The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

CHAPTER Twenty

I figured 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.

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.”

He gave me a look.

“The smoke gets in the books,” I said. And in the air, I might have added. Wilfred glanced at Tsarnoff, who nodded shortly. Wilfred then took the cigarette from his lips. I thought he was going to drop it on my floor, but no, he opened the door and flicked it expertly out into the street.

“A deplorable habit,” Tsarnoff said, “but the young man has other qualities which render him indispensable to me. I should find it as hard to forgo his services as he to abjure Dame Nicotine. But are we not all slaves to something, sir?”

I couldn’t argue with that. I steered him to my desk chair, saying I thought he’d find it the most comfortable of the lot, and he eased his bulk into it. The chair bore the load well. Wilfred, not a whit less sullen without the cigarette, took a folding chair over to the side.

“I wonder,” Tsarnoff said. “Might we make lemonade of the sour fruit of punctuality? I am here, sir, and you are here. What do you say we do a deal and leave the latecomers out in the cold?”

“Ah, I wish I could.”

“But you can, sir. You have only to act on the wish.”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be fair to the others,” I said, “and it would leave some important points unaddressed. Besides, people will be arriving any minute now.”

“I daresay you’re right,” he said, and nodded at the door, where a woman with her arms full of packages was trying to get a hand free to reach for the knob.

It was the flower matron, Maggie Mason, breathless with anticipation. “I never thought you’d be open today,” she said. “How’s Raffles? Is he working too, or did you give him the day off?”

“He’s always on the job,” I said. “But as a matter of fact I’m not. The store’s closed.”

“It is?” She looked around. “That’s curious. It looks as though you’re open. You have people in the store.”

“I know.”

“Yes, of course, you would have to know that, wouldn’t you? But your Special Value table is outside.”

“That’s because there’s no room for it in the store this afternoon,” I said. I reached for the CLOSED sign and hung it in the window. “We’re having a private sale this afternoon. We’ll be open regular hours tomorrow.”

“A private sale! May I come?”

“I’m sorry, but-”

“I’m a wonderful impulse buyer, really I am. Remember the last time I was here? I just came in to talk to Raffles, and look at all the books I went home with.”

I remembered it well, as who in my business would not? A two-hundred-dollar sale, completely out of the blue.

“Please, Mr. Rhodenbarr? Pretty please?”

I was tempted, I have to tell you. For all I knew she’d sit there starry-eyed, ready to outbid everybody, and when the dust had settled she’d own a dozen more art books and that leather-bound set of Balzac.

“I’m sorry,” I said reluctantly. “It really is by invitation only. But next time I’ll put you on the invitation list. How’s that?”

It was good enough to send her on her way. I turned back to my guests and had started to say something when Mowgli caught my eye and gave me the high sign. I went to the door and opened it to admit Tiglath Rasmoulian.

This time he was wearing a belted trench coat, and the shirt under it was either persimmon or pumpkin blush, depending which mail-order catalog you prefer. He had the same straw panama, but I could swear he’d changed the feather in its band to one that matched his shirt. “Mr. Rhodenbarr,” he said, smiling as he crossed the threshold. Then he caught sight of the man in the white suit and the spots of color on his cheeks looked on the point of spontaneous combustion.

“Tsarnoff,” he cried. “You Slavic blot! You foul corpulence!”

Tsarnoff raised his eyebrows, no mean task given the bulk of them. “Rasmoulian,” he purred, investing the name with a full measure of malice. “You Assyrian guttersnipe. You misbegotten Levantine dwarf.”

“Why are you here, Tsarnoff?” He turned to me. “Why is he here?”

“Everybody’s got to be someplace,” I said.

This left him unmollified. “I was not told he would be here,” he said. “I am not happy about this.”

“While I on the contrary am delighted to see you, Tiglath. I find your feculent presence enormously reassuring. How good to know you’re not somewhere else, causing unimaginable trouble.”

They looked daggers at each other, or possibly scimitars, even yataghans. Rasmoulian’s hand slipped into his trench-coat pocket, and across the way young Wilfred matched this escalation by sliding a hand inside his Milwaukee Brewers warm-up jacket.

“Gentlemen,” I said inaccurately. “Please.”

Across the way, Carolyn seemed to be looking around for a place to hide when the shooting started. Mowgli, standing beside her, showed less alarm. Maybe he was just blasé, considering what he had to be used to in the abandoned buildings he called home. Or maybe he thought these were a couple of book collectors about to lose their heads over something from the Kelmscott Press, and that Wilfred had been reaching for a cigarette, and Rasmoulian for a handkerchief.

For a moment nobody moved, and the two of them kept their agate eyes fastened on one another. Then, in unison, as if in response to some high-pitched tone no human ear could detect, they brought their empty hands into view.

I’ll admit it, I breathed easier. I didn’t want them shooting each other, not in my store. Not this early in the game, certainly.

The next to arrive was Weeks.

He stood at the door, eyeballed the CLOSED sign, turned the knob, and came on in. He was wearing the same outfit I’d seen him leave the apartment in that morning, houndstooth jacket, flannel slacks, brown-and-white spectator wing tips, and that cocoa hat of his. It was quite a crowd for headwear, with Tsarnoff’s beret, Rasmoulian’s panama, and Weeks and his natty homburg. I hadn’t seen this many hats all at once outside of the Musette Theater, where on some evenings the screen was dark with them.

Tsarnoff and Rasmoulian still had their hats on, but Weeks took his off when he caught sight of Carolyn. His ever-watchful eyes scanned the room, and a smile spread on his face.

“Gregorius,” he said. “How nice to see you again. And Tiglath. Always a pleasure. I’d no idea you two gentlemen would be here.” As if we hadn’t discussed the two of them at great length. He smiled happily at Wilfred, who stared hard at him in return. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said. “Gregorius, won’t you introduce me to your young friend?”

Tsarnoff said, “Charles, this is Wilfred. Wilfred, this is Charles Weeks. Mark him well.”

Weeks did a double take. “‘Mark him well,’ eh? Whatever could you mean by that, Gregorius?” To Wilfred he said, “My pleasure, son,” and extended his hand. Wilfred just looked at the hand and made no move to take it.

“For Christ’s sake,” Weeks said, disgusted. “Shake hands like a man, you wretched toad-sucking little maggot. That’s better.” He wiped his hand on his pants leg and turned to me. “Weasel,” he said warmly. “Introduce me to these nice people.”

I made the introductions. Weeks bowed over Carolyn’s hand, brushing it with his lips, then shook hands with Mowgli and asked him if he’d really been raised by wolves. First raised, then lowered, Mowgli told him.

I said, “Have a seat, Charlie.”

“Why, thank you,” he said. “Yes, I think I will.” He took a moment to make his choice, finally selecting the chair two to the left of Tsarnoff, placing his hat on the chair that separated them. “Mowgli’s from Kipling’s Jungle Book, but of course you would know that, wouldn’t you, Gregorius?” Tsarnoff rolled his eyes at the question. “Were your parents great Kipling fans, son? Or did you choose the name yourself?”

We weren’t to find out, because the door opened before Mowgli could answer. I knew who it was, I’d caught a glimpse of her as she’d crossed the sidewalk in front of the store, and I didn’t want to watch her come in. I wanted to watch them watching her, but I couldn’t help myself. When she was in a room, that’s where my eyes went.

And she did it again.

So I said it again, and out loud for a change. “Of all the bookstores in all the towns in all the world,” I said, “she walks into mine.”