Cache as Cache Can

By Stefan Kanfer

HOW TO HIDE ALMOST ANYTHING by DAVID KROTZ 1 57 pages. Morrow. $5.95.

The first beneficiary of organized crime is the organized criminal. The second is his well-paid opposition. The detectives, private guards, attack dogs and Kung Fu instructor all flourish in this lawless epoch; close behind are the writers of self-defense manuals. The most recherche of these literary crime fighters is David Krotz, author of How to Hide Almost Anything. Krotz, who is a carpenter as well as a writer, conjures up a harrowing world. Intruders perch upon window sills, second-story men prowl through closets, burglars tiptoe through kitchens and bedrooms. Their quest:

valuables hoarded by householders against sudden economic ruin.

Nearly everyone these days has fantasized about the ultimate bank failure or Dow Jones plummet. The solution: a ready supply of cash or jewelry. But where can they be secreted? At the back of a picture? Too obvious. In the toilet tank? Too amateurish. In a loose floorboard? Too melodramatic. Into this paranoid quandary steps Krotz with a toolbox full of solutions.

Some have literary antecedents. The Mellors Model, for example, takes its name from the randy gamekeeper in Lady Chatterley's Lover. D.H. Lawrence makes no mention of secret panels but, reasons Krotz, "Lady Chatterley must have hung her dress somewhere to avoid telltale wrinkles." The somewhere is a secret compartment that any ordinary gamekeeper can build behind any ordinary coat rack. Other caches are less allusive but more ingenious. As Krotz's book amply diagrams, hiding places can be constructed behind false electric-plug plates, in drains or even around drain pipes. "Make a mysterious apparition of metal under the sink--a touch filthy. Who would want to stick his hand up there? You will."

In his designs for false bookshelves and secret passageways, Krotz some times appears to be auditioning for the part of James Bond's next artificer. But his improvisations are far more suggestive of a Maxwell Smart rerun. One can almost hear the nasal whine: "The old up-and-in opening-fulcrum-stair-kick-board hiding place, eh, chief?" One significant hiding place is omitted from this complete volume: a place large enough to accommodate both the thief and his victim. It is called the judicial system, with its hidden compartments--the police station, the courtroom and the jail.

Perhaps it was just as well to omit them all; until these appurtenances can be made to function effectively, the reader is on his own.

Stefan Kanfer

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.