face unsullied by a look of comprehension. “Mr. and Mrs. Nugent,” she said. “Apartment 9-G.” As in spot, I thought. “As in gerbil,” she said. “They went to Europe. Do you know when they’re due back?”
“Hey, ya got me,” he said. “Have to ask one of the day guys.”
“I keep forgetting,” she said, probably to me, since the tabloid had reclaimed his attention. “I’m in such a fog when I walk out of here in the morning that it’s all I can do to find the subway. Oh, God, look at the time! I’ll be in a worse fog than usual. Bernie, you’re an angel.”
“And you’re a doll.”
“I am now, thanks to you.” She smiled, showing a mouthful of perfect teeth. Then she stood up on her toes, kissed the corner of my mouth, and disappeared into the building.
Three blocks south of there, I gave my own night doorman a nod and got a nod in return. I’ve been a little less effusive with the building staff ever since I found out the guy I’d been gamely practicing my Spanish on was from Azerbaijan. Nowadays I just nod, and they nod back, and that’s as much of a relationship as anybody really needs.
I went upstairs to my own apartment. For a long moment I just stood there in the darkness, feeling like a diver on a high platform.
Well, at least I could get a little closer to the edge. Even curl my toes around it.
I turned on the light and got busy. I stepped out of my Florsheim wingtips and into an old pair of running shoes. From a cubbyhole at the rear of the bedroom closet I equipped myself with a little ring of instruments which are not, strictly speaking, keys. In the right hands, however, they will do all that a key can do and more. I put them in my pocket, and I added a tiny flashlight that throws a very narrow beam, and does not throw it terribly far. In the kitchen, in the drawer with the Glad bags and the aluminum foil, I found a roll of those disposable gloves of plastic film, much favored these days by doctors and dentists, not to mention those gentle souls for whom the word “fist” is a verb.
I used to use rubber gloves, cutting the palms out for ventilation. But you have to change with the times. I tore off two of the plastic gloves and tucked them in a pocket.
I’d been wearing a baseball jacket over a blue button-down shirt open at the collar and a pair of khakis. I added a tie and swapped the baseball jacket for a navy blazer. For a final touch I got a stethoscope from a dresser drawer and stuck it in a blazer pocket, so that the earpieces were just barely visible to the discerning eye.
On my way out the door I took a minute to look up a listing in the White Pages. I didn’t call it, though. Not from my own phone.
At 1:24, dressed for success, I left my building. I walked up to Seventy-second Street, and then I walked a block out of my way to the corner where I’d met Doll Cooper. I dropped a quarter in a phone slot and dialed the number I’d looked up.
Four rings. Then a computer-generated voice, inviting me to leave a message for Joan or Harlan Nugent. I hung up instead and headed up Broadway to the Korean deli at Seventy-fifth Street, where I picked out enough groceries to fill a couple of bags. I went for low weight and high volume, choosing three boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, and a couple of rolls of paper towels. No point in weighing oneself down.
I got out of there and took a left, walked a block to West End Avenue, turned left again, and walked to her building at the corner of Seventy-fourth. The same old stalwart was still manning his post. “Hi, Eddie,” I said.
This time he looked up. He saw a well-dressed chap, tired from a long day removing spleens, performing one final domestic chore before settling in for some brief but well-deserved rest. Did he happen to note the stethoscope peeping out of the side pocket? Would he have known what it was if he did? Your guess is as good as mine.
“Hey, how ya doin’,” he said.
I breezed past him and went up to call on the Nugents.
CHAPTER
Four
The elevator huffed and puffed getting me to the