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

written down somewhere, but I can’t recall it offhand. And I’ve certainly never been there.”
    “Right,” he said. “You were never there but your case here”—he gave the surface a tap—“was. I don’t buy that for a minute, Bernie. I think you were there, and probably last night. Time you called, I didn’t know this was your case. But I already seen a receipt for five bucks an’ change sittin’ on top of that little round table. Barnegat Books, it said, an’ the date on it was the day before yesterday.”
    “I told you about that, Ray. He bought a book of poems.”
    “It said”—he consulted a pocket notebook—“Praed.”
    “That’s the name of the poet. Winthrop Mackworth Praed.”
    He waved a hand dismissively to show what he thought of anybody with a name like that. “This Praed’s dead, right?”
    “Long dead.”
    “Like most poets. So the hell with him. He didn’t do it, an’ much as I like yankin’ on your chain, I know you didn’t do it either. Why would you want to kill him?”
    “I wouldn’t,” I said. “He was a customer, and I can use all the ones I’ve got. And he was a nice man. At least I think he was.”
    “What do you know about him, Bernie?”
    “Not much. He was a snappy dresser. Does that help?”
    “It didn’t help him. He shoulda been wearing a Kevlar vest under his shirt. Maybe that woulda helped. Snappy dresser? Yeah, I guess so, but what kind of man wears a suit around the house? You get home, you want to rip off your tie, hang your jacket over the back of a chair. That’s what I always do.”
    “I can believe it.”
    “Yeah? I didn’t know better, I’d think that was a crack. I’ll tell you this much, Bernie. It’s a good thing for you your name ain’t Kay Fobb.”
    “Well, it’s not,” I said, “and it never has been. What are you talking about?”
    “Kay Fobb. Ring a bell?”
    “Not even a tinkle. Who is she?”
    “You figure it’s a woman? I don’t even know ifI’m sayin’ it right, Bernie. Here—whyn’tcha take a squint at it yourself an’ tell me what you make of it.”
    He flipped the case over and showed it to me. There, in block capitals of a rusty brown that stood out sharply against the beige Ultrasuede attaché case, someone had printed CAPHOB .

CHAPTER
Seven
    I n Dead End, Bogart plays Baby Face Martin, a gangster making a sentimental visit to his boyhood home on the Lower East Side. By the time it’s over, he’s been slapped by his mother, Marjorie Main, and shot dead on a fire escape by Joel McCrea. There were a lot of other good people in the movie, including Claire Trevor and Sylvia Sidney and Ward Bond, along with Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, who had evidently wandered over from the Bowery. Lillian Hellman wrote the screenplay and William Wyler directed, but my favorite credit was costumes, by someone named Omar Kiam.
    During Bogie’s death scene, Ilona reached over and took my hand.
    She held it through to the end of the picture, and when she came back from the ladies’ room at intermission she reached to take my hand in both of hers. “Bear-naaard,” she said.
    “Ilona.”
    “I was afraid you would not be here tonight. All day I was afraid.”
    “What made you think that?”
    “I don’t know. When I rode off in the taxi last night fear clutched at my heart. I thought, ‘I will never see him again.’”
    “Well, here I am.”
    “I am so glad, Bear-naard.”
    I gave her hand a squeeze.
    The second feature was The Left Hand of God, one of Bogart’s last films. He plays an American pilot in China during the war, working for Lee J. Cobb, who’s a Chinese warlord. Cobb’s men kill a priest, and Bogart winds up escaping in the dead priest’s clothing and holing up at a mission, where he poses as the priest’s replacement, reminding me a little of Edward G. Robinson in Brother Orchid.
    It all works out in the end.
     
    Across the street, we sipped cappuccino and split an eclair. After a long silence she