He reminded me of somebody I knew, but I couldn’t think who.

I was still working on it when I pinched out the third and final candle, at which time I could no longer see his smiling face. So I found other things to think about, like where the door could have been the last time I’d seen it. Very little light came in through Ilona’s window; it was almost as dark as the apartment at the Boccaccio had been, and this time I didn’t have my flashlight along. There was a narrow band of light from the hallway showing at the bottom of the door, and I managed to walk to it without bumping into anything along the way.

I stepped out into the hallway and drew the door shut, then tried it to make sure the snaplock had engaged. I hated to leave her with only a snaplock between her and the big bad world, but I hadn’t brought my tools with me. If I had I could have locked up properly, but maybe it was just as well. It would have been hard to explain.

It had threatened to rain late that afternoon, but the evening turned out clear and mild and it was nice out now. I was a fifteen-minute walk from the bookstore, but if I went there now I’d be nine hours early for work.

The lovemaking that had saddened Ilona had left me edgy, which made the two of us a hell of an advertisement for great sex. I felt as though I could walk clear to St. Louis and punch somebody in the mouth when I got there. I walked eight or ten blocks and flagged a cab. As I scrunched up my legs to get them into the backseat, the first thought that came to me was to take a run up to the Wexford Castle and see if Ludomir was as bad as I remembered. The second thought was to recognize the first thought for the idiocy it was, and I told the driver to take me home.

CHAPTER Eight

Around ten-thirty the next morning I was reading Hop To It, a slender volume on how to train your pet rabbit. I’d rescued it from my own bargain table, and was taking a break from Will Durant before reshelving it under Pets amp; Natural History. The photos of the bunnies were endearing, but the text made it clear they were much given to chewing things, like books and electrical wiring. “Don’t worry,” I told Raffles. “We’re not getting one. Your job is safe.”

He gave me a look that suggested the issue had never been in doubt, and I crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it for him to chase. He was in mid-pounce when Carolyn came in. “Hi, Raffles,” she said. “How’s the training coming?”

“He’s doing fine,” I said. “This is just a tune-up session, to keep his mousing skills from getting rusty. You’re two hours early, incidentally.”

“I’m not early,” she said. “I’m instead of. I can’t do lunch today, I’ve got a dentist appointment.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“I didn’t have it to mention,” she said, “until about an hour ago. I lost a filling during dinner last night. I think I must have swallowed it. The worst part is I can’t keep from checking it out, poking my tongue into the hole to make sure it’s still there. Would you look at it for me, Bern?”

“What for?”

“Tell me it’s not as huge as I think it is. I swear the hole’s bigger than most teeth. You could park cars in there, Bern. You could house the homeless.”

She came over and stuck her face into mine, gaping and pointing at a molar. “Erg-awrghghm,” she said.

“Come on,” I said. “How am I going to see anything in there? You need the right kind of lighting, and one of those little mirrors on the end of a stick. Anyway, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It’s a lunar crater,” she said. “It’s the Grand Canyon. Fortunately, two hours from now it’ll be history. My dentist’s gonna fit me in during lunch hour.”

“That’s good.”

“Uh-huh.” She leaned a hip against the counter, sent an appraising glance my way. “So?”

“So what?”

“So how’d it go last night?”

“Well, the movies were pretty good,” I said. “The first one was made in 1937, and-”

“I’m not talking about the movies, Bern. How’d it go with Ilona?”

“Oh,” I said. “It went all right.”

“All right?”

“It went fine.”

She went on studying me, then broke into a smile that lit up her whole face.

“Cut it out,” I said.

“Cut what out? I didn’t say a word.”

“Well, neither did I, so what the hell are you grinning about?”

“Beats me. Where’d you wind up, Bern? Your place or hers?”

I stared at her, stubbornly silent, and she stared right back at me. “Hers,” I said finally.

“And?”

“And what? I had a good time, okay? You happy now?”

“I’m happy for you. She’s beautiful, Bern.”

“I know.”

“And obviously crazy about you.”

“I don’t know about that part,” I said. “And what makes you so sure of it? For that matter, how come you’re telling me she’s beautiful? Are you just feeding my own words back to me?”

She pursed her lips and whistled soundlessly, like Ilona blowing out cigarette smoke. “It was just the sheerest coincidence,” she said.

“What was? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and already I don’t believe you.”

“I just happened to be in front of the Musette,” she said, “when the show let out last night.”

“You just happened to be there.”

“Everybody’s gotta be someplace, Bern.” Raffles had long since abandoned the paper I’d tossed him, and was now rubbing himself against Carolyn’s ankle, in the manner of his tribe. “Hey, look what he’s doing. Did you forget to feed him this morning, Bern?”

“He ate enough to glut a python,” I said. “Quit changing the subject. How did you happen to be there last night?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” she said. “Sue Grafton’s got a new book out, and I went up to Murder Ink to pick it up.”

“You went all the way up there for it?”

“Partners and Crime was sold out, and Three Lives didn’t have it in yet. So I hopped on the subway.”

“Murder Ink’s at Broadway and Ninety-second.”

“I know, Bern. I was just there last night.”

“That’s twenty-some blocks from the theater.”

“Well, I hadn’t had dinner.”

“So?”

“So I was headed downtown, looking for a restaurant, and nothing appealed to me. I finally settled for a coffee shop around Seventy-ninth Street. You know, I think we may have been overdoing it with ethnic foods lately. I sat in a booth and had a bacon cheeseburger and french fries and cole slaw and a piece of apple pie for dessert, and I drank two cups of ordinary American coffee with cream and sugar, and the whole meal struck me as wildly exotic.”

“And after your meal-”

“I felt stuffed, so I figured I’d walk a few blocks.”

“And the next thing you knew you were in front of the Musette Theater.”

“All right, so I planned it. Is that a crime?”

“No.”

“I got there a few minutes before the show let out and stood where I could keep an eye on the entrance. For a minute there I thought I’d missed you. The two of you were just about the last people out.”

“We like to stay and watch the credits.”

“She’s a real beauty, Bern. And the way she was holding your arm, and the looks she was giving you. Forget Humphrey Bogart. I figured you were in like Flynn.”

“How long were you spying on us, anyway?”

“I don’t see why you have to call it spying,” she said. “I was just acting on some perfectly justifiable friendly concern. You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I said. “If I lurked around a dyke bar like that I’d get arrested.”

“Not true, Bern. Beat up, maybe, but not arrested. Anyway, I didn’t lurk for very long. As soon as the two of you went across the street for coffee I went home.”

“And read the new Sue Grafton.”

She shook her head. “I’m saving it until my tooth is filled. I lost the filling toward the end of the cheeseburger. I think I must have swallowed it. It won’t poison me, will it?”