The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams Read Free

Broadway. While it may hearken back to the days when Fourth Avenue was given over largely to dealers in secondhand books, Barnegat Books itself is situated on Eleventh Street about halfway between Broadway and University Place. (You could say it’s a stone’s throw from Fourth Avenue, but it’s a block and a half, and if you can throw a stone that far you don’t belong on Fourth Avenue or East Eleventh Street. You ought to be up in the Bronx, playing right field for the Yankees.)
    Also on Eleventh Street, but two doors closer to Broadway, is the Poodle Factory, where Carolyn earns a precarious living washing dogs, many of them larger than herself. We met shortly after I bought the store, hit it off from the start, and have been best friends ever since. We usually have lunch together, and we almost always stop at the Bum Rap after work for a drink.
    Typically I’ll nurse a bottle of beer while Carolyn puts away a couple of scotches. Tonight, though, when the waitress came over to ask if we wanted the usual, I started to say, “Yeah, sure,” but stopped myself. “Wait a second, Maxine,” I said.
    “Oh-oh,” Carolyn said.
    “Eighty-six the beer,” I said. “Make it scotch for both of us.” To Carolyn I said, “What do you mean, ‘oh-oh’?”
    “False alarm,” she said. “Eighty-six the oh-oh. You had me worried for a second, that’s all.”
    “Oh?”
    “I was afraid you were going to order Perrier.”
    “And you know that stuff makes me crazy.”
    “Bern—”
    “It’s the little bubbles. They’re small enough to pierce the blood-brain barrier, and the next thing you know—”
    “Bern, cut it out.”
    “Most people,” I said, “would be apprehensive if they thought a friend was about to order scotch, and relieved if he wound up ordering soda water. With you it’s the other way around.”
    “Bern,” she said, “we both know what it means when a certain person orders Perrier.”
    “It means he wants a clear head.”
    “And nimble fingers, and quick reflexes, and all the other things you need if you’re about to go break into somebody’s house.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “Plenty of times I’ll have a Coke or a Perrier instead of a beer. It doesn’t always mean I’m getting ready to commit a felony.”
    “I know that. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I know it’s true.”
    “So?”
    “I also know you make it a rule not to drink any alcohol whatsoever before you go out burgling, and—”
    “Burgling,” I said.
    “It’s a word, isn’t it?”
    “And a colorful one at that. Here are our drinks.”
    “And not a moment too soon. Well, here’s to crime. Scratch that, I didn’t mean it.”
    “Sure you did,” I said, and we drank.
     
    We talked about my landlord, the book lover, and then we talked about Sue Grafton and her closeted heroine, and somewhere along the way we ordered a second round of drinks. “Two scotches,” Carolyn said. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you tonight.”
    “You can sleep easy,” I said, “knowing that I’m half in the bag.” I looked down at the tabletop, where I’d been busy making interlocking rings with the bottom of my glass, trying to duplicate the Olympics logo. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I had a reason to order scotch tonight.”
    “I always order scotch,” she said, “and believe me, I always have a reason. But I’ve got to admit you had a particularly good reason after that scene with your friend Stoppelgard.”
    “That’s not the reason.”
    “It’s not?”
    I shook my head. “I’m drinking,” I said, “to make sure I don’t commit a burglary tonight. For ten days now I’ve been fighting the urge.”
    “Because of—”
    “The rent increase. You know, I never got into the book business to make money. I just figured I could come close to breaking even. I made my real money stealing, and the store gave me a respectable front and provided me with all the reading material I could possibly