The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block Page B

gave it some more thought.
    Then I took out my picks and went back to the guest room.
     
    It was past five by the time I got out of there. I said good morning to Eddie as I sailed past him, face averted. “Hey, how ya doin’,” he said, for a change. I walked briskly southward for three blocks, nodded to my own doorman, got nodded at in return, and went upstairs. I stopped at the compactor chute and disposed of my disposable gloves. I almost added the two sacks of groceries, but what the hell, they were mine, bought and paid for. I let myself into my apartment and put my groceries away.
    I put away my burglar’s tools, too, and my stethoscope. I hung up my tie and jacket, kicked off my sneakers, and threw everything else into the hamper. I had a shower which nobody could have called premature, then jumped into bed and fell asleep.
     
    The phone woke me. It was Patience, my poetry therapist, calling to see if I was feeling better.
    Oh, right, the food poisoning. “I’m still a little rocky,” I said.
    “You were sleeping, weren’t you? I’m sorry I woke you. I tried you at the store, and when there wasn’t any answer I was concerned. Have you seen a doctor?”
    Had I? I couldn’t remember what Carolyn had told her.
    “Actually,” I said, “I’m feeling a lot better.”
    “But you said you were still a little rocky.”
    “I’d say the crisis has passed,” I said. “And as far as waking me is concerned, I’m glad you did. I should have been up hours ago.” That seemed safe to say, if it was late enough for her to have tried me at the store. What time was it, anyway? God, eleven-fifteen. I should have been up hours ago.
    “As a matter of fact,” I went on, “I really have to get moving. But it’s good you called, because I wanted to apologize for last night. I hated to cancel at the last minute like that.”
    “I’m just relieved you’re all right.”
    “Could we reschedule, Patience? Are you free for dinner this evening?”
    “This evening? Are you sure you’re well enough, Bernie?”
    “Absolutely,” I said. “It’s one of those twenty-four-hour food-poisoning things. I still feel the slightest bit rocky because it’s only been about twenty-three hours, but an hour from now I’ll be ready to wrestle alligators.”
    “Is the timing really that precise?”
    “You can generally set your watch by it,” I said. “I had the same thing two or three years ago, I got it from a brown rice knish from the health food store. Thought I was going to die, and then twenty-four hours later I was whistling show tunes. How about dinner tonight?”
    “I have a client coming at seven,” she said, “so I should be through by eight, but the session might run over. He’s in the middle of a very tricky sonnet sequence and I hate to rush him. It’s not like Freudian analysis, where you hurry them out the door after fifty minutes. I’d hate to risk stifling somebody’s creativity.”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “So do you want to come here? Come at eight, and if we’re not through you can sit in the waiting room and read a magazine. I’ll definitely be ready by eight-thirty, and that’s not too late, is it?”
    “No, it’s fine.”
    “We’ll eat someplace in the neighborhood,” she said. “No burritos, though.”
    “Please,” I said. “Don’t even say the B word.”
     
    It wasn’t going to be my day to find out how I liked Count Chocula. I was in too much of a hurry. I shaved, dressed, and got out of there, not even pausing to trade nods with my doorman. I legged it over to Broadway and caught the subway. I would have taken a cab but at that hour the subway figured to be quicker, even with a change of trains at Times Square and a three-block walk from Fourteenth Street.
    Why the hurry?
    I usually open at ten, but it’s not as though I generally have a mob of impatient bibliophiles banging on the steel gates. I have a standing lunch date with Carolyn, but I could have called to tell her