pick up a telephone.”

“I was waiting on the corner,” she said, “and I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, on account of I never saw the guy before. I was hoping he’d be wearing the English jacket with all the pearl buttons, because that would pretty much give him away.”

“He was wearing a seersucker suit.”

“No kidding. I thought it was him when a cab pulled up smack in front of the Bum Rap and he got out of it, because most of their customers don’t get there in a taxi.”

“With most of them,” I said, “it’s a wonder that they get there at all.”

“And there’s apt to be a certain amount of staggering involved. Anyway, I had a feeling it was him when he got out of the cab, and I was pretty sure when he looked around furtively before going inside.”

“And then you saw me sharing a table with him, and that cinched it.”

“Not right away. First I flagged a cab of my own, and got him to wait. Then I saw the two of you, and you gave me a nod, and I went outside again and got in the cab. ‘Just wait a minute,’ I told him. And he did, and the guy came out with his seersucker suit and his briefcase and started walking down Broadway, and I got my guy to creep along so we could keep him in sight, but without catching up to him. I have to say it’s no mean trick to follow somebody in a seersucker suit. It sort of stands out in a crowd, and the street wasn’t even crowded to begin with.”

“Makes it easier.”

“It does. And then he stepped off the curb and held his hand up, and a taxi pulled up right away, and I finally got my chance to say it.”

“ ‘Follow that cab!’ ”

“Yeah. My driver was this Jamaican guy with dreads and an earring, and I guess he grew up watching the same movies we did, because he thought this was the neatest thing ever. ‘Don’t lose him now,’ I said, and he hooted at the very idea.”

“And it worked?”

“He got a funny look when we were coming up on the Brooklyn Bridge. That old ‘I don’t go to Brooklyn’ look. I showed him a fifty and told him I didn’t expect change, and he just smiled and smiled. Anyway, we didn’t go all that far into Brooklyn. You got a pencil, Bern? Write this down.”

I had a memo pad with a batch of notes already on it, and I added a new address to my list. “I’m across the street right now,” she said, “in a pizza parlor, sitting by the window so I can keep an eye on his front door. I’ve been here for a little over an hour.”

“And he hasn’t come out?”

“Not through the front door. I kept the cab for five minutes, just in case he ducked in and ducked out again. That cost me another ten bucks.”

“Well worth it.”

“What I thought. But he didn’t, and I let the guy go. I think he’s in for the night.”

“I think you’re probably right. He’s home, and looking at his spoon. You can probably head home yourself.”

“Well, I’m like three short blocks from the Number Two train, and then the One’s right across the platform at Chambers Street. I think I’ll stick around another fifteen or twenty minutes. I mean, another slice of pizza wouldn’t kill me.”

I decided a slice of pizza wouldn’t kill me, either, and I got one on Second Avenue and chomped away at it as I continued east. It lasted me across First Avenue and halfway down the block to York, where I turned right and found Deirdre Ostermaier’s building.

It was one of those white brick buildings that went up all over the city in the 1960s, with tiny terraces for all but the smallest studios, and all the charm of an industrial park on the outskirts of Indianapolis. Her apartment was 17-J, and it would help to know whether or not she was home.

I had a phone number for her, but it started with 917, which meant it was a cell phone. She didn’t seem to have a landline. I used my burner and called her cell phone, just to see if I could learn anything that way, and it went straight to Voice Mail.

So what I’d just learned was that either she was home or she wasn’t.

Well, I’d already known that much, hadn’t I? And I could find out simply enough by asking for her at the front desk. She didn’t need a landline for the attendant to reach her on the intercom. If she didn’t pick up, she was out.

And either way I was screwed. If she was home, what was I going to do, tell the doorman I’d changed my mind? And if she was out, how was I going to sneak past him, having already called attention to myself?

Okay. Plan B:

I walked to the corner and stood with my cell phone to my ear, having a spirited conversation with myself. “Is that right?” I said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I told him . . . You think so? . . . I suppose that’s not a bad idea.”

And so on.

I bided my time, keeping an eye on passersby and weighing the possibilities, until I made my choice and fell into step with a fortyish woman carrying a sack of groceries. “Oh, hi,” I said. “I guess we’re not getting that rain after all.”

She had the guarded look of a person trying to decide whether I was an unrecognized acquaintance or an ambulatory psychotic.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We nod and smile at each other all the time in the lobby and the elevator, but I don’t think we’ve ever actually exchanged names. I’m Don Farber.”

She relaxed, and told me her name, which I didn’t quite catch, but what difference does it make? We chatted about the weather, and speculated on the scheduled redecoration of the lobby, and all of that carried me past the concierge and into the unattended elevator. When the elevator stopped at Twelve we urged one another to have a good night, and I rode on alone to Seventeen.

I’d already narrowed the possibilities to two: either Deirdre was home or she wasn’t. Well, if she was home, she’d open her door to a stranger who’d apologize for having got off the elevator at the wrong floor. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I wanted Eighteen-J,” the fellow would say, shaking his head at his own stupidity, and heading for the elevator.

If she was out, she wouldn’t open the door. The stranger would.

And that’s what happened. I listened, heard nothing but my own shallow breathing, rang the bell, heard nothing but the bell, knocked briskly, breathed a little more deeply, and picked the lock.

Nothing to it, really. The lock was the building’s original equipment. It locked by itself when you closed the door, and she hadn’t bothered to use the key to turn the bolt. And why should she? She lived in a building with a doorman, so what did she have to worry about?

I didn’t know where she was, or how long she’d be gone, so it wouldn’t do to dawdle. Nor did I. Fifteen minutes later I was back on the ground floor, giving the attendant a nod and a wave on my way out.

A cab was just pulling up to let someone out. I grabbed it.

“Hello, Boyd?”

“No, sorry, this is Stephen.”

“Oh, hi! This is Elliott. You remember, we met at, um—”

“Cappy and Susan’s do?”

“Yes! You do remember!”

“How could I forget?”

How indeed? “I suppose Boyd’s working.”

“Of course he is. After all, this is one of those days that ends in a Y.”

“Oh, that’s nice, Stephen. I’ll have to remember that one. And I suppose afterward it’ll be a quiet evening at home for the two of you.”

“Perish the thought. I’m meeting him at the Butcher’s Hook at eleven.”

“Always a nice venue on a Thursday.”

“Isn’t it? But I’ve a feeling he’ll be a few minutes late. He so often is. I, on the other hand, am always early.”

“Just a few minutes early, Stephen?”

“What time is it? Getting on for nine. Good grief, how time flies.”

“Whether or not one’s having fun.”

“So true, Elliott. You know, I might get there at ten, now that I think about it.”

“At ten? You know, Stephen, you just might see me there.”

“Oh? That would be nice, Elliott.”

I rang off, returned my burner to my pocket. “Change in plans,” I told the driver. “Fourth Street and First Avenue.”