The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - By Lawrence Block Page 0,66

three times, once at Onderdonk’s invitation, twice bearing flowers, and in fairy tales the third time is the charm. But now I had to get in there a fourth time, and everyone who worked for the building knew me by now, and you couldn’t get into the goddamned building even if nobody knew you from Adam.

There’s always a way, I told myself. What little story had I made up for Andrea? Something about a helicopter to the roof? Well, that was fanciful, surely, but was it absolutely out of the question? There were private helicopter services. They’d take you up for a couple of hours of soaring over the city for a fee. For a considerably higher fee, one such bold entrepreneur would no doubt drop you off on a particular roof, especially if he weren’t required to stand by and lift you off again.

There were problems, however. I didn’t have the money to hire a limousine, let alone a helicopter, and I hadn’t the faintest idea where to find an avaricious helicopter pilot, and I rather suspected they didn’t do business at night anyway.

Hell.

The buildings that adjoined the Charlemagne were no help, either. All were significantly lower than their neighbor, by a minimum of four floors. It was theoretically possible to outfit oneself with Alpine climbing gear and proceed from the roof of one of those buildings, sinking pitons into the mortar between the Charlemagne’s bricks, clambering hand over hand to the top of the Charlemagne’s roof, and getting in that way. It was also theoretically possible to master the lost art of levitation and float halfway to heaven, and this struck me as a little easier than pretending the Charlemagne was the Matterhorn.

Besides, I had no reason to think I could crack the security of one of the neighboring buildings, either. They’d have security-conscious doormen and concierges of their own.

Flowers wouldn’t work, not for Leona Tremaine, not for anyone else. Other things get delivered to buildings—liquor, ice, anchovy pizza—but I’d used the deliveryman number and I was sure I couldn’t get by with it again. I thought of various disguises. I could be a blind man. I already had the dark glasses; all I’d need would be a white cane. Or I could be a priest or a doctor. Priests and doctors can get in anywhere. A stethoscope or a Roman collar will get you in places you can’t even crack with a clipboard.

But not here. They’d phone upstairs, whoever I said I was, whoever I was presumably visiting.

A blue-and-white patrol car cruised slowly down the avenue. I turned a little to the side, putting my face in shadow. The car coasted through a red light and kept going.

I couldn’t just stand there, could I? And I’d be more comfortable inside than out, sitting than standing. And, since there didn’t seem to be any way I could work that night, there was no real reason to abstain from strong drink.

I crossed the street and went around the corner to Big Charlie’s.

It was a much more opulent establishment than the name would have led you to expect. Deep carpet, recessed lighting, banquette tables in dark corners, a piano bar with well-padded and backed barstools. Waitresses in starched black-and-white uniforms and a bartender in a tuxedo. I was glad I was wearing a suit and I felt deeply ashamed of the sneakers and the fedora.

I doffed the latter and tucked the former beneath one of the banquettes. I ordered a single-malt Scotch with a splash of soda and a twist of lemon peel, and it came in a man-sized cut glass tumbler that looked and felt like Waterford. And perhaps it was. Stores sold a whole pint of whiskey for what this place charged for a drink, so Big Charlie ought to be able to spend a fair amount on glassware.

Not that I begrudged him a cent. I sipped and thought and sipped and thought, and a pianist with a touch like a masseuse and a voice like melted butter worked her way through Cole Porter, and I sent my mind around the corner to the Charlemagne and looked for a way in.

There’s always a way in. Somewhere in the course of my second drink I thought of phoning in a bomb scare. Let ’em evacuate the building. Then I could just mingle with the crowd and wander back in. If I was wearing pajamas and a robe at the time of mingling, who’d think for a moment that I