Free The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block

wonder why the kid with the flowers was spending so much time in Ms. Tremaine’s apartment. The crew that relieved them wouldn’t realize I’d come delivering flowers and would assume I’d had legitimate business with some other tenant. Anyway, they don’t hassle you as much on the way out, assuming you must have been okay to get past their security the first time around. It’s different if you try to carry out the furniture, of course, but generally speaking getting in’s the hard part.
    The elevator stopped on Nine and the operator pointed at the appropriate door. I thanked him and went and stood in front of it, waiting for the sound of the door closing. It didn’t close. Of course it didn’t. They waited until the tenant opened the door. Well, she was expecting the flowers anyway, so what was I waiting for?
    I poked the doorbell. Chimes sounded within, and after a moment the door opened. The woman who answered it had improbable auburn hair and a face that had fallen one more time than it had been lifted. She was wearing a sort of dressing gown with an oriental motif and she had a look about her of someone who had just smelled something unseemly.
    “Flowers,” she said. “Now are you quite sure those are for me?”
    “Ms. Leona Tremaine?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “Then they’re for you.”
    I was still listening for the sound of the elevator door, and I was beginning to realize I wasn’t going to hear it. And why should I? He wasn’t going anywhere, he’d wait right there until she’d taken the flowers and given me my tip, and then he’d whisk me downstairs again. Terrific. I’d found a way to get into the Charlemagne but I still needed a way to stay there.
    “I can’t think who’d send me flowers,” she said, taking the wrapped bouquet from me. “Unless it might be my sister’s boy Lewis, but why would he take a notion of sending me flowers? There must be some mistake.”
    “There’s a card,” I said.
    “Oh, there’s a card,” she said, discovering it for herself. “Just wait a moment. Let me see if there hasn’t been some mistake here. No, that’s my name, Leona Tremaine. Now let me open this.”
    Didn’t anyone else in the goddamned building want the elevator? Would nothing summon this putz out of his reverie and float him away to another floor?
    “‘Fondly, Donald Brown,’” she read aloud. “Donald Brown. Donald. Brown. Donald Brown. Now who could that be?”
    “Uh.”
    “Well, they’re perfectly lovely, aren’t they?” She sniffed industriously, as if determined to inhale not merely the bouquet but the petals as well. “And fragrant. Donald Brown. It’s a familiar name, but—well, I’m sure there’s been a mistake, but I’ll just enjoy them all the same. I’ll have to get down a vase, I’ll have to put them in water—” She broke off suddenly, remembering that I was there. “Is there something else, young man?”
    “Well, I just—”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m forgetting you, aren’t I? Just one moment, let me get my bag. I’ll just put these down, here we are, here we are, and thank you very much, and my thanks to Donald Brown, whoever he may be.”
    The door closed.
    I turned and there was the goddamned elevator, waiting for to carry me home. The attendant wasn’t exactly smiling but he did look amused. I rode down and walked through the lobby. The doorman grinned when he saw me coming.
    “Well,” he said. “How’d you make out, fella?”
    “Make out?”
    “She give you a good tip?”
    “She gave me a quarter,” I said.
    “Hey, cheer up, that’s not bad for Tremaine. She doesn’t part with a nickel all year round and then at Christmas she tips the building staff five bucks a man. That’s ten cents a week. Can you believe it?”
    “Sure,” I said. “I can believe it.”

Chapter Seven
    I didn’t keep Leona Tremaine’s quarter for very long. I walked around the corner, passed a watering hole called Big Charlie’s, and had a cup