“And acting classes on Thursdays?”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“And you work days as a paralegal?”

“Five days a week from nine to five at Haber, Haber & Crowell. And they just about always want me to come in Saturdays, and I almost always do. You’re probably thinking I’ve got a very heavy schedule, and I do, but I prefer it that way, at least for now. I think I’m happier if I don’t have a great deal of unscheduled time these days. I know that’s cryptic and that one typically tells one’s life story to a total stranger, but I’m a little shy about that, maybe diffident’s a better word, a little diffident, and anyway you’re not a total stranger because you live right here in the neighborhood. And this is West End Avenue, where we would go our separate ways if you weren’t such a gentleman. You never told me your name. But then how could you? I’ve done all the talking. My name’s Gwendolyn Cooper, and yours is…”

“Bernie Rhodenbarr.”

“Short for Bernard. But people call you Bernie?”

“Usually.”

“With Gwendolyn you get a choice. I can be Gwen or Wendy or even Lyn.”

“Or Doll,” I suggested.

“Doll? Oh, the second syllable. Doll Cooper. Or Dolly, but no, that doesn’t really work. Doll Cooper. Can you see that on a playbill?”

“Easier than I can see it on a law school diploma.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s going to read ‘Gwendolyn Beatrice Cooper.’ Assuming I hang around long enough to get it. Doll Cooper. You want to know something? I like it.”

“It’s yours.”

“Better than that, it’s me. What do you do, Bernie? If that’s not too invasive a question.”

“I’m a bookseller.”

“Like at Dalton or Waldenbooks?”

“No, I have my own store.” I told her what it was called and where it was located and it turned out that was her favorite fantasy, to own and operate a used-book store.

“And in the Village,” she said. “It sounds totally perfect. I bet you love it.”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“You must go to work every morning with a song on your lips.”

“Well—”

“I know I would. Ah, here’s where I live, the one with the canopy. Are you actually going to walk me to my front door? I wondered where the true gentlemen were these days. It turns out they’re down in the Village selling books.”

Her doorman was perched on a folding chair, his attention largely given over to a supermarket tabloid. The headline of the article he was reading hinted at a connection between extraterrestrials and the California lottery. “Hi, Eddie,” she said.

“Hey, how ya doin’,” he said, without raising his eyes from the page.

She turned to me, rolled her eyes, then turned to him again. “Eddie, do you know when the Nugents are coming back?” This time he actually glanced up at her, his own face unsullied by a look of comprehension. “Mr. and Mrs. Nugent,” she said. “Apartment 9-G.” As in spot, I thought. “As in gerbil,” she said. “They went to Europe. Do you know when they’re due back?”

“Hey, ya got me,” he said. “Have to ask one of the day guys.”

“I keep forgetting,” she said, probably to me, since the tabloid had reclaimed his attention. “I’m in such a fog when I walk out of here in the morning that it’s all I can do to find the subway. Oh, God, look at the time! I’ll be in a worse fog than usual. Bernie, you’re an angel.”

“And you’re a doll.”

“I am now, thanks to you.” She smiled, showing a mouthful of perfect teeth. Then she stood up on her toes, kissed the corner of my mouth, and disappeared into the building.

Three blocks south of there, I gave my own night doorman a nod and got a nod in return. I’ve been a little less effusive with the building staff ever since I found out the guy I’d been gamely practicing my Spanish on was from Azerbaijan. Nowadays I just nod, and they nod back, and that’s as much of a relationship as anybody really needs.

I went upstairs to my own apartment. For a long moment I just stood there in the darkness, feeling like a diver on a high platform.

Well, at least I could get a little closer to the edge. Even curl my toes around it.

I turned on the light and got busy. I stepped out of my Florsheim wingtips and into an old pair of running shoes. From a cubbyhole at the rear of the bedroom closet I equipped myself with a little ring of instruments which are not, strictly speaking, keys. In the right hands, however, they will do all that a key can do and more. I put them in my pocket, and I added a tiny flashlight that throws a very narrow beam, and does not throw it terribly far. In the kitchen, in the drawer with the Glad bags and the aluminum foil, I found a roll of those disposable gloves of plastic film, much favored these days by doctors and dentists, not to mention those gentle souls for whom the word “fist” is a verb.

I used to use rubber gloves, cutting the palms out for ventilation. But you have to change with the times. I tore off two of the plastic gloves and tucked them in a pocket.

I’d been wearing a baseball jacket over a blue button-down shirt open at the collar and a pair of khakis. I added a tie and swapped the baseball jacket for a navy blazer. For a final touch I got a stethoscope from a dresser drawer and stuck it in a blazer pocket, so that the earpieces were just barely visible to the discerning eye.

On my way out the door I took a minute to look up a listing in the White Pages. I didn’t call it, though. Not from my own phone.

At 1:24, dressed for success, I left my building. I walked up to Seventy-second Street, and then I walked a block out of my way to the corner where I’d met Doll Cooper. I dropped a quarter in a phone slot and dialed the number I’d looked up.

Four rings. Then a computer-generated voice, inviting me to leave a message for Joan or Harlan Nugent. I hung up instead and headed up Broadway to the Korean deli at Seventy-fifth Street, where I picked out enough groceries to fill a couple of bags. I went for low weight and high volume, choosing three boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, and a couple of rolls of paper towels. No point in weighing oneself down.

I got out of there and took a left, walked a block to West End Avenue, turned left again, and walked to her building at the corner of Seventy-fourth. The same old stalwart was still manning his post. “Hi, Eddie,” I said.

This time he looked up. He saw a well-dressed chap, tired from a long day removing spleens, performing one final domestic chore before settling in for some brief but well-deserved rest. Did he happen to note the stethoscope peeping out of the side pocket? Would he have known what it was if he did? Your guess is as good as mine.

“Hey, how ya doin’,” he said.

I breezed past him and went up to call on the Nugents.

CHAPTER Four

The elevator huffed and puffed getting me to the ninth floor, as if the operation that had years ago converted it to self-service had somehow sapped its strength in the process. I emerged at last into a conveniently empty hallway, turned to the right, walked past doors marked 9-D and 9-C, and saw the error of my ways. I did an about-face, walked on past the elevator, and found 9-G (as in Goldilocks) all the way at the end. I walked there, set down my bags of groceries on either side of the jute doormat, and tried to divine the presence of anyone within.

Because you never know. Maybe the Nugents had come home early. Maybe Harlan had got word of an emergency at the widget factory, maybe Joan couldn’t bear to spend one more hour away from her beloved split-leaf philodendron. Or maybe Doll Cooper had got the apartment number wrong, and they lived one floor below in 8-G, just downstairs from the kung fu master who only left his apartment to walk his rottweiler.

I took out my stethoscope, fitted the earpieces in my ears, pressed the business end against the very heart of the door, and listened hard.