The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - By Lawrence Block Page 0,56

Weeks and Mr. Thompson, shall we? I’ll call you Bill, and I’d like you to call me Charlie.”

“Uh,” I said.

“Is something the matter?”

“Charlie,” I said, “there’s one more thing I forgot to tell you.”

CHAPTER

Fifteen

“I feel good about this,” Charlie Weeks said. “A man needs a purpose in life. He needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I think we’ll make a good team.”

“I think you’re right, Charlie.”

“I don’t understand what’s taking so long,” he said, and extended a hand toward the elevator call button. I beat him to it. “Give it a good poke this time,” he urged. “Maybe the connection’s worn.”

“He’s probably stuck on another floor,” I said, “helping someone with luggage or a key that’s stuck in a lock. Listen, there’s no reason for you to stand out here in the hall. I’m sure he’ll be along in a few minutes.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he assured me. But when a few more minutes passed without the elevator’s appearing, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly impatient. “I suppose I could get to work on our project,” he said. “If you’re sure you won’t feel I’ve abandoned you.”

“Please,” I said. “I feel guilty wasting your time like this.”

The elevator still hadn’t come by the time he disappeared into his own apartment and drew the door shut. I wasn’t greatly surprised; the attendant would have had to be psychic to stop on our floor, as I’d faked pressing the button. I gave Charlie Weeks another minute, just in case he might remember one last thing that would send him darting into the hallway again. When he failed to reappear, I took the stairs down to the eighth floor.

Well, why not? I had my picks with me, never having returned home to unload them the previous evening. When I arranged to drop in on Weeks, I’d had it in the back of my mind to pay a call downstairs after I’d ended my visit. I hadn’t really expected much from my conversation with Weeks, and was counting on him as much for entrée to the Boccaccio as for what he could tell me about Hoberman.

It turned out he’d been able to tell me a lot, and had wound up enlisting as my partner. And it did seem like the start of a beautiful friendship, and I suppose I could have told him I wanted to pay another visit to the fellow four flights below, but I decided to keep it to myself. Otherwise the beautiful friendship might turn out to be stillborn. Because I was in Charlie’s building, after all, and people with a very cavalier attitude toward burglary are apt to turn into law-and-order hard-liners as soon as a burglar starts operating close to home. After all, I’d met Charlie the first time under false pretenses, in order to knock off 8-B, and I’d turned up today flying the same false colors and with the same goal in mind. I’d been almost out the door before I’d gotten around to telling him that I was Bernie Rhodenbarr and not Bill Thompson.

So I’d keep this little venture to myself for the time being. If I came up with some important information, I could pick a convenient moment to tell him when and where I got it. And if I left 8-B as clueless as I entered it, nobody ever had to know I’d been there.

I moved quickly but quietly down the stairs, eased the door open at the eighth-floor landing, assured myself with a glance that the hallway was happily deserted, and walked along it to 8-B.

I didn’t have gloves, and I wasn’t much concerned about that. I wasn’t likely to leave prints, nor was anyone likely to go looking for them. I had my flashlight, although I couldn’t see what need I’d have of it in the middle of a bright sunshiny day. I had my picks, too, and I knew they’d open 8-B’s locks because they’d done so almost effortlessly the other night.

I didn’t need them, either, as it turned out.

But I didn’t know that, and I had them in hand as I stood before the door of the apartment in question. I remembered how I’d had the portfolio in hand, only to lose it, and I remembered the time I’d spent in the closet, and the musty smell of the coats. I didn’t figure I was going to get another crack at the portfolio, but maybe I could at least