“Something for you?”
I shook my head.
“Then let’s get going,” he said. “Supposed to get there before midnight. That’s when the late shift comes on duty.”
We hit the street again, and the drink seemed to loosen him up. “Here’s a question for you,” he said. “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
“It’s a question, all right.”
“Known that fellow a long time, have you?”
Thirty-two hours, getting on for thirty-three. “Not too long,” I admitted.
“What do you make of this? When he told me about you, he didn’t use your actual name. He called you something else.”
“Oh?”
“I want to say Road and Track, but that’s not it. Road and Car? Makes no sense. Roadieball?” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, but it sure wasn’t Thompson. Wasn’t even close.”
“Well, he’s getting on in years,” I said.
“Hardening of the brain,” he said. “That how you read it?”
“I don’t think it’s that extreme, but-”
“It’s enough to worry me,” he said, “and I don’t mind telling you that. There’s a whole lot at stake here, a whole lot of people’s hopes riding on this. But I don’t guess I have to tell you that, do I?”
“I guess not.”
“Talk too much anyway,” he said. “Always been my problem.” And he didn’t say another word until we got to the building.
It was a fortress, all right. The Boccaccio, one of the great Park Avenue apartment buildings, twenty-two stories tall, its sumptuous Art Deco lobby equipped with enough potted plants to start a jungle. There was a doorman out front and a concierge behind the desk, and damned if the elevator didn’t have an attendant, too. All three of them wore maroon livery with gold braid, and a pretty sight they were. They wore white gloves, too, which almost spoiled the effect, giving them the look of Walt Disney animals until you got used to it.
“Captain Hoberman,” Hoberman told the concierge. “I’m here to see Mr. Weeks.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Weeks is expecting you.” He checked his book, made a little note in it, then looked up expectantly at me.
“And this is Mr. Thompson,” Hoberman said. “He’s with me.”
“Very good, sir.” Another little note in the book. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a piece of cake getting in here on my own. Still-
The elevator attendant had been watching all this from across the lobby, and probably heard it, too; Hoberman had a booming voice, audible, I suppose, from stem to stern. When we approached he said, “Twelve, gentlemen?”
“Twelve-J,” Hoberman said. “Mr. Weeks.”
“Very good, sir.” And up we went, and out we popped on twelve. The attendant pointed us toward the J apartment and watched after us to make sure we found our way. When we got there Hoberman shot me a look and cocked a bushy eyebrow. The stairwell, my immediate goal, was just steps from where we stood, but the elevator was still within my view and the attendant was still doing his job. I stuck out a finger and poked the doorbell.
“But what will I say to Weeks?” Hoberman wondered. Softly, thanks be to God.
“Just introduce me,” I said. “I’ll take it from there.”
The door opened. Weeks turned out to be a short pudgy fellow with bright blue eyes. He was wearing a hat in the house, a black homburg, but it was his hat and his house, so I guess he had the right. The rest of his outfit was less formal. A pair of suspenders with roosters on them held up the pants of a Brooks Brothers suit. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was off and his expression was understandably puzzled.
“Cappy,” he said to Hoberman. “Good to see you. And this is-”
“Bill Thompson,” Hoberman said. And off to the side, and not a moment too soon, I heard the elevator door draw shut.
“I live in the building,” I said. “Ran into-” Cappy? No, better not “-this gentleman in the lobby, got so caught up in conversation I rode right on past my stop.” I laughed heartily. “Good to meet you, Mr. Weeks. Good evening, gentlemen.”
And I walked on down the hall, opened the fire door, and scampered down the stairs.
At least there were no cameras in the stairwells.
The Boccaccio was wired for closed-circuit TV. I’d seen the bank of monitors behind the concierge’s desk. One showed the laundry room, and others scanned the street in front, the passenger and service elevators, the service entrance around the corner on Seventy-fourth, and the parking spaces in the subbasement.
The building had stairwells at either end, so to include them in your closed-circuit surveillance you’d need two cameras on each floor, and an equal number of screens for the concierge to go blind staring at. But there’s another way to do it: one or more of the screens can be set up to receive multiple channels, and whoever’s monitoring the operation can sit back with a remote control and channel-surf the hours away.
I didn’t think that was the setup they had here, but I couldn’t know until I was actually in the stairwell. I hadn’t been all that worried, though. I’d guessed stairwell surveillance was unlikely, and even if they had it I figured I could get around it.
See, when you’ve got that high a level of protection, you never have an incident. Nobody who doesn’t belong ever gets across the threshold in the first place, not even the guys from Chinese restaurants who want nothing more than to slip a menu under every door in Manhattan. With that much security, naturally you feel secure. And, when nothing bad ever happens, you stop paying close attention to your own security devices.
Look what happened at Chernobyl. They had a gauge with a warning device on it, and when the crunch came it didn’t fail, it worked the way it was supposed to. And some poor dimwit looked at it and decided it must be broken because it was giving an abnormal reading. So he ignored it.
This notwithstanding, I was just as glad to know I wasn’t going to wind up on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Four floors below I made sure the hall was clear, then walked the length of it to 8-B. I rang the doorbell. I’d been assured there would be nobody home, but Candlemas could be wrong about that, or he could have steered me accidentally to the wrong apartment. So I rang the doorbell, and when nothing happened I took the time to ring it again. Then I fished out my set of lockpicking tools and let myself in.
Nothing to it. If you’re looking for state-of-the-art locks, don’t look in a luxury building on Park Avenue. Look in the tenements and brownstones where there’s neither doorman nor concierge. That’s where you’ll find window gates and alarm systems and police locks. 8-B had two locks, a Segal and a Rabson, both of them standard pin-and-tumbler cylinders, solid and reliable and about as challenging as the crossword puzzle in TV Guide.
I knocked off one lock, paused for breath, and knocked off the other one-and all in not much more time than it takes to tell about it. In a funny way, I was almost sorry it was so easy.
See, lockpicking is a skill, and on the list of technical accomplishments it ranks several steps below brain surgery. With proper instruction, anyone with minimal manual dexterity can learn the basics. I’d taught Carolyn, for example, and she’d become fairly good at opening simple locks, until she stopped practicing and got rusty.
But for me it’s different. I have a gift for it, and it’s more than a matter of technique. There’s something otherworldly about the whole enterprise, some altered state I slip into when I’m breaking and entering. I can’t really describe it, and it would probably bore you if I could, but it’s Magic Time for me, it really is. That’s why I’m as good as I am at it, and it also helps explain why I can’t stay away from it.