The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,39
when they don’t turn up anything further they’ll drop all charges.”
“Great.”
“Unless they find out where you really went after you got home from Carolyn’s. If that happens, I’d hate to be in your shoes.” He paused to glance at my feet. “Saucony,” he said, recognizing the logo on the shoes in question. “I almost bought a pair of those. How are they holding up?”
“They’re fine. Of course, the only exercise they get is when I take them out for a walk.”
“You never got back to running, huh, Bern? I don’t know how you managed to stop. It’s addictive, you know. They’ve done studies.”
“I know.”
“How’d you break the addiction?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I just substituted another addiction for it. I found something even more addictive than running.”
“What?”
“Not running,” I said. “It’s got to be the most addictive thing ever. Believe me, a few days of not running and I was hooked.”
“I don’t think it would work for me,” he said. “I hope I never find out.”
“Like Santa Claus.”
“Right. Where was I?”
“If they find out, you’d hate to be in my Sauconys.”
He nodded. “Because you won’t have an alibi, and they’ll have a witness or two and possibly some physical evidence, and the guy in the tub raises the stakes. A former president would say you were in deep doo-doo. His successor would probably advise you not to inhale.”
“What should I do?”
“Just sit tight,” he said. “Don’t break into any houses.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Well, don’t pull any unplanned burglaries, either. The money’s not worth it. Speaking of money, Carolyn gave me ten thousand dollars.”
A while back I had built a secret compartment into Carolyn’s closet. It’s small—you couldn’t conceal a Third Cat there—but it’s a perfect hiding place for money and valuables. I’ve always believed in maintaining a cash emergency fund, and it made sense to keep it not only where I could get hold of it, but where she’d have easy access. So I’d stashed ten grand in Carolyn’s apartment, and she’d passed it on to Wally, as per my instructions.
“They wanted to set bail at half a million dollars,” he said, “because that’s the insurance coverage on the cards. I got that knocked down to fifty thousand, or five thousand in cash, which I posted. We’ll get that back when they drop the charges. My thought is I ought to hang on to the other five as a retainer.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I’ve got to run,” he said. “I’m sorry I screwed things up for you with Patience, but you can probably straighten all of that out. Just send her flowers.”
“You think so?”
“They love it when you send them flowers. Don’t ask me why. You want to take care of the check? Otherwise it’ll just wind up on your bill.”
“I’ll get it.”
“Great. Don’t rush, Bernie. Finish your meal. I’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER
Ten
I could have gone straight to the store and opened up, but not after a night in a cell. I went home and showered and shaved and put on clean clothes. So it was past noon by the time I got downtown again, and despite the act he put on I figured Raffles had already been fed. A note on the counter removed all doubt.
I dragged the bargain table outside and called the Poodle Factory. “I just opened up,” I told Carolyn. “Thanks for feeding Raffles. And while I’m at it, thanks for calling Wally, and for getting the bail money to him, and for being a generally good scout.”
“It’s nothing, Bern.”
“And thanks for calling Patience.”
“Matter of fact,” she said, “I got Wally to call her.”
“How come?”
“I figured it would look better. Remember, I already called her once to break a date for you. If she gets two calls in a row from some woman she never met, what’s she gonna think?”
“I see what you mean,” I said, and explained the particular fashion in which Wally had canceled my presumed shrink appointment. “I’m not blaming you,” I assured her. “You had the right idea, and so did Wally. It’s just that something got lost in translation.”
“You’d think I’d have enough to do,” she said, “keeping my own love life constantly screwed up. You wouldn’t think I’d have the time or the energy to ruin somebody else’s. What can I say? I blew it, Bern.”
“You broke even,” I said. “You fed one cat and let another one out of the bag.”
“What are you gonna say to her?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. In the meantime I sent flowers.”