The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page B

her share and she fanned the bills and whistled soundlessly at them. She said, “Not bad for a night’s work, huh? I know it’s not much for burglary, but it’s different when your frame of reference is dog-grooming. You got any idea how many mutts I’d have to wash for this?”
    “Lots.”
    “Bet your ass. Hey, I think you owe me a couple of bucks. Or are you charging me for the Chagall?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Well, you gave me twelve hundred, and that’s fifty dollars short of half. Not to be chintzy, but—”
    “You’re forgetting our expenses.”
    “What, cabfare? You paid one way and I paid coming back. What expenses?”
    “Spinoza’s Ethics. ”
    “I thought it came in with a load of books you bought by the yard. Or are you figuring on the basis of value instead of cost? That’s fair, I don’t care one way or the other, but—”
    “I bought the book at Bartfield’s on Fifty-seventh Street. It was a hundred dollars even. I didn’t have to pay sales tax because I have a resale number.”
    She stared at me. “You paid a hundred dollars for that book?”
    “Sure. Why? The price wasn’t out of line.”
    “But you told Abel—”
    “That I got it for next to nothing. I think he believed me, too. I also think it got us an extra five hundred bucks for the watch and the earrings. It put him in a generous frame of mind.”
    “Jesus,” she said. “There’s a lot I don’t understand about this business.”
    “There’s a lot nobody understands.”
    “Whoever heard of buying presents for a fence?”
    “Whoever heard of a fence who quotes Spinoza?”
    “That’s a point. You sure you don’t want a nightcap?”
    “Positive.”
    “Did you know the nickel was worth that much?”
    “I had a pretty good idea.”
    “You were so cool about it on the way up there. I had no idea it was worth a fortune.”
    “I just seemed cool.”
    “Yeah?” She cocked her head, studied me. “I’m glad we didn’t take the ten grand apiece and say the hell with it. Why not take a gamble? It’s not like I needed ten thousand dollars to get my kid brother an operation. How long do you think it’ll take him to sell it?”
    “There’s no telling. He could move it tomorrow or sit on it for six months.”
    “But sooner or later the phone’ll ring and we’ll find out we just hit the Irish Sweepstakes.”
    “Something like that.”
    She stifled a yawn. “I thought I’d feel like celebrating tonight. But it’s not really over yet, is it? It’s probably a good thing. I don’t think I’ve got the strength for a celebration. Besides, I’m sure to have a bitch of a sugar hangover in the morning.”
    “A sugar hangover?”
    “All that pastry.”
    “You think it’s the sugar that’s going to give you a hangover?”
    “What else?” She picked a cat off the couch, set him on the floor. “Sorry, fellow,” she told him, “but it’s bedtime for Mama.”
    “You sure you don’t want the bed, Carolyn?”
    “How are you supposed to fit on the couch? We’d have to fold you in half.”
    “It’s just that I hate to chase you out of your own bed.”
    “Bern, we have this same argument every time you stay over. One of these days I’ll actually let you have the couch and you’ll never make the offer again.”
    So I took the bed and she took the couch, as usual and I slept in my underwear and she in her Dr. Denton’s. Ubi joined her on the couch. Archie, the Burmese, was restless at first, pacing the perimeters ofthe dark apartment like a rancher checking his fences. After a few circuits he threw himself onto the bed, flopped against me, and got the purring machine going. He was great at it, but then he’s had all his life to practice.
    Carolyn had had about three drinks to each of mine and they kept her from spending much time tossing and turning. In minutes her breathing announced that she was asleep, and in not too many more minutes she began emitting a ladylike snore.
    I lay on my back, hands behind