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Authors: Lawrence Block
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familiar faces.
The door clicked shut behind me and I dropped my three suitcases on the floor. I shoved the attaché case under the bed and decided to hope for the best. The Collingwood was a residential hotel and there were no bellboys to scoop up your bags. Nobody saw the L. K. B. monogram on the luggage on the way up, which was fine with me. Getting rid of the luggage was the next step, of course. It might have been simpler to check them in a subway locker and throw the key away, but they were too good and I was too broke. I ripped the labels out of all of Brassard’s clothing except for what fit me, stuffed the clothes into the suitcases, and went downtown to where Third Avenue turns into the Bowery.
I sold better than three hundred dollars’ worth of clothing to a round-shouldered, beetle-eyed man for thirty dollars. I pawned two suitcases worth over a hundred bucks for twenty-five. I left Brassard’s stuff to be bought by bottle babies, and I went back to my hotel and slept.
It was Thursday. Sunday or Monday they would be coming back to New York. Now they were together at the Shelburne. Probably in bed.
I dreamed about them and woke up sweating.
Friday I looked him up in the phone book. There was a single entry, not even in bold-faced type. It said Brassard, L. K. 117 Chmbrs . . . . . . WOrth 4-6363 . I left the hotel and found a pay phone in a drugstore around the corner. I dialed WOrth 4-6363 and let it ring eight times without getting an answer. I walked over to Sixth and caught the D train to Chambers, then wandered around until I found 117.
It was the right building for him. The bricks had been red once; now they were colorless. All the windows needed washing. The names of the tenants were painted on the windows— Comet Enterprises, Inc. . . . Cut-Rate Auto Insurance . . . Passport Fotos While-U-Wait . . . Zenith Employment . . . Kallett Confidential Investigations . . . Rafael Messero, Mexican Attorney, Divorce Information . Nine stories of cubbyholes, nine stories of very free enterprise. I wondered why he didn’t have a better office. I wondered if he ever came to the one he had.
His name was on the directory. The elevator was self-service and I rode it to the fifth floor. I got out and walked past the employment agency to the door marked L. K. Brassard. The window glass was frosted and I couldn’t see a thing.
I tried the door and wasn’t particularly surprised to find out that it was locked. The lock was the standard spring lock that catches automatically when you close the door, and there was a good eighth of an inch between the door and the jamb. I looked around at Zenith Employment. Their door was closed. I wondered what the penalty was for breaking and entering.
The blade of my penknife took the lock in less than twenty seconds. It’s a simple operation—you fit the knife blade in between the door and the jamb and pry the locking mechanism back. Good doors have the jamb recessed so that this cannot be done. This one was a bad door. I opened it about an inch and looked around again. Then I shoved it open, walked in and locked it behind me.
The office looked like what it was supposed to be. One of the oldest remaining roll-top desks in America stood in one corner. There was an inkstand on it. I looked around hysterically for a quill pen and was almost surprised not to find one.
There were half a dozen large ledgers on the desk and I went over them fairly carefully. I don’t know what I expected to find. Whether the entries were coded or merely blinds I couldn’t tell. It was a waste of time studying them.
The drawers and pigeonholes of the desk yielded a lot more of nothing in particular. There were bills and canceled checks and bank statements. Evidently he had a certain amount of legitimate business in addition to the main event. From what I could make out, he imported a lot of Japanese garbage—cigarette lighters, toys, junk jewelry, that sort of stuff. That fit into the picture. It
The door clicked shut behind me and I dropped my three suitcases on the floor. I shoved the attaché case under the bed and decided to hope for the best. The Collingwood was a residential hotel and there were no bellboys to scoop up your bags. Nobody saw the L. K. B. monogram on the luggage on the way up, which was fine with me. Getting rid of the luggage was the next step, of course. It might have been simpler to check them in a subway locker and throw the key away, but they were too good and I was too broke. I ripped the labels out of all of Brassard’s clothing except for what fit me, stuffed the clothes into the suitcases, and went downtown to where Third Avenue turns into the Bowery.
I sold better than three hundred dollars’ worth of clothing to a round-shouldered, beetle-eyed man for thirty dollars. I pawned two suitcases worth over a hundred bucks for twenty-five. I left Brassard’s stuff to be bought by bottle babies, and I went back to my hotel and slept.
It was Thursday. Sunday or Monday they would be coming back to New York. Now they were together at the Shelburne. Probably in bed.
I dreamed about them and woke up sweating.
Friday I looked him up in the phone book. There was a single entry, not even in bold-faced type. It said Brassard, L. K. 117 Chmbrs . . . . . . WOrth 4-6363 . I left the hotel and found a pay phone in a drugstore around the corner. I dialed WOrth 4-6363 and let it ring eight times without getting an answer. I walked over to Sixth and caught the D train to Chambers, then wandered around until I found 117.
It was the right building for him. The bricks had been red once; now they were colorless. All the windows needed washing. The names of the tenants were painted on the windows— Comet Enterprises, Inc. . . . Cut-Rate Auto Insurance . . . Passport Fotos While-U-Wait . . . Zenith Employment . . . Kallett Confidential Investigations . . . Rafael Messero, Mexican Attorney, Divorce Information . Nine stories of cubbyholes, nine stories of very free enterprise. I wondered why he didn’t have a better office. I wondered if he ever came to the one he had.
His name was on the directory. The elevator was self-service and I rode it to the fifth floor. I got out and walked past the employment agency to the door marked L. K. Brassard. The window glass was frosted and I couldn’t see a thing.
I tried the door and wasn’t particularly surprised to find out that it was locked. The lock was the standard spring lock that catches automatically when you close the door, and there was a good eighth of an inch between the door and the jamb. I looked around at Zenith Employment. Their door was closed. I wondered what the penalty was for breaking and entering.
The blade of my penknife took the lock in less than twenty seconds. It’s a simple operation—you fit the knife blade in between the door and the jamb and pry the locking mechanism back. Good doors have the jamb recessed so that this cannot be done. This one was a bad door. I opened it about an inch and looked around again. Then I shoved it open, walked in and locked it behind me.
The office looked like what it was supposed to be. One of the oldest remaining roll-top desks in America stood in one corner. There was an inkstand on it. I looked around hysterically for a quill pen and was almost surprised not to find one.
There were half a dozen large ledgers on the desk and I went over them fairly carefully. I don’t know what I expected to find. Whether the entries were coded or merely blinds I couldn’t tell. It was a waste of time studying them.
The drawers and pigeonholes of the desk yielded a lot more of nothing in particular. There were bills and canceled checks and bank statements. Evidently he had a certain amount of legitimate business in addition to the main event. From what I could make out, he imported a lot of Japanese garbage—cigarette lighters, toys, junk jewelry, that sort of stuff. That fit into the picture. It
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