Read The Burglar in the Rye for Free Online Page B

door, and whenI didn’t hear anything but the beating of my own heart I took out my tools and put them to work. There was really nothing to it. A little strip of spring steel snicked back the spring lock and I stepped out into the sixth-floor hallway, confidence and self-assurance oozing from every other pore, and ran head-on into the appraising gaze of a woman who stood waiting for the elevator.
    “Good evening,” she said.
    “Good evening.”
    Well, it had been, up to then. And in ordinary circumstances the sight of her would have done nothing to detract from it. She was tall and slender, with skin the color of coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. She had a high forehead and a long narrow nose and prominent cheekbones and a pointed chin, and her hair was in cornrows, which often looks hokey to me, but which now looked quite perfect. She was wearing what I think you call a bolero jacket over what I’m pretty sure you call a skirt and blouse. The jacket was scarlet and the blouse was canary yellow and the skirt was royal blue, and that sounds as though it should have been garish, but somehow it wasn’t. In fact there was something reassuringly familiar about the color scheme, although I couldn’t think what it was.
    “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said. “My name is Isis Gauthier.”
    “I’m Peter Jeffries.”
    Shit, I thought. That was the second time I’d got it wrong. I was Jeffrey Peters, not Peter Jeffries. Why couldn’t I remember a simple thing like my own goddam name?
    “I could have sworn,” she said, “that you just now came through the door from the stairs.”
    “Is that right?”
    “Yes,” she said. I’d seen her in the lobby that afternoon, but I hadn’t looked twice at her. I couldn’t remember what she’d been wearing, but I was sure it was less colorful than what she wore now. And I hadn’t even noticed her eyes then. They were cornflower blue, I noted now, which meant either contact lenses or a genetic anomaly. Either way the effect was startling. She was as striking a woman as I’d seen in years, and I wished to God the elevator would come along and take her the hell out of my life.
    “And those doors lock automatically,” she went on. “You can open them from the hall, but not from the staircase.”
    “Gauthier,” I said, thoughtfully. “That’s French, isn’t it?”
    “It is.”
    “There was a writer, Théophile Gauthier. Mademoiselle de Maupin. That was one of his books. I don’t suppose he’s any relation?”
    “I’m sure he was,” she said, “to someone. But not to me. How did you manage to get in from the stairs, Mr. Jeffries?”
    “I stepped out,” I said, “and before I let the door close I wedged some paper in the lock. That way I could get back in again.”
    “And is the paper still wedged in the lock?”
    “No, I took it out just now, so that the door would function the way it’s supposed to.”
    “That was considerate,” she said, and smiled warmly. Her teeth were gleaming white, her lips full, and did I mention that her voice was pitched low, and a little husky? She was just about perfect, and I couldn’t wait to see the last of her.
    “Why,” she had to ask, “did you want to use the stairs, Mr. Jeffries?”
    “Let’s not be so formal,” I said. “Call me Peter.”
    And you must call me Isis, she was supposed to say. But all she did was repeat the question. At least by then I had an answer for it.
    “I wanted a cigarette,” I said. “My room’s nonsmoking, and I didn’t want to break the rule, so I ducked into the stairwell for a smoke.”
    “That’s what I want,” she said. “A cigarette. Do you have one, Peter?”
    “I just smoked my last one.”
    “Oh, that’s a pity. I suppose you smoke one of those ultra-low-tar brands.”
    Where was she going with this?
    “Because you don’t smell of tobacco smoke at all, you see.”
    Oh.
    “So I don’t think you ducked into the stairwell for a cigarette.” She sniffed the