Pleasure Thieves

"So, to save them when they've given up any hope of salvation, when they've buried the jewels in a nasty black safe and worn lighter carefree paste that looks just like the real thing (but they hope no one gets confused and shoots at them for the phonies, too), I enter the room like a merciful surgeon and amputate the choking stones."

"Careful, Phillip. I thought you were a psychiatrist."

"A man of taste, Harry. That's all you must remember."

The waiter made frantic little signs to the maitre d'hotel, who made frantic little signs to the bartender, and their great announcement was made that a table was free. They were gallantly escorted to it. Over the antipasto, they decided to remove poor Mrs. Aldrich's weighty neurosis.

"Mrs. Aldrich," Phillip explained, "is one of the most neurotic matrons in Rye."

"Good." The words were coming through to Harry unadorned.

"To calm her nerves, she belongs to the Archer Society, the Town and Country League, and a few other local organizations."

Phillip reached into his thin black briefcase. "Here," he said, laying a paper alongside Harry's plate, "check here."

"Check," his partner commented.

"She is, in short, a busy, fashionable, neurotic woman."

"The kind Carol creates," Harry interjected.

Phillip looked up sharply. "Exactly." The two men forgot about the Aldrich's for a moment, but Harry was the first one to get back to work.

"How long do we have to pull it off?"

"They go to Nassau every year. This month. Never before the 10th, never later than the 25th. We have to know exactly when. She takes the big stuff out of deposit a few days before they leave. That's why we have to know exactly when."

"What's the layout," Harry calmly asked.

"The house has eighteen rooms, three floors. Ours is the second."

"How many servants?"

"A maid, a chauffeur, a cook who goes home evenings."

"When does the maid go home?"

Phillip smiled at Harry. "Find out, my boy."

Harry looked at his watch. It was a nervous gesture, one of the few Phillip had observed. The hour, the minute, the month, the day, the year, all tiny neat numbers in the compact face.

"Today is the 6th; the stuff may already be in the house."

"Find that out too, Harry."

The younger man nodded. "I'll telephone you from Rye tomorrow."

"Good." Phillip was pushing his chair back. "Oh yes," he added the slight oversight, "Carol wondered if you needed the $26,000."

"Minus fifteen percent?"

"Minus fifteen percent."

"Let's go for a walk," Harry suggested. "Let's go look at lots of bright sparkling things."

Phillip signed the check, adding a generous tip, and the two prosperous looking bourgeois left the restaurant. The walk lasted as far as the outside door. When the doorman rushed over saying, "Cab, sir,"

Harry nodded. Phillip looked amused. He followed Harry into the cab and grinned with understanding when Harry gave the West 47th Street address.

In the sheltered upholstery of the car, Harry finally said to Phillip,

"Why didn't you tell me who you were in prison?"

"As it works out," was the reply, "I think I did the wiser thing to not tell you. What's your story, Harry?"

"It's my one story," said Harry. "I made all my money on the Black Market in Europe. What I stole, I brought back. Stashed it in a deposit box. Bundles. Enough for a lifetime. What can they do? I was a paratrooper and it could be true. Your … your Carol was telling me,"

he hesitated, "that you were busted on Income Tax charges."

"Yes," Phillip smiled. "The rich man's disease. It's replacing gout."

He frowned theatrically. "Actually, I got into the cooler," he was going to play it Harry's way, "through an overweening love of art. My inventory of paintings fattened out of all proportions to my sales. The north wall in my study alone represents almost $200,000. You need to sell a lot to make that kind of money and live well too. I mean, you can't say you won it all at the races.

"Yes," his fingers rubbed eyes, "art is my one great weakness. I can't bear not owning a picture I want, when it's only a matter of a little money between me and possession. It's impossible to explain this or account for oneself when a battery of experts descends on you, goes through your books, makes an inventory. I did my penance."

He intoned directly to Harry. "That's my weakness, Harry. What's yours? I've wondered for months, what is Harry's weakness? What's going on behind those eyes staring up at the cell ceiling?"

The cabdriver pulled to the curb and turned around to read off the meter. "That'll be $4."

Harry handed him a $5 bill and opened the door for Phillip, "I don't have a weakness, Phillip. Maybe that's my weakness."

Phillip shook his arm. "Of course, you've got your weakness, Harry.

It's not knowing what your great weakness is." His face was curiously calm. He looked suddenly prophetic, stone-like. "It makes you a dangerous man. And, I admit, a very brave one."