The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,37

you prefer. The Mapeses were still opera-bound, and I was still a burglar, and Mapes was still a shitheel, and I could only assume the money was still in the safe, so why change a good plan at this late date?

“Sure,” I said. “We’re on. Why not?”

It must have been around ten when I left Carolyn’s apartment. I caught the subway at Sheridan Square. That’s a local stop, and I could have changed to the express at 14th Street, but I was comfortable and stayed put. I got off at 72nd Street and walked home, trying to remember if I needed anything from the deli. It seemed to me that I did, but I couldn’t think what it was.

I turned at West End, and when I got to my building I found that the doorman had deserted his post. Some of the building staff still smoke, and they can’t do that indoors, so they generally step outside for a cigarette. But we’ve got a couple of antitobacco activists in the building, and they’d complained about having to run a gauntlet of cigarette smoke on their way in or out, and some of the guys had taken to slipping around the corner when they felt themselves going postal with nicotine withdrawal. I figured it would all sort itself out, as soon as the mayor quit pussyfooting around and made smoking illegal anywhere in the five boroughs.

Meanwhile, though, the lobby was wide open. If it was someone else’s building, I’d have sailed in and set about looking for someone to burgle. But I lived here, so all I did was get on the elevator and go up to my apartment.

I had the key out, and I don’t know what made me try the knob first, but I did, and it turned and the door opened. Stupid cops, I thought. The least the inconsiderate bastards could have done was lock up, but no, that was too much for them.

And I pushed the door open and followed it into my apartment.

I hadn’t taken two steps before the penny dropped. The cops hadn’t left the door unlocked. I’d already been home, for God’s sake, and determined that they’d locked up after themselves, and then I’d gone out, heading first to the bookstore and then to Carolyn’s place, and I’d damn well locked up after myself, because I always do. And even if I didn’t, the snap lock would have engaged automatically and kept the door from opening.

Which meant someone else had come here after I left, and if I’d had any sense at all I’d have realized as much the minute I tried the knob and found the door unlocked. And, armed with that realization (and nothing else) I could have spun on my heel and gotten the hell out of there.

But it was too late for that now.

Fourteen

If anybody had been waiting to ambush me, there wouldn’t have been much I could do about it, short of hopping into a time machine and taking a cram course in the martial arts. But there was no one looming behind my door, no one pressed up against my wall. Whoever had broken in had left, and that was all to the good, although it would have been worlds better if they hadn’t come around in the first place.

Unlike the cops who’d dropped in earlier, these sons of bitches (or this son of a bitch, though I tended to think in the plural) had not been to charm school. They’d been through my apartment as if they were a tornado and it was a trailer park. They’d stopped short of outright vandalism, and thus hadn’t smashed or slashed anything, which is to say they’d done their dirty work without malice—but you could say the same thing for the tornado, couldn’t you?

They’d taken my Mondrian off the wall and set it on the floor, but they hadn’t damaged it, nor had they thought to take it away with them. Either they hadn’t recognized it or they’d assumed, as everyone does, that it was a worthless copy.

I didn’t know what they’d come looking for, but I’d bet it was worth a good deal less than the Mondrian, which would probably bring a couple million dollars at auction, assuming the seller had clear title and a provenance for it. On the underground market, well, who knows what it might bring? I’ve never been tempted to find out, because what could I buy with the money that I’d enjoy as much