The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza by Lawrence Block

neck, eyes open, running the night’s events through my mind. However long it took Abel to sell the nickel and whatever price we ultimately received for it, the Colcannon burglary was over and we were clear of it. As unpromising as it had been at first glance, when I’d seen we were not the first burglars to pay a call, things had worked out rather well. The loot was out of our hands, all but a rather anonymous minor Chagall litho which, given the chaos in the Colcannon carriage house, might never even get reported. And if it did, so what? It was one of a series of 250, and who’d come looking for it on Carolyn’s wall anyway?
    All the same, I put it in her closet when I awoke the next morning. It was around nine-thirty and she’d already fed herself and the cats and left for her Schnauzer appointment. I had a cup of coffee and a roll, tucked the litho away, let my attaché case keep it companyrather than carry my burglar tools to work with me. The sun was shining, the air fresh and clean, and instead of contending with the subway I could walk to work. I could have run, for that matter—I had the shoes for it—but why spoil a beautiful morning? I strode along briskly, inhaling great lungfuls of air, swinging my arms at my sides. There was even a point when I caught myself whistling. I don’t remember the tune.
    I opened up around ten-fifteen and had my first customer twenty minutes later, a bearded pipe smoker who chose a couple volumes of English history. Then I sold a few things from the bargain table, and then trade slowed down enough for me to get back to the book I’d been reading yesterday. Old Spenser was still knocking himself out. This time he was doing bench presses, whatever they are, on a Universal machine. Whatever that is.
    Two men in their forties walked in a little before eleven. They both wore dark suits and heavy shoes. One of them could have trimmed his sideburns a little higher. He was the one who walked to the back of the store while the other took an immediate and unconvincing interest in the poetry section.
    I had Abel’s thirteen hundred dollars in my wallet, plus the thousand dollars I always carry on a job in case I have to bribe somebody. I hoped they would settle for the money in the register. I hoped the bulge under the jacket of the sideburned chap wasn’t really agun, and that if it was he wouldn’t decide to shoot me with it. I sent up an urgent brief prayer to Saint John of God, the patron saint of book-sellers, a framed picture of whom old Mr. Litzauer had left hanging in the office. No point praying to Dismas now. I was bookselling, not burgling.
    There was nothing I could do but wait for them to make a move, and I didn’t have to do that for very long. They approached the counter, the one with the sideburns returning from the rear of the store, the other still clutching a volume of Robert W. Service’s verses. I had a flash vision of one of them shooting me while the other recited “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
    They reached the counter together. The Service fan said, “Rhodenbarr? Bernard Rhodenbarr?”
    I didn’t deny it.
    “Better get your coat. Want to talk to you downtown.”
    “Thank God,” I said.
    Because, as you must have guessed and as I should have guessed, they weren’t robbers after all. They were cops. And while cops may indeed rob you now and then, it’s uncommon for them to do so at gunpoint. And gunpoint is something I prefer not to be at.
    “He’s glad to see us,” said the sideburned chap.
    The other nodded. “Probably a load off his mind.”
    “Sure. Probably up all night with guilt, aching to confess.”
    “I think you’re right, Phil. Here’s a guy, small-time burglar, he’s in over his head. You look at his sheet, you can patch it together pretty good. He teamed up with somebody violent.”
    “I’m right with you, Dan. Bad companions.”
    “Do it every time. Now he’s probably up to his kidneys in guilt and remorse. He can hand us