The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart Read Online Free PDF Page B

case one of them had taken the portfolio not to keep but merely to give the other a playful swat. I made sure it wasn’t lurking on the floor behind the dresser, or in a pile of books alongside the fireplace, or, indeed, anywhere.
    Then I got out of there. I’d had my gloves on all the time I’d been inside the apartment, so I hadn’t left any fingerprints, and if the other visitors had done so, that was their problem. I left everything the way they’d left it, unlocked the doors, and was compulsive enough to do with my picks what they’d done with keys—i.e., I locked up after myself.
    I walked back up to the twelfth floor and rang for the elevator. It was close to one in the morning,and the shifts change at midnight, but it was clearly a night when nothing could safely be left to chance. It turned out that the elevator attendant was a new face, but I’d rather climb four flights of stairs unnecessarily than have a fellow wonder how the man he’d taken to Twelve had managed to find his way to Eight.
    But he didn’t say anything to me, or look twice at me, and neither did the concierge. The doorman glanced my way only long enough to assure himself that I didn’t want him to call me a cab. I walked over to Lex and headed uptown, and the Wexford Castle was right where I’d left it, looking every bit as dingy and smelling no better than it looked. There were half a dozen old soaks at the bar, and they weren’t any more interested in me than the concierge or the elevator man, and who could blame them?
    “I was in here an hour or so ago,” I told the bartender. “I didn’t happen to leave my attaché case here, did I?”
    “You mean like a briefcase?”
    “Right.”
    “About so wide and so high? Brass locks here and here?”
    “You haven’t seen it, have you?”
    “’Fraid not,” he said. “I couldn’t swear to it, but I don’t think you had it with you. I remember you, on account of you were with a guy knocked off a double like he had a train to catch, and you didn’t have nothing yourself.”
    “Well, that was then and this is now,” I said.
    “What’ll you have?”
    “What my friend had. Double vodka.”
    I won’t drink anything when I go out housebreaking, not a drop, not so much as a sip of beer. But I’d done my work for the night, if you wanted to call it work. I called it a waste of time, and not a whole lot of fun.
    He poured from the same bottle, the one with the guy sporting the astrakhan hat and the savage grin. The brand name was Ludomir, and it was a new one on me. I picked up my glass and tossed off the shot and thought I was going to die.
    “Jesus,” I said.
    “Something the matter?”
    “People drink this stuff?”
    “What’s wrong with it? If you’re gonna tell me it’s watered, save your breath, okay? Because it’s not.”
    “Watered?” I said. “If it’s diluted with anything, my guess would be formaldehyde. Ludomir, huh? I never heard of it.”
    “We just started pouring it a month or so ago,” he said. “I don’t do the ordering, but when the boss tells me to make it the house vodka, you know what that tells me?”
    “It’s cheap.”
    “Bingo,” he said. He hefted the bottle, studied the label. “‘Product of Bulgaria,’” he read. “Imported, no less. Says right here it’s a hundred proof.”
    “At least.”
    “Guy on the label looks happy, don’t he? Like he’s about to do one of those dances where they fold their arms and it looks like they’re sitting down, but there’s no chair under ’em. You or I tried something like that, we’d fall on our ass.”
    “I might anyway,” I said.
    “It’s cheap shit,” he said, “but all the time I been pouring it, you’re the first person who didn’t like it.”
    “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” I said. “All I said was it must have been diluted with nail polish remover.”
    “You said formaldehyde.”
    “I did?” I thought for a moment. “You’re absolutely right,” I said.