The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,52
just the one man?”
“Uh-huh. Somebody else left earlier, but you hadn’t even gotten to the phone by then, so I didn’t bother taking his picture. Then one man came out, and I waved to you after I snapped him, and there hasn’t been anybody since then. Here’s somebody now. It’s a woman. Should I take her picture?”
“Don’t bother.”
“She’s signing out. Demarest didn’t bother. He just waved to the guard and walked on by.”
“Doesn’t mean anything. I’ve done that myself, hitting doormen with the old nonchalance. If you act like they know you, they figure they must.”
“Here’s his picture. What we really need is one of those zoom lenses or whatever you call them. At least this is a narrow street or you wouldn’t be able to see much.”
I studied the picture. It didn’t have the clarity of a Bachrach portrait but the lighting was good and Demarest’s face showed up clearly. He was a big man, middle-aged, with the close-cropped gray hair of a retired Marine colonel.
The face was vaguely familiar but I couldn’t think why. He was no one I’d ever seen before.
On the way uptown Carolyn used the rear-view mirror to check the angle of her beret. It took a few minutes before she was satisfied with it.
“That was really funny,” she said.
“Taking Demarest’s picture?”
“What’s funny about taking somebody’s picture? It wasn’t even scary. I had visions of him coming straight across the street and braining me with the camera, but he never even noticed. Just a quiet little click from the shadows. No, I was talking about last night.”
“Oh.”
“When Randy turned up. The ultimate bedroom farce. I swear, if jumping weren’t allowed she’d never get to a conclusion.”
“Well, from her point of view—”
“Oh, the whole thing’s ridiculous from anybody’s point of view. But there’s one thing you’ve got to admit.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s really cute when she’s mad.”
By a quarter to five we were in a cocktail lounge called Sangfroid. It was as elegant as the surrounding neighborhood, its floor deeply carpeted, its décor running to black wood and chrome. Our table was a black disc eighteen inches in diameter. Our chairs were black vinyl hemispheres with chrome bases. My drink was Perrier water with ice and lime. Carolyn’s was a martini.
“I know you don’t drink when you work,” she said. “But this isn’t drinking.”
“What is it?”
“Therapy. And not a moment too soon, because I think I’m hallucinating. Do you see what I see?”
“I see a very tall gentleman with a beard and a turban walking south on Madison Avenue.”
“Does that mean we’re both hallucinating?”
I shook my head. “The chap’s a Sikh,” I said. “Unless he’s a notorious homicidal burglar wearing a fiendishly clever disguise.”
“What’s he doing?”
He had entered the telephone booth. It was on our corner, a matter of yards from where we sat, and we could see him quite clearly through the window. I couldn’t swear he was the same Sikh who’d held a gun on me, but the possibility certainly did suggest itself.
“Is he the man who called you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why’s he in the booth? He’s ten minutes early, anyway.”
“Maybe his watch is fast.”
“Is he just going to sit there? Wait a minute. Who’s he calling?”
“I don’t know. If it’s Dial-A-Prayer, you might get the number from him.”
“It’s not Dial-A-Prayer. He’s saying something.”
“Maybe it’s Dial-A-Mantra and he’s chanting along with the recording.”
“He’s hanging up.”
“So he is,” I said.
“And going away.”
But not far. He crossed the street and took a position in the doorway of a boutique. He was about as inconspicuous as the World Trade Center.
“He’s standing guard,” I said. “I think he just checked to make sure the coast was clear. Then he called the man I spoke with earlier and told him as much. Those may have been his very words—The coast is clear—but somehow I doubt it. Here comes our man now, I think.”
“Where did he come from?”
“The Carlyle, probably. It’s just a block away, and where else would you stay if you were the sort to employ turbaned Sikhs? The Waldorf, perhaps, if you had a sense of history. The Sherry-Netherlands, possibly, if you were a film producer and the Sikh was Yul Brynner in drag. The Pierre maybe, just maybe, if—”
“It’s definitely him. He’s in the booth.”
“So he is.”
“Now what?”
I stood up, found a dime in my pocket, checked my watch. “It’s about that time,” I said.
“You’ll excuse me, won’t you? I have a call to make.”
It was a longish call. A couple of times the operator cut in