The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (10 page)

If
I took the trouble to write to the advertisers and wait for their orders and wrap the books and ship them. That was the trouble with the used-book business. There were so many niggling things you had to attend to, so much watching the pence in hope that the pounds would take care of themselves. I didn’t make a decent living from Barnegat Books, didn’t even make a profit at it, but I probably could have if I’d had that infinite
capacity for taking pains that success seems to demand.

The thing is, I love the book business. But I like to do it my way, which is to say in a distinctly casual fashion. Burglary spoils one. When you’ve grown accustomed to turning a big dollar in a few hours by means of illegal entry, it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm for a lot of routine work that won’t yield more than the price of a movie ticket.

Still, it was fun reading through the ads and checking off titles. Even if I’d probably never follow it up.

I called Denise around nine. Jared answered, told me
Babel-17
was all he’d hoped it would be, then summoned his mother to the phone. We talked for a few minutes about nothing in particular. Carolyn’s name came up, I don’t remember how, and Denise referred to her as “that lesbian dwarf, the fat little one who always smells of Wet Dog.”

“Funny,” I said, “she always speaks well of you.”

Carolyn called a little later. “I was thinking about what we were talking about,” she said. “You’re not going to do anything about it, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“Because it’s impossible, Bern. Remember the conversation we had with Abel? The fire escape’s on the front of the building and he’s got gates on the window anyway. And the doorman takes his job twice as seri
ously as Saint Peter, and there are those police locks on the doors—”

“There used to be,” I said, “but the cops got a locksmith to open one of them.”

“What’s the difference? You still can’t get into the building.”

“I know.”

“And it’s driving you crazy, isn’t it?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Because it’s driving me crazy, too. Bernie, if we hadn’t already stolen the damned coin once, and all you knew about it was that it was probably somewhere in that apartment, an apartment the police have probably sealed off because someone was killed in it yesterday, and you knew what kind of security they have in the building and all, and you knew that the coin was probably hidden somewhere in the apartment and that you wouldn’t even know where to start looking for it, assuming it was there in the first place, which you can’t be positive of—”

“I get the picture, Carolyn.”

“Well, assuming all that, would you even think twice about stealing the coin?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“But we already stole it once.”

“I know.”

“And that makes me tend to think of it as my coin,”
I explained. “They say thieves don’t respect private property. Well, I have a very strongly developed sense of private property, as long as it’s my property we’re talking about. And it’s not just the money, either. I had a great rarity in my hands and now I’ve got nothing. Think what a blow that is to the old self-esteem.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s good.”

“Because there’s nothing I
can
do.”

“Right. That’s what I wanted to check, Bern. I’m on my way over to the Duchess. Maybe I’ll get lucky and meet somebody sensational.”

“Good luck.”

“I’m so goddamn restless lately. Must be a full moon. Maybe I’ll run into Angela. She’ll be feeding the jukebox and playing all the Anne Murray records. I guess she must be straight, huh?”

“Anne Murray?”

“Angela. Figure she’s straight?”

“Probably.”

“If she’s straight and Abel was gay they could have raised poodles together.”

“And you could have clipped them.”

“I could have clipped the poodles, too. Jesus, how do I get out of this conversation?”

“I don’t know. Which way did you get in?”

“Bye, Bern.”

The eleven o’clock news brought no fresh revelations, and who wants a stale one? I turned the set off as soon as they’d announced who Johnny’s guests were, grabbed a jacket and went out. I hiked up West End Avenue, took a left at Eighty-sixth, walked the rest of the way on Riverside Drive.

The air was cooler now, and heavy with impending rain. You couldn’t see any stars but you hardly ever can in New York, even on cloudless nights. The pollution’s always thick enough to obscure them. I did see a moon, about half full with a haze around it. That means something, either that it’s going to rain or it isn’t, but I can never remember which.

There were a surprising number of people on the street—joggers plodding around Riverside Park, dog owners walking their pets, other people bringing home a quart of milk and the early edition of the
Times
. I crossed the street for a better view and looked up at Abel’s building, counting floors to find his window. It was dark, naturally enough. I let my eyes travel around the corner and noted the fire escape on the Eighty-ninth Street side. It looked substantial enough, but it was right out there in plain view and you couldn’t reach the bottom rungs from the sidewalk unless you had a long ladder.

Pointless anyway. As Carolyn had made quite clear.

I walked toward Ninetieth Street. The building im
mediately adjacent to Abel’s stood three stories taller, which meant I couldn’t get from its roof to Abel’s unless I was prepared to lower myself on a rope. I wasn’t, nor did I have any reason to assume security there would be any less rigid than at its neighbor. I returned to Eighty-ninth Street and walked a few doors past Abel’s building. It was bounded on that side by a long row of late-nineteenth-century brownstones, all of them four stories tall. The windows in Abel’s building that looked out over the brownstones were too high to be readily accessible from the rooftop, and there were steel guards over them anyway.

I started walking toward West End Avenue again, then doubled back for another look, feeling like an addled criminal drawn irresistibly back to the scene of someone else’s crime. The doorman was the same stiff-spined black man who’d been on duty during our previous visit, and he looked as formidable as ever. I watched him from across the street. Waste of time, I told myself. I wasn’t accomplishing anything. I was as restless as Carolyn and instead of going to the Duchess I was going through the motions.

I crossed the street, approached the entrance. The building was a massive old pile of brick, safe as a fortress and solid as the Bank of England. Engaged columns of a dull red marble flanked the double entrance doors. Bronze plaques on either side announced the professional tenants within. I noted three shrinks, a
dentist, an ophthalmologist, a podiatrist and a pediatrician, a fairly representative Upper West Side mix.

I saw no plaque for Abel Crowe, Receiver of Stolen Goods, and I shook my head at the thought. Give me half a chance and I can become disgustingly maudlin.

The doorman approached, asked if he could help me. I got the feeling he’d lately graduated with honors from an assertiveness-training workshop.

“No,” I said sadly. “Too late for that.” And I turned away and went home.

The phone rang while I unlocked all of my locks and gave up in mid-ring as I was shoving the door open. If it’s important, I told myself, they’ll call back.

I took a shower which no one could have called premature, got into bed, dozed off. I was dreaming about a perilous descent—a fire escape, a catwalk, something vague—when the phone rang. I sat up, blinked a few times, answered it.

“I want the coin,” a male voice said.

“Huh?”

“The nickel. I want it.”

“Who is this?”

“Not important. You have the coin and I want it. Don’t dispose of it. I’ll contact you.”

“But—”

The phone clicked in my ear. I fumbled it back onto the receiver. The bedside clock said it was a quarter to
two. I hadn’t been sleeping long, just long enough to get into the swing of it. I lay down and reviewed the phone call and tried to decide whether to get up and do something about it.

While I was thinking it over I fell back asleep.

M
urray Feinsinger’s goatee had just a touch of gray in it a little to the right of center. He looked to be around forty, with a round face, a receding hairline, and massive horn-rimmed glasses that had the effect of magnifying his brown eyes. He was kneeling now and looking up at me, with my shoe in one hand and my bare foot in the other. My sock lay on the floor beside him like a dead laboratory rat.

“Narrow feet,” he said. “Long, narrow feet.”

“Is that bad?”

“Only if it’s extreme, and yours aren’t. Just a little narrower than average, but you’re wearing Pumas, which are a little wider than average. Not as much so as the wide versions of shoes that come in widths, but what do you need with extra width when you’ve got a narrow foot to begin with? Your feet wind up with too
much room and that increases the tendency of the ankle to pronate. That means it turns in, like this”—he positioned my foot for demonstration—“and that’s the source of all your problems.”

“I see.”

“New Balance makes variable widths. You could try a pair on for size. Or there’s Brooks—they make a good shoe and they’re a little on the narrow side, and they ought to fit you fine.”

“That’s great,” I said, and would have gotten up from the chair, except it’s tricky when somebody’s holding one of your feet. “I’ll just get a new pair of shoes,” I said, “and then I’ll be all set.”

“Not so fast, my friend. How long have you been running?”

“Not very long.”

“Matter of fact, you just started. Am I right?”

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even started, and didn’t intend to. But I told him he was right. And then I emitted a foolish little giggle, not because anything struck me funny but because the good Dr. Feinsinger was tickling my foot.

“That tickle?”

“A little.”

“Inhibition,” he said. “That’s what makes tickling. I tickle people day in and day out. No avoiding it when you’ve got your hands full of other people’s feet for six or eight hours at a stretch. Ever tickle your own feet?”

“I never gave it a thought.”

“Well, trust me—you couldn’t do it if you tried. It wouldn’t work. The ticklishness is a response to being touched in a certain way by another person. Inhibition. That’s what it’s all about.”

“That’s very interesting,” I said. Untruthfully.

“I tickle a patient less over a period of time. Not that I touch him differently. But he gets used to my touch. Less inhibited. That’s what tickling’s all about. And what your feet are all about, my friend, is something else again. Know what you’ve got?”

Five toes on each of them, I thought, and a loquacious podiatrist for company. But evidently it was something more serious than that. I hadn’t expected this.

“You’ve got Morton’s Foot,” he said.

“I do?”

“No question about it.” He curled his index finger and flicked it sharply against my index toe. “Morton’s Foot. Know what that means?”

Death, I thought. Or amputation, or thirty years in a wheelchair, and at the least I’d never play the piano again. “I really don’t know,” I admitted. “I suppose it has something to do with salt.”

“Salt?” He looked confused, but only for a moment. “Morton’s Foot,” he said, and flicked my toe again. It didn’t tickle, so maybe I was overcoming my inhibitions. “Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? All it means is that
this toe here”—another flick—“is longer than your big toe. Morton’s the doctor who first described the syndrome, and what it amounts to is a structural weakness of the foot. I have a hunch it’s a throwback to the time when we all lived in trees and used our big toes as thumbs and wrapped our second toes around vines and branches for leverage. Next time you get to the Bronx Zoo, make sure you go to the monkey house and look at the little buggers’ feet.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Not that Morton’s Foot is like being born with a tail, for God’s sake. In fact, it’s more common to have Morton’s Foot than not to have it, which is bad news for runners but good news for podiatrists. So you’ve not only got a nasty-sounding complaint, my friend, but you’ve got a very
ordinary
nasty-sounding complaint.”

All my life the only trouble I’d had with my feet was when some klutz stepped on them on the subway. Of course I’d never tried wrapping my toes around vines. I asked Feinsinger if what I had was serious.

“Not if you live a normal life. But runners”—and he chuckled with real pleasure here—“runners give up normal life the day they buy their first pair of waffle trainers. That’s when Morton’s Foot starts causing problems. Pain in the ball of the foot, for example. Heel spurs, for instance. Shin splints. Achilles tendinitis. Excessive pronation—remember our old friend
pronation?” And he refreshed my memory by yanking my ankle inward. “And then,” he said darkly, “there’s always chondromalacia.”

“There is?”

He nodded with grim satisfaction. “Chondromalacia. The dreaded Runner’s Knee, every bit as fearful as Tennis Elbow.”

“It sounds terrible.”

“Potentially terrible. But never fear,” he added brightly, “for Feinsinger’s here, and relief is right around the corner. All you need is the right pair of custom orthotics and you can run until your heart gives out. And for that I’ll refer you to my brother-in-law Ralph. He’s the cardiologist in the family.” He patted my foot. “Just my little joke. Stay with running and the chances are you won’t
need
a cardiologist. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself. All we have to do is make sure your feet are up to it, and that’s where I come in.”

Orthotics, it turned out, were little inserts for me to wear in my shoes. They would be custom-made for me out of layers of leather and cork after the good Dr. Feinsinger took impressions of my feet, which he did right there and then before I had much of a chance to think about what I was getting into. He took my bare feet one at a time and pressed them into a box containing something like styrofoam, except softer.

“You’ve made a good first impression,” he assured me. “Now come into the other room for a moment, my friend. I want to have a look at your bones.”

I followed him, walking springily on the balls of my feet, while he told me how my personal pair of orthotics would not only enable me to run without pain but were virtually certain to change my whole life, improve my posture and penmanship, and very likely elevate my character in the bargain. He led me into a cubicle down the hall where a menacing contraption with a faintly dental air about it was mounted on the wall. He had me sit in a chair and swung the gadget out from the wall so that a cone-shaped protuberance was centered over my right foot.

“I don’t know about this,” I said.

“Guaranteed painless. Trust me, friend.”

“You hear a lot of things about X rays, don’t you? Sterility, things like that.”

“All I take is a one-second exposure and nothing goes higher than the ankle. Sterility? There’s such a thing as the ball of the foot, my friend, but unless you’ve actually got your balls in your feet I assure you you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

In a matter of minutes the machine had done its nasty work and I was back in the other room pulling up my socks and lacing up my Pumas. They had never felt wide before, but they certainly felt wide now. With every step I took I imagined my Mortonic feet slipping
dangerously from side to side. Heel spurs, shin splints, the dreaded Runner’s Knee—

And then we were back in the reception room where I let a redhead with a Bronx accent book an appointment three weeks hence for me to pick up my orthotics. “The full price is three hundred dollars,” she told me, “and that includes the lab charges and this visit and all subsequent visits, in case you need any adjustments. It’s a one-time charge and there’s nothing additional, and of course it’s fully deductible for taxes.”

“Three hundred dollars,” I said.

“No cost compared to other sports,” Feinsinger said. “Look what you’d spend on a single ski weekend, let alone buying your equipment. Look at the hourly rates they’re getting for tennis courts. All you have to do to get the full benefits of running is get out there and run, and isn’t it worth it to spend a few dollars on the only feet God gave you?”

“And running’s good for me, I guess.”

“Best thing in the world for you. Improves your cardiovascular system, tones your muscles, keeps you trim and fit. But your feet take a pounding, and if they’re not set up to handle the task—”

Three hundred dollars still seemed pretty pricey for a custom version of the little arch supports they sell for $1.59 at the corner drugstore. But it dawned on me that I didn’t have to pay it now, that a thirty-dollar deposit
would keep everybody happy, and in three weeks’ time they could sit around wondering why I hadn’t shown up. I handed over three tens and pocketed the receipt the redhead handed me.

“Running must be great for podiatrists,” I ventured.

Feinsinger beamed. “Nothing like it,” he said. “Nothing in the world. You know what this business was a few years ago? Old ladies with feet that hurt. Of course they hurt, they weighed three hundred pounds and bought shoes that were too small. I removed corns, I wrapped bunions, I did a little of this and a little of that and I told myself I was a professional person and success wasn’t all that important to me.

“Now it’s a whole new world. Sports podiatry is my entire practice. Feinsinger orthotics were on the road in Boston last month. Feinsinger orthotics carried dozens upon dozens of runners to the finish line of the New York Marathon last October. I have patients who love me. They know I’m helping them and they love me. And I’m a success. You’re lucky I had a cancellation this morning or I’d never have been able to fit you in. I’m booked way in advance. And you want to know something? I like success. I like getting ahead in the world. You get a taste of it, my friend, and you develop an appetite for it.”

He dropped an arm around my shoulders, led me through a waiting room where several slender gentlemen sat reading back copies of
Runner’s World
and
Running Times.
“I’ll see you in three weeks,” he said. “Meanwhile you can run in the shoes you’re wearing. Don’t buy new shoes because you’ll want to have the orthotics when you try ’em on. Just go nice and easy for the time being. Not too far and not too fast, and I’ll see you in three weeks.”

Out in the hallway, the Pumas felt incredibly clumsy. Odd I’d never noticed their ungainly width in the past. I walked on down the carpeted hall to the elevator, glanced over my shoulder, looked around furtively, and went on past the elevator to open the door to the stairwell.

I wasn’t sure what effect Morton’s Foot might have on stairclimbing. Was I running a heavy risk of the dreaded Climber’s Fetlock?

I went ahead and took my chances. Murray Feinsinger’s office was on the fourth floor, which left me with seven flights to ascend. I was panting long before I reached my destination, either because my feet lacked the benefit of orthotics or because my cardiovascular system had not yet been improved by long-distance running. Or both of the above.

Whatever the cause, a minute or two was time enough for me to catch my breath. Then I eased the door open, looked both ways much like a tractable child about to cross a street, and walked past the elevator and down another carpeted hallway to the door of Abel Crowe’s apartment.

Well, why else would I be getting my feet tickled? I had awakened a few hours earlier, had a shower and a shave, and while I sat spreading gooseberry preserves on an English muffin and waiting for my coffee to drip through, I recalled my reconnaissance mission to Riverside Drive and the telephone call that had interrupted my sleep.

Someone wanted the coin.

That wasn’t news. When an object originally valued at five cents has increased over the years by a factor of approximately ten million, the world is full of people who wouldn’t be averse to calling it their own. Who wouldn’t want a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel?

But my caller not only wanted the coin. He wanted it from me. Which meant he knew the coin had been liberated from Colcannon’s safe, and he knew furthermore just who had been the instrument of its delivery.

Who was he? And how might he know a little thing or two like that?

I poured my coffee, munched my muffin, and sat a while in uffish thought. I found myself thinking of that impregnable fortress where my friend Abel had lived and died, and where the coin—my coin!—survived him. I pictured that doorman, a gold-braided Cerberus at the gate of hell, a three-headed Bouvier des Flandres in burgundy livery. (The old mind’s not at its best first thing in the morning, but the imagination is capable of
great flights of fancy.) I visualized that entrance, those dull rosy marble columns, the bronze plaques. Three shrinks, a dentist, a pediatrician, a podiatrist, an ophthalmologist—

Whereupon dawn broke.

I finished breakfast and became very busy. I hadn’t remembered the names on those plaques, or bothered noticing them in the first place, so for openers I cabbed up to Eighty-ninth and Riverside, where I sauntered nonchalantly past the entrance and quickly memorized the seven names in question. A few doors down the street I took a moment to jot them all down before they fled my memory, and then I continued east to Broadway, where I had a cup of coffee at the counter of a Cuban Chinese luncheonette. Perhaps the Cuban food’s good there, or the Chinese food. The coffee tasted as though each roasted bean had been tossed lightly in rancid butter before grinding.

I turned a dollar into dimes and made phone calls. I tried the psychiatrists first and found them all booked up through the following week. I made an appointment with the last of them for a week from Monday, figuring I could always show up for it if nothing else materialized by then, by which time a shrink’s services might be just what I needed.

Then I looked at the four remaining names. The pediatrician would be tricky, I decided, unless I wanted to borrow Jared Raphaelson for the occasion, and I
wasn’t sure that I did. The dentist might be able to fit me in, especially if I pleaded an emergency, but did I want some unknown quantity belaboring my mouth? As things stand, I get free life-time dental care from Craig Sheldrake, the World’s Greatest Dentist, and I’d last seen Craig just a couple of weeks ago when I’d dropped by for a cleaning. My mouth was in no need of a dentist’s attention, and I didn’t feel much like saying Ah.