Lawrence Block - The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

This would be different, but couldn’t I sleep on the living-room couch, say, while they were sleeping in the bedroom? I’d make sure I woke up before they did. And if something went wrong, if they found me dozing in front of the fireplace, wasn’t it the sort of thing I could talk my way out of? Drunk, I’d say, shrugging sheepishly. Got the wrong apartment by mistake, just dumb luck my key fit in the lock. Terribly sorry, never happen again. I’ll go home now.

Was that so utterly out of the question? I could pull that off, couldn’t I?

No, I told myself sternly. I couldn’t.

I squirmed around, trying to find the most comfortable position, until I realized with dismay that I’d found it early on and it wasn’t going to get any better. I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes. I was as snug as a bug on a bare floor, and there’s a reason that metaphor has not become part of the language. It was going to be a long night.

It was a long night.

Every hour or so I would wake up, if you want to call it that, and look at my watch. Then I would close my eyes and go back to sleep, if you want to call it that, until I woke up again.

And so on.

At six-thirty I gave up and got up. I splashed water on my face, dried my hands with toilet paper, and put on the slacks and shoes I’d taken off. I had a clean shirt and socks and underwear in my bag, but I was saving them until I had a clean body to put them on.

It was light out, so I could read again. I went back to Bertie Wooster, and everything he did and said made perfect sense to me. I took this for a Bad Sign.

At seven-thirty I checked the hall, and there were two people in it, waiting for the elevator. I eased the door silently shut. Two minutes later I tried again, and they were gone but someone else had taken their place. It seemed like a lot of traffic for a luxury building early on a holiday morning, but evidently the residents of the Boccaccio were an enterprising lot, not given to lazy mornings in bed. Or maybe they’d spent the night on the floor, too, and were as eager as I to be up and doing.

When I cracked the door a third time there was yet another person in the hall, but she looked to be a cleaning woman who’d just emerged from the elevator and was headed for an apartment at the far end of the hallway. I stepped out and drew the door shut, unwilling to lock up after myself as I usually do, not with so much traffic all around me. The empty apartment would have to spend the next little while guarded only by the spring locks, which meant anybody with a credit card could steal inside and make off with the toilet paper.

So be it. I walked to the stairwell, setting a brisk pace, and its fire door closed behind me without my attracting any attention.

So far so good.

I climbed seven flights of stairs, telling myself that people paid good money to do essentially the same thing on a machine at the gym. I’ll admit I paused a couple of times en route, but I got there.

At the twelfth-floor landing, I waited until I’d caught my breath, which took longer than I’d prefer to admit. Then I opened the door about an inch and a half and looked out. I’d picked the right stairwell, and from where I was I had a good if narrow view of his door.

I hunkered down, which for years I thought was something people only did in westerns. It turns out you can do it anywhere, even in a ritzy building on Park Avenue. It was less tiring than holding a fixed upright position for a long period of time, and I was less likely to be seen; people do most of their looking at eye level, and my own eyes, lurking behind a slightly ajar door all the way at the end of the hall, wouldn’t be as noticeable if I kept them half their usual distance from the floor.

I checked my watch. It was seventeen minutes to eight. It seemed to me that should give me plenty of leeway, but I hadn’t been there five minutes before I started to worry that I’d missed him.

According to him, he was a creature of habit, leaving the house at the same time and taking the same walk every morning. The previous morning I’d been loitering in a doorway across the street, drinking bad coffee from a Styrofoam cup and waiting for him to make his appearance. He’d done so at ten minutes after eight, and if he stayed on schedule today he’d leave his apartment sometime between a quarter to eight and eight-thirty.

Unless he didn’t.

If he was later today than yesterday, I could just wait him out. It’s not as though I had a train to catch, or a longstanding appointment at the periodontist. But if he was earlier, more than twenty-seven minutes earlier, say, then I’d get to see him return while I was still waiting for him to leave.

Not good.

If you ever start thinking you’re a long ways from being neurotic, just spend a little time squinting at a closed door waiting for it to open. I couldn’t get my mind to shut up. I’d made a big mistake, I told myself, staying as long as I had in the empty apartment. Suppose I’d missed him. Suppose the apartment was magnificently empty right now, while I squatted there like a constipated savage. I should have been in place by seven-thirty at the latest. Seven o’clock would have been better, and six-thirty would have been better still.

On the other hand, how long could I perch at the stair landing without someone turning up to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing there? It did not seem unlikely that the stairs would see a certain amount of casual traffic, whether of tenants or building staff. I didn’t expect a whole lot of coming and going, but all it would take was one mildly curious individual and the best I could hope for was a summary exit from the premises.

The time crawled. I asked myself what Bogart would do, and right away I knew one thing he’d have done. He’d have smoked. By ten minutes after eight (his departure time yesterday, so where the hell was he?) the floor would have been littered with butts and cigarette ash. He’d have tapped cigarettes out philosophically, ground them out savagely, flicked them unthinkingly down the stairs. He’d have smoked like crazy, the son of a gun, but when it came time to take action, by God he’d have taken it.

What if I just went over there and rang his goddam bell? Now, without waiting for any more time to pass. If he’d left early, I’d be able to get in there now instead of wasting the whole day. And if he was still home, if he hadn’t left yet, and he answered the bell, well, I would just think of something.

Like what?

I was trying to think of it when his door opened, and I’d been staring at it so hard for so long that it barely registered. Then he emerged, looking quite dapper in flannel trousers and a houndstooth jacket, and wearing the hat he’d been wearing that first night, when he opened the door for Captain Hoberman and blinked in surprise to see me there as well.

He had what seemed like a long wait for the elevator, but he waited patiently, and I tried to follow his example. A young couple emerged from the E or F apartment just as the elevator door opened, and the man called for them to hold the door while the woman locked up. Then they joined Weeks in the elevator and away they all went.

I let out my breath, looked at my watch. It was fourteen minutes after eight.

Three minutes later I was inside his apartment.

Ifigured I had an hour before he was likely to return. If I wanted to play it safe, all I had to do was be out of there by nine o’clock.

As it turned out, it didn’t take me anywhere near that long to do what I wanted to do. I was out of his apartment by twenty to nine, out of the building shortly thereafter.

I probably would have had time for a shower.

You know, I thought about it. I could have shucked my clothes, treated myself to a minute and a half under a spray of hot water, then rubbed myself speedily dry with one of his fluffy mint-green towels. I could have stuffed the towel in my flight bag, carrying the evidence away with me. He’d never have missed it.