The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) by Lawrence Block Page A

Carolyn. Let’s see now, what else happened? Well, the Mets won and the Yankees lost, or maybe it was the other way around. And oh yeah, somebody killed a lady in a townhouse on East Ninety-second Street.”
    “During a burglary.”
    “Good guess, Bernie. Assumin’ it was a guess and not a personal recollection.”
    “Ray, you don’t seriously believe I did it.”
    “No,” he said, “of course I don’t. Give me some credit, Bernie. How long have we known each other?”
    “A long time.”
    “A long time is right, and I have to say I know you pretty good, probably better’n you think I do. I know you’re still a burglar, no matter how you swear up and down that you’ve turned honest. A leopard don’t change his stripes, and neither does a dyed-in-the-wool burglar.”
    I sighed. “I guess you’ll believe what you want to believe.”
    “Yeah, I guess I will, especially when it’s the truth. But besides bein’ a thief to the core, another thing you’ve always been is a gentleman.”
    “Why, thank you, Ray. That’s nice of you to say.”
    “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “You’re still a lowlife deadbeat who breaks into people’s houses and steals their stuff. But at the same time you’re the last of the gentleman burglars. You wouldn’t believe the kind of scumbags who’ve been moving into your profession.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “Instead of takin’ the trouble to learn the art and science of pickin’ a lock, they kick the door in. Instead of tiptoein’ through a house, they wake up the occupants and force ’em to turn over their valuables.”
    “And last night one of them killed a woman. Are you sure it was a burglar?”
    He nodded. “Unless she trashed the place herself. She was a widow, stayin’ on in this big four-story brownstone after her husband passed on. Her kids wanted her to move to an apartment, and she was thinkin’ about it, but where would she put all her art and antiques?”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah. That’d be one load off her mind, if she was still around to appreciate it. She was at the opera, and it was a long one—”
    “They all are,” Carolyn said.
    “Well, it looks like we found one thing we can agree on, Carolyn, because how people can sit through them things is beyond me. This particular opera was by that guy Hitler was crazy about.”
    “Wagner,” I suggested.
    “That’s the guy. Anyway, I guess Mrs. Ostermaier could only take so much.”
    “That’s her name? Mrs. Ostermaier?”
    “Last name Ostermaier, first name Helen. She told her friend she was tired, and I guess all the screeching made it hard to sleep through. She went out and caught a cab, and she’d have been better off stayin’ where she was.”
    “I don’t suppose you were able to locate the cabby.”
    “Well, you’re wrong for a change, Bernie. He turned up and he remembered the fare. He told us she read his name off the license and guessed he was from Haiti, which he was, and she told him all about a week she and her husband had spent there back when we were all of us a lot younger, herself included. He said she was a very nice lady.”
    “And he dropped her at her door, and that’s the last anybody ever saw of her.”
    “Except for the guy who was waitin’ for her. Philippe said he offered to walk her to her door, but she said she’d be fine. All the same he hung around at the curb long enough to make sure she got the door open, and only drove off after it closed behind her.”
    We were all silent for a moment. Then Carolyn pointed out that there weren’t many rich old ladies nice enough to talk to a cabdriver about his homeland.
    “We can’t afford to lose people like that,” I said. “Ray, how was she killed?”
    “See, I was plannin’ to ask you that, Bernie. But if you didn’t do it you probably couldn’t come up with the answer.”
    “You don’t know the cause of death yet?”
    “The cause is pretty clear-cut. The cause is breaking and entering. Otherwise