The Burglar on the Prowl - By Lawrence Block Page 0,72
I said. “Nobody’s going to brave a downpour to buy a secondhand book. I’m not going to bother opening up. How about you? You doing any business?”
“I’m not even trying. I decided to give myself a mental health day. And no, I didn’t make a special trip just to feed Raffles. I had some appointments booked, and I needed to call them and cancel. They were relieved, because who wants to take out a dog on a day like this?”
“The Mets are rained out at Shea,” I said, “and I couldn’t find a movie I want to see.”
“There’s always the John Sandford. Oh, you left it down here. And you’ve got another copy at the store, don’t you? But you’re not going there. Well, as of last night you’re in the chips, Bern. Do you feel rich enough to buy another copy?”
“Rich enough, but not crazy enough. I don’t want three copies. I’ve only got two eyes.”
“And one pair of lips to move. You should have taken my copy along with you last night. In fact I thought you did, but it’s right here where you left it.”
“I didn’t want to carry it around.”
“What, carry? Didn’t you just get in a cab?”
“Right.”
She thought about it. “But you didn’t go straight home.”
“Right again.”
“Oh, that’s right—you said you were going to a bar. You also said you weren’t going to get drunk.”
“And I didn’t. And I know you’re going to find this contrary to nature, but all I had was one drink.”
“So you got home at a reasonable hour.”
“No,” I said, “because I didn’t go straight home from the bar.”
“Oh, God. Don’t tell me you went on the prowl again, not after the haul we made last night. You’d have to be out of your mind.”
“I went on the prowl,” I said, “but not to burgle.”
“What else would you…oh, I get it. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, did you get lucky?”
“A gentleman never tells,” I said. “Yes, I got lucky.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Almost.”
“Almost? What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, she works at a law firm at 45th and Madison,” I said, “but not as a paralegal. She’s a full-fledged lawyer, insofar as lawyers get fledged, and she’s in the same firm with GurlyGurl.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why? Because there are eight million people in New York?”
“It’s just a pretty big coincidence, that’s all. I have a Date-a-Dyke date with one woman, and the same night you get to go home with somebody from the same law firm.”
“I gather it’s a good-sized firm. Even so, it’s a pretty big coincidence. But I know a bigger one.”
“What’s that?”
“She took me home to her apartment,” I said, “but what she didn’t know was that I’d been there before.”
“You’d been to her apartment but she didn’t know it. Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t tell me.”
“Okay.”
“Are you kidding? Tell me!”
I told her in person, but before I made the trip downtown I called 1-800-FLOWERS, then hung up while they were telling me my call might be monitored. She lived in a brownstone, with no doorman and a grouch for a downstairs neighbor, so I didn’t want to send flowers unless I knew she’d be home to receive them.
So I called her and caught her on her way out the door. She had a wedding to go to out on the island and she was running late. “But I thought it might be you,” she said, “so I picked up the phone.”
I told her I just wanted to say what a good time I’d had, and she said the same, and I suggested dinner the following evening. She said she’d be staying over that night, and there was a brunch on Sunday she was supposed to go to, and it was hard to say how late it would run, or whether she’d get a ride back or have to take the train. We left it that she’d call when she got in, or knew when she was going to get in, and if it wasn’t too late and I hadn’t made other plans, we’d get together.
So I didn’t have to call 1-800-FLOWERS after all. No point—they’d only waste their fragrance on the desert air.
The way it was raining I’d have been happy to take a cab to Carolyn’s, but enough other New Yorkers felt the same way to drop the number of empty cabs below the Mendoza line. I couldn’t find one, and I didn’t waste too much time trying. I had my umbrella, and it kept me dry all the way to the subway.