The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,89

he actually got work out of town and didn’t come back for two or three months? Suddenly stowing the cards on West End Avenue didn’t seem like such a good idea.

“Now you had more use for me than ever. If I was a burglar, maybe I could do something useful for a change. Maybe I could open his door for you.

“That fateful Thursday night,” I said, “I made that silly call to the Gilmartin house. One explanation for my conduct was I had had far too much to drink, and one reason I drank so much is Borden Stoppelgard had just bought a Sue Grafton novel from me for a fraction of its value.”

“You’re the one priced the book,” that gentleman pointed out.

“That’s true,” I said, “but you didn’t have to crow about it. You bragged to the Gilmartins when the four of you went to the theater together that night. Did you do a little boasting to Wendy, too? I’ll bet you did. She tipped you off about the book, so it would be only natural for you to call her up and thank her. While you were at it, you could suggest spending some of the money she’d saved you on a nice dinner for two.”

That was a shot in the dark, but judging from the expression on his face it struck home. His wife shrank away from him and told him he was disgusting, and all around the room people lowered their eyes in embarrassment.

“You needed me,” I told Doll. “You weren’t sure what you needed me for, but you needed me. So after you heard from Borden you came downtown looking for me. And you found me, but I had company. I was with Carolyn.”

“At the Bum Rap,” Carolyn recalled, “and then at the Italian restaurant, and then we wound up at my place.”

“And then I kept calling Marty until I reached him around midnight. I don’t suppose you stood around on Arbor Court waiting for me to come out. Maybe you gave up, stopped for a cup of coffee on Hudson Street, and got lucky when I turned up. Either way, you must have seen me fail to get a cab and stalk off to the subway, and you knew where I had to be going. All you had to do was jump in a cab and wait for me to come out of the subway entrance at Seventy-second and Broadway.”

“This is fascinating,” she said. “I had no idea I was such a resourceful woman.”

“And a hell of a liar, Doll. I’m going to call you Doll instead of Wendy from now on because that’s what I called you that night, once we got around to names. All you wanted me to do was walk you home. You spent a few blocks setting things up so you could make use of me later on, and when we got to the entrance downstairs you decided to float a trial balloon. You made a point of asking the doorman about the Nugents.”

“About us?” Joan Nugent demanded. “But how did this young woman even know us?”

“She didn’t,” I said, “but Luke must have mentioned you. That he used to pose for you, and that you were out of town. So, in the guise of an idle question to the doorman, she let a known burglar know that the tenants in 9-G were out of town.”

“Why would I do that, Bernie?”

“I don’t know for sure,” I admitted. “Maybe you thought Luke was holing up in chez Nugent and you were hoping I’d smoke him out. Maybe you figured I’d get caught burgling their place and you could hang the baseball card theft on me at the same time.”

“It was spiritual. Blood was calling to blood.”

It was Patience who said this, and all of us stopped what we were doing and stared at her.

She put her hand to her mouth. “Maybe I spoke too soon,” she said. “Was Luke already in this apartment?” I said he was. “And he was, uh, dead?” Quite dead, I said. “Then that must have been it,” she said. “There must have been a strong psychic connection between Luke and…I’m sorry, Bernie, is her name Wendy or Doll?”

“Actually, most people call me Gwen,” Doll said, “but at this point I don’t honestly give a damn what anybody calls me. Could we get on with this?”

“A strong connection,” Patience said. “His spirit, freed from his body, was in communication with her. But she didn’t know that’s