The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,80
using my flight bag as a pillow. It was about as useful in that capacity as the floor was as a bed.
I couldn’t afford to oversleep, and of course I hadn’t brought an alarm clock with me. But somehow I didn’t think that was likely to be a problem.
Did I really have to do this? Couldn’t I pay a visit to some other apartment? It was a holiday weekend, so it stood to reason that a substantial number of Boccaccio residents were out of town until Monday night at the earliest.
Suppose I just picked a likely door and opened it. If nobody was home, I was in business. And even if someone was on the premises, was that necessarily a disaster? I have burgled apartments while the tenants slept, even on occasion creeping around in the very room where they were snoring away. No one would call it relaxing work, but there’s this to be said for it: you know where they are. You don’t have to worry about them coming home and surprising you.
This would be different, but couldn’t I sleep on the living-room couch, say, while they were sleeping in the bedroom? I’d make sure I woke up before they did. And if something went wrong, if they found me dozing in front of the fireplace, wasn’t it the sort of thing I could talk my way out of? Drunk, I’d say, shrugging sheepishly. Got the wrong apartment by mistake, just dumb luck my key fit in the lock. Terribly sorry, never happen again. I’ll go home now.
Was that so utterly out of the question? I could pull that off, couldn’t I?
No, I told myself sternly. I couldn’t.
I squirmed around, trying to find the most comfortable position, until I realized with dismay that I’d found it early on and it wasn’t going to get any better. I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes. I was as snug as a bug on a bare floor, and there’s a reason that metaphor has not become part of the language. It was going to be a long night.
It was a long night.
Every hour or so I would wake up, if you want to call it that, and look at my watch. Then I would close my eyes and go back to sleep, if you want to call it that, until I woke up again.
And so on.
At six-thirty I gave up and got up. I splashed water on my face, dried my hands with toilet paper, and put on the slacks and shoes I’d taken off. I had a clean shirt and socks and underwear in my bag, but I was saving them until I had a clean body to put them on.
It was light out, so I could read again. I went back to Bertie Wooster, and everything he did and said made perfect sense to me. I took this for a Bad Sign.
At seven-thirty I checked the hall, and there were two people in it, waiting for the elevator. I eased the door silently shut. Two minutes later I tried again, and they were gone but someone else had taken their place. It seemed like a lot of traffic for a luxury building early on a holiday morning, but evidently the residents of the Boccaccio were an enterprising lot, not given to lazy mornings in bed. Or maybe they’d spent the night on the floor, too, and were as eager as I to be up and doing.
When I cracked the door a third time there was yet another person in the hall, but she looked to be a cleaning woman who’d just emerged from the elevator and was headed for an apartment at the far end of the hallway. I stepped out and drew the door shut, unwilling to lock up after myself as I usually do, not with so much traffic all around me. The empty apartment would have to spend the next little while guarded only by the spring locks, which meant anybody with a credit card could steal inside and make off with the toilet paper.
So be it. I walked to the stairwell, setting a brisk pace, and its fire door closed behind me without my attracting any attention.
So far so good.
I climbed seven flights of stairs, telling myself that people paid good money to do essentially the same thing on a machine at the gym. I’ll admit I paused a couple of times en route, but I got there.