Lawrence Block - The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

“As companions?”

“As dinner. They said that dogs tasted of otter.”

“And that is bad, otter?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose it tastes of fish.”

“Fuegans. I have never heard of them.”

“Until now.”

“Well, yes. Until now.”

“I never heard of them, either,” I said. “I gather Darwin wrote about them. They lived in Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of South America.”

“Do they live there still?”

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you, though, if I ever go visit them I’m taking my own lunch.”

“And your own woman?”

“I don’t have a woman,” I said, “but if I did I don’t think I would take her to Tierra del Fuego.”

“Where would you take her instead?”

“It would depend on the woman. I might take her to Paris.”

“How romantic.”

“Or I might take her to the movies.”

“Also romantic,” she said. A smile played on her lips. “I want to buy a book. Will you sell me a book?”

“Not this one?”

“No.”

“Good,” I said, and closed Our Oriental Heritage, and set it on the shelf behind me. She’d been holding a book, and she placed it on the counter where I could see it. It was Clifford McCarty’s Bogey: The Films of Humphrey Bogart, the hardcover edition published thirty years ago by Citadel Press. I checked the penciled price on the flyleaf.

“It’s twenty-two dollars,” I said. “And, because I’m honest to a fault, I’ll tell you that there’s a paperback edition available. The title’s slightly different but it’s the same book.”

“I have it.”

“It’s around fifteen dollars, if memory serves, and sometimes it does.” I blinked. “Did you just say you have it?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s called The Complete Films of Humphrey Bogart, and your memory serves you quite well. The price is fourteen ninety-five.”

“And you already own it.”

“Yes. I want a hardcover copy.”

“I guess you’re a fan.”

“I love him,” she said. “And you? Do you love him?”

“There’s never been anybody quite like him,” I said, which, when you come right down to it, could be said of just about anyone. “He was one of a kind, wasn’t he? He had-”

“A certain something.”

“That’s just what I was going to say.” The tips of my fingers rested on the book, scant inches from the tips of her fingers. Her nails were manicured, and painted a rich scarlet. Mine were not. I fought to keep my fingers from reaching out for hers, and I said, “Uh, I have a copy of the Jordan Manning biography. At least I did the last time I looked.”

“I saw it.”

“It’s out of print, and difficult to find. But I guess you already have a copy.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want it.”

“Oh? It’s supposed to be good, but-”

“I don’t care,” she said. “What do I care about his life? I don’t care where he was born, or if he loved his mother. I don’t give a damn how many wives he had, or how much he drank, or what he died of.”

“You don’t?”

“What I love,” she said, “is what you see on the screen. That Humphrey Bogart. Rick in Casablanca . Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. ”

“ Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place. ”

Her eyes widened. “Everyone remembers Rick Blaine and Sam Spade,” she said. “And Fred Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. But who remembers Dixon Steele?”

“I guess I do,” I said. “Don’t ask me why. I remember titles and authors a lot, that’s natural in this business, and I guess I remember character names, too.”

“ In a Lonely Place. He’s a screenwriter, Dixon Steele, do you remember? He has to adapt a novel but he can’t bear to read it, and he gets a hat-check girl to come tell him the story. Then she’s murdered, and he is a suspect.”

“But there’s another girl,” I said.

“Gloria Grahame. She’s a neighbor and gives him an alibi, and then she falls in love with him and types his manuscript and prepares his meals. But she sees the violence in him when his car is in an accident and he beats up the other driver, and again when he beats his agent for taking his script before it was finished. She thinks he must have killed the hat-check girl after all, and she is going to leave him, and he finds out and starts choking her. Do you remember?”

Vaguely, I thought. “Vividly,” I said.

“And there is a phone call. The hat-check girl’s boyfriend has confessed to the murder. But it’s too late for them, and Gloria Grahame can only stand there and watch him walk out of her life forever.”

“You don’t need the book,” I said. “Not in hardcover or in paperback. You’ve got the whole thing memorized.”

“He is very important to me.”

“I can see that.”

“I learned English from his films. Four of them, I played them over and over on the VCR. I would say the lines along with him and the other actors, trying to pronounce them correctly. But I still have an accent, don’t I?”

“It’s charming.”

“You think so? I think you are charming.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She lowered her eyes, drew a wallet from her purse. “I want to pay for the book,” she announced. “It is twenty-two dollars, yes? And then there is the sales tax.”

“Forget the tax.”

“Oh?”

“And forget the twenty-two dollars. Please, I insist. The book is my gift to you.”

“But I cannot accept it.”

“Of course you can.”

“I want to pay for it,” she said. She put a five and a twenty on the counter. “Please,” she said.

I slipped the book into a paper bag, handed it to her, and gave her three dollars change. I didn’t ring the sale and I didn’t collect the tax. Don’t tell the governor.

“You are very sweet,” she said. “But how can you make money if you give your books away?” She put her hand on mine. “I think there is more to you than shows on the surface. Do you know what I think? I think you are like him.”

“Like-?”

“Humphrey Bogart. Has anyone told you that?”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

She cocked her head, studying me. “It is not physical,” she said. “You do not look like him. And your voice is nothing like his. But there is something, yes?”

“Well, uh-”

“Do you have a secret life?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Are you secretly violent, like Dixon Steele?” She cocked her head, took a long look at me. “I don’t think so. But there is something, isn’t there? It is a very romantic quality, I can tell you that much.”

“It is?”

“Oh, yes. Very romantic.” A knowing smile played on those lips. “Take me out this evening.”

“Wherever you say.”

“Not to Paris,” she said. “That would be romantic, wouldn’t it? If we were to meet like this, and tonight we flew to Paris. But I don’t want you to take me to Paris, not yet.”

“ Paris can wait.”

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll always have Paris. Tonight you may take me to the movies.”

After she left, I went over and touched Raffles to make sure he was alive. He hadn’t changed position during her visit, and it was hard to imagine he could have ignored her. I scratched him behind the ear and he swung his head around and gave me a look.

“You missed her,” I told him. “Go back to sleep.”

He yawned and stretched, then sprang lightly down from the sill and hurried to check his water dish. He is a gray tabby, and Carolyn Kaiser, my best friend in all the world, has assured me that he is a Manx. I’ve since given the matter some study, and I’m not so sure. As far as I can tell, the only thing Manxlike about him is the tail he doesn’t have.