The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,8
waved at the waiter and made a scribbling motion in the middle of the air. I know this because I immediately glanced at my watch. “It’s still early,” I told her. “You want to have another espresso?”
“I didn’t want the last one,” she said. “No, I want to get home and check the cats and feed the mail. What’s the matter?”
“Check the cats and feed the mail?”
“Is that what I said? Well, you know what I meant. Whatever it is, I want to go do it. It’s been a long day.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “Just let me make a phone call.”
“Don’t, Bern.”
“Huh?”
“If you were going to call Patience, don’t. I called her and broke the date for you, remember?”
“As if it were yesterday. I wasn’t going to call her, but I suppose I could, couldn’t I?”
“Dont.”
“Miracle recovery, hit me like a ton of bricks and then it was over in nothing flat, blah blah blah. You think it’s a bad idea, huh?”
“Trust me.”
“I guess you’re right. She’d just think I wasn’t sick in the first place, and she’d probably figure I went out with some other woman. And, come to think of it, she’d be right, wouldn’t she?”
I got up and walked past the waiter, who was struggling with a column of figures, and used the phone. When I got back to the table, Carolyn was frowning at the check. “I guess this is right,” she said. “With handwriting like this the guy should have been a doctor.” We split the check and she asked me if I’d made my call. “Because you weren’t on the phone long,” she said.
“Nobody home.”
“Oh.”
“I got my quarter back. But I didn’t get an extra quarter, so I didn’t have to wrestle with a moral dilemma.”
“That’s just as well,” she said. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”
We headed west, crossed Sixth Avenue. As we were passing a quiet bar on one of the side streets, I suggested stopping for a drink.
“In that place? I never go there.”
“Well, neither do I. Maybe it’s nice.”
She shook her head. “I looked in the door once, Bern. Old guys in thrift-shop overcoats, all of them carefully spaced a few stools apart. You’d think they were watching a porn movie.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think they’d let us in, Bern. Neither of us has been through detox even once. I think that’s an entrance requirement.”
“Oh. How about the place on the next corner? The Battered Child.”
“All college kids. Loud, rowdy, spilling beer on everybody.”
“You’re hard to please,” I said. “One joint’s too quiet and the other’s too noisy.”
“I know, I’m worse than Goldilocks.”
“There’s a phone,” I said. “Let me try that number again.” I did, and nobody answered, and this time I didn’t get my quarter back, either. I hit the side of the phone a couple of times with the heel of my hand, the way you do, and it held onto my quarter, the way it does.
“Dammit,” I said. “I hate when that happens.”
“Who’d you call?”
“The Gilmartins.”
“They’re at the theater, Bern.”
“I know. The final curtain’s not until ten thirty-eight.”
“You really did research this, didn’t you?”
“Well, it wasn’t all that tricky. I went to the play myself, remember? So all I had to do was look at my watch when it was over.”
“So why are you trying to reach them? Am I missing something here, Bern? You decided not to break into their apartment, remember?”
I nodded and lowered my eyes to gaze at the pavement, as if I expected to find my quarter there. “That’s why I’ve been calling,” I said.
“I don’t get it.”
“As soon as they’re home,” I said, “I’ll be able to relax, because I won’t be in any danger of acting on impulse. And as long as I’m with somebody, having a meal or a drink or a cup of coffee, I’m out of harm’s way. That’s why I made the date with Patience in the first place. I figured I’d be with her until they were home from the theater, and then I could go home myself.”
“Unless you got lucky.”
“If I just get through the night without committing a felony, that’s as lucky as I want to get. I thought I’d make sure by having a drink after work, but I made a little too sure and got drunk, and you had to break the date for me. Which I appreciate, don’t get me wrong, because I was in no condition to see her, but now it’s”—I checked my watch—“not quite