caught.
First of all because he didn’t go after the really big scores, that was for amateurs. Second because he was
content
with the smaller hits, didn’t go around grumbling or complaining, didn’t tell bartenders he coulda been a contenduh, didn’t let it bother him that he went home with three, four grand a week instead of five hundred thou on a single hit. Cookie Boy was living well and enjoying himself besides. And every now and then, he’d pop a crib and lo and behold he’d discover a red-fox jacket and a candy tin full of all kinds of baubles and beads. He’d fence the jacket for five hundred and the jewelry for a thou, which gave him a fifteen-hundred-dollar profit for jimmying a window and spending twenty minutes in an apartment.
Sometimes you went in and you found a shithole, what could you do? You could tell at a glance you wouldn’t find anything of value in such an apartment, but you tossed it fast, anyway, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, and you got out as fast as you came in, no sense looking at time for no reason at all, risks were for amateurs. Never mind leaving any cookies, either, thanks for
nothing,
lady!
What he tried to do was find a well-kept building in a low-crime area, didn’t have to be silk stocking. Just your average middle-class neighborhood where you’d find buildings without doormen, some of them walk-ups without elevators, it didn’t matter. You were looking for something without security. You walked the neighborhood three or four times, got the feel of it, looked for steps leading down to the backyards, made a few trips behind the buildings. Anybody questioned you, you told them you were a “city inspector,” checking“ordinances,” and you moved on to another block. If you took no risks, you spent no time upstate.
The backyards were another world.
It was like being inside a piece of modern sculpture back there, a fantastic universe of flapping clotheslines and telephone poles and fire escapes and soot-stained brick and blue sky overhead, all crazy angles, wood and iron and concrete against the soft billowing curves of laundry drying. Another world. Music coming from open windows, television voices blending with real voices, toilets flushing, cooking smells floating out over fences and walls, a private world back here, hidden from the street. Exciting, too, in a way that had nothing to do with risk. Exciting because it was an intimate glimpse. Like catching sight of a girl’s panties when she crossed her legs.
In the summertime, you avoided any apartment where a window was open. This usually meant somebody was home trolling for a breath of fresh air. An occupied apartment was the one thing on earth you did not desire, unless you were an amateur who got his kicks scaring sick old ladies in bed. Apartments with air conditioners were tricky because all the windows
had
to be kept closed, and you couldn’t tell if anyone was in there or not. So you looked for an apartment with closed windows and fire-escape access, and then you took your chances. Went up, listened outside, you could usually tell if anybody was home or not. Lots of windows were closed but unlocked; people got careless, even in a city like this one. If the window was locked, you jimmied it. If the lock was painted shut, you used a glass cutter, though in such cases it was usually best to meander on by and look for another score.You dropped a piece of glass, the noise of it shattering was the best burglar alarm in the world. Once you had the window open, you took a deep breath and went in.
The apartment he’d chosen today was on the third floor of one of those white-brick buildings that had been all the rage a few decades back. Once they got covered with all the filth and grime of the city, they didn’t look so hot anymore, and landlords discovered they cost a fortune to clean, so they just let them revert to the jungle. Some of these buildings still had doormen, but not the one he’d chosen. This one
First of all because he didn’t go after the really big scores, that was for amateurs. Second because he was
content
with the smaller hits, didn’t go around grumbling or complaining, didn’t tell bartenders he coulda been a contenduh, didn’t let it bother him that he went home with three, four grand a week instead of five hundred thou on a single hit. Cookie Boy was living well and enjoying himself besides. And every now and then, he’d pop a crib and lo and behold he’d discover a red-fox jacket and a candy tin full of all kinds of baubles and beads. He’d fence the jacket for five hundred and the jewelry for a thou, which gave him a fifteen-hundred-dollar profit for jimmying a window and spending twenty minutes in an apartment.
Sometimes you went in and you found a shithole, what could you do? You could tell at a glance you wouldn’t find anything of value in such an apartment, but you tossed it fast, anyway, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, and you got out as fast as you came in, no sense looking at time for no reason at all, risks were for amateurs. Never mind leaving any cookies, either, thanks for
nothing,
lady!
What he tried to do was find a well-kept building in a low-crime area, didn’t have to be silk stocking. Just your average middle-class neighborhood where you’d find buildings without doormen, some of them walk-ups without elevators, it didn’t matter. You were looking for something without security. You walked the neighborhood three or four times, got the feel of it, looked for steps leading down to the backyards, made a few trips behind the buildings. Anybody questioned you, you told them you were a “city inspector,” checking“ordinances,” and you moved on to another block. If you took no risks, you spent no time upstate.
The backyards were another world.
It was like being inside a piece of modern sculpture back there, a fantastic universe of flapping clotheslines and telephone poles and fire escapes and soot-stained brick and blue sky overhead, all crazy angles, wood and iron and concrete against the soft billowing curves of laundry drying. Another world. Music coming from open windows, television voices blending with real voices, toilets flushing, cooking smells floating out over fences and walls, a private world back here, hidden from the street. Exciting, too, in a way that had nothing to do with risk. Exciting because it was an intimate glimpse. Like catching sight of a girl’s panties when she crossed her legs.
In the summertime, you avoided any apartment where a window was open. This usually meant somebody was home trolling for a breath of fresh air. An occupied apartment was the one thing on earth you did not desire, unless you were an amateur who got his kicks scaring sick old ladies in bed. Apartments with air conditioners were tricky because all the windows
had
to be kept closed, and you couldn’t tell if anyone was in there or not. So you looked for an apartment with closed windows and fire-escape access, and then you took your chances. Went up, listened outside, you could usually tell if anybody was home or not. Lots of windows were closed but unlocked; people got careless, even in a city like this one. If the window was locked, you jimmied it. If the lock was painted shut, you used a glass cutter, though in such cases it was usually best to meander on by and look for another score.You dropped a piece of glass, the noise of it shattering was the best burglar alarm in the world. Once you had the window open, you took a deep breath and went in.
The apartment he’d chosen today was on the third floor of one of those white-brick buildings that had been all the rage a few decades back. Once they got covered with all the filth and grime of the city, they didn’t look so hot anymore, and landlords discovered they cost a fortune to clean, so they just let them revert to the jungle. Some of these buildings still had doormen, but not the one he’d chosen. This one
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