The Burglar In The Closet by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

about the comely young lady who was probing my oral cavities-which, come to think of it, sounds a damn sight more appealing than it actually was. I don't know why one would be inclined to have reprehensible fantasies about a dental hygienist but I've never been able to avoid it. Maybe it's the uniform. Nurses, stewardesses, usherettes, nuns-the male chauvinist mind will go on weaving its smarmy webs.
    But Jillian Paar could have been a laundress or a streetsweeper and she'd have had the same effect on me. She was a slender slip of a girl, with straight dark brown hair cut as if with a soup bowl over her head, but clearly by someone who knew what he was doing. She had that spectacular complexion associated with the British Isles -white porcelain illuminated with a rosy glow. Her hands, unlike her employer's, were small, with narrow fingers. They did not taste boiled. Instead they smelled of spice.
    She tended to lean against one while working on one's mouth. There was nothing objectionable in this. Quite the contrary, truth to tell.
    So the cleaning seemed to pass in no time at all. And when it was all done and my teeth had that wonderfully shiny feel to them that they only have the first few hours after they've been cleaned, and after we'd exchanged a few pleasantries and she'd shown me for what seemed like the thousandth time the proper way to brush my teeth (and every damned dental hygienist shows you a different way, and each swears it's the only way) she batted an eyelash or two at me and said, "It's always good to see you, Mr. Rhodenbarr."
    "Always a pleasure for me, Jillian."
    "And I'm so glad to hear you're going to help Craig out and burglarize Crystal 's jewels."
    "Urg," I said.
    I suppose I should have bailed out there and then. It was the right time for it-the plane was still in the air and I had a parachute.
    But I didn't.
    I wasn't happy about things. My tight-lipped dentist had managed to break security within five minutes. Presumably Jillian was his trusted confidante, and quite likely she received a good number of his confidences while both parties were in a horizontal position, an hypothesis I'd entertained earlier in light of her obvious attractions and Craig's historic predilection for diddling the help.
    This didn't butter no parsnips, as my grandmother would never have dreamed of saying. (Granny was a strict grammarian who wouldn't have said ain't if she had a mouthful.) As far as I was concerned, if one person knew a burglar's plan, that was awful. If two people knew, that was ten times as awful. It didn't matter if the two people were sleeping together. Hell, maybe it was worse if they were sleeping together. They could have a falling-out and one of them could go about blabbing resentfully.
    I did take time to speak to Craig, assuring him that it would be in everybody's interest for him to give his errant tongue a Novocaine hit. He apologized and promised to be properly silent in the future, and I decided to let it go at that. I wouldn't bail out. I'd see if I couldn't fly the damn plane to safety.
    Pride and greed. They'll do you in every time.
    That was on a Thursday. I got out to the Hamptons for the weekend, spent half a day out on a bluefish boat, worked on my tan, sampled the bar scene, stayed at a fine old place called the Huntting Inn (spelling it with two T 's was their idea), agreed with everyone that the place was a damn sight better now that the season was over, and in the course of things struck out with an impressive number of otherwise charming young ladies. By the time I was back in Manhattan where I belong, I'd eaten up a little more of my case money and was almost glad I'd decided to hit the Sheldrake residence. Not wild about it but, oh, let's say sanguine.
    I spent Tuesday and Wednesday casing the joint. Wednesday night I called Craig at his East Sixty-third Street bachelor digs to get another report on Crystal 's routine. I told him, not without purpose, that Saturday night sounded