The Burglar in the Closet - By Lawrence Block Page 0,48

what kind of name is that for a little baby?”

“Naw, they wouldn’t give him a name like that. He musta had hair then. The day his mother dropped him he musta had more hair than he does today.”

“Here we’ve bought all these drinks from him and neither of us know’s the bastard’s name, Dennis.”

“It’s funny when you put it that way, Ken.” He lifted his glass, drained it. “What the hell,” he said, “drink up and we’ll buy another round off him and ask him who the hell he is. Or who the hell he thinks he is, right?”

It took more than one round. It took several, and I had a pretty fair case of coffee nerves building by the time we established that Knobby’s first name was Thomas, that his last name was Corcoran, and that he lived nearby. On a trip to the men’s room I stopped to look up Knobby in the phone book. There was a Thos Corcoran listed on East Twenty-eighth Street between First and Second. I tried the number and let it ring an even dozen times and nobody answered. I looked over my shoulder, saw no one paying attention to me, and tore the page out of the book for future reference.

Back at the bar Dennis said, “She got a friend?”

“Huh?”

“I figured you were on the phone with a broad and I asked if she’s got a friend.”

“Oh. Well, she hasn’t got any enemies.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good, Ken. I bet when he was a kid they called him Corky.”

“Who?”

“Knobby. Last name’s Corcoran, it figures they’ll call him Corky, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Shit,” Dennis said. “Drink up and we’ll ask the bum. Hey, Corky! Get over here, you bum!”

I put a hand on Dennis’s shoulder. “I’ll pass for now,” I said, sliding a couple of bills across the bar for Knobby. “I’ve got somebody to see.”

“Yeah, and she’s got no enemies. Well, if she’s got a friend, bring her around later, huh? I’ll be here for a while. Maybe Frankie’ll drop by and have a couple, but either way I’ll be holding the fort.”

“So maybe I’ll see you later, Dennis.”

“Oh, I’ll be here,” he said. “Where else am I gonna go?”

CHAPTER

Fifteen

Knobby Corcoran’s building was a twelve-story prewar job with an Art Deco lobby and a doorman who thought he was St. Peter. I lurked across the street watching him make sure every supplicant was both expected and desired by a bona fide tenant. I thought of passing myself off as a tenant unknown to him, but his manner suggested this wouldn’t be a breeze and I wasn’t sure I had self-confidence equal to the chore.

The building on the right was a five-story brownstone. The building on the left, however, was a fourteen-story building, which, given the curiosities of superstition in the New York real-estate trade, meant it was only one story taller than Knobby’s building. It too had a doorman but he hadn’t been through the same assertiveness-training course as Knobby’s and I could have walked past him wearing convict’s stripes without creating an incident.

First, though, I had to learn the number of Knobby’s apartment, and I did that by presenting myself as his visitor and watching which buzzer the doorman rang for the intercom. When no one answered I knew two things for certain—Knobby lived in 8-H and nobody was home. I walked to the far corner, came partway back, and breezed past the doorman of the building next door with a nod and a smile and a “Nice night, eh?” He agreed that it was without even looking up from his paper.

I took the elevator to the top floor and climbed a flight of stairs to the roof. Some Manhattan rooftops feature amateur astronomers and some sport courting couples and still others are given over to roof gardens. This roof, praise be to God, was empty. I walked to its edge and gazed down through the darkness for about twelve feet, which is a much greater distance to fall down than to walk across. It could have been worse—there might have been a gap between the buildings. But then I wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

I must have wasted a few minutes getting my courage up. But this was nothing I hadn’t done before, and if you can’t contend with acrophobia when there’s no way around it, well, burglary’s not the right trade for you, my boy. I went over there and I jumped, and while I landed with a little