Free The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block

carpeted stairs with an increasing feeling of mingled anticipation and dread. The D apartments were at the rear of the building. The door of 3-D was slightly ajar. I gave it a rap with my knuckles and it was almost immediately drawn open by a square-shouldered woman wearing a muted-plaid skirt and a brass-buttoned navy blazer. Her dark-brown hair was very short and irregularly cut, as if the barber had been either a drunken friend or a very trendy beautician.
    She said, “Mr. Rhodenbarr? Do come in.”
    “I was supposed to meet—”
    “Ruddy Whelkin, I know. He’s expected at any moment. He rang up not ten minutes ago to say he’d been momentarily detained.” She smiled suddenly. “I’m to make you comfortable, you see. I’m Madeleine Porlock.”
    I took the hand she extended. “Bernie Rhodenbarr,” I said. “But you already know that.”
    “Your reputation precedes you. Won’t you have a seat? And may I get you a drink?”
    “Not just now,” I said. To the drink, that is; I seated myself in a tub chair upholstered in glove-soft green Naugahyde. The living room was small but comfortable, with a Victorian rosewood love seat and a floral-slip-covered easy chair in addition to the tub chair. The bold abstract oil over the love seat somehow complemented the furnishings. It was a nice room, and I said as much.
    “Thank you. You’re sure you won’t have a little sherry?”
    “I’ll pass for now.”
    There was classical music playing on the radio, a woodwind ensemble that sounded like Vivaldi. Madeleine Porlock crossed the room, adjusted the volume. There was something familiar about her but I couldn’t think what it was.
    “Ruddy should be here any moment,” she said again.
    “Have you known him long?”
    “Ruddy? Seems like ages.”
    I tried picturing them as a couple. They didn’t bear mentioning in the same breath with Steve and Eydie, or even Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, but they weren’t utterly inconceivable. He was a good deal older than she, certainly. She looked to be in her early thirties, although I’m terrible at judging people’s ages.
    Did I know her from somewhere?
    I was on the verge of asking when she clapped her hands together as if she’d just hit on the principle of specific gravity. “Coffee,” she said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You’ll have a cup of coffee. It’s freshly made. You will have some, won’t you?”
    I’d turned down the drink because I wanted to remain alert. All the more reason to have the coffee. We agreed on cream and sugar and she went off to prepare it. I settled myself in the tub chair and listened to the music, thinking how nice it would be to be able to play the bassoon. I’d priced bassoons once and they cost a lot, and I understand the instrument’s exceedingly difficult to learn, and I don’t even remember how to read music, so I don’t suppose I’ll ever go so far as to acquire a bassoon and set about taking lessons, but whenever I hear the instrument in a concerto or a chamber work it occurs to me how nice it would be to go to sleep one night and wake up the following morning owning a bassoon and knowing how to play it.
    Things go so much simpler in fantasy. You leave out all the scut work that way.
    “Mr. Rhodenbarr?”
    I took the coffee from her. She’d served it in a chunky earthenware mug ornamented with a geometric design. I sniffed at the coffee and allowed that it smelled good.
    “I hope you like it,” she said. “It’s a Louisiana blend I’ve been using lately. It has chicory in it.”
    “I like chicory.”
    “Oh, so do I,” she said. She made it sound as though our mutual enthusiasm could be the start of something big. The woodwind quintet ended—it was Vivaldi, according to the announcer—and a Haydn symphony replaced it.
    I took a sip of my coffee. She asked if it was all right and I assured her that it was wonderful, although it really wasn’t. There was a slight off-taste discernible beneath the cream and