The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,6
There’s a whole lot at stake here, a whole lot of people’s hopes riding on this. But I don’t guess I have to tell you that, do I?”
“I guess not.”
“Talk too much anyway,” he said. “Always been my problem.” And he didn’t say another word until we got to the building.
It was a fortress, all right. The Boccaccio, one of the great Park Avenue apartment buildings, twenty-two stories tall, its sumptuous Art Deco lobby equipped with enough potted plants to start a jungle. There was a doorman out front and a concierge behind the desk, and damned if the elevator didn’t have an attendant, too. All three of them wore maroon livery with gold braid, and a pretty sight they were. They wore white gloves, too, which almost spoiled the effect, giving them the look of Walt Disney animals until you got used to it.
“Captain Hoberman,” Hoberman told the concierge. “I’m here to see Mr. Weeks.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Weeks is expecting you.” He checked his book, made a little note in it, then looked up expectantly at me.
“And this is Mr. Thompson,” Hoberman said. “He’s with me.”
“Very good, sir.” Another little note in the book. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a piece of cake getting in here on my own. Still—
The elevator attendant had been watching all this from across the lobby, and probably heard it, too; Hoberman had a booming voice, audible, I suppose, from stem to stern. When we approached he said, “Twelve, gentlemen?”
“Twelve-J,” Hoberman said. “Mr. Weeks.”
“Very good, sir.” And up we went, and out we popped on twelve. The attendant pointed us toward the J apartment and watched after us to make sure we found our way. When we got there Hoberman shot me a look and cocked a bushy eyebrow. The stairwell, my immediate goal, was just steps from where we stood, but the elevator was still within my view and the attendant was still doing his job. I stuck out a finger and poked the doorbell.
“But what will I say to Weeks?” Hoberman wondered. Softly, thanks be to God.
“Just introduce me,” I said. “I’ll take it from there.”
The door opened. Weeks turned out to be a short pudgy fellow with bright blue eyes. He was wearing a hat in the house, a black homburg, but it was his hat and his house, so I guess he had the right. The rest of his outfit was less formal. A pair of suspenders with roosters on them held up the pants of a Brooks Brothers suit. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was off and his expression was understandably puzzled.
“Cappy,” he said to Hoberman. “Good to see you. And this is—”
“Bill Thompson,” Hoberman said. And off to the side, and not a moment too soon, I heard the elevator door draw shut.
“I live in the building,” I said. “Ran into—” Cappy? No, better not “—this gentleman in the lobby, got so caught up in conversation I rode right on past my stop.” I laughed heartily. “Good to meet you, Mr. Weeks. Good evening, gentlemen.”
And I walked on down the hall, opened the fire door, and scampered down the stairs.
At least there were no cameras in the stairwells.
The Boccaccio was wired for closed-circuit TV. I’d seen the bank of monitors behind the concierge’s desk. One showed the laundry room, and others scanned the street in front, the passenger and service elevators, the service entrance around the corner on Seventy-fourth, and the parking spaces in the subbasement.
The building had stairwells at either end, so to include them in your closed-circuit surveillance you’d need two cameras on each floor, and an equal number of screens for the concierge to go blind staring at. But there’s another way to do it: one or more of the screens can be set up to receive multiple channels, and whoever’s monitoring the operation can sit back with a remote control and channel-surf the hours away.
I didn’t think that was the setup they had here, but I couldn’t know until I was actually in the stairwell. I hadn’t been all that worried, though. I’d guessed stairwell surveillance was unlikely, and even if they had it I figured I could get around it.
See, when you’ve got that high a level of protection, you never have an incident. Nobody who doesn’t belong ever gets across the threshold in the first place, not even the guys from Chinese restaurants who want nothing more than to slip a menu under every door in Manhattan.