The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,105
them. No one even knew they were valuable.”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t work, sweetheart. The hopes and dreams of a couple of little people like you and me don’t add up to a hill of beans next to the cause you and Michael are fighting for. Sure, I could use the money, but I don’t really need it. And if I ever do I’ll go out and steal it, because that’s the kind of man I am.”
“Oh, Bear-naard.”
“So pack them up and take them home with you,” I said. “And I think you’d better go now, Ilona.”
“But I thought…”
“I know what you thought, and I thought so too. But I went to bed with you once and lost you, and I don’t want to go through that again. One time is a good memory. Twice is heartbreak.”
“Bear-naard, I have tears in my eyes.”
“I’d kiss them away,” I said, “but I wouldn’t be able to stop. So long, sweetheart. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll never forget you,” she said. “I’ll never forget Twenty-fifth Street.”
“Neither will I.” I took her arm, eased her out the door. “And why should you? We’ll always have Twenty-fifth Street.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-five
It was a full week before I got around to telling Carolyn about that final evening in Ilona’s company. I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision to keep it from her. But it turned out to be a busy time for both of us. I kept my usual hours in the bookstore, and put in some overtime as well, riding the Long Island Rail Road to Massapequa one evening to appraise a library (for a fee; they didn’t want to sell anything), and spending another evening at a book auction, bidding on behalf of a customer who was shy about attending those things himself.
Carolyn had a busy schedule herself, with a kennel club show coming up that meant a lot of dogs for her to pretty up. And there were a lot of phone calls and visits back and forth when Djinn and Tracey got back together again, and Djinn accused Tracey of having an affair with Carolyn, which was what Djinn had done after a previous breakup. “Pure dyke-o-drama,” Carolyn called it, and eventually it blew over, but while it lasted there were lots of middle-of-the-night phone calls and phones slammed down and loud confrontations on street corners. When it finally cleared up, she plunged with relief into the new Sue Grafton novel she’d been saving.
So we had lunch five days a week and drinks after work, and then on Tuesday, a week and a day after Memorial Day, we were at the Bum Rap after work and Carolyn was telling a long and not terribly interesting story about a Bedlington terrier. “From the way he acted,” she said, “you’d have sworn he thought he was an Airedale.”
“No kidding,” I said.
She looked at me. “You don’t think that’s funny?”
“Yeah, it’s funny.”
“I can see you think it’s a scream. I thought it was funny.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing?” I said. “Never mind. Carolyn, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” And then I signaled Maxine for another round of drinks, because this was going to be thirsty work.
I told her the whole story and she listened all the way through without interrupting me, and when I was done she sat and stared at me with her mouth open.
“That’s amazing,” she said. “And you didn’t say a word about it for a week and a day. That’s even more amazing.”
“I just kept forgetting to bring it up,” I said. “You know what I think it was? I must have wanted a little time to digest it.”
“Makes sense. Bern, I’m amazed. I don’t want to work the word to death, but I am. I’ll tell you this, kiddo. It’s the most romantic story I ever heard in my life.”
“I guess it’s romantic.”
“What else could it be?”
“Stupid,” I said. “Real stupid.”
“You gave away a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Something like that.”
“To a woman you’ll probably never see again.”
“I might see her on a stamp,” I said. “If Anatruria makes the cut. But no, I’ll probably never see her again.”
“She didn’t even know about the stamps, did she? That you had them, or that they were worth anything.”
“Tsarnoff or Rasmoulian would have known what they were worth, or at least known they were worth plenty. Candlemas might have known—he had a collector’s orientation. The others didn’t think in those terms. And no, nobody knew I had them, least of all Ilona.”