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“Burglar tools,” she said. “It’s illegal to have them in your possession, isn’t it?”
“You can go to jail for it.”
“Which ones did you use to open the locks for this apartment?” I showed her and explained the process. “I think it’s remarkable,” she said, and gave a delicious little shiver. “Who taught you how to do it?”
“Taught myself.”
“Really?”
“More or less. Oh, once I was really into it I got books on locksmithing, and then I took a mail-order course in it from an outfit in Ohio. You know, I wonder if anybody but burglars ever sign up for those courses. I knew a guy in prison who took one of those courses with a correspondence college and they sent him a different lock every month by mail with complete instructions on how to open it. He would just sit there in his cell and practice with the lock for hours on end.”
“And the prison authorities let him do this?”
“Well, the idea was that he was learning a trade. They’re supposed to encourage that sort of thing in prison. Actually the trade he was learning was burglary, of course, and it was a big step up for him from holding up filling stations, which was his original field of endeavor.”
“I guess there’s more money in burglary.”
“There often is, but the main consideration was violence. Not that he ever shot anybody but somebody took a shot at him once and he decided that stealing was a safer and saner proposition if you did it when nobody was home.”
“So he took a course and became an expert.”
I shrugged. “Let’s just say he took the course. I don’t know if he became an expert or not. There’s only so much you can teach a person, through the mails or face to face. The rest has to be inside him.”
“In the hands?”
“In the hands and in the heart.” I felt myself blushing at the phrase. “Well, it’s true. When I was twelve years old I taught myself how to open the bathroom door. You could lock it from inside by pressing this button on the doorknob and then the door could be opened from the inside but not from the outside. So that nobody would walk in on you while you were on the toilet or in the tub. The usual privacy lock. But of course you can press the button on the inside and then close the door from the outside and then you’ve locked yourself out of it.”
“So?”
“So my kid sister did something along those lines, except what she did was lock herself in and then just sit there and cry because she couldn’t turn the knob. My mother called the Fire Department and they took the lock apart and rescued her. What’s so fu
“Any other kid who went through that would decide to become a fireman. But you decided to become a burglar.”
“All I decided was I wanted to know how to open that lock. I tried using a screwdriver blade to get a purchase on the bolt and snick it back, but it didn’t have the flexibility. I could almost manage it with a table knife, and then I thought to use one of those plastic calendars insurance men pass out that you keep in your wallet, you know, all twelve months at a glance, and it was perfect. I figured out how to loid that lock without even having heard of the principle involved.”
“Loid?”
“As in celluloid. Any time you’ve got a lock that you can lock without a key, you know, just by drawing the door shut, then you’ve got a lock that can be loided. It may be hard or easy depending on how the door and jamb fit together, but it’s not going to be impossible.”
“It’s fascinating,” she said, and she gave that little shivery shudder again. I went on talking about my earliest experiences with locks and the special thrill I’d always found in opening them, and she seemed as eager to hear all this as I was to talk about it. I told her about the first time I let myself into a neighbor’s apartment, going in one afternoon when nobody was home, taking some cold cuts from the refrigerator and bread from the bread drawer, making a sandwich and eating it and putting everything back the way I’d found it before letting myself out.
“The big thing for you was opening locks,” she said.
“Opening locks and sneaking inside. Right.”
“The stealing came later, then.”
“Unless you count sandwiches. But it didn’t take long before I was stealing. Once you’re inside a place it’s a short step to figuring out that it might make sense to leave with more money than you brought with you. Opening doors is a kick, but part of the kick comes from the possibility of profit on the other side of the door.”
“And the danger?”
“I suppose that’s part of it.”
“Bernie? Tell me what it’s like.”
“Burglary?”
“Uh-huh.” Her face was quite intense now, especially around the eyes, and there was a thin film of perspiration on her upper lip. I put a hand on her leg. A muscle in her upper thigh twitched like a plucked string.
“Tell me how it feels,” she said.
I moved my hand to and fro. “It feels very nice,” I said.
“You know what I mean. What’s it like to open a door and sneak into somebody else’s place?”
“Exciting.”
“It must be.” Her tongue flicked at her lower lip.
“Scary?”
“A little.”
“It would have to be. Is the excitement, uh, sexual?”
“Depends on who you find in the apartment.” I laughed a hearty laugh. “Just a joke. I suppose there’s a sexual element. It’s obvious enough on a symbolic level, isn’t it?” My hand moved as I talked, to and fro, to and fro. “Tickling all the right tumblers,” I went on. “Stroking here and there, then ever so gently easing the door open, slipping inside little by little.”
“Yes-”
“Of course your crude type of burglar who uses a pry bar or just plain kicks the door in, he’d be representative of a more direct approach to sex, wouldn’t he?”
She pouted. “You’re joking with me.”
“Just a little.”
“I never met a burglar before, Bernie. I’m curious to know what it’s like.”
Her eyes looked blue now and utterly guileless. I put a finger under her chin, tipped her head up, placed a little kiss upon the tip of her nose. “You’ll know,” I told her.
“Huh?”
“In a couple of hours,” I said, “you’ll get to see for yourself.”
It made perfect sense to me. She was remarkably good at getting people to tell her things over the phone, and maybe she could worm Wesley Brill’s address out of his agent first thing in the morning, but why wait so long? And why chance the agent’s passing the word to Wesley? Or, if the agent was in on the whole thing, why set his teeth on edge?
On the other hand, Peter Alan Martin’s office was located on Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, and if there was anything easier than knocking off an office building after hours I didn’t know what it was. At the very least I’d walk out of the building with Brill’s address a few hours earlier than we’d get it otherwise, and without arousing suspicions. And if I got lucky-well, it had the same attraction as any burglary. You didn’t know what you might find, and it could always turn out to be more than you’d hoped for.
“But you’ll be out in the open,” Ruth said. “People might see you.”
“I’ll be disguised.”
Her face brightened. “We could get some make-up. Maybe Rod has some around. I’ll make you up. Maybe a false moustache for a start.”
“I tried a real moustache this afternoon and I wasn’t crazy about it. And make-up just makes a person look as though he’s wearing make-up, and that’s the sort of thing that draws attention instead of discouraging it. Wait here a minute.”
I went to the closet, got the wig and cap, took them into the bathroom and used the mirror to adjust them for the best effect. I came out and posed for Ruth. She was properly appreciative, and I bowed theatrically, and when I did so the cap and wig fell on the rug in front of me. Whereupon she laughed a little more boisterously than I felt the situation absolutely required.
“Not that fu