A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page A

saw it. Shank walked to the mailboxes and dropped the envelope of marijuana into a slot marked MRS. HERMAN RODJINCKSZI , praying silently that Mrs. Herman Rodjinckszi would stay away from her mailbox for the next couple of hours.
    Then he took the stairs two at a time, wondering how long the tail would stay on the street before he decided to have a look inside. He got his answer while he was opening his own door, when he heard the downstairs door open.
    He closed the door, sliding the bolt into place. Then he raced around the apartment, grabbing the half-empty brown envelope from the table, snatching up the packet of cigarette papers although there was nothing illegal about owning them, picking up also the sack of Bull Durham on the off chance some pot was mixed in with the tobacco. He hadn’t remembered spicing up that particular sack but there was no point taking chances.
    The toilet worked on the first flush for the first time in a good three weeks. He flushed it again for the sheer hell of it and let himself relax completely for the first time since he had spotted the tail.
    The relaxation did not last. Suppose Joe had left the stick some place around? Suppose there was a roach on the floor somewhere? Christ, all the cops needed was a grain of the stuff and they could stick you with possession if they wanted you badly enough. Suppose the son of a—
    A knock sounded at the door.
    He took a quick look around. He glanced under the bed, finding nothing.
    “Open up there. Police.”
    Police—well, that wasn’t much of a surprise, Shank chuckled to himself. He opened the door.
    Close up, the tail seemed meek and unimpressive. He could have been sitting across from Shank in the subway all the way from 125th Street without Shank having been aware of him. But the man’s eyes indicated toughness and capability.
    “Want to let me in?” the tail said. “Want to show me your credentials?”
    The man was Detective First Grade Peter J. Samuelson, Narcotics Bureau. Which, come to think of it—Shank gave a mental shrug—wasn’t much of a surprise either.
    “C’mon inside,” he said.
    Detective Samuelson went through the motions then, but it was obvious he no longer expected to discover anything. The first look at Shank’s face had told him the place was clean. Samuelson bothered with a search only on the off chance he might strike uranium. He made Shank stand with his hands on the wall while he went through his pockets. All he found were two opened packs of cigarettes, a wallet with a few dollars and some uninteresting cards, and the knife.
    “You expecting trouble?” the detective inquired.
    Shank gave no reply.
    “There’s a law against knives like this,” the detective pointed out softly. “Can’t buy ‘em, can’t sell ‘em, can’t own ‘em. I could haul you in on this and let you cool off in the Tombs.”
    “That what they got you boys doing? Looking around for switchblades?”
    And now the cop said nothing.
    “You pick four kids off the street,” Shank delivered the brief lecture. “Pick up any four kids and three of them got knives like that one. Bigger, most of them.”
    The cop laughed unpleasantly. He pressed the button and the blade of the knife shot out. The cop looked at the knife for several seconds, closed it and dropped it into Shank’s pocket.
    “Here,” he said, “keep your toy.”
    Shank fell silent.
    The cop went ahead and checked the room. He knew all the right places—the toilet tank, the window sill, under the mattress, inside the shoes by the bed. Shank wore a pair of desert boots and the cop double-checked them because there was enough room in the toe to hold illegal merchandise.
    The cop combed just about everything, and while he did he cursed softly to himself because he knew that the search would do no good. Somehow or other Shank had tumbled to him and ditched the stuff, and it was a cinch it was nowhere around the apartment. Well, it served Detective Samuelson right. He knew