The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online Page B

tonight, and you said you didn’t.”
    “That was then,” I said.
    “And this is now? What happened, Bern?”
    “A beautiful woman walked into my store.”
    “You’ve got all the luck,” she said. “The only person who walked into my store all afternoon was a fat guy with a saluki. Why do people do that?”
    “Walk into your store?”
    “Buy inappropriate dogs. He’s bandy-leggedand barrel-chested and he’s got an underslung jaw, so what the hell is he doing with a dog built like a fashion model? He ought to have an English bulldog.”
    “Maybe you can persuade him to switch.”
    “Too late,” she said. “By the time you’ve had the dog for a few days you get attached and you’re stuck with each other. It’s not like human relationships where everything falls apart once you really get to know each other. Bern, this beautiful woman. Is it someone you knew?”
    “A perfect stranger,” I said. “She came in for a book.”
    “And walked out with your heart. It sounds romantic. Where are you taking her? The theater? The Rainbow Room? Or some intimate little supper club? That’s always nice.”
    “We’re going to the movies.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s always a good choice on a first date. What are you going to see?”
    “A double feature. Chain Lightning and Tokyo Joe. ”
    “Did they just open?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Because I never heard of them. Chain Lightning and Tokyo Joe? Who’s in them? Anybody I ever heard of?”
    “Humphrey Bogart.”
    “Humphrey Bogart? The Humphrey Bogart?”
    “It’s a film festival,” I explained. “It’s at the Musette Theater two blocks from Lincoln Center.Tonight’s the first night, and I’m meeting her at the box office at a quarter to seven.”
    “The program starts at seven?”
    “Seven-thirty. But she wants to make sure we get good seats. She’s never seen either of these films.”
    “Have you, Bern?”
    “No, but—”
    “Because neither have I, and what’s the big deal? I never even heard of them.”
    “She’s a major Bogart fan,” I said. “She learned English by watching his films over and over again.”
    “I bet every other word out of her mouth is ‘You dirty rat.’”
    “That’s Jimmy Cagney.”
    “‘Play it again, Sam.’ That’s Humphrey Bogart, right?”
    “It’s close.”
    “‘You played it for her, you can play it for me. I can take it if she can.’ Right?”
    “Right.”
    “That’s what I thought. What do you mean, she learned to speak English? Where did she grow up?”
    “Europe.”
    “Where in Europe?”
    “Just Europe,” I said.
    “Just Europe? I mean, France or Spain or Czechoslovakia or Sweden or, uh—”
    “Of the four you mentioned,” I said, “my vote would go to Czechoslovakia. But I can’t really narrow it down because we didn’t get into that.” I recapped our conversation, leaving out the dietary excesses of the Tierra del Fuegans. “There was a lot that went unspoken,” I explained, “a lot of significant glances, a lot of nuance, a lot of, uh—”
    “Heat,” she suggested.
    “I was going to say romance.”
    “Even better, Bern. I’m a sucker for romance. So you’re meeting her at the Musette and you’re going to see two old movies back to back. I don’t suppose they’ll be colorized, will they?”
    “Bite your tongue.”
    “And then what? Dinner?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “Unless you both pig out on popcorn. So you’ll be getting out of the theater around ten-thirty or eleven and you’ll grab something in the neighborhood. Then what? Her place or yours?”
    “Carolyn—”
    “If the Musette’s just a couple of blocks from Lincoln Center,” she said, “then it’s not much more than a couple of blocks from your place, because your place is just a couple of blocks from Lincoln Center. But maybe her place is just as convenient. Where does she live, Bern?”
    “I didn’t ask her.”
    “So you’re saying she lives in New York, right? She comes from