The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

"Oh."

"Because I'd like to see you."

"Tonight's a bad night, Bernie."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow in Brooklyn."

"I guess so. Okay to bring Gore and Truman?"

"They're already on my list."

A machine answered Murray Feinsinger's telephone, inviting me to leave my name and number or call back at nine Monday morning if I wanted to speak to the doctor. I hung up without leaving a message and read through the listing of Feinsingers in the Manhattan directory until I found a listing for one Dorothy Feinsinger at the same address and dialed the number. Murray himself answered it.

I said, "Dr. Feinsinger? My name's Bernard Rhodenbarr, I was in to see you yesterday afternoon. About my feet."

"That's why most people come to see me, Mr. Rhodenbarr. My office is closed for the day, and-"

"I don't know if you remember me. I had Morton's Foot, and you're going to be making orthotics for me."

"They're not ready yet, of course. It takes a couple of weeks."

"Yes, I understand that. But I gave you a deposit, just a small deposit really, and-"

"I'm afraid I've already sent the order in, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Is there a problem?"

"No problem at all," I said, "but I had a sudden cash windfall this afternoon, as a matter of fact I had a good day at the track, see, and I wanted to pay you the balance due before I blow it on necessities. And I'm in the neighborhood, so I thought maybe I could come up and pay you what I owe you, I guess it comes to two hundred and seventy dollars because I paid a thirty-dollar deposit, and-"

"That's very considerate of you, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Why don't you stop in Monday?"

"Well, Monday's a hard day for me, and for all I know the money might be gone by then. It wouldn't take a minute if I could just come up and pay you and-"

"I can't really take money outside of business hours," he said. "I'm at my apartment. My office is across the hall and it's closed, and I'd have to open up and make out a receipt for you and enter the cash in my books, and I'd rather not do all that."

"A receipt's not important to me. I could just pop up, pay you the cash, and off I'd go."

There was a pause. By now he must have been certain he was dealing with a lunatic, and why should he want to invite a lunatic upstairs? There should have been a way to get to see him, but I had evidently blown it, and everything I said now was only going to make it worse.

"Well, I'll see you Monday," I said. "I hope I still have the money by then. Maybe I'll put it in my shoe in the meantime."

Brooklyn Information had a listing for a J. L. Garland on Cheever Place. The operator had no better idea than I if that was in Cobble Hill, but she said the exchange sounded about right, so I dialed it and got a chap with a sort of reedy voice. I asked to speak to Jessica and she came to the phone.

"This is Bernie Rhodenbarr," I told her. "I'll be there tomorrow, and I just wanted to confirm the time and place. Two-thirty at the Church of the Redeemer, is that right?"

"That's correct."

"Good. There are a couple of people I'd like you to call, if you would. To ask them to come. Neighbors of your grandfather's."

"I already posted a notice in the lobby. But you can call anyone yourself if you think it's advisable."

"I've already invited several people, as a matter of fact. I'd appreciate it if you'd make these particular calls, though. Could you write this down?"

She said she could and I gave her names and numbers and told her what to say. While I was doing this it occurred to me that she might have access to Abel's apartment. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to visit the place in her company, but it looked to be better than not going at all.

So I asked her if she'd been up to the place since the murder, and she hadn't. "I don't have keys," she said, "and the doorman said the police had left strict instructions not to admit anyone. I don't know that they'd let me up anyway. Why?"

"No reason," I said. "I just wondered. You'll make those calls?"

"Right away."

A few minutes after eight I presented myself at Abel Crowe's building. The doorman was a stranger to me, even as I presume I was to him. He looked as assertive as Astrid the Bouvier and I hoped I wouldn't have to take him out with a tranquilizer dart in the shoulder.

I had the dart pistol along, albeit not at hand. It was in my attaché case, along with burglar's tools, a fresh pair of palmless rubber gloves, and my wide-track Pumas. I was wearing black wingtips for a change, heavy and leather-soled and not particularly comfortable, but a better match than Weejuns or Pumas for my funereal three-button suit and the somber tie with the muted stripe.

"Reverend Rhodenbarr for Mrs. Pomerance in 11- J," I said. "She's expecting me."

CHAPTER Twenty

"He had European ma

I wrote "real gent" and "never complained" in my little notebook and glanced up to catch Mrs. Pomerance sneaking a peek at me. She didn't know how she knew me and it was driving her crazy. Since I was clearly the sincere Brooklyn clergyman Jessica Garland had called her about, the obliging chap gathering material for Abel Crowe's eulogy, it hadn't occurred to her that I might also be the Stettiner boy who'd shared an elevator with her a day earlier. But if I was Reverend Rhodenbarr of Cobble Hill, why did I look familiar?

We sat on plump upholstered chairs in her over-furnished little apartment, surrounded by bright-eyed photographs of her grandchildren and a positive glut of bisque figurines, and for twenty minutes or so she alternately spoke well of the dead and ill of the living, doing a good job of dishing the building's other inhabitants. She lived alone, did Mrs. Pomerance; her beloved Moe was cutting velvet in that great sweatshop in the sky.

It was about eight-thirty when I turned down a second cup of coffee and got up from my chair. "You've been very helpful," I told her, truthfully enough. "I'll look forward to seeing you at the service tomorrow."

She walked me to the door, assuring me she wouldn't miss it. "I'll be interested to see if you use anything I told you," she said. "No, you have to turn the top lock, too. That's right. You want to know something? You remind me of somebody."

"The Stettiner boy?"

"You know him?"

I shook my head. "But I'm told there's a resemblance."

She closed the door after me and locked up. I walked down the hall, picked Abel's spring lock and let myself into his apartment. It was as I'd left it, but darker, of course, since no daylight was streaming through his windows.

I turned some lights on. I wouldn't have done this ordinarily, not without drawing drapes first, but the closest buildings across the way were also across the river, so who was going to see me?

I did a little basic snooping, but nothing like the full-scale search I'd given the place the day before. I went through the bedroom closet, looking at this and at that, and I paid a second visit to the cigar humidor. Then I browsed the bookshelves, looking not for stashed loot but simply for something to read.

What I would have liked was my Robert B. Parker novel. I would have enjoyed finding out what was going on with old Spenser, who was evidently capable of jogging without orthotics and lifting weights without acquiring a hernia. But light fiction was harder to find in that place than a 1913 V-Nickel, and any number of books which might have been interesting were less so because of my inability to read German, French or Latin.