{"id":1652,"date":"2026-01-03T21:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-burglar-who-studied-spinoza-block-lawrence\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T21:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T21:43:00","slug":"the-burglar-who-studied-spinoza-block-lawrence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-burglar-who-studied-spinoza-block-lawrence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza – Block, Lawrence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A<\/span><\/span>round five-thirty I put down the book I\u2019d been reading and started shooing customers out of the store. The book was by Robert B. Parker, and its hero was a private detective named Spenser who compensated for his lack of a first name by being terribly physical. Every couple of chapters would find him jogging around Boston or lifting weights or finding some other way to court a heart attack or a hernia. I was getting exhausted just reading about him.<\/p>\n

My customers shooed easily enough, one pausing to buy the volume of poetry he\u2019d been browsing, the rest melting off like a light frost on a sunny morning. I shlepped my bargain table inside (\u201cAll books 40\u00a2 \/ 3 for $1\u201d), flicked off the lights, let myself out, closed the door, locked it, drew the steel gates across the door and windows, locked them, and Barnegat Books was bedded down for the night.<\/p>\n

My shop was closed. It was time to get down to business.<\/p>\n


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The store is on East Eleventh Street between University Place and Broadway. Two doors east is the Poodle Factory. I let myself in, heralded by the tinkling of the door chimes, and Carolyn Kaiser\u2019s head emerged from the curtain at the back. \u201cHi, Bern,\u201d she said. \u201cGet comfy. I\u2019ll be right out.\u201d<\/p>\n

I arranged myself on a pillow sofa and started leafing through a copy of a trade journal called The Pet Dealer,<\/span> which was about what you\u2019d expect. I thought maybe I\u2019d see a picture of a Bouvier des Flandres, but no such luck. I was still trying when Carolyn came in carrying a very small dog the color of Old Crow and soda.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a Bouvier des Flandres,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo kidding,\u201d said Carolyn. She stood the little thing up on a table and commenced fluffing him. He looked fluffy enough to start with. \u201cThis is Prince Valiant, Bernie. He\u2019s a poodle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know poodles came that small.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey keep making them smaller. He\u2019s a miniature, but he\u2019s actually smaller than the usual run of minis. I think the Japanese are getting into the field. I think they\u2019re doing something cunning with transistors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolyn doesn\u2019t normally do short jokes for fear of casting the first stone. If she wore high heels she might hit five-one, but she doesn\u2019t. She has Dutch-cut dark-brown hair and Delft-blue eyes, and she\u2019s built along the lines of a fire hydrant, no mean asset in the dog-grooming trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Prince,\u201d she said. \u201cThe breeders keep picking out runts and cross-breeding them until they come up with something like this. And of course they breed for color, too. Prince Val\u2019s not just a mini poodle. He\u2019s an apricot mini poodle. Where the hell\u2019s his owner, anyway? What time is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cQuarter to six.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s fifteen minutes late. Another fifteen and I\u2019m locking up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019ll you do with Prince Valiant? Bring him home with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you kidding? The cats would eat him for breakfast. Ubi might coexist with him but Archie\u2019d disembowel him just to keep in practice. No, if she doesn\u2019t show by six it\u2019s Doggie Dannemora for the Prince. He can spend the night in a cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

That should have been Val\u2019s cue to give a cute little yap of protest, but he just stood there like a dummy. I suggested his color was less like an apricot than a glass of bourbon and soda, and Carolyn said, \u201cJesus, don\u2019t remind me, I\u2019ll start drooling like one of Pavlov\u2019s finest.\u201d Then the door chimes sounded and a woman with blue-rinsed gray hair came strutting in to collect her pet.<\/p>\n

I went back to The Pet Dealer<\/span> while they settled Val\u2019s tab. Then his owner clipped one end of a rhinestone-studded leash to the beast\u2019s collar. They walked off together, turning fast when they hit the pavement and probably bound for Stewart House, a large co-op apartment building that runs heavily to blue-rinsed gray hair, with or without an apricot poodle on the side.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoodles,\u201d Carolyn said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have a dog because of the cats, and if I didn\u2019t have the cats I still wouldn\u2019t have a dog, but if I did it wouldn\u2019t be a poodle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with poodles?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Actually there\u2019s nothing wrong with standard poodles. Big black unclipped standard poodles are fine. Of course if everybody had a big black unclipped poodle I could hang up my shears and go out of business, and that might not be the worst thing in the world, anyway, come to think of it. Would you live with one of those, Bernie? A miniature poodle?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t and neither would I. There are only two kinds of people who\u2019d have a dog like that, and they\u2019re the two classes of human beings I\u2019ve never been able to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGay men and straight women. Can we get out of here? I suppose I could have an apricot brandy sour. I had a lover once who used to drink them. Or I could have that bourbon and soda you mentioned. But I think what I really want is a martini.\u201d<\/p>\n


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What she had was Perrier with lime.<\/p>\n

But not without protest. Most of the protest was vented on the open air, and by the time we were at our usual table around the corner at the Bum Rap, Carolyn was agreeable if not happy about it. The waitress asked if we wanted the usual, whereupon Carolyn made a face and ordered French seltzer water, which was not her usual by any stretch of the imagination. Neither was it mine at the end of the day\u2019s work, but the day\u2019s work was not yet over. I, too, ordered Perrier, and the waitress went off scratching her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, Bern? Uncharacteristic behavior. Arouses suspicion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see why I can\u2019t have a real drink. The thing tonight is hours in the future. If I had a drink it would wear off in plenty of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout them, society would crumble. We\u2019d have anarchy. Crime in the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBernie\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d I said, \u201cI could always do a single-o tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hell you could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe job wouldn\u2019t be that much harder with one than with two. I could handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho found it in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou did,\u201d I said, \u201cand you\u2019re in for fifty percent whatever happens, but you could stay home tonight and still collect it. Why run extra risks? And this way you can have your martini, or even three or four of them, and\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou made your point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said you made your point, Bern.\u201d<\/p>\n

We stopped talking while the waitress brought two glasses of Perrier to the table. On the jukebox, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty were singing a duet about a Mississippi woman and a Louisiana man. Perhaps it was the other way around. No matter.<\/p>\n

Carolyn wrapped one hand around her glass and glowered at me. \u201cI\u2019m coming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn right I say so. We\u2019re partners, remember? I\u2019m in all the way. You think because I\u2019m a goddamn woman I should sit home keeping the goddamn home fires burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never said\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need<\/span> a goddamn martini.\u201d She lifted her glass. \u201cHere\u2019s to crime, dammit.\u201d She drank it like gin.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

The whole project had gotten underway at the Bum Rap, and at that very table. Carolyn and I generally get together for a drink after work, unless one or the other of us has something on, and a couple of weeks earlier we\u2019d been raising a couple of glasses, neither of them containing Perrier water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny how people pick dogs,\u201d Carolyn had said. \u201cI have this one customer, her name\u2019s Wanda Colcannon, and she\u2019s got this Bouvier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s funny, all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at me. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to hear this, Bern?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, when she came in with the dog I figured they were a natural combination. She\u2019s a tall stern blonde out of a masochist\u2019s dream. Wears designer dresses. Cheekbones straight out of the Social Register. Yards of class, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the Bouvier\u2019s a very classy dog. Very trendy these days. It\u2019s only been an AKC recognized breed for a couple of years now. They\u2019re expensive dogs, and they look pretty classy even if you don\u2019t happen to know how much they cost, and here\u2019s this leggy blonde in a leather coat with this jet-black Bouvier at her side, and they looked right for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe picked the dog because of its name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was his name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer name, not his name. The dog\u2019s a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s pretty trendy, too. Being a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it never goes out of style. No, the dog\u2019s name is Astrid, as a matter of fact, but that\u2019s the name Wanda gave her. What made her pick the dog was the name of the breed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Wanda\u2019s maiden name is Flanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJackie Kennedy\u2019s maiden name is Bouvier,\u201d I said, \u201cand I don\u2019t know what kind of a dog she has, and I\u2019m not sure I care. You lost me somewhere. What does Flanders have to do with Bouvier?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I thought you knew. The Bouvier originated in Belgium. The full name of the breed is Bouvier des Flandres.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s what got her interested in the breed, and she wound up buying a puppy a couple of years ago, and it turned out to be the perfect choice. She\u2019s crazy about Astrid, and the dog\u2019s incredibly devoted to her, and in addition to being a classy animal Astrid\u2019s also extremely intelligent and a great watchdog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy for them,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you should be. I\u2019ve been grooming her dog for about a year now. She\u2019ll bring her in for routine bathing and grooming every couple of months, and then she\u2019ll get the full treatment before shows. They don\u2019t show Astrid all that often but now and then they\u2019ll hit a show, and she\u2019s picked up a couple of ribbons along the way, including a blue or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nice for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Wanda and Herb, too. Wanda loves to walk the dog. She feels safe in the streets when she\u2019s got Astrid with her. And she and her husband both feel safe with the dog guarding the house. They don\u2019t worry about burglars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh. Astrid\u2019s their burglar insurance. She\u2019s due to go into heat in a couple of weeks and this time they\u2019re going to breed her. Wanda\u2019s concerned that the experience of motherhood might undercut her abilities as an attack dog, but she\u2019s going ahead with it anyway. The stud dog is a famous champion. He lives out in the country in Berks County, Pennsylvania. I think that\u2019s around Reading. They ship bitches to him from all over the country and he gets paid for it. The dog\u2019s owner gets paid, I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a pretty good life for the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it? Wanda\u2019s not shipping Astrid. She and her husband are taking her out there. When you breed dogs you put the animals together two days in a row, to make sure you hit the peak ovulation period. So they\u2019ll drive out to Berks County with Astrid and stay overnight and have the second breeding the next day and drive back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShould make a nice trip for all three of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially if the weather\u2019s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always a factor,\u201d I said. \u201cI just know there\u2019s a reason you\u2019re telling me all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSharp of you. They\u2019ll be gone overnight, and so will Astrid, and Astrid\u2019s their burglar protection. They\u2019re rich enough to afford designer dresses and trendy purebred dogs. And for him to indulge his little hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat little hobby?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe collects coins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I said, and frowned. \u201cYou told me his name. Not Flanders, that was her maiden name, like the dog. Colcannon. But you didn\u2019t say his first name. Wait a minute. Yes, you did. His first name\u2019s Herb.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a great mind for details, Bern.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHerb Colcannon. Herbert Colcannon. Herbert Franklin<\/span> Colcannon. Is he that<\/span> Herbert Colcannon?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many do you figure there are?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was buying proof pattern gold at a Bowers and Ruddy auction last fall and he picked up something a few months ago at a sale at Stack\u2019s. I forget what. I read something about it in Coin World.<\/span> But the odds are he keeps the stuff in the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a wall safe. What does that do to the odds?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShaves them a little. How do you happen to know that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe mentioned it once. How she\u2019d wanted to wear a piece of jewelry one night and couldn\u2019t because it was locked up and she\u2019d forgotten the combination and he was out of town. I almost told her I had a friend who could have helped her, but I decided it might be better if she didn\u2019t know about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWise decision. Maybe he doesn\u2019t keep everything in the bank. Maybe some of his coins keep her jewelry company.\u201d My mind was starting to race. Where did they live? What was the security like? How could I crack it? What was I likely to walk out with, and through whose good offices could I most expediently turn it into clean anonymous cash?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in Chelsea,\u201d Carolyn went on. \u201cTucked away off the street in a carriage house. Not in the phone book, but I have the address. And the phone number.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-huh. They have the whole house to themselves. No children. No servants living in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInteresting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought so. What I thought is this sounds like a job for the Dynamic Duo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood thinking,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll buy you a drink on the strength of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about time.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
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Book Preview CHAPTER One Around five-thirty I put down the book I\u2019d been reading and started shooing customers out of the store. The book was by Robert B. Parker, and its hero was a private detective named Spenser who compensated for his lack of a first name by being terribly physical. Every couple of chapters … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lawrence-block"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}