The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,64

pace. By the time I got on the asphalt park path I was trotting again, and fifty yards down the line I was walking.

It’s remarkable the extent to which a healthy and reasonably active young man can allow himself to get out of shape. It’s even more remarkable the way he can hold two irreconcilable ideas in his mind at the same time. As I huffed and puffed my way around the park, I marveled at the fact that I’d once been masochistic enough to put myself through this pointless and hideous ritual every single day. And, even as I was thinking this, a part of my mind was toying with the prospect of getting back into the horrible swing of it. Just an easy two or three miles a day, I was actually telling myself. Three times a week, say. Just enough to work up a sweat, keep the blood moving, tone the old cardiovascular whatsit. What was so bad about that?

Sweat beaded on my brow, gathered under my arms, dampened the front of my singlet. Well, that was the object, wasn’t it? I’d signed on for this farce with the sole intent of working up a visible lather of perspiration, not pushing myself to the brink of coronary catastrophe. I could take it down a notch now, gear down to my old brisk walk, and then in the final stretch—

“Hey, Bernie! What a surprise, huh?”

“Wally,” I said.

“Today’s my weekly long run,” he said. “I figure from here to the Cloisters and back is pretty darn close to a half marathon. And coming back it’s mostly downhill.”

“Piece of cake.”

“You said it. What I’d really like to do, I’d like to do it twice, go for a full twenty-six miles. But then I’d run the risk of peaking too soon.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Not with the marathon coming up the first Sunday in November. You think you’ll run it next year, Bernie? You could, you know. Just increase your distance a little bit every week and before you know it twenty-six miles is just a walk in the park. Bernie, you’re walking. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Why’d you suddenly stop running?”

“I’m practicing for the marathon,” I said. “You said it’ll be a walk in the park, and that’s what I’m doing, walking in the park.”

“Pick it up a little,” he urged. “We’ll take a nice easy run up to Eighty-first Street. Then you can walk back home. How does that sound?”

It sounded terrible. “It sounds wonderful,” I assured him, “but I don’t want to peak too soon.”

I guess he saw the wisdom in that. He took off, heading gamely uptown, and I found my way out of the park and retraced my steps to Seventy-second and West End. I was walking now, and not too briskly, either, but the part of the system that controls perspiration was a little late getting the message. The sweat was still pouring out of me, and my shorts and singlet were soaked.

Good.

Maybe, I thought, I could have avoided running altogether. Maybe I could have simply soaked my clothes in the sink before putting them on. Then all I’d have had to do was pour a cup of water over my head and I’d be a perfect study in verisimilitude.

Oh, well.

At West End I turned north, not south, and started jogging again. There’s something about the sight of the finish line that gets the old adrenaline flowing, and I guess I put on a burst of speed at the end without having intended to. When I reached the entrance of 304, my heart was pounding and I was gasping for breath, even as I mopped my face with the blue towel.

I chugged right past the doorman and into the elevator.

Luke Santangelo’s door didn’t present much of a problem. There was just one lock, and I picked my way through it with ease. He’d double-locked it, though, so I wouldn’t have been any more able than Doll to get past it with a credit card.

Inside, I gave the place a quick check to make sure I wasn’t sharing the premises with any other persons, living or dead. This was a simpler process than it had been Thursday night in 9-G. Unlike the Nugents’ Classic Six, 7-B was a less-than-classic one-bedroom apartment. There was only a single bathroom and no one had been so inconsiderate as to lock its door, let alone die in it. When I had established as much I returned to the living room and put