And it did, too, until I was somewhere in the middle of Chapter Six, at which point the beam of my flashlight gradually faded down to a soft yellow glow, a fit illumination for lovemaking, say, but nowhere near bright enough to read by. If I’d been genuinely well prepared I’d have had a couple of replacement batteries in my bag, but I wasn’t and I didn’t, and that was all the reading I was going to do that night.

So much for that. I went out into another room-the living room, one of the bedrooms, who knew, who cared-and stretched out on the floor. I understand that some floors are harder than others, and that I was lucky to be on wood rather than, say, concrete. That must be true, but you couldn’t prove it by me. I can’t imagine how I’d have been any less comfortable on a bed of nails.

There were no hangers in the closets-they really did take everything, the bastards-so I hung my slacks and jacket over the rail that would have supported a shower curtain, but for their having taken that along, too. I took off my shoes and slept in the rest of my clothes, using my flight bag as a pillow. It was about as useful in that capacity as the floor was as a bed.

I couldn’t afford to oversleep, and of course I hadn’t brought an alarm clock with me. But somehow I didn’t think that was likely to be a problem.

Did I really have to do this? Couldn’t I pay a visit to some other apartment? It was a holiday weekend, so it stood to reason that a substantial number of Boccaccio residents were out of town until Monday night at the earliest.

Suppose I just picked a likely door and opened it. If nobody was home, I was in business. And even if someone was on the premises, was that necessarily a disaster? I have burgled apartments while the tenants slept, even on occasion creeping around in the very room where they were snoring away. No one would call it relaxing work, but there’s this to be said for it: you know where they are. You don’t have to worry about them coming home and surprising you.

This would be different, but couldn’t I sleep on the living-room couch, say, while they were sleeping in the bedroom? I’d make sure I woke up before they did. And if something went wrong, if they found me dozing in front of the fireplace, wasn’t it the sort of thing I could talk my way out of? Drunk, I’d say, shrugging sheepishly. Got the wrong apartment by mistake, just dumb luck my key fit in the lock. Terribly sorry, never happen again. I’ll go home now.

Was that so utterly out of the question? I could pull that off, couldn’t I?

No, I told myself sternly. I couldn’t.

I squirmed around, trying to find the most comfortable position, until I realized with dismay that I’d found it early on and it wasn’t going to get any better. I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes. I was as snug as a bug on a bare floor, and there’s a reason that metaphor has not become part of the language. It was going to be a long night.

It was a long night.

Every hour or so I would wake up, if you want to call it that, and look at my watch. Then I would close my eyes and go back to sleep, if you want to call it that, until I woke up again.

And so on.

At six-thirty I gave up and got up. I splashed water on my face, dried my hands with toilet paper, and put on the slacks and shoes I’d taken off. I had a clean shirt and socks and underwear in my bag, but I was saving them until I had a clean body to put them on.

It was light out, so I could read again. I went back to Bertie Wooster, and everything he did and said made perfect sense to me. I took this for a Bad Sign.

At seven-thirty I checked the hall, and there were two people in it, waiting for the elevator. I eased the door silently shut. Two minutes later I tried again, and they were gone but someone else had taken their place. It seemed like a lot of traffic for a luxury building early on a holiday morning, but evidently the residents of the Boccaccio were an enterprising lot, not given to lazy mornings in bed. Or maybe they’d spent the night on the floor, too, and were as eager as I to be up and doing.

When I cracked the door a third time there was yet another person in the hall, but she looked to be a cleaning woman who’d just emerged from the elevator and was headed for an apartment at the far end of the hallway. I stepped out and drew the door shut, unwilling to lock up after myself as I usually do, not with so much traffic all around me. The empty apartment would have to spend the next little while guarded only by the spring locks, which meant anybody with a credit card could steal inside and make off with the toilet paper.

So be it. I walked to the stairwell, setting a brisk pace, and its fire door closed behind me without my attracting any attention.

So far so good.

I climbed seven flights of stairs, telling myself that people paid good money to do essentially the same thing on a machine at the gym. I’ll admit I paused a couple of times en route, but I got there.

At the twelfth-floor landing, I waited until I’d caught my breath, which took longer than I’d prefer to admit. Then I opened the door about an inch and a half and looked out. I’d picked the right stairwell, and from where I was I had a good if narrow view of his door.

I hunkered down, which for years I thought was something people only did in westerns. It turns out you can do it anywhere, even in a ritzy building on Park Avenue. It was less tiring than holding a fixed upright position for a long period of time, and I was less likely to be seen; people do most of their looking at eye level, and my own eyes, lurking behind a slightly ajar door all the way at the end of the hall, wouldn’t be as noticeable if I kept them half their usual distance from the floor.

I checked my watch. It was seventeen minutes to eight. It seemed to me that should give me plenty of leeway, but I hadn’t been there five minutes before I started to worry that I’d missed him.

According to him, he was a creature of habit, leaving the house at the same time and taking the same walk every morning. The previous morning I’d been loitering in a doorway across the street, drinking bad coffee from a Styrofoam cup and waiting for him to make his appearance. He’d done so at ten minutes after eight, and if he stayed on schedule today he’d leave his apartment sometime between a quarter to eight and eight-thirty.

Unless he didn’t.

If he was later today than yesterday, I could just wait him out. It’s not as though I had a train to catch, or a longstanding appointment at the periodontist. But if he was earlier, more than twenty-seven minutes earlier, say, then I’d get to see him return while I was still waiting for him to leave.

Not good.

If you ever start thinking you’re a long ways from being neurotic, just spend a little time squinting at a closed door waiting for it to open. I couldn’t get my mind to shut up. I’d made a big mistake, I told myself, staying as long as I had in the empty apartment. Suppose I’d missed him. Suppose the apartment was magnificently empty right now, while I squatted there like a constipated savage. I should have been in place by seven-thirty at the latest. Seven o’clock would have been better, and six-thirty would have been better still.

On the other hand, how long could I perch at the stair landing without someone turning up to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing there? It did not seem unlikely that the stairs would see a certain amount of casual traffic, whether of tenants or building staff. I didn’t expect a whole lot of coming and going, but all it would take was one mildly curious individual and the best I could hope for was a summary exit from the premises.

The time crawled. I asked myself what Bogart would do, and right away I knew one thing he’d have done. He’d have smoked. By ten minutes after eight (his departure time yesterday, so where the hell was he?) the floor would have been littered with butts and cigarette ash. He’d have tapped cigarettes out philosophically, ground them out savagely, flicked them unthinkingly down the stairs. He’d have smoked like crazy, the son of a gun, but when it came time to take action, by God he’d have taken it.