Hackett shook his head. “You don’t get up,” he said. “In the dream you call me. You call me, and then you go open the door and let the girls in.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“The point is that I’ve got a friend, a psychiatrist as it happens, a very nice clean-cut type of guy. You’ll call me, and I’ll call him, and the two of us’ll come over to your place.”
“You’re going to schlepp some shrink to my house in the middle of the night?”
“This is in the dream,” Hackett told him. “We’ll come over, and you’ll make love to one of the girls, whichever one you choose, and I’ll take one, and my friend’ll take one. And after you’re done with your girl you can go to sleep, and you’ll be perfectly well rested in the morning. And we can do this every night you have the dream. All you have to do is call me and we’ll show up and help you out.”
Feverell stared at him. “If only it would work.”
“It will.”
“There was a Chinese girl the other night who was just plain out of this world,” Feverell said. “But I couldn’t really relax and enjoy her, because the Jamaican and the Norwegian girls were in the other room and, well—”
Hackett clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Call me,” he said. “Your troubles are over.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, on his way to work, Hackett gave himself up to a feeling of supreme well-being. He had repaid Krull’s kindness to him in the best way possible, by passing on the favor to another. At his desk that morning, he waited for the phone to ring with a report from Feverell.
But Feverell didn’t call. Not that morning, not the next morning, not all week. And something kept Hackett from calling Feverell.
Until finally he ran into him on the street during the noon hour—and Feverell looked terrible! Bags under his eyes, deeper than ever. Sallow skin, trembling hands. “Mike!” he said. “Mike, are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?”
“No, you don’t,” Hackett said honestly. “You look awful.”
“Well, I feel awful,” Feverell said savagely. “And I don’t feel a whole lot better for being told how terrible I look, but thanks all the same.”
“Mike, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? You know damned well what’s wrong. It’s this dream I’ve been having. I told you the whole story. Or did it slip your mind?”
Hackett sighed. “You’re still having the dream?”
“Of course I’m still having the dream.”
“Mike,” Hackett said, “when the doorbell rings, before you do anything else, you were going to call me, remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“So?”
“So I’ve called you. Every night I call you, for all the good it does.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do, every goddamned night.”
“And then I come over? And I bring my friend?”
“Oh, right,” said Feverell. “Your famous friend, the clean-cut psychiatrist. Whom I’ve yet to meet, because he doesn’t come over and neither do you. Every night I call you, and every night you hang up on me.”
“I hang up on you?” Hackett stared. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” said Feverell. “I don’t have the slightest idea. But every night I call you and you don’t even let me get a word in edgewise. ‘I’m sorry,’ you say, ‘but I can’t talk to you now, I’m on my way to Cleveland.’ Cleveland yet! And you hang up on me!”
The End
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons
Chapter One
Excerpt Copyright © 2013, Lawrence Block
AROUND 11:15 ON a Tuesday morning in May, I was perched on my stool behind the counter at Barnegat Books. I was reading Jubilate Agno, by Christopher Smart, even as I was keeping a lazy eye on a slender young woman in jeans and sandals. Her khaki shirt had those little tabs to secure the sleeves when you rolled them up, and a scant inch of tattoo peeked out from under one rolled-up sleeve. I couldn’t make out the image, there wasn’t enough showing, and I didn’t bother to guess, or to speculate on what hidden parts of her anatomy might sport further tattoos. I was paying more attention to the capacious tote bag hanging from her shoulder, and the Frank Norris novel that had engaged her interest.
For I shall consider my cat, Geoffrey, I read, and looked over to the window to consider my own cat, Raffles. There’s a portion of the window ledge that the sun manages to find on clear days, and that’s his favorite spot, rain or shine. Sometimes he stretches, in the manner of his tribe, and sometimes his paws move as he dreams of mice. At the moment he was doing nothing, as far as I could tell.
My customer, on the other hand, had fetched a cell phone from her tote bag. She’d put the book down, and her thumbs were busy. At length she returned the phone to her bag and, beaming, brought Frank Norris to the counter.
“I’ve been looking all over for this,” she said, triumphantly. “And I’ve had a terrible time, because I couldn’t remember the title or the author.”
“I can see how that might complicate things for you.”
“But when I saw the book,” she said, brandishing the object in question, “it, like, rang a bell.”
“Ah.”
“And I looked through it, and this is it.”
“The very volume you’ve been seeking.”
“Yeah, isn’t that awesome? And you know what’s even better?”
“What?”
“It’s on Kindle. Isn’t that fantastic? I mean, here’s a book more than a hundred years old, and it’s not like it was Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick, you know?”
Eat your heart out, Frank Norris.
“Like, they’re popular, so you’d expect to be able to get them in eBooks. But The Pit? Frank Norris? And yet I Googled it and there it was, and a couple of clicks and I own it.”
“Just like that,” I said.
“Isn’t it great? And you know what it cost?”
“Probably less than the book you’re holding.”
She checked the penciled price on the inside cover. “Fifteen dollars. Which is fair enough, I mean it’s like a hundred years old and a hardcover book and all. But you want to know what I just paid?”
“I’d love to.”
“Two ninety-nine.”
“Awesome,” I said.
CAROLYN KAISER, WHO washes dogs two doors down the street at the Poodle Factory, is my best friend and, more often than not, my lunch companion. Whoever’s turn it is picks up food at a nearby restaurant and brings it to the other’s place of business. It was her turn, and an hour after the girl with the peekaboo tattoo left poor old Frank Norris on my counter, Carolyn breezed in and began dishing out dejeuner a deux.
“Juneau Lock?”
“Juneau Lock,” she agreed.
“I wonder what it is.”
She took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and considered the matter. “I couldn’t even guess the animal,” she said. “Let alone what part of the animal.”
“It could be almost anything.”
“I know.”
“Whatever this dish is,” I said, “I don’t think we’ve had it before.”
“It’s always different,” she said, “and it’s always sensational.”
“Or even awesome,” I said, and told her about Frank Norris and the girl with the tattoo.
“Maybe it was a dragon.”
“The tattoo? Or our lunch?”
“Either one. She used your bookshop to figure out what book she wanted, and then she bought the eBook from Amazon and bragged about what a deal she got.”
“It didn’t come off like bragging,” I said. “She was letting me be a part of her triumph.”
“And rubbing your nose in it, Bern. And you don’t even seem all that upset.”
“I don’t?” I thought about it. “Well,” I said, “I guess I’m not. She was so innocent about it, you know? ‘Isn’t it great how I saved myself twelve
bucks?’ ” I shrugged. “At least I got the book back. I was afraid she was going to steal it.”
“In a manner of speaking,” she said, “she did. But if you’re cool with it, I don’t see why I should be pissed off on your behalf. This is great food, Bern.”
“The best.”
“Two Guys From Taichung. I wonder if I’m pronouncing it correctly.”
“I’m pretty sure you got the first three words right.”
“The first three words,” she said, “never change.”
The restaurant, on the corner of Broadway and East Eleventh Street, across the street from the Bum Rap, has had the same sign for almost as long as I’ve had the bookshop. But it’s changed owners and ethnicities repeatedly over the years, and each new owner (or pair of owners) has painted over the last word on the sign. Two Guys From Tashkent gave way to Two Guys From Guayaquil, which in turn yielded to Two Guys From Phnom Penh. And so on.
We began to take the closings for granted—it was evidently a hard-luck location—and whenever we started to lose our taste for the current cuisine, we could look forward to whatever would take its place. And, while we rarely went more than a few days without a lunch from Two Guys, there were plenty of alternatives—the deli, the pizza place, the diner.
Then Two Guys From Kandahar threw in the towel, and Two Guys From Taichung opened up shop, and everything changed.
“I’LL BE CLOSING early,” I told Carolyn.
“Today’s the day, huh?”
“And tonight’s the night. I thought I might get back downtown in time to meet you at the Bum Rap, but where’s the sense in that?”
“Especially since you’d be drinking Perrier. Bern? You want me to tag along?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? Because it’d be no problem for me to close early. I’ve got a Borzoi to blow dry, and his owner’s picking him up at three, and even if she runs late I can be out of there by three-thirty. I could keep you company.”
“You were with me on the reconnaissance mission.”
“Casing the joint,” she said with relish. “Nothing to it. Piece of cake.”
“I think it’s better if I solo this time around.”
“I could watch your back.”
“I don’t want to give their security cameras a second look at you. Once is fine but twice is suspicious.”
“I could wear a disguise.”
“No, I’ll be disguised,” I said. “And a key part of my disguise is that this time around I won’t be accompanied by a diminutive woman with a lesbian haircut.”
“I guess diminutive sounds better than short,” she said. “And it’s not exactly a lesbian haircut, but I take your point. So how about if I hang out down the block? No? Okay, Bern, but I’ll have my cell with me. If you need me—”
“I’ll call. But that’s not likely. I’ll just steal the book and go home.”
“Check Amazon first,” she said. “See if it’s on Kindle. Maybe you can save yourself a trip.”
* * *
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons
About the Author
Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. His most recent novels are Hit Me, featuring Keller, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff, featuring Matthew Scudder, who will be played by Liam Neeson in the forthcoming film, A Walk Among the Tombstones. Several of his other books have been filmed, although not terribly well. He’s well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, and The Liar’s Bible. In addition to prose works, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Email:
[email protected] Twitter: @LawrenceBlock
Website: LB’s Blog
Facebook: lawrence.block
Website: lawrenceblock.com
* * *
More Story Collections
available at
Enough Rope
The Night and the Music
Catch and Release
For a list of all my available fiction, go to Books on the Lawrence Block website.
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Thanks!
Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block, Cleveland in My Dreams
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