The Burglar in the Library Read Free Page A

“If you want,” she said, “I’ll order something else.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, if you want to get good and drunk,” she said, “I could make a point of staying relatively sober.”
    “We don’t have a car,” I said. “What do we need with a designated driver? Anyway, why would I want to get drunk?”
    “You mean you don’t?”
    “Not particularly.”
    “Oh. Hey, this isn’t going to be a Perrier night for you, is it?”
    Perrier is my drug of choice when my plans for an evening include illegal entry. “No,” I said. “It’snot.” And I proved it by asking Maxine to bring me a bottle of Tuborg.
    “Well, thank God,” Carolyn said. “In that case I’ll have Scotch, Max, and you might as well make it a double. They said I’m a genius, Bernie. Isn’t that something?”
    “It’s great.”
    “If I had my choice,” she said, “I’d just as soon be a genius at something else. Nobody ever got a MacArthur Award for washing dogs. But it’s better than nothing, don’t you think?”
    “Absolutely. You could be like me.”
    “A genius at picking locks?”
    “A genius at picking women.”
    “I’m already a genius at picking women.”
    “Can you believe it?” I demanded, and launched into my third recital of Lettice’s revelation. “What I want to know,” I said, “is when she would have gotten around to telling me if I hadn’t pressed her about the weekend. I mean, it’s not like she had a date to go to the movies with some other guy. She’s getting married. ”
    “Did you know she was seeing somebody else?”
    “I more or less assumed it. We weren’t in a committed relationship. Actually we’d only recently started sleeping together.”
    “How was it?”
    “You mean the sex?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It was wonderful.”
    “Oh.”
    “Really special.”
    “Sorry to hear it, Bern.”
    “But it wasn’t a major love affair. I had hopes thatit might turn out to be, but deep down inside I think I knew it wouldn’t. We didn’t have that much in common. I figured it would run its course and resolve itself with some sort of bittersweet ending, and years from now she’d be one more tender memory for me to warm myself with as I slid off into senility. So I was fully prepared for it to come to nothing, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon, or so abruptly.”
    “So you’re essentially okay about it, Bern?”
    “I’d say so.”
    “You’re stunned but not devastated. Is that about it?”
    “Pretty much. I feel stupid for having misread the situation so completely. I thought the woman was crazy about me, and all the while she was getting ready to tie the knot with somebody else.”
    “He’s the guy to feel sorry for, Bern.”
    “Who, the bridegroom?”
    “Uh-huh. A week and a half before the wedding, and his wife’s rehearsing with somebody else? If you ask me, you’re lucky to be rid of her.”
    “I know.”
    “Lettice. What kind of name is that, anyway?”
    “I guess it’s English.”
    “I suppose so. You know, ever since you started seeing her I’ve been good about resisting the obvious jokes. Like, what kind of a name is that for a tomato? Or, has she got a sister named Parsley? Or, I hope she’s not the original Iceberg Lettice.”
    “She’s not.”
    “I don’t know, Bern. She was cool as a cucumber the other day. Who’s the lucky guy, anyway? Did she tell you anything about him?”
    “Not a word.”
    “Or where she met him, or anything like that?”
    I shook my head. “Maybe she just walked into his store,” I said. “That’s how she met me. She picked out half a dozen books by Martha Grimes and Elizabeth George, and we got to talking.”
    “What’s she do, Bern?”
    “All sorts of things,” I said, remembering. “Oh, you mean for a living? She does something in Wall Street. I think she’s a stock analyst.”
    “So she’s not just a bimbo.”
    “Not in the traditional sense of the term.”
    “And she’s English?”
    “No.”
    “I thought she