Lawrence Block - The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

But I didn’t. Nor did I sneak a cup of the leftover coffee. He probably wouldn’t have missed that, either, and God knows I could have used it, but I was a good little burglar and left it untouched.

I got in, I got out. When I hit the street I looked around, and he was nowhere to be seen. I caught a cab, gave the ethnically indeterminate driver my address, and sat back with my Braniff bag cradled on my lap. I felt grimy and grubby and I couldn’t stop yawning.

I didn’t see the suspect car in front of my building, and I wasn’t worried I’d find Ray Kirschmann in the lobby, but it seemed a bad time to leave anything to chance. I got the driver to circle the block and let me off around the corner in front of the service entrance. I’d just finished paying the tab when a fellow in a glen plaid suit and a horrible tie came out of the very door I was planning on opening. “Hold it!” I sang out, and he did, and I was inside my building without having to pick any locks.

Now isn’t that a hell of a thing? I’d never seen this clown before, so it was odds-on he’d never laid eyes on me, and here he was letting me through a door that was supposed to be kept locked.

I very nearly had a word with him about it. I’ve been known to do that. After all, I live in the building; the last thing I want is unauthorized persons roaming its halls and imperiling its tenants, one of them myself. I’ve bluffed and smiled and sweet-talked my way into any number of buildings. I know how it works, and I’d just as soon nobody worked it on the place where I live.

But I held my tongue. I’d talk to the fellow another time. For now, I had other things to do.

First a shower and a shave, neither of which could possibly have been called premature. Then, clad in fresh clothes, I took the subway downtown and ate a big breakfast at a Union Square coffee shop. It was another beautiful day, the latest in a string of them and a fitting finale for Memorial Day weekend. I treated myself to a second cup of coffee, and I was whistling as I walked to my store.

I got a royal welcome from Raffles, who was trying to see how much static electricity he could generate by rubbing against my ankles. I fed him right away, more to keep him from getting underfoot than because I felt he was in great danger of starvation. Then I dragged my bargain table outside-I’ve thought of putting wheels on it, but I just know if I did some moron would roll it away and I’d never see it again. I wanted the bargain table out there not for the trade it would bring but because I needed the space it otherwise occupied. If all went according to plan, I was going to have a full house this afternoon.

The first person through the door was Mowgli. “Whoa!” he said. “You trying to get rich, Bernie? Man, it’s a holiday. Why aren’t you at the beach?”

“I’m afraid of sharks.”

“Then what are you doing in the book business? I’m surprised to find you here, is all. First Carolyn was here to keep the place open yesterday and the day before, and now you’re here in person. You get a chance to look at those books I left for you?”

I hadn’t, of course, and didn’t really have time to look at them now, but I found the sack of them behind the counter and gave its contents a fast look-through. It was good stuff, including a couple of early Oz books with the color frontispiece illustrations intact. We agreed on a price of seventy-five dollars, less the ten bucks Carolyn had advanced him, and I found four twenties in the cash drawer and held them out to him.

“Haven’t got change,” he said. “You want to give me sixty and owe me five, or can I owe you the fifteen? That’s what I’d rather do, but maybe you don’t want to do it that way.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Help me move some furniture and you won’t owe me a dime.”

“Move some furniture? Like move it where, man?”

“Around,” I said. “I want to create a little space here, set up some folding chairs.”

“Expecting a crowd, Bernie?”

“I wouldn’t call it a crowd. Six, eight people. Something like that.”

“Be a crowd in here. I guess that’s why you want to move some stuff around. What’s on the program, a poetry reading?”

“Not exactly.”

“Because I didn’t know you were into that. I read some of my own stuff a while back at a little place on Ludlow Street. Café Villanelle?”

“Black walls and ceiling,” I said. “Black candles set in cat-food cans.”

“Hey, you know it! Not many people even heard of the place.”

“It may take a while to find its audience,” I said, trying not to shudder at the memory of an evening of Emily Dickinson sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and a lifetime supply of in-your-face haiku. This wouldn’t be a poetry reading this afternoon, though, I added. It was more of a private sale.

“Like an auction?”

“In a way,” I said. “With dramatic elements.”

He thought that sounded interesting, and I told him he could hang around and sit in if he wanted. He helped me bring some chairs up front from the back room, and about that time Carolyn turned up. She had a couple of folding chairs at the Poodle Factory, and Mowgli went with her to fetch them.

Right after they left I got a phone call, and when they came back I made a phone call, and then I actually got a couple of customers, one of whom asked about an eight-volume set of Defoe and actually pulled out his wallet when I agreed to knock fifteen dollars off the price. He paid cash, too, and left me to wonder if I’d been making a mistake all these years, closing up on Sundays and holidays.

At twelve-thirty Carolyn went around the corner to the Freedom Fighter Deli and brought back lunch for all three of us. We each got a Felix Dzerzhinsky sandwich on a seeded roll and a bottle of cream soda, and we sat on three of the chairs I’d set up and pushed two of the others together to make a table. Afterward I repositioned the chairs and stood back to survey the result.

Carolyn said it looked good.

“That’s the easy part,” I said. “But do you figure anybody will show up?”

Mowgli put his hands together and made a little bow. “If you build it,” he announced, his voice unnaturally deep and resonant, “they will come.”

And, starting an hour later, they did just that.

The first arrivals were two men I’d never laid eyes on before, but even so I knew them right away. One was tall and hugely fat, with a big nose and chin and impressive eyebrows. He was wearing a white suit and a white-on-white shirt with French cuffs, the links made from a pair of U.S. five-dollar gold pieces. A black beret looked perfectly appropriate on top of his mane of steel-gray hair.

His companion was rain-thin, with a weak chin and not nearly enough space between his shifty little eyes. He had the kind of pallor you could only acquire by sleeping in a coffin. A lit cigarette burned unattended in one corner of his sullen mouth.

The fat man looked us over. He acknowledged Carolyn with a polite nod, checked out Mowgli and me, and guessed correctly. “Mr. Rhodenbarr,” he said to me. “Gregory Tsarnoff.”

“Mr. Tsarnoff,” I said, and shook his hand. “It’s good of you to come.”

“We seem to be early,” he said. “Punctuality is a fault of mine, sir, and the lot of the punctual man is perennial disappointment.”

“I hope you won’t be disappointed today,” I said. “I haven’t met your uh friend, but I believe we spoke on the telephone.”

“Indeed. Wilfred, this is Mr. Rhodenbarr.”

Wilfred nodded. He didn’t extend his hand, nor did I offer mine. “A pleasure,” I said, as sincerely as I could. “Uh, Wilfred, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to put out the cigarette.”