The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,40

out was a tenant who had lost his key.

Actually, I told myself, the threshold was not the Rubicon; I could cross it without committing myself. Even if I ran smack into Ilona herself in the hallway, I could explain I’d found the door ajar, or that another tenant had held it for me. The door to her apartment, now that was a different matter.

A few minutes later, I was standing in front of the door to her apartment.

No one responded to my knock, and no light showed under her door. The previous night I’d noticed that she only locked two of the three locks, and which way she’d turned the key in each of them. (I can’t help it, I notice things like that. To each his own, I say; Ray Kirschmann had noticed the silver buckle on Tiglath Rasmoulian’s alligator belt.) I took out my picks and had at it. I worked rapidly—one doesn’t want to dawdle—but there was no need to rush. I opened one lock, I opened the other lock, and I was inside.

I hadn’t brought my gloves and wouldn’t have put them on if I had. I wasn’t worried about fingerprints, for God’s sake, but about making a fool of myself and destroying a relationship almost before it had begun. If I got away clean, no forensic evidence of my visit would harm me; if she caught me in the act, all the gloves in Gloversville wouldn’t help me.

I drew the door shut right away and stood unmoving in the pitch-dark room, not even troubling to breathe until I’d taken a moment to listen for any breathing other than my own. Then I took a breath, and then I reached for the light switch—I remembered where it was, too—and switched it on. The bare bulb overhead came on and I blinked at its glare, then looked around.

I felt like an archaeologist who’d just broken into an empty tomb.

CHAPTER

Eleven

The furniture was still there. The narrow bed nestled against the far wall, unmade, with the rickety night table at its head and the squat thrift-shop dresser nearby. I counted the same three chairs—two unmatched wooden card chairs, one at the little one-drawer desk and one at the foot of the bed, and one armchair with a broken spring, clumsily reupholstered some time back in metallic green velvet. And the rug was there, too, as ugly as ever.

Nothing besides remained, as Shelley said of Ozymandias. Gone were the plastic milk cartons and the books they’d housed. Gone was the brassbound footlocker and the shrine that had perched on top of it, candles and crystal and icons and animals and all. Gone was the stiff family snapshot of Ilona and her parents, gone too the framed photo of Vlados and Liliana. Gone from the wall was the map of Eastern Europe, gone from its nail the bird calendar.

Gone whatever the desk and dresser had contained; I checked their drawers and found them empty. Gone, except for three wire coat hangers and a grocery bag collection, whatever the closet might have held. Gone, lock, stock, and barrel. Gone, kit and caboodle. Gone.

The bed linen remained on the bed, the twisted sheets still holding her scent.

I walked over to the desk and picked up the phone. I got a dial tone, and if the phone had been equipped with a redial button I could have determined the last call she made before she disappeared. Instead I dialed my own number, which didn’t answer, and then dialed the store and wondered what Raffles would make of the ringing. I dialed Candlemas’s apartment on East Seventy-sixth and let it ring a few times, but there were no cops there this time around and no one answered.

I cradled the receiver and sat down in the hideous green chair, taking care to avoid the broken spring. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it would serve. I had some thinking to do, and this seemed like the time and place to do it.

Ordinarily I don’t like to hang around after I break into somebody’s home. It’s an unnecessary risk, and one I prefer to avoid. But I couldn’t think of a safer spot than where I was right now. I was like Mowgli, holed up in an abandoned building. No one lived here, and it took some imagination to believe that anyone ever had.

I could take my time. No one would be coming back.

I didn’t note the time when I let myself into Ilona’s place, but it was