The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

by Lawrence Block

  “I feel like a suspect,” she said. “I feel as though I’m being grilled.”

  “Grilled? You ought to be charbroiled. You set me up and euchred me, for heaven’s sake. How long has Raffles been living with you?”

  “Two and a half months.”

  “Two and a half months!”

  “Well, maybe it’s more like three.”

  “Three months! That’s unbelievable. How many times have I been over to your place in the past three months? It’s got to be eight or ten at the very least. Are you telling me I looked at the cat and didn’t even notice him?”

  “When you came over,” she said, “I used to put him in the other room.”

  “What other room? You live in one room.”

  “I put him in the closet.”

  “In the closet?”

  “Uh-huh. So you wouldn’t see him.”

  “But why?”

  “The same reason I never mentioned him.”

  “Why’s that? I don’t get it. Were you ashamed of him? What’s wrong with him, anyway?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

  “Because if there’s something shameful about the animal, I don’t know that I want him hanging around my store.”

  “There’s nothing shameful about him,” she said. “He’s a perfectly fine cat. He’s trustworthy, he’s loyal, he’s helpful and friendly—”

  “Courteous, kind,” I said. “Obedient, cheerful, thrifty. He’s a regular Boy Scout, isn’t he? So why the hell were you keeping him a secret from me?”

  “It wasn’t just you, Bern. Honest. I was keeping him a secret from everybody.”

  “But why, Carolyn?”

  “I don’t even want to say it.”

  “Come on, for God’s sake.”

  She took a breath. “Because,” she said darkly, “he was the Third Cat.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Oh, God. This is impossible to explain. Bernie, there’s something you have to understand. Cats can be very dangerous for a woman.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You start with one,” she said, “and that’s fine, no problem, nothing wrong with that. And then you get a second one and that’s even better, as a matter of fact, because they keep each other company. It’s a curious thing, but it’s actually easier to have two cats than one.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Then you get a third, and that’s all right, it’s still manageable, but before you know it you take in a fourth, and then you’ve gone and done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “You’ve crossed the line.”

  “What line, and how have you crossed it?”

  “You’ve become a Woman With Cats.” I nodded. Light was beginning to dawn. “You know the kind of woman I mean,” she went on. “They’re all over the place. They don’t have any friends, and they hardly ever set foot outdoors, and when they die people discover thirty or forty cats in the house. Or they’re cooped up in an apartment with thirty or forty cats and the neighbors take them to court to evict them because of the filth and the smell. Or they seem perfectly normal, and then there’s a fire or a break-in or something, and the world finds them out for what they are. They’re Women With Cats, Bernie, and that’s not what I want to be.”

  “No,” I said, “and I can see why. But—”

  “It doesn’t seem to be a problem for men,” she said. “There are lots of men with two cats, and probably plenty with three or four, but when did you ever hear anything about a Man With Cats? When it comes to cats, men don’t seem to have trouble knowing when to stop.” She frowned. “Funny, isn’t it? In every other area of their lives—”

  “Let’s stick to cats,” I suggested. “How did you happen to wind up with Raffles hanging out in your closet? And what was his name before it was Raffles?”

  She shook her head. “Forget it, Bern. It was a real pussy name, if you ask me. Not right for the cat at all. As far as how I got him, well, it happened pretty much the way I said, except there were a few things I left out. George Brill is a customer of mine. I groom his Irish water spaniel.”

  “And his friend is allergic to cats.”

  “No, George is the one who’s allergic. And when Felipe moved in with George, the cat had to go. The dog and cat got along fine, but George was wheezing and red-eyed all the time, so Felipe had to give up either George or the cat.”

  “And that was it for Raffles.”

  “Well, Felipe wasn’t all that attached to the cat. It wasn’t his cat in the first place. It was Patrick’s.”

  “Where did Patrick come from?”

  “Ireland, and he couldn’t get a green card and he didn’t like it here that much anyway, so when he went back home he left the cat with Felipe, because he couldn’t take him through Immigration. Felipe was willing to give the cat a home, but when he and George got together, well, the cat had to go.”

  “And how come you were elected to take him?”

  “George tricked me into it.”

  “What did he do, tell you the Poodle Factory was infested with mice?”

  “No, he used some pretty outrageous emotional blackmail on me. Anyway, it worked. The next thing I knew I had a Third Cat.”

  “How did Archie and Ubi feel about it?”

  “They didn’t actually say anything, but their body language translated into something along the lines of ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ I don’t think it broke their hearts yesterday when I packed him up and took him out of there.”

  “But in the meantime he spent three months in your apartment and you never said a word.”

  “I was planning on telling you, Bern.”

  “When?”

  “Sooner or later. But I was afraid.”

  “Of what I would think?”

  “Not only that. Afraid of what the Third Cat signified.” She heaved a sigh. “All those Women With Cats,” she said. “They didn’t plan on it, Bern. They got a first cat, they got a second cat, they got a third cat, and all of a sudden they were gone.”

  “You don’t think they might have been the least bit odd to begin with?”

  “No,” she said. “No, I don’t. Oh, once in a while, maybe, you get a slightly wacko lady, and next thing you know she’s up to her armpits in cats. But most of the Cat Ladies start out normal. By the time you get to the end of the story they’re nuts, all right, but having thirty or forty cats’ll do that to you. It sneaks up on you, and before you know it you’re over the edge.”

  “And the Third Cat’s the charm, huh?”

  “No question. Bern, there are primitive cultures that don’t really have numbers, not in the sense that we do. They have a word that means ‘one,’ and other words for ‘two’ and ‘three,’ and after that there’s a word that just means ‘more than three.’ And that’s how it is in our culture with cats. You can have one cat, you can have two cats, you can even have three cats, but after that you’ve got ‘more than three.’”

  “And you’re a Woman With Cats.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ve got it, all right. I’ve got your Third Cat. Is that the real reason you never mentioned it? Because you were planning all along to palm the little bugger off on me?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Swear to God, Bern. A couple of times over the years the subject of a dog or cat has come up, and you’ve always said you didn’t want a pet. Did I ever once press you?”

  “No.”

  “I took you at your word. It sometimes crossed my mind that you might have a better time in life if you had an animal to love, but I managed to keep it to myself. It never even occurred to me that you could use a working cat. And then when I found out about your rodent problem—”

  “You knew just how to solve it.”

  “Well, sure. And it’s a great solution, isn’t it? Admit it, Bern. Didn’t it do your heart good this morning to have Raffles there to greet you?”

  “It was all righ
t,” I admitted. “At least he was still alive. I had visions of him lying there dead with his paws in the air, and the mice forming a great circle around his body.”

  “See? You’re concerned about him, Bern. Before you know it you’re going to fall in love with the little guy.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. Carolyn? What was his name before it was Raffles?”

  “Oh, forget it. It was a stupid name.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Do I have to?” She sighed. “Well, it was Andro.”

  “Andrew? What’s so stupid about that? Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Carnegie—they all did okay with it.”

  “Not Andrew, Bern. Andro.”

  “Andrew Mellon, Andrew Gardner…not Andrew? Andro?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s that, Greek for Andrew?”

  She shook her head. “It’s short for Androgynous.”

  “Oh.”

  “The idea being that his surgery had left the cat somewhat uncertain from a sexual standpoint.”

  “Oh.”

  “Which I gather was also the case for Patrick, although I don’t believe surgery had anything to do with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “I never called him Andro myself,” she said. “Actually, I didn’t call him anything. I didn’t want to give him a new name because that would mean I was leaning toward keeping him, and—”

  “I understand.”

  “And then on the way over to the bookstore it just came to me in a flash. Raffles.”

  “As in raffling off a car to raise money for a church, I think you said.”

  “Don’t hate me, Bern.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “It’s been no picnic, living a lie for the past three months. Believe me.”

  “I guess it’ll be easier for everybody now that Raffles is out of the closet.”

  “I know it will. Bern, I didn’t want to trick you into taking the cat.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for you and the cat to start off on the right foot. I knew you’d be crazy about him once you got to know him, and I thought anything I could do to get you over the first hurdle, any minor deception I might have to practice—”

  “Like lying your head off.”

  “It was in a good cause. I had only your best interests at heart, Bern. Yours and the cat’s.”

  “And your own.”

  “Well, yeah,” she said, and flashed a winning smile. “But it worked out, didn’t it? Bern, you’ve got to admit it worked out.”

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  Well, it seemed to be working out. I’d had plenty of misgivings early on. I was sure I’d be tripping over the animal all the time, but he was remarkably good at keeping out of the way. He did his ankle-rubbing routine every morning when I opened up, but that was just his way of making sure I fed him. The rest of the time I hardly knew he was there. He walked around on little cat feet, appropriately enough, and he didn’t bump into things. Sometimes he would catch a few rays in the front window, and now and then he’d make a silent spring onto a high shelf and ease himself into the gap between James Carroll and Rachel Carson, but most of the time he kept a low profile.

  Few customers ever saw him, and those who did seemed generally unsurprised at the presence of a cat in a bookstore. “What a pretty cat!” they might say, or “What happened to his tail?” He seemed most inclined to display himself when the customer was an attractive woman, which made him something of an asset, functioning as a sort of icebreaker. I don’t know that he earned his keep in that capacity, but I’d have to list it as a plus on his résumé.

  What paid the Tender Vittles tab, as far as I was concerned, was what he’d been hired for in the first place. Since Carolyn brought him into the shop, I hadn’t found a single book with a nibbled spine. The rodent damage had ceased so abruptly and permanently I had to wonder if it had ever happened in the first place. Maybe, I sometimes thought, I’d never had a mouse in the store. Maybe the Waugh and Glasgow volumes had been like that when I got them. Or maybe Carolyn had snuck in herself and gnawed at the books, just so she could find a permanent home for the Third Cat.

  I wouldn’t put it past her.

  Once I’d filled his dinner bowl and his water dish, I locked up again and went over to Carolyn’s place. “I already ate,” she said. “I didn’t think you were going to open up today.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I said, “but I wanted to check. Let me grab something around the corner and I’ll be right back. We have to talk.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  I went to the nearest deli and came back with a ham sandwich and a large container of coffee. Carolyn had a small brown dog on the grooming table. It kept making a sort of whimpering noise.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she told me. “And is it all right if I finish up Alison while we talk? I’d like to be done with her.”

  “Go right ahead,” I said. “Why’s she making that noise?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I wish she’d stop. If she does it while the judge is looking her over, I think her owner can forget about Best of Breed.”

  “And what breed would that be?”

  “She’s either a Norfolk terrier or a Norwich terrier, and I can never remember which is which.”

  “And her name’s Alison? No clue there.”

  “That’s her call name,” she said. “The name on her papers is Alison Wanda Land.”

  “I think I know why she’s whimpering.”

  “Maybe it’s because she misses her littermate, who didn’t come in today because she’s not scheduled to be shown this weekend. Her call name just happens to be Trudy, so do you want to guess what it says on her AKC registration?”

  “It can’t be Trudy Logan Glass.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  I shuddered, then straightened up in my seat. “Look,” I said, “go on fluffing Alison, but while you do I want to tell you what happened last night.”

  “No need, Bern.”

  “Huh?”

  “Really,” she said, “what makes you think you have to do that? You were the one who was doing all the drinking at the Bum Rap. I know I’m apt to have a blackout once in a while, but last night I didn’t have enough booze to feel a glow, much less wipe out a few thousand brain cells. I remember everything up until the time you left, and there’s nothing to remember after that because all I did was go to sleep.”

  “I want to tell you what happened to me.”

  “You went straight home.”

  “Right. And then I went out again.”

  “Oh, no. Bern—”

  “Look, just let me tell it all the way through,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “I just don’t get it,” she said. “You worked so hard, Bern. You did everything possible to keep from breaking into the Gilmartin apartment.”

  “I know.”

  “And then, purely on the spur of the moment—”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not as if you had any reason to think there’d be anything there worth stealing. For all you knew, the Nugents didn’t have a pot or a window.”

  “I know.”

  “And you were already through for the night. You were home safe in your own apartment.”

  “I know.”

  “ ‘I know, I know, I know.’ So why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bern—”

  “Call it a character defect,” I said, “or a mental lapse, or temporary insanity. Maybe I was still a little bit drunk and all that coffee kept me from feeling it. All I can say is it seemed like a gift from the gods. I’d been a good boy, I’d resisted irresistible temptation, and they’d repaid me by sending a beautiful woman to lead me to an apartment just there for the taking.”

  “Figure she set you up?”

 
“First thing I thought of. Matter of fact, the possibility occurred to me before I even put my picks in my pocket.”

  “But you went anyway.”

  “Well, how could it have been a setup? She’d have had to know I was a burglar, and she’d have had to know I was going to be on that particular subway.”

  “Maybe she was on it herself. Maybe she’d been following you.”

  “All day? It doesn’t seem very likely. And I don’t think she was on the train, because I would have noticed her. She’s the kind of woman you notice.”

  “Beautiful, huh?”

  “Close enough. An easy eight on a ten scale.”

  “And she just happened to ask you to walk her home, and then she just happened to mention that Joan and Harlan were in Europe.”

  “I don’t think she followed me,” I said, “but she could have gone out to buy a quart of milk, say, and spotted me coming out of the subway. She said she recognized me from having seen me around the neighborhood, but I don’t remember seeing her, so maybe she made that up. Suppose she knew I was a burglar, and she spotted me, so she got me to walk her home.”

  “If that was her home,” she said. “Stay,” she told Alison Wanda, and looked in the White Pages. “Cardamom…Chesapeake…Collier. Here we are, Cooper…. I don’t see a Gwendolyn Cooper. There’s a lot of G Coopers, and there’s one at 910 West End, but that would have to be way uptown. What’s the address of the Nugents’ building?”

  “Three-oh-four.”

  “Nope. I don’t see any Coopers at that address.”

  “Maybe she spells it with a K.”

  “Like Kountry Kupboard? Let’s see…. Gee, people really do spell it with a K, don’t they? But not our Doll. Still, what does it prove? She could have an unlisted number, or she could be subletting or sharing an apartment with somebody, and the phone could be in another name.”

  “She knew the doorman.”

  “It sounds to me as though he’s easy to know. You knew him, too, remember?”

  “Good point,” I said. “He’s not the Maginot Line. She could have gotten past him whether she belonged in the building or not. But then where would she go?”

  “The Nugent apartment.”

  “A quick entrance and exit? Maybe. Or she could have killed time in a stairwell waiting for me to go home and then just walked out herself. ‘Bye, Eddie.’ ‘Hey, how ya doin’.’ Piece of cake.” I frowned. “But what’s the point?”