The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,71
watch, and a bracelet I never wear, but it’s gold, and there are all these gold coins on it. I mean, anyone who looked at it would know it was worth some money. And class rings, well, the gold is no better than ten karat, and the stone is glass.”
“Sounds like the one I lost. If it brought ten bucks in a hock shop, the pawnbroker was generous. What color was it? Maybe he liked the way it went with your pink electric shaver.” I rolled onto my side, put a hand on her. “Barbara, those GTs have worn off by now, right? I mean, you’ll remember this in the morning?”
“How could I forget?”
“I was just thinking that maybe we should make sure.”
“Oh,” she said, and reached for me. “Oh, my. What a lovely idea.”
Afterward I got into my clothes while she lay in bed with her eyes closed. She’d taken her hair down when we’d walked in the door, just before she turned to come into my arms, and it was spread out on the pillow now the way it had been when I got my first look at her. She’d been naked then, too, but this time I didn’t feel the need to cover her with the sheet. Somehow it no longer felt invasive to enjoy the view.
I was heading for the door when she said, “Bernie? How’d you know it was pink?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. The only pink thing I could think of at the moment…well, never mind.
“My shaver,” she said. “The one he took. How’d you know it was pink?”
Oh, hell. “You said it was pink,” I said.
“I did?”
“You must have.”
“But I always thought of it as fuchsia. That’s what the manufacturer called it, so if I described it that’s what I would have said.”
“Maybe you did, and I just registered it as pink.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think I did.”
“Oh,” I said. “Are you sure you didn’t black it out? No, really, I may have just assumed it was pink. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman’s razor that wasn’t. Do they even come in other colors?”
“Sure.”
“Oh. I thought they were all pink. Why? What difference does it make?”
“No difference,” she said, sleepily. “I just wondered, that’s all.”
Twenty-Six
The trouble with Thank God It’s Friday, I’ve occasionally thought, is that it’s all too often followed by Oh Rats It’s The Weekend. Free time is only a godsend when you’ve got something interesting to do with it. If you’ve got nothing to do, decent weather lets you do it outdoors, and if you’ve got time on your hands at the beach or in the park, you may not even notice how bored you are. But when all it does is rain there’s no escaping it.
It started raining an hour or two before dawn Saturday, just about the time I was getting out of a cab on West End Avenue. Edgar was manning the door, and he greeted me with a warm smile and an umbrella, though without a mustache. He told me I hadn’t had any visitors, and I was glad to hear it.
I went to bed, and when I got up it was still raining, and the apologetic young woman on the local news channel said it was likely to keep on doing just that until Monday morning at the earliest. The sports guy said something about dampened enthusiasms, and the anchorman groaned, and I turned off the set.
I went out for breakfast, although what they were serving by then was lunch. Whatever they wanted to call it, I ate an omelet and drank some coffee and read the Times. The news was boring or horrible or both, and the movie listings held nothing that I felt like seeing.
When I got home the phone was ringing. It was Carolyn, reporting that no one had broken in to raid the bathtub while she slept. “But don’t think I didn’t check,” she said, “and I didn’t just lift the lid. I stuck my arm down into the Kitty Litter and made sure there were bags under there.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t haul them out and count the money.”
“I might have, if I’d thought of it. Listen, when can we get rid of it?”
“Get rid of it?”
“You know what I mean. Oh, before I forget—I don’t know if you’re planning to open up the bookstore today, but I fed your cat, so don’t let him con you into opening a second can for him.”