Read Online The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online
Authors: Lawrence Block
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Detective and Mystery Stories, New York (N.Y.), Library, Thieves, Rhodenbarr; Bernie (Fictitious character)
Ads: Link
nothing whatsoever, took a breath, and rang the Feldmaus bell.
And once again heard nothing, nothing but the bell itself, but waited, waited patiently, and was just about to ring again when, yes, I heard footsteps, and then the sort of grunt you utter when you bump into something, probably because you’re stumbling around in the dark. The footsteps stopped, then resumed.
Was the top-floor tenant male or female? I didn’t know, and slurred my way accordingly. “Mis’ Creeley?” I called through the door.
The footsteps stopped again, and the silence was eloquent. Then a male voice, thickened with sleep and irritation, said, “Up a flight.”
“I say, terribly sorry.” For some reason I was affecting an English accent.
“Fucking idiot,” Feldmaus said, but the words didn’t have much force to them. I headed for the stairs, and heard his footsteps heading back to bed.
A flight up, I went through the same routine at Creeley’s door. I determined that no light showed below it or through the keyhole, then put my finger on the buzzer and buzzed away. When I heard Creeley’s approaching footsteps, I knew just what I would do. I’d say “Mister Feldmaus?” and I wouldn’t have to fudge the first word, because I’d established that Feldmaus was a man. (There might be a Mrs. Feldmaus as well, for all I knew, but that was neither here nor there.)
Then Creeley, Ms. or Mr., would tell me Feldmaus was a flight below, and I’d excuse myself, using the same English accent that had served me so well thus far. And then I’d go downstairs, not one flight but two, and then I’d go out of the building and, please God, catch the first cab I saw and go home.
But I didn’t hear any footsteps.
I rang again, and got the same non-response. I put my ear to the door and listened to the silence.
There were three locks on the door. I unlocked all three of them, or at least I thought I did, but the one in the middle was unlocked to begin with, so picking it only served to lock it, as I found out when I went to open the door. I picked it again, retracting the bolt I’d unwittingly extended, and now the door opened.
And in I went.
Eight
W hat a feeling!
I don’t know that I can possibly convey what it felt like. I can tell you that my senses were keener than normal, that the blood sang in my veins, that there was a tingling in the tips of my fingers, but the more precisely I record such phenomena the more pathological the whole thing sounds. What I’m hard put to get across is the sheer exhilaration that possessed me, combined with an all-encompassing sense of well-being, and even of appropriateness. I was, it seemed to me, precisely where I ought to be, doing precisely what I was supposed to do.
Which, when you stop and think about it, is palpable nonsense. I was in point of fact where I was manifestly not supposed to be, where the law of the land told me in no uncertain terms I was not allowed to be. And I was doing what I was unquestionably not supposed to do.
But I can only tell you how it felt.
And it felt terrific.
For a few minutes I just stood there, monitoring my own response, enjoying every particle of it. The apartment was dark, and I let myeyes grow accustomed to the dimness. When they were equal to the task, I took a moment to lock all three locks. Then I had a look around.
The room the door opened on was the middle room of the apartment, and it was a combination kitchen and dining room. To the left, fronting on 36th Street, was a very large living room; in back, with windows looking across a courtyard at the buildings on 35th Street, was a bedroom almost as large as the living room. Any one of the three rooms would have served as a perfectly decent studio apartment, so Creeley, whoever he or she was, had an abundance of living space by New York standards. (To keep things in proportion, it’s worth noting that a welfare mother holed up in a broken-down trailer on the outskirts of Moline, Illinois,
And once again heard nothing, nothing but the bell itself, but waited, waited patiently, and was just about to ring again when, yes, I heard footsteps, and then the sort of grunt you utter when you bump into something, probably because you’re stumbling around in the dark. The footsteps stopped, then resumed.
Was the top-floor tenant male or female? I didn’t know, and slurred my way accordingly. “Mis’ Creeley?” I called through the door.
The footsteps stopped again, and the silence was eloquent. Then a male voice, thickened with sleep and irritation, said, “Up a flight.”
“I say, terribly sorry.” For some reason I was affecting an English accent.
“Fucking idiot,” Feldmaus said, but the words didn’t have much force to them. I headed for the stairs, and heard his footsteps heading back to bed.
A flight up, I went through the same routine at Creeley’s door. I determined that no light showed below it or through the keyhole, then put my finger on the buzzer and buzzed away. When I heard Creeley’s approaching footsteps, I knew just what I would do. I’d say “Mister Feldmaus?” and I wouldn’t have to fudge the first word, because I’d established that Feldmaus was a man. (There might be a Mrs. Feldmaus as well, for all I knew, but that was neither here nor there.)
Then Creeley, Ms. or Mr., would tell me Feldmaus was a flight below, and I’d excuse myself, using the same English accent that had served me so well thus far. And then I’d go downstairs, not one flight but two, and then I’d go out of the building and, please God, catch the first cab I saw and go home.
But I didn’t hear any footsteps.
I rang again, and got the same non-response. I put my ear to the door and listened to the silence.
There were three locks on the door. I unlocked all three of them, or at least I thought I did, but the one in the middle was unlocked to begin with, so picking it only served to lock it, as I found out when I went to open the door. I picked it again, retracting the bolt I’d unwittingly extended, and now the door opened.
And in I went.
Eight
W hat a feeling!
I don’t know that I can possibly convey what it felt like. I can tell you that my senses were keener than normal, that the blood sang in my veins, that there was a tingling in the tips of my fingers, but the more precisely I record such phenomena the more pathological the whole thing sounds. What I’m hard put to get across is the sheer exhilaration that possessed me, combined with an all-encompassing sense of well-being, and even of appropriateness. I was, it seemed to me, precisely where I ought to be, doing precisely what I was supposed to do.
Which, when you stop and think about it, is palpable nonsense. I was in point of fact where I was manifestly not supposed to be, where the law of the land told me in no uncertain terms I was not allowed to be. And I was doing what I was unquestionably not supposed to do.
But I can only tell you how it felt.
And it felt terrific.
For a few minutes I just stood there, monitoring my own response, enjoying every particle of it. The apartment was dark, and I let myeyes grow accustomed to the dimness. When they were equal to the task, I took a moment to lock all three locks. Then I had a look around.
The room the door opened on was the middle room of the apartment, and it was a combination kitchen and dining room. To the left, fronting on 36th Street, was a very large living room; in back, with windows looking across a courtyard at the buildings on 35th Street, was a bedroom almost as large as the living room. Any one of the three rooms would have served as a perfectly decent studio apartment, so Creeley, whoever he or she was, had an abundance of living space by New York standards. (To keep things in proportion, it’s worth noting that a welfare mother holed up in a broken-down trailer on the outskirts of Moline, Illinois,
Similar Books
