The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr)

by Lawrence Block

  “Who else? They’re the ones with something to steal. What kind of mope would waste his time stealing from the poor?”

  “Landlords,” Carolyn said. “And businessmen, and—”

  “All right,” he said, “give it a rest, Shorty. This Raffles, Bernie. This gentleman burglar you think so much of that you named your cat after him. He wasn’t a real person, was he?”

  “He was a very well-drawn character, Ray. People are still reading about him over a century later.”

  “But he’s a character, right? In a story?”

  “Quite a few stories, actually.”

  “Stories in a book.”

  “More than one book.”

  “So when you’re lookin’ to name a gentleman burglar,” he said, “the best you can come up with is a made-up character out of a batch of stories. Case closed, Bernie. You’re a vanishin’ breed and you always were.”

  Carolyn left a few minutes after Ray did, and I went back to pretending to be a bookseller. A few people came in, and a couple of them actually bought books, and a young man with cargo shorts and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt opened up his backpack to offer me half a dozen current bestsellers that looked brand-new.

  I offered him ten bucks for the lot, and stood firm when he tried to bargain. He took it, as I’d been sure he would, and when he was out the door I found shelf space for them and priced them at $9.99 apiece. Not ten minutes later one of my regulars came in, a hygienist who works for a dentist in the neighborhood, and she was on the new S.J. Rozan like a mongoose on a cobra. “Oh, I love her,” she said. “I’ve been looking for her new one. If you hadn’t had it I would have bought it new.”

  So it was a good deal for both of us, I thought, and it was even an acceptable transaction for the Springsteen fan, because he’d no more come by those books honestly than I was Marie of Romania.

  And then I remembered the last time I’d heard mention of that charismatic queen, and the context. And that put me right back in the mood I couldn’t seem to shake.

  A couple of hours later, after I’d talked through two rounds of drinks at the Bum Rap, Carolyn grabbed my wrist when I started to raise a hand for Maxine.

  “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  She raised her own hand, but only to scribble in the air. Nobody ever signed anything in the Bum Rap, except possibly a ransom note, but the signal for the check is universal, and Maxine brought ours. “I’ll pay,” Carolyn said, “because you’re buying the bottle.”

  “What bottle?”

  “The fifth of scotch we’re picking up on our way back to my place. You need to get drunk.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t usually get drunk. I have a drink or two, and sometimes I get a little tipsy, but I rarely let go and get drunk. But once in a while, it’s what I need to do.”

  “I know.”

  “And tonight’s one of those nights, and I didn’t even realize it. But you could tell. Carolyn, you know me better than I know myself.”

  “Well,” she said, “somebody has to.”

  Carolyn lives on Arbor Court, one of those little private streets in the West Village that tourists don’t know about and cabdrivers can’t find.

  We got there and settled in, and I cracked the scotch while Carolyn put out cat food for Archie and Ubi. Then she put out people food for us, filling a couple of bowls with the corn chips and trail mix we’d picked up en route. “Because we have to eat,” she’d said, “but we don’t have to make a whole production out of it.”

  I got a pair of rocks glasses, added ice cubes, and covered the ice cubes with scotch. It was Teacher’s Highland Cream, a cut below the top-shelf single malt that would have been my selection. “That’s for sipping,” Carolyn said, taking it from me, then giving it back because she couldn’t reach the top shelf to put it back. “Tonight is not a night for sipping, Bern. I’m not saying it’s a night for swigging, exactly, but we don’t want to devote too much time to appreciating the rich peaty taste. Besides, you don’t want to run through Mr. Smith’s money faster than you have to. It might have to last a while.”

  “I’m selling stolen bestsellers,” I reminded her, “and making money hand over fist.”

  We settled into our seats, drinks in hand, ice bucket within reach. I raised my glass and couldn’t think of a toast.

  “Happy days,” she suggested.

  “You’re a dreamer,” I said, and took a drink.

  “Maybe it’s time I got married.”

  “Bern,” she said, “I knew you were going to say that. I could see the subtitles crawling across your forehead.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Well, almost. Why do you think you ought to get married? So you can have a lifetime of perfect nights with Marie?”

  “Janine,” I said.

  “For me, Bern, she’ll always be Marie of Romania, and I’d say that’s as likely to be her name as Janine.”

  “She looked about as Romanian as you do.”

  “Oh? My grandfather on my mother’s side was born in Bucharest.”

  “Honestly?”

  “No, and his name wasn’t Marie, either. Or Janine.”

  “You’re mixing me up,” I said, “and I wish you wouldn’t. If I wanted to get married, it wouldn’t be to Marie.”

  “Janine.”

  “Whatever. She’s not the kind of woman I would marry.”

  “Because she slept with you on the first date?”

  “I wonder why we call it that,” I said. “Believe me, there was no sleeping involved. But that’s not why.”

  “Then why? Because no man wants to marry a girl who does all the things he’s spent his whole life hoping she would do?”

  I frowned. “Two drinks ago,” I said, “I would have been able to make sense out of that sentence, and I might even have been able to respond to it. Look, I wasn’t what Janine was looking for. She wanted a man of substance.”

  “ ‘A breakfast-eating, Brooks Brothers type.’ ”

  “That’s from something.”

  “Guys and Dolls.”

  “Right. Well, I usually eat breakfast, and my blazer’s from Brooks Brothers.”

  “You told me you got it from a thrift shop.”

  “Well, it didn’t start out there. The first person who owned it got it at Brooks Brothers. It’s in beautiful shape, too. I wonder why he got rid of it.”

  “He was cheating on his wife, and she gave away all his clothes.”

  “I hope so. I always figured he died, and I’d much rather believe he was out getting laid. What were we talking about, anyway?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No,” I said. “Hardly anything does.”

  “You know,” I said, “you could get married. It’s legal now.”

  “Remember Randy Messenger? She wanted for us to get married.”

  “That was years ago. It was nowhere near legal then.”

  “Well, it’s not like it was a criminal offense, Bern. They didn’t lock you up for it. They just wouldn’t give you a license. But there were plenty of gay weddings, and you and I went to one together.”

  “Ginger and Joanne,” I said, remembering. “In that church at the corner of West Thirteenth and Seventh. One of them wore a floor-length white gown.”

  “Ginger.”

  “And the other wore a tuxedo.”

  “No, it was during the summer, and Joanne wore a white dinner jacket.”

  “They looked sensational. Then they moved somewhere.”

  “Rhinebeck.”

  “And didn’t one of them want to get pregnant? I suppose that would have been Ginger.”

  “It was. They were looking for a sperm donor, but you weren’t interested.”

  “It seemed too weird. It doesn’t seem that weird now, for some reason. Maybe I missed a good chance.”

  “Maybe not,” she said.

  “Oh? It might be nice to have a son. I could teach him my two trades.”

  “Boo
kselling and burglary.”

  “That way I wouldn’t be the last of the gentleman burglars. He could creep along in my footsteps.”

  “And if Ginger had a girl?”

  “Who says a woman can’t sell books? The guy who owns the Strand, his daughter’s in the business with him.”

  “And your other line of work?”

  “So? Who says a woman can’t break into houses?”

  “Instead of the last of the gentleman burglars,” she said, “she could be the first of the lady burglars.”

  “Why not?” My glass had somehow emptied itself. I took care of that. “What did Ginger wind up having? A boy or a girl?”

  “A sex-change operation.”

  “Huh?”

  “It was after she and Joanne broke up,” she said, “and they sold the house in Rhinebeck, and they both moved back to the city, but to separate apartments. Ginger realized she’d been suppressing her true self all along, and that was why she’d been such an over-the-top femme. Deep down inside, she’d always felt herself to be a man.”

  “So she went and had the surgery.”

  “The hormone treatments, and the counseling, and finally the surgery.”

  “And it worked?”

  “The person who used to be Ginger,” she said, “is now a man named Jim. Matter of fact, you’ve met him.”

  “I have?”

  “At the Poodle Factory. We were in the middle of lunch and he brought in his Dandie Dinmont for a wash and set.”

  “I remember the dog,” I said. “Oh, Jesus—I remember the guy, too. That was Ginger?”

  “Jim.”

  “He came across as a regular guy.”

  “He is a regular guy, Bern. He may not have started out that way, but that’s what he is now.”

  “Does he date? I mean, who does he date? I mean—”

  “You mean does he go for boys or girls, and that hasn’t changed. He’s attracted to women.”

  “Oh, he’d have to be,” I said. “Nothing queer about our Jim. What does Joanne make of all this, do you happen to know?”

  “Joseph,” she said.

  “You’re barely drinking, Carolyn.”

  “I’m drinking.”

  “You’re sipping,” I said. “I should have bought the Glen Kirkatchacallit after all. But you talked me out of it.”

  “What we’re drinking is fine, Bern. Why waste the money?”

  “It was only a few dollars more, and look what we saved by skipping dinner. And it would have been worth it. Remember what Thorstein Veblen wrote about conspicuous consumption?”

  “What, Bern?”

  “I was hoping you’d remember.”

  “I don’t even remember who he was.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you ever make it through Swann’s Way with your eyes wide open, Veblen’s your man. You ever find yourself in the path of a charging rhisonerus—”

  “Rhinoceros.”

  “Thank you. If you do, just whip out Thorstein Veblen and start reading. One paragraph and you’ll stop that charging lion in his tracks.”

  “A minute ago he was a rhino, Bern.”

  “I didn’t want to get my tongue all twisted up trying to say it. But you figured out a way around that, didn’t you? Rhino. Two simple syllables, rhi and no. ‘Put ’em together and what have you got? Bippety Boppety Boo.’ Remember that song?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. Veblen wrote about conspicuous consumption, but the way you’re drinking is more like inconspicuous consumption. But don’t think you’re fooling anybody, Carolyn. I see what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing, Bern?”

  “Playing the role of designated driver. We haven’t got a car and we’re not going anywhere, but that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

  “I might be taking it a little bit easy,” she conceded. “Even so, I’m way too far along to get behind the wheel, which is just as well, considering that I never learned to drive.”

  “You want to learn? I’ll teach you.”

  “Not tonight, Bern.”

  “No of course not,” I said. “Tonight I’m the designated drinker.”

  “I campaigned for gay marriage,” Carolyn said. “I wrote letters to my congressperson, which some poor staffer had to read and respond to. I signed petitions, I went to fund-raisers. I marched, Bernie. I hate marching, I hate parades, I hate all that crap, and yet I marched for gay marriage.”

  “I know you did.”

  “And I danced in the streets when it passed in New York. If I’d been wearing a hat I’d have thrown it in the air.”

  “You should have said something. I’ve got plenty of hats.”

  “And then when the Supreme Court did the right thing, I celebrated all over again.”

  “I remember.”

  She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “And now I’m going to tell you something you must never repeat to another living soul.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I probably won’t remember.”

  “What I’m afraid of,” she said, “is that you’ll remember what I tell you, but you’ll forget that you’re supposed to keep it to yourself. Well, I’m going to say it anyway. I’m not so sure gay marriage is a great idea.”

  “That’s the scotch talking,” I said, “and I guess you’ve had more of it than I realized.”

  “Oh, it’s a right we should have, and we’re way better off for having it. And all the arguments for it are as true as they ever were. And maybe it’s different for gay men. But giving lesbians the right to get married is a dangerous thing.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Bernie, what does a lesbian bring to a second date?”

  “A U-haul,” I said. “You told me that joke a long time ago.”

  “And it still works,” she said, “because it’s true. We’ve got this nesting instinct that’s out of control. ‘Oh, you like me? Well, I like you, too. And we’ve got so much in common! I see you’ve got a cat. I’ve got a cat, too! Isn’t that great? And our cats like each other! Ooh, let’s get a third cat and we can put our heads together to come up with a really cute name for it!’ ”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Not by much. ‘Oh, let’s move in together! We can share a closet and wear each other’s clothes. Don’t you just love L. L. Bean?’ ”

  “Those plaid shirts,” I said.

  “And the worst thing about them is they last forever. ‘Hey, I got an idea! Let’s find a donor and a turkey baster and make a baby. We can be mommies together, and it’ll give us something to do when Lesbian Bed Death puts an end to our sex lives. Or maybe we should have two babies, so it’ll be easier to divvy them up when we both fall in love with other people.’ ”

  “Oh, come on. That’s not fair. There are plenty of lesbian relationships that last a lifetime.”

  “I know.”

  “In fact I’m not sure the odds are any better for a heterosexual marriage.”

  “And how good is that? Bern, every marriage ends either in divorce or death. Did you ever think about that?”

  “No,” I said, “and I wish I didn’t have to think about it now. What did Jim and Joseph do? I mean, when they were still Ginger and Joanne?”

  “What did they do?”

  “Well, they were married. We went to their wedding, we saw it happen. When they decided to split up, what did they do?”

  “I told you, Bern. They sold the house in Rhinebeck, split up the money, and each of them found a place in the city. Well, Ginger did. Joanne wound up somewhere in Queens. I guess Joanne took the cats, because Jim’s got a dog now.”

  “The Dandie Dinmont.”

  “Who happens to be show quality, though Jim’s not crazy enough to go through all that rigmarole.”

  “That’s all there was to it?”

  “Uh-huh, and that’s kind of my point, Bern. They had a nice church wedding and lived together as wife and wife, and when it was time to split the blanket they
didn’t need to call their lawyers. But if a lesbian wedding has legal standing, when the marriage turns belly-up, you have to get a divorce.”

  “A lesbian divorce.”

  “Well, sure. A lesbian divorce used to be a simple matter of shouting and screaming and crying and figuring out who keeps the rent-stabilized apartment.”

  “You’d still have that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Plus a little added something. It’s not hard to understand why the Association of Matrimonial Lawyers was one of gay marriage’s strongest supporters, is it?”

  “All that new business,” I said. “Think of the custody fights.”

  “Maybe it’s not fair to make you do all the drinking,” she said, and filled her glass. “Not only is it gonna be more complicated to split up, but it gives couples something brand new to fight about, when one wants to get married and the other doesn’t. Which just amounts to deciding whether to split up before or after the marriage ceremony.”

  “I never thought of any of this.” And the thoughts kept right on coming. “You know what? The next time we see The Gay Divorcée, it’ll be a remake with a whole new slant to it.”

  Once we’d each reached a particular peat-flavored plateau, the drinking lost its urgency and became a sort of background music for our conversation. The two of us found no end of things to talk about, and I’m sure the exchanges I don’t remember were every bit as interesting as the ones I do.

  “I can see why a person might want to get married,” I said, when that topic popped up again. “You’ve met someone and you’re in love, and you want a life together, with maybe a kid or two. And maybe that would involve a house in the suburbs—”

  “Ugh.”

  “—but maybe not, because if I was going to raise a kid I’d rather bring him up right here in New York. Right in my own neighborhood, so we’d be within walking distance of the American Museum of Natural History.”

  “That’s important, huh?”

  “People go on about how they want to leave the city so their kid’ll know what a cow looks like. So they move way to hell and gone, and the poor little bastard never gets to see a dinosaur.”

  “I never looked at it that way. Bern, if they want all that, why do they have to get married?”