The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block Page B

you do?”
    “I got rid of it.”
    “How?”
    “I picked it up and flushed it down the toilet.”
    “You touched it? Double yuck. How could you even do that, Bern?”
    “I was wearing gloves.”
    “Oh, right.”
    “And I couldn’t just leave it where I found it.”
    “No, of course not. You know something, Bern? Barbara Creeley was lucky you were there.”
    “Oh, absolutely,” I said. “It was her lucky night all around.”
    “I mean it, Bern. If you hadn’t been there, that prick would have taken her watch and her charm bracelet and her diamond earrings.”
    “Instead, I took them.”
    “But you put them back, Bern.”
    “Well, I felt sorry for her. An unprincipled son of a bitch slipped a drug into her drink and brought her home and raped her, and now I was adding insult to injury by stealing her stuff.”
    “Except you got there first.”
    “Even so. I’d already picked up the jewelry he left behind and put it away, and I figured if I put the good stuff back, she might not even know she’d been robbed. There were a few things missing, but what kind of moron would snatch a class ring and pass up a bracelet dripping with gold coins?”
    “She’ll just think she must have misplaced the ring.”
    “If I could manage to find out who he was,” I said, “I’d pay him a visit one of these nights and get her ring back for her.”
    “Unless he’s sold it by then.”
    “Oh, he won’t sell it. He won’t know where to go with it, and anyway he’ll want to keep it for a souvenir. Something to remember her by, the son of a bitch.”
    “That’d be neat, if you could steal it back. How would you get it to her? Just drop it in the mail?”
    “Or let myself into her apartment and put it in the drawer it came from.”
    “Perfect. She’d just think she missed it the last time she looked for it, that it was hiding under a piece of costume jewelry.” She frowned. “Or else she’d worry that she was losing her mind. But at least she’d have her ring back.”
    “I always leave a place as neat as I found it,” I said, “though in his case I might make an exception. But it’s academic, because I don’t have any idea who he is or where he lives.”
    “And you got rid of the only thing that would identify him.” When I looked blank, she said, “You flushed it down the toilet, remember?”
    “Oh, right.”
    “Not that you could run around giving DNA tests to every guy with a deep voice. Bern, I know you didn’t break into her apartment out of an urge to do her a good deed. But that’s what you wound up doing, and she was lucky you were there. Didn’t you tell me you even put money in her wallet?”
    “A few dollars.”
    “How much?”
    “Well, there was no way to know how much she started with. I didn’t think she’d carry too much cash. I wound up tucking a hundred and twenty dollars into the bills compartment.”
    “A burglar who gives you money. That’s gotta be a first, Bern.”
    “You think?”
    “And that’s in addition to putting back everything you took—the bracelet and the earrings and the watch.”
    “Right.”
    “And the envelope full of money you found in the fridge. Bern? You put that back, didn’t you?”
    “Well, no,” I said. “I didn’t.”
    “Oh.”
    “I took a hundred and twenty bucks out of it,” I said, “and that’s what I put in her wallet. But I kept the rest.”
    “Oh.”
    “Chivalry only goes so far.”
    “I guess.”
    “You’re surprised,” I said.
    “Yeah, kind of. I guess I was starting to see you as a knight in shining armor.”
    “I’m afraid the armor’s a little tarnished. I went there to steal, Carolyn. I put back most of what I took, but I wanted to come out a few dollars ahead on the deal.”
    “So you made a profit of…”
    “Eleven hundred and twenty dollars,” I said. “Minus cab fare.”
    “Well, that’s a better hourly rate than you make selling books.”
    “No kidding.”
    “But considering the risk…”
    I shook