The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,82

called for them to hold the door while the woman locked up. Then they joined Weeks in the elevator and away they all went.

I let out my breath, looked at my watch. It was fourteen minutes after eight.

Three minutes later I was inside his apartment.

CHAPTER

Twenty

I figured I had an hour before he was likely to return. If I wanted to play it safe, all I had to do was be out of there by nine o’clock.

As it turned out, it didn’t take me anywhere near that long to do what I wanted to do. I was out of his apartment by twenty to nine, out of the building shortly thereafter.

I probably would have had time for a shower.

You know, I thought about it. I could have shucked my clothes, treated myself to a minute and a half under a spray of hot water, then rubbed myself speedily dry with one of his fluffy mint-green towels. I could have stuffed the towel in my flight bag, carrying the evidence away with me. He’d never have missed it.

But I didn’t. Nor did I sneak a cup of the leftover coffee. He probably wouldn’t have missed that, either, and God knows I could have used it, but I was a good little burglar and left it untouched.

I got in, I got out. When I hit the street I looked around, and he was nowhere to be seen. I caught a cab, gave the ethnically indeterminate driver my address, and sat back with my Braniff bag cradled on my lap. I felt grimy and grubby and I couldn’t stop yawning.

I didn’t see the suspect car in front of my building, and I wasn’t worried I’d find Ray Kirschmann in the lobby, but it seemed a bad time to leave anything to chance. I got the driver to circle the block and let me off around the corner in front of the service entrance. I’d just finished paying the tab when a fellow in a glen plaid suit and a horrible tie came out of the very door I was planning on opening. “Hold it!” I sang out, and he did, and I was inside my building without having to pick any locks.

Now isn’t that a hell of a thing? I’d never seen this clown before, so it was odds-on he’d never laid eyes on me, and here he was letting me through a door that was supposed to be kept locked.

I very nearly had a word with him about it. I’ve been known to do that. After all, I live in the building; the last thing I want is unauthorized persons roaming its halls and imperiling its tenants, one of them myself. I’ve bluffed and smiled and sweet-talked my way into any number of buildings. I know how it works, and I’d just as soon nobody worked it on the place where I live.

But I held my tongue. I’d talk to the fellow another time. For now, I had other things to do.

First a shower and a shave, neither of which could possibly have been called premature. Then, clad in fresh clothes, I took the subway downtown and ate a big breakfast at a Union Square coffee shop. It was another beautiful day, the latest in a string of them and a fitting finale for Memorial Day weekend. I treated myself to a second cup of coffee, and I was whistling as I walked to my store.

I got a royal welcome from Raffles, who was trying to see how much static electricity he could generate by rubbing against my ankles. I fed him right away, more to keep him from getting underfoot than because I felt he was in great danger of starvation. Then I dragged my bargain table outside—I’ve thought of putting wheels on it, but I just know if I did some moron would roll it away and I’d never see it again. I wanted the bargain table out there not for the trade it would bring but because I needed the space it otherwise occupied. If all went according to plan, I was going to have a full house this afternoon.

The first person through the door was Mowgli. “Whoa!” he said. “You trying to get rich, Bernie? Man, it’s a holiday. Why aren’t you at the beach?”

“I’m afraid of sharks.”

“Then what are you doing in the book business? I’m surprised to find you here, is all. First Carolyn was here to keep the place open yesterday and the day before, and