“No. And if she wants to see me again I’m not that hard to find.”

“Exactly.” He leaned forward, eyes bright. “It can’t be hope of profit, can it? Since you don’t know who has the portfolio or even what’s in it, you can’t be counting on it to make you rich. The police aren’t after you, so you don’t need to solve the crime in order to clear yourself. So why don’t you go back to selling books and breaking into people’s houses?”

“I feel committed,” I said.

“Just that, then. You feel committed, irrespective of the illogic of it all, and without regard to the consequences. You’re in all the way, and devil take the hindmost.”

“I guess it sounds pretty stupid.”

“Stupid? By God, my boy, if we’d had a few more like you in Anatruria it might have been a different story.” He sat up straight, rubbed his hands together. “I have some ideas,” he said. “It’s been a while, but I’m not entirely without experience in these matters.”

He drew lines and circles on his note pad as he talked, suggesting avenues of approach, clarifying what we did and didn’t know so far. I didn’t see the point of the lines and circles, but his thinking was right on target.

“This is great,” I said at length, “but I’m taking up far too much of your time, and-”

“My time? You’ll be taking up far more of it before we’ve seen this through to the end. If you’re committed, so am I.”

“But why? I mean, you’re not remotely involved, so-”

“I don’t know if this will make any sense to you,” he said evenly. “But there was a time when Cappy Hoberman and I worked together as if our lives depended upon it, as indeed they did. I hadn’t seen him in years, I’d lost all contact with him, and when he turned up with that mouse like a Greek bearing gifts it turned out that we didn’t have a great deal to say to each other. Whatever we’d once been to one another, a vast stretch of years had passed. There was all that water under the bridge, or over the dam, or wherever it goes.

“Water.” He snorted. “If we’d been kin, I’d say that blood was thicker than water. But we were something else. We were partners in an enterprise, and that slender fact puts me under an obligation. I don’t expect you to understand this. I’m sure it’s hopelessly old-fashioned.” He sat up straighter, raised his voice a notch. “But when your partner is killed, you’re supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t matter how you felt about him, or what sort of man he was. He was your partner, and you’re supposed to do something about it.”

I looked at him. “Mr. Weeks,” I said, “this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“Indeed it could,” he said, and reached to pump my hand. “Indeed it could. But let’s forget Mr. Weeks and Mr. Thompson, shall we? I’ll call you Bill, and I’d like you to call me Charlie.”

“Uh,” I said.

“Is something the matter?”

“Charlie,” I said, “there’s one more thing I forgot to tell you.”

CHAPTER Fifteen

“I feel good about this,” Charlie Weeks said. “A man needs a purpose in life. He needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I think we’ll make a good team.”

“I think you’re right, Charlie.”

“I don’t understand what’s taking so long,” he said, and extended a hand toward the elevator call button. I beat him to it. “Give it a good poke this time,” he urged. “Maybe the connection’s worn.”

“He’s probably stuck on another floor,” I said, “helping someone with luggage or a key that’s stuck in a lock. Listen, there’s no reason for you to stand out here in the hall. I’m sure he’ll be along in a few minutes.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he assured me. But when a few more minutes passed without the elevator’s appearing, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly impatient. “I suppose I could get to work on our project,” he said. “If you’re sure you won’t feel I’ve abandoned you.”

“Please,” I said. “I feel guilty wasting your time like this.”

The elevator still hadn’t come by the time he disappeared into his own apartment and drew the door shut. I wasn’t greatly surprised; the attendant would have had to be psychic to stop on our floor, as I’d faked pressing the button. I gave Charlie Weeks another minute, just in case he might remember one last thing that would send him darting into the hallway again. When he failed to reappear, I took the stairs down to the eighth floor.

Well, why not? I had my picks with me, never having returned home to unload them the previous evening. When I arranged to drop in on Weeks, I’d had it in the back of my mind to pay a call downstairs after I’d ended my visit. I hadn’t really expected much from my conversation with Weeks, and was counting on him as much for entrée to the Boccaccio as for what he could tell me about Hoberman.

It turned out he’d been able to tell me a lot, and had wound up enlisting as my partner. And it did seem like the start of a beautiful friendship, and I suppose I could have told him I wanted to pay another visit to the fellow four flights below, but I decided to keep it to myself. Otherwise the beautiful friendship might turn out to be stillborn. Because I was in Charlie’s building, after all, and people with a very cavalier attitude toward burglary are apt to turn into law-and-order hard-liners as soon as a burglar starts operating close to home. After all, I’d met Charlie the first time under false pretenses, in order to knock off 8-B, and I’d turned up today flying the same false colors and with the same goal in mind. I’d been almost out the door before I’d gotten around to telling him that I was Bernie Rhodenbarr and not Bill Thompson.

So I’d keep this little venture to myself for the time being. If I came up with some important information, I could pick a convenient moment to tell him when and where I got it. And if I left 8-B as clueless as I entered it, nobody ever had to know I’d been there.

I moved quickly but quietly down the stairs, eased the door open at the eighth-floor landing, assured myself with a glance that the hallway was happily deserted, and walked along it to 8-B.

I didn’t have gloves, and I wasn’t much concerned about that. I wasn’t likely to leave prints, nor was anyone likely to go looking for them. I had my flashlight, although I couldn’t see what need I’d have of it in the middle of a bright sunshiny day. I had my picks, too, and I knew they’d open 8-B’s locks because they’d done so almost effortlessly the other night.

I didn’t need them, either, as it turned out.

But I didn’t know that, and I had them in hand as I stood before the door of the apartment in question. I remembered how I’d had the portfolio in hand, only to lose it, and I remembered the time I’d spent in the closet, and the musty smell of the coats. I didn’t figure I was going to get another crack at the portfolio, but maybe I could at least find out who lived there, and maybe get another look at the photo while I was there and make sure it was really King Vlados.

I had my hand on the doorknob and the tip of one of my picks a quarter-inch into the top lock when it occurred to me to ring the bell. I was sure no one was home, I just took that for granted, but I reminded myself that this was one of those little professional procedures I never neglected to perform, and I might as well play this one by the book.

So I rang, and I waited for a moment because that too is part of the way you do it, and you can just imagine my surprise when I heard the footsteps approaching the door.

I just had time to get the incriminating evidence out of the lock and back in my pocket when the door opened to reveal a young man standing about six-two, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist and a handsome, square-jawed, open countenance. He had a big smile on his face; he may not have had the faintest idea who I was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t glad to see me.