Caught Stealing (2004) (4 page)

For a moment, I think about just opening the door. Trigger the alarm and that would surely bring this whole thing to a swift conclusion. Bad guys dash out, fire trucks and cops show up, I tell the simple truth and, if I get snagged on the pot, well, so be it. Sometimes you just have to be a grown-up and bite the bullet. Instead, I turn into Spy Boy and decide to climb down the fire escape to get a closer look.

I used to break into houses. I was seventeen and couldn't play ball anymore. My leg was so messed up I couldn't play anything for a while. In gym I rode the bench with the burnouts and watched my jock friends play and thought about how I'd like to beat the shit out of their healthy bodies. After about a week, I started sneaking off with the burners to get baked behind the equipment shed. That's how I met Wade, Steve, and Rich.

Breaking into a house in the suburbs is easy. Unlocked doors are common and unlocked windows are universal. No one had an alarm back then. Rich and Steve only did houses they knew were empty. That was fun. You hop a fence and usually just go in the back door. You run the house quick, looking for cash or jewelry or drugs, just what fits in your pockets, then you get out. Wade liked to hit houses when the people were home. I liked it too.

You pick a house. What you're looking for is no lights at all or lights in one room only. A house where all the people are sleeping is a charge, but a house where someone is awake is unreal. You test the side garage door and go in there. Once in the garage, you can get a feel for what's going on in the house. And no one locks the house door to the garage. You slip into the house and listen for the TV. Thursday night in the eighties and everyone in America is watching The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court, and Hill Street Blues. For those three hours you could do whatever you wanted. Walking past the open door of the family room, you peek in and see Mom, Dad, and the kids grouped around the set. Even if you asked directions to the bathroom no one would look up. Sometimes it was too easy.

I was at it for a few months until I got busted. The cops stopped me and Wade after we did a house. All they were looking to do was hassle us for being out after curfew, but we smarted off and they got us with cash, a bottle of Valium and some lady's engagement ring. I quit after that. My folks picked me up at the station and I quit. They looked so disappointed. I didn't see much of Wade and Steve after that, but I stayed close to Rich.

The fire escape for my apartment is at the back of the building. I move down it quick and easy, or as quick and easy as I can with the pain in my side. I stop when I get to the floor above mine. The fire escape extends down at a sharp angle, half ladder/half staircase, and dumps you about a foot to the left of my bedroom window. Unless one of these guys is standing right at the window, I should be able to creep down and press myself against the bricks between my place and Russ's. From there I can listen and decide if I can afford to take a peek or if I should just get the hell out.

I relax. I am ready to start down the steps. And the dog in the apartment I am outside of starts to bark bloody murder.

I don't think. I fly down the steps and flatten myself against the bricks. The only way I can be seen now is if someone sticks their head out the window. I wait while I catch my breath and the dog winds down. No one opens my window. I am calm. I settle against the bricks and listen. They are in there. I can hear low voices and what seems to be a great deal of rummaging and low-key destruction. The sound is a bit faint and does not seem to be coming directly from my bedroom just inside the window. I decide to take a peek. I turn so that I face the bricks, inch over to the window and dart my right eye out and back as quickly as possible. And I see nothing. I breathe. Slowly this time, I poke my head out enough to see a wide swath of the bedroom and living area and I see nothing. No people, no signs of search or forced entry. I see only Bud sitting on my bed where he is not allowed and looking at me with an expression that clearly says: "What the fuck are you doing?" Yes, the searching sounds are in fact coming from behind me in Russ's apartment.

I repeat the process. I edge to Russ's window and do the quick peek and get an impression of a big mess and some people. I do some more breathing and go back for a better look. There are three guys in there; I'm not sure what they look like because the blood pounding in my temples keeps blurring my vision. One of them is big, one is small, and one is medium. The Three Bears. Russ's apartment is being broken into by the Three Bears. The thought makes me giggle. I hold it in, and it almost bursts out again. I have to get off this fire escape before I start to laugh. I go back to my bedroom window, which is locked, of course, but my bedroom has two windows and the second one is unlocked. It is, however, a few feet beyond the fire escape. But right now I want to be in my apartment and that's all I know.

I climb over the rail. I plant my left foot on the escape and grip it with my left hand and stretch. If I hadn't had a major surgical procedure in the last week, this would be easy. As it is, it hurts like hell. I bite my lip to keep from shouting and it makes my eyes water, which, for some strange reason, makes me want to sneeze. I plant my right foot on the window ledge. The window is not ajar, so I can't get a grip on the lip. I have to press my palm flat against the glass and push up. I don't have enough leverage. I'm going to have to get lower. I loosen my grip on the escape just a bit and bend at the right knee while I stretch farther with my left leg. My staples dig in and my left arm is sore and I press my palm against the window and push up with my right arm and leg and tears are now streaming down my face and as the window lurches open I sneeze massively and throw myself into my bedroom as my left foot slips from the escape.

The top half of my body flops into the apartment, my hips caught on the sill, my legs dangling outside the window and more searing pain radiating from my side. There are quick footsteps next door as someone runs to Russ's window. I drag my legs inside, shut the window and curl into a quiet ball in the space between the bed and the wall. I hear the window next door open. I hear someone climb out onto the fire escape. I sense someone at my window looking in. I couldn't move if I wanted to.

I stay like that until I hear them leave Russ's apartment about fifteen minutes later. Then I get up, go to the bathroom, and puke. Big surprise: Throwing up makes my staples hurt. But I don't appear to have popped any of them during all this. Adrenaline is leaving my body and in its wake it leaves a huge craving for booze. I drink some water. I straighten up my apartment. I remember my laundry on the roof and decide to leave it there until later, tomorrow even. Then I smoke a roach, flush the rest of my high-grade Virginia pot, make a phone call and play with Bud while I wait for the cops.

I tell them about everything except the grass. First, I tell the uniforms who answer the call. I tell them about getting beat up. I tell them about finding the tracksuits outside my apartment. I tell them the idiotic tale of my climb to the roof and descent by the fire escape. They're pretty nice on the whole and only laugh a little about what an asshole I am. Then Detective Lieutenant Roman of Robbery/Homicide shows up.

If the job description for a great cop said "dark, brooding, efficient as hell, and looks great in a black suit," then Detective Lieutenant Roman would be your guy. He asks me all kinds of incisive questions as we sit around in my apartment and all he ever looks at are my eyes and his little notebook.

-How many people did you actually see?

-I think five, altogether.

-Why "you think"?

-I didn't get a very good look through the window, so there might have been more. But I know there were the two guys downstairs and I definitely saw three in Russ's apartment.

-Russ is Mr. Miner, your neighbor?

-Right.

-Tell me about the guys downstairs.

-Two big guys, they were in the pizza place next door and when I got to the roof they were watching the building from across the street.

-These are the two who beat you up last week?

-Right.

-And when they came into the bar that night, did they ask for Mr. Miner?

-No. They didn't ask for shit except a couple drinks. Then they went haywire.

-OK. The guys in Mr. Miner's apartment, what can you tell me about them?

-Uh, one guy big, even bigger than the two Russians.

-Russians?

-The guys who beat me up, the guys in the tracksuits, had accents. I think they were Russian or Ukrainian or Polish.

-You said Russian.

-Or Ukrainian or Serbian for all the fuck I know, just Russianic.

-OK. What about the big guy in the apartment?

-Big. And I think he was Latino or something.

-He was, what, dark?

-Yeah, dark skin, but lightish. I mean he might have been black, but not dark black.

-Brown complexioned?

-Yeah.

-Hair?

-Lots of it, I think. Long hair, black. That's what I think.

-OK, who else?

-A small guy with bright red hair.

-Carrot topped?

-No, real red, might be dyed kind of red.

-Fire engine?

-Almost.

-Good, that's good.

-Yeah?

-What about the third?

-Uh, not much. Averagish size, dark hair, and wearing black, I think.

-You think he was wearing black?

-He was definitely in black or very dark blue.

-OK.

He looks at his notes and waves one of the uniforms over. Without saying anything, he takes the uniform's notebook and flips through it, looking for something. He hands the book back to the uniform and takes another look at me. And he really looks at me, I mean, he looks me up and down like he's sizing me up for a secret mission or something.

-Can you tell me, this is difficult and I don't want to compromise you, your friendship with Mr. Miner, but can you tell me, is Mr. Miner involved in any illegal activities?

Well, fuck, what do I do with that?

-Fuck, I don't know.

-This is crucial. You understand that, yes? If your friend is in danger, we need to know everything there is to know.

-I understand.

-Good. Now do you have any reason to believe that.

And I just cut the guy off.

-For chrissake, no. Frankly, I don't know what the guy does. I think he's trying to be an actor or something, I think he works at a club in the meat-packing district, but I'm not sure what the fuck he does. And as much as I like him, I'm not so much worried about him being in danger since I'm the one got the shit beat out of him.

I'm spazzing a little here and I know it, but honestly I've been under a lot of pressure and I just snap. Detective Roman doesn't even blink. As far as he's concerned, we're having a lovely tete- -tete over tea and fucking crumpets.

-OK. That's good to know. As far as danger goes . . .

-Yes?

-I wouldn't worry too much. Figure the guys who beat you up came into the bar looking for Mr. Miner and you must have pissed them off somehow. And if they are looking for him, not you, they probably have no idea that you're his neighbor. So take it easy and we'll get this all sorted out.

Color me reassured.

-Thanks, that helps.

-And you're certain you don't have a number where Mr. Miner can be reached?

-No.

-When he left the cat, he gave you no phone number and no address?

-No.

-OK.

-It's just, he was in a hurry and I was a bit loaded that night, so . . .

-OK.

-But he always talked about his dad being upstate somewhere. Rochester, I think.

-OK.

-And I'm pretty sure about the place he works, where it is and all.

-OK.

The way Detective Roman says "OK" this last time makes it clear that I'm just babbling now, so I put a sock in it and he makes a last note in his book.

-Let's get to it.

He stands up, pulls out a pair of thin rubber gloves, and goes across the hall to Russ's door, which he can't open because, of course, the bad guys locked it behind them. But that's OK because whoever looked out the window while I was flopping around left that wide open. One of the uniforms goes through the window and opens the door.

I stand in the hall and watch Roman do his thing and I am thoroughly impressed. He goes through the place like a machine, telling the uniforms what to touch and what not to touch. He pokes and pries into every corner and dusts for prints and gets the job done in a way that makes you happy to be a taxpayer. Then he's finished. He closes the door to Russ's apartment and slaps a police seal across the jamb. He gives me his card and tells me to call right away if anything else happens and to have Mr. Miner call him immediately if and when he returns. Then he and the uniforms leave and I sit down on my couch and wish I had a cocktail and Bud jumps up in my lap and I remember the fucking key in his box.

I can't sleep. I lie in bed and think about Russ and the tracksuits and their pals. I think about Detective Roman telling me not to worry. I think about not having a job and I think about the money I owe. I think about the key. I think about the key a lot.

When I remembered the key, I froze. The cops had just left and