The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,42
I think there’s a pattern developing here. Night before last I picked you up on Broadway and Sixty-seventh and brought you here, and ten minutes later I picked you up here and took you somewhere else. Tonight I pick you up and bring you here, and this time you don’t even get out of the cab before we’re off to someplace else. Next time you know what? You’re going to be able to skip this intersection altogether.”
“You may be right.” It was going to be a long ride. “Say,” I said, “I was wondering. Have you ever had anything else happen in your cab like what happened with the woman and the monkey?”
It took three anecdotes to get us all the way to Carolyn’s place, and I’m not sure I believe the one with the two sailors and the little old lady. I suppose it’s possible, but it certainly strikes me as highly unlikely. Still, it passed the time.
The ARNOW bell went unanswered, and I didn’t let myself in. I could have, and wouldn’t have needed my tools, as Carolyn and I have keys to each other’s stores and apartments. But I figured it would be quicker to go looking for her, and I found her in the second place I tried, a bar called Henrietta Hudson’s. When I went in I got a whole batch of looks ranging from wary to hostile, and then Carolyn spotted me and called me by name and the other women relaxed, knowing it was safe to ignore me.
Carolyn was at the bar drinking Scotch and listening to a willowy woman with improbable red hair. Her name was Tracey and I’d met her before, along with her lover, Djinn, who could have posed as her twin except that her equally unconvincing hair color was ash blond. You rarely saw one without the other, but they had evidently had a falling-out, which was why Tracey was knocking back shots of Jaegermeister and telling Carolyn her troubles, which seemed to be legion.
Carolyn introduced me, and Tracey was polite enough, but when it was clear that I wasn’t just passing through she turned gracefully away from Carolyn and joined a conversation on her other side. “Move down a little ways, Bern,” Carolyn suggested. “That’ll give us more room.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Am I interrupting something?”
“You are,” she said, “which means I owe you a big one. It’s all over between her and Djinn, and she’s about one drink away from inviting me to go home with her, and I’m about two drinks away from agreeing. Where are you going?”
“Home,” I said, “so you can have a chance to get on with your life.”
“Get back on your stool, Bern. The last thing I want is to go home with her.”
“Why? I think she’s gorgeous.”
“No argument there, Bern. She’s a beauty. So’s Djinn, and when they broke up forever a year ago last November it was Djinn who told me her troubles and went home with me, and within a week the two of them were back together again and it was months before Tracey would speak to me. They break up three times a year and they always get back together again. Who needs it? That’s not what I’m looking for these days, a quick little tumble in the feathers. I want something meaningful, something that might lead somewhere. Like you and Ilona might have, from the way you were talking this morning.” My face must have shown something, because hers darkened. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I stepped in it, didn’t I? If I stopped to think, I would have wondered what you were doing in a dyke bar at one in the morning. What happened to the course of true love? It’s not running smooth?”
“It’s not running,” I said. “Can we go somewhere and have a drink?”
“We’re in a bar, Bern. We can have a drink right here.”
“Someplace a little quieter.”
“The tables are quieter. You want to take a table?”
“Someplace really quiet,” I said, “and where I won’t be the only person in the room with a Y chromosome.”
“Let’s see. There’s Omphalos on Christopher Street. Everyone there’s got a Y chromosome.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Not Slumgullion’s, that’s all college kids and noise. Oh, I know. There’s that place around the corner on Leroy Street. They don’t get a gay crowd or a straight crowd. Nobody goes there. It’s always dead.”
“It sounds perfect,” I said. “I hope we can get in.”