32
THE house was much smaller than it had looked from the outside. The upstairs had only two bedrooms- Woody could have sworn there would be three- and a tiny bathroom.
As he had so carefully explained to that foxy Officer Delorme, Arthur "Woody" Wood was not in the burglary business to enhance his social life. Like all professional burglars, he went to great lengths to avoid meeting people on the job. At other times, well, Woody was as sociable as the next fellow.
He had seen the weaselly-looking guy from the music store coming by here all the time. In fact, he had followed him home from the mall one day, after watching him load a tasty-looking Sony box into his van. He knew the couple was out, now, because he had sat outside in the van for the past hour and a half. It was perfectly safe to watch a place that way; nobody worries about a beat-up old ChevyVan labeled COMSTOCK ELECTRICAL INSTALLATIONS AND REPAIRS, nobody pays the slightest attention. Even so, Woody changed the lettering every three months, just to be on the safe side.
So he had sat out there listening to the Pretenders on his tape machine (a Blaupunkt he'd happened across while doing a little inventory enhancement up in Cedarvale last winter. Man, those Germans knew their engineering) and reading the sports pages of the Lode. In between worrying about the Maple Leafs, he was thinking about his shopping. Woody, besides being an industrious thief, was also a conscientious father and husband, and it was time to pick up a little something for the son and heir, whom he referred to affectionately as Dumptruck.
The kid needed a nifty toy- a set of blocks would be nice; he'd see what was around. Of course, this couple didn't have any children, he'd watched long enough to know that, but you never know what people will have cluttering up their closets. He'd picked up a little plastic Yogi Bear a couple of weeks ago that Truckie carried with him everywhere.
The side-door lock had presented no problem: twenty-seven seconds- not a record, but not bad, either. Woody had proceeded directly to the top floor, his usual practice; he had a superstition that you were working with nature, then, letting gravity assist you on the way down. He moved now in his quietest Reeboks toward the back bedroom; reason and observation had told him this had to be where the happy couple slept.
It was not what he expected. This was a single girl's room, not a couple's. The walls were pink, the bed was white wood, and the dresser was littered with pots of cream, mostly medicinal. The wallpaper- ancient and peeling in more than one corner- had at one time been pale yellow with a motif of little parasols. A stuffed tiger on top of the dresser caught his eye- Dumptruck might like that- but on closer inspection it proved to be a mangy, dog-eared tiger, clearly clutched and drooled on through many an illness. He could hardly take that home. "What were you thinking of?" Martha would say. "It's completely unhygienic."
He paused for a moment, alert for any sounds. No, the old lady wasn't stirring. Probably deaf, too. Poor old girl hadn't been trundled out for at least three days.
The headboard of the bed had an interesting feature: built-in bookshelves with little sliding panels- exactly the sort of cubbyhole people like to stash their jewelry in. Woody, an inveterate optimist as all of his trade must be, slid back the little panel full of expectation.
And met up with his second surprise. He had expected a couple of Danielle Steel novels, Martha read them all the time, or maybe a Barbara Taylor Whatshername. But this was a grim little library, indeed: History of Torture, Japanese Atrocities of World War II, Justine, and Juliette- both by the Marquis de Sade. He'd heard of that guy.
Woody always allowed himself one lingering moment on a job, a moment when, holding some treasured or peculiar object, he would indulge his imagination and picture the life he was invading. This was that moment. He pulled out Juliette. Wasn't the marquis that guy who liked to prance around in whips and chains and things? Woody flipped through to a page that had the corner turned down and read a passage that had been marked in the margin: I grasp those breasts, lift them, and cut them off close to the chest; then stringing those hunks of flesh upon a cord…
Woody flipped through a few more pages and saw that things only got worse. The flyleaf bore an inscription in cheap ballpoint: to Edie from Eric. "Jesus, Eric," he said under his breath. "This is not a book you give a woman. This is one sick book, and you are one sick puppy." Woody vowed strict professional deportment for the rest of the job.
Martha would have shivered with revulsion at the bathroom: the sink was rust-stained, the tiles scummy. You could smell the towels from the hallway. The cabinet was chock-full of Pharma-City sleeping pills and tranquilizers, just the sort of happy accident that could make a man's day. Unfortunately, Woody was not into drugs. Didn't use 'em, didn't sell 'em, thanks to Martha. But oh, he thought wistfully, there was a time…
A noise from somewhere. Voices. He froze in front of the cracked mirror, head cocked to one side. Just the old lady's TV. Lonely damn business watching soap operas all day. She had the front bedroom, he knew from his vigil, and there wouldn't be anything worth taking in there, some horrible old black-and-white TV with a terrible picture.
He went downstairs and took a quick, disappointing inventory of the kitchen. The handful of old appliances would net him nothing. Even the dark little living room was a bust. Just a lot of overstuffed furniture that looked like one too many dogs had died on it. Woody ignored the funny old clock on the mantel, not into antiques. To his disgust, there wasn't even a VCR: Now, that was truly an anomaly in this day and age.
He was batting zero, and the place was nearly done. He'd totally misread the situation. The music-store guy didn't even live here. Guy worked at the fucking music store, for Christ's sake, he had to have some great equipment stashed away somewhere- Woody had seen him with that Sony carton, just the other day, pulled it out of the back of that spiffy old Windstar he drove.
"Truly fucked up," Woody murmured. "A TV table and no TV." The dust pattern showed that there had been a TV in the spot until a day or two ago. And the small stack of videotapes beside the table sang to him of a VCR. Either both items were in for repair- big coincidence there- or they'd been shifted to another part of the house, maybe Granny Goodwitch's room.
Well, he couldn't disturb Granny, so he was stuck with the basement. Woody's optimism hadn't deserted him, not yet- basements sometimes yielded unexpected dividends: a case of tools, an outboard motor, sets of golf clubs, you just never knew- but basements were cold and dank, and the shivers they gave you felt a lot like fear. You couldn't hear as well in a basement, either, which is why a lot of his colleagues got caught in basements: It was a vulnerable position. They were the anal sex of burglary, basements: not without interest, but not his first choice, either. Not on a bright sunny day.
At the bottom of the steps, Woody paused amid the Wellington boots and battered skates and rusting snow shovels, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The basement smelled of laundry and old cat piss. Outside, it was dark; a light would be seen. The windows, he noticed with a flutter of nerves, were high and tiny and probably not big enough to climb through should a sudden exit prove desirable.
Gradually, various objects took on form: an old washer with a wringer attachment, a filthy furnace, a pair of broken skis, a battered aluminum toboggan, and a woman's bike with the front wheel missing. He considered the bike for a minute: Just that fall, Martha's ten-speed had been stolen. Martha had gone into her hell's-own-fury mode, especially when Woody had taken the detached view of a professional. This wreck of a bike was out of the question, though; it would take more work to fix than it was worth. He turned and saw across the gloom a door, a solid slab of oak leading to- well, here Woody allowed his optimism free rein: It would lead to- yes, that's it, his studio. The weaselly-looking guy with the cameras and tape recorders kept a studio in his girlfriend's basement. This room with its Medeco lock and its three solid bolts would contain cameras, tripods, recording gear, TVs, and VCRs. Woody, my man, you're on the threshold of paradise.