Free The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block

found it, except of course for having removed the few items I’ve mentioned. I took a last look around, turned off the lights in the living room, opened the velvet drapes, and had just turned from that task when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
    Hell.
    I moved quickly through the apartment, killed a light in the kitchen, switched off the bedside lamp. The footsteps paused at the second-floor landing, and I had a moment where I hoped, all logic notwithstanding, that this was not Barbara Creeley on the stairs but someone planning a late visit to J. Feldmaus.
    No such luck. The footsteps resumed, and I heard human speech (What other kind is there? Parrot?) but could not make out what was being said. Either Barbara had company or she was talking to herself. Well, the locks would delay her, and by the time she got past them I’d be down the fire escape.
    I opened the curtains, raised one of the blackout shades, and took hold of the window.
    And the damned thing wouldn’t budge.
    I checked to see if it was locked, and learned it was worse than that. The damned thing was nailed shut. Evidently Barbara (or some previous tenant) had been paranoid about an intruder coming in off the fire escape, and had taken up hammer and nails to safeguard herself. Cross-ventilation wasn’t a problem, you could still open the window from the top, but you couldn’t get out that way. What was she going to do if she had a fire?
    More to the point, what was I going to do?
    They’d reached the top of the stairs now, and it was clear there were two of them, because I could hear two voices, one basso and one soprano, or perhaps mezzo. So Barbara, who typically slept alone on the right side of the bed, had found someone to bring home with her. That made it her lucky night, but it certainly wasn’t mine.
    She had trouble with the locks, and I gave thanks for that. It sounded as though she and her companion had had a few drinks, not infrequently the case before two people decide to go home together,and her dexterity had gone the way of her inhibitions. Sooner or later she’d get it right, however, and then where would I be?
    I raised the shades, opened the curtains. And now what? The closet? Twice in my career I’ve hidden in closets, and both times I went undetected, but somehow I knew the third time would be the charm. I couldn’t hope to get away with it again.
    “Jesus, gimme the fucking keys,” said young Lochinvar, and I knew my time was running out.
    I hit the floor and dove under the bed.

Nine
    I tried not to listen.
    I’d been willing enough to snoop around in Barbara Creeley’s private life earlier, but that was different. She wasn’t around at the time, and all I was doing was going through her things and getting what sense I could of the person who owned them. Now, though, she was in the apartment with me, and so was he. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were going to do now that they’d managed to get through the door, and unless an excess of passion made them rip off their clothes and do it in the kitchen, they were going to do it right on top of me.
    I’d been home, for God’s sake. I’d put away my burglar’s tools, I’d stowed them in my hidden compartment. I was all settled in for the night. Why couldn’t I have gone to bed?
    But no, that would have been too easy. So instead of lying comfortably in my own bed I was wedged underneath Barbara Creeley’s. There was no room to spare, and there’d be even less when a pair of bodies piled on top of the mattress.
    And if anybody looked under the bed, well, then I was sunk. It was not a refuge I could leave in a hurry. All I could do was stay there and wait for the cops to drag me out.
    “Kinda sleepy,” the woman said.
    “Yeah, well, you’re gonna get the best night’s sleep you ever had,” the man said.
    “Ca’ keep m’eyes open…”
    “Roofies’ll do that.”
    “How’d I get here?”
    “You live here, you dizzy bitch. Jesus, you’re built nice, aren’t