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I climbed the two flights to the ninth floor, made sure the hall was empty, and walked the length of it to the Nugents’ door. I hadn’t rung Luke’s bell, but I leaned long and hard on their buzzer, giving anyone inside plenty of time to put on a robe and come to the door. When no one did, I let myself in. I didn’t bother letting my eyes accustom themselves to the darkness this time around. I put my picks away, do
The apartment hadn’t changed much in the fifty hours or so since my last visit. I took a quick look around, then went straight to the guest room. The harlequin on the easel looked as depressed as ever, and who could blame him?
The bathroom door was still locked. I knocked on it, and on the adjoining wall. I tapped the switch plate and fiddled with the switch, the one that didn’t seem to turn on a light in either the guest room or the bathroom.
I drew my tool ring from my pocket, selected the appropriate instrument, and unscrewed the two screws that held the switch plate in place. I lifted it off and set it aside. It was a dummy, with no switch box in the wall behind it. The switch itself was attached to the plate and came away with it, leaving a rectangular opening about four inches high and three inches wide. I put my hand in and tapped the rear of the little compartment, ru
What had we here? A hiding place? Not likely, because the interior of the opening wasn’t framed. Anything you stashed here would drop down to the bottom of the wall and you wouldn’t be able to get it out.
I put a little pressure on the tile. It was hinged on top and it swung back, and I caught the scent of the dead man in the bathtub. The bathroom door fit snugly enough to have held the smell within, but I’d broken the seal when I pushed the tile, and two days of aging had ripened him wonderfully. I steeled myself, reached all the way in, and unlocked the door.
I made myself go in there. I drew the shower curtain and took a look at the fellow, just to refresh my memory. He was quite as I remembered him, if a good deal more pungent. I still couldn’t tell if there was a gun in the tub with him, and I still didn’t care enough to move him to find out. I left the bathroom door open and went to the master bedroom, where I spent a moment or two. I went back to the bathroom and took hold of the door, swinging it to and fro, not so much to air the place out as to let the aroma fill the rest of the apartment. It wasn’t the sort of task you want to devote a great deal of time to, and I didn’t. Before long I left the bathroom, closed the door, and reached in through the secret passageway to turn the lock.
I withdrew my arm and the hinged tile swung right back into place. I replaced the dummy switch plate and screwed in the screws. I went into the master bedroom again and scooped up the watches and jewelry I’d been so careful to put back two nights ago. This time it all went straight into the attaché case. Then, in Harlan Nugent’s closet, I picked out a well-polished pair of shoes, black cap toes by Allen-Edmonds. They were much easier on my feet than Luke’s pe
I turned off all the lights, let myself out, locked up, and went home.
After I’d showered and shaved and rinsed out my ru
I hid the attaché case behind the panel in my closet, along with the Tucumcari tote bag. I tucked my picks in one pocket, my gloves in another, and I put on a much nicer tie than I’d taken from Luke’s place, and I locked up and left.
I walked east on Seventy-first, and at the corner of Broadway I found a pay phone and dialed 911. “Hi,” I said. “Say, I just had a delivery at West End and Seventy-fourth and there was a real nasty smell coming from one of the apartments. I was in the military, and it’s a smell you don’t forget once you smelled it. Somebody’s dead in there, I’d put money on it.” The operator asked my name. “Naw, I don’t want to get involved,” I said. “You got to put something down on your form, put Joe Blow. The apartment’s 9-G, that’s G as in George, and the building’s number 304 West End Avenue. I tried reporting it to the doorman but I don’t think he got it. Could be his English isn’t too good. 9-G, 304 West End. Something dead in there, I’d be willing to bet on it. Bye.”
The first uptown train to come along was an express, and I rode it one stop to Ninety-sixth Street. I went out through the turnstile and started walking down Broadway. The first panhandler I met was a woman, the second a large man. I gave each of them a dollar. The third was a man about my size, and I gave him my two shopping bags. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Wear it in good health,” I told him, and turned around and went back to the subway.
By ten o’clock I was in the store, helping Raffles develop his mousing skills. A few hours later I was back in Luke’s apartment, trying to look as though I was there for the first time. I’d been careful to leave his $240 in the jelly jar earlier. This time I took it, but you’ll recall that I split it down the middle with Doll.
That’s called ethics.
By the time I got home my half of the $240 was largely depleted. I’d spent twenty bucks for a baseball card encyclopedia and fifty for a blanket, and as the night wore on I kept shelling out for cabs and coffee. And now it was two in the morning, and I’d been awake for twenty hours, and was I bedded down with my head on my pillow? I was not. Instead, I was sitting on my couch examining baseball cards and looking them up in the encyclopedia.
Some kids never grow up.