The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block Page A

admitted, and reached for the dictionary. There’s a three-foot shelf of them in the Reference section, but I keep one close at hand, and I flipped through it now. “‘Ulterior,’” I read. “‘One: lying beyond or on the farther side.’”
    “Like the cat,” he suggested. “Lyin’ on the farther side of that row of shelves.”
    “‘Two: later, subsequent, or future. Three: further; more remote; esp., beyond what is expressed, implied, or evident; undisclosed, as an ulterior motive.’”
    “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “That sounds about right. Anyway, that’s what you think, huh? That I got one of those?”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Maybe I do,” he said, “an’ then again maybe I don’t. It all depends how you answer a question.”
    “What’s the question?”
    “What the hell’s the matter with you, Bernie? Are you losin’ it?”
    “That’s the question?”
    “No,” he said, “that ain’t the question. It’s just the kind of thoughts go through the mind of a guy that’s known you a long time, an’ never yet knew you to make a habit of steppin’ on your own dick. So that ain’t the question. Here’s the question.”
    “I can’t wait.”
    “Why’d you call the guy?”
    “What guy, Ray?”
    “ ‘What guy, Ray?’ I don’t even need to check my notebook, because it’s the kind of name tends to stick in your mind. Martin Gilmartin, that’s what guy. Why the hell did you call him on the phone last night?”
    There was suddenly a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I’d somehow got hold of a bad burrito. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
    I couldn’t have been very convincing, because Ray Kirschmann didn’t even trouble to roll his eyes. “I won’t ask you why you broke into his place,” he said, “anymore’n I’d ask that cat over there why he catches mice. It’s his nature. He’s a cat, same as you’re a burglar.”
    “I’m retired.”
    “Yeah, right, Bernie. You could no more retire from bein’ a burglar than he could retire from bein’ a cat. It’s your nature, it’s what you are. So you don’t have to explain why you robbed the guy’s apartment. But why did you call him up afterward and taunt him about it?”
    “Who says I did?”
    “ He says you did. Are you saying you didn’t?”
    “What else does he say?”
    “That at first he didn’t know what to make of it. Then he took a good look around the apartment, and he found out he’d been robbed.”
    “That’s the second time you’ve used that word,” I said, “and you should know better. You know what robbery is. It’s the taking of money or property through force or violence, or the threat of force or violence.”
    “Here I am,” he said, “back at the Academy, listenin’ to a lecture.”
    “Well, it’s maddening,” I said. “‘He found out he’d been robbed.’ You can’t find out you’ve been robbed because you’re aware of it while it’s going on. Somebody sticks a gun in your face and tells you to give him your money or he’ll blow your head off, that’s robbery. I never robbed anyone in my life.”
    “You done, Bern?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, “but words mean a lot to me. How did Mr. Gilmartin discover he’d been burglarized?”
    “His property was missing.”
    “What kind of property?”
    “As if you didn’t know.”
    “Humor me, Ray.”
    “His baseball cards.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “What do you bet his mother threw them out?”
    “Bernie—”
    “That’s what happened to mine. I came home from college and they were gone, and when I blew up she stood there and quoted St. Paul at me. Something about putting away childish things.”
    “Mr. Gilmartin had quite the collection.”
    “So did I,” I remembered. “I had a ton of comic books, too. I liked the ones that taught you something about history. Crime Does Not Pay, that was my favorite.”
    “A shame you never got the message.”
    “As far as I could