The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza by Lawrence Block Page B

couple of Scotches there and Denise worked her way through a pack of Virginia Slims. I tried Abel once or twice, and then we walked north a ways and caught Lance Hayward’s ten o’clock set at the Village Corner. Denise knows him, so we chatted with him after the set and it turned out there was another pianist we simply had to hear at a new club in my neighborhood. I dialed Abel’s number again and we had a quick drink with Lance—we were drinking stingers by this time—before grabbing a cab uptown.
    The new club was on Columbus Avenue in the low eighties and the piano player was a young black kid who kept reminding me of a Lenni Tristano record I hadn’t listened to in years. We got out of there when the set ended and cabbed to my place, where I dug out the record in question and put it on. We had a nightcap and threw our clothes on the floor and dived into bed.
    I did not find her to be gawky and bony. I found her to be warm and soft and quick and eager, and the music’seccentric harmonies and offbeat rhythm didn’t interfere with the pleasure we took with one another. If anything, it gave a nice brittly atonal edge to our lovemaking.
    The tone arm had just dropped to begin replaying the record for the third time when she yawned and stretched and reached for the inevitable cigarette. She got it lit and said something about going home.
    “Stay over,” I suggested.
    “I didn’t say anything to Jared. I figured we’d wind up at my place.”
    “And if you’re not there when he wakes up?”
    “He’ll figure I’m here, which is cool, but if I’d known I would have called him earlier. I’d call now but I don’t want to wake him.”
    I thought of trying Abel again but it would have involved moving.
    “I think I will stay,” she said, after a moment’s reflection. “Mind if I change the record?”
    “Not at all. Put on a stack.”
    She crouched at the record rack, her bare behind tilted charmingly in my direction. Bony? Gawky? Pfui.
    When she came back to bed I slipped an arm around her and told her I was glad she was staying.
    “Me too,” she said.
    “You said earlier that you went to the movies last night.”
    “Right. I took the kid and we saw the new Woody Allen picture.”
    “And you loved it but he thought it was superficial.”
    “Yeah, the little wiseass.”
    “Do anything afterwards?”
    She shifted around, glanced up at me. “A little dancing,” she said, “but no fooling around. What do you mean?”
    “You went to the movies and then you and Jared went home and you stayed there?”
    “Right. Except that we stopped on the way home for frozen yogurt. Why?”
    “When did he go to sleep?”
    “Around eleven, maybe a little later.”
    “It won’t come up,” I said, “but if it does, I was over at your place last night. I got there around midnight after the kid went to bed and left first thing in the morning.”
    “I see.”
    “What do you see?”
    She sat up, lit another Virginia Slim. “I see why you called me this afternoon.”
    “You do like hell.”
    “Oh? You burgled somebody last night and you need an alibi, so Denise is elected. I thought you gave up stealing, you swore you gave up stealing, but what does it mean when a thief takes an oath? Good old Denise. Take her out for a meal, pour a few drinks into her, hit a few jazz clubs, then throw her a friendly fuck—”
    “Cut it out.”
    “Why should I? Isn’t that about how it goes?”
    Jesus, why had I brought it up? Well enough seems to be the one thing I’m incapable of leaving alone.
    I said, “You’re wrong, but maybe you’re too mad to listen to an explanation. I called you because we had a date for tonight.” The best defense is a good offense, isn’t it? “Don’t blame me for your bad memory. I can’t help that.”
    “I didn’t—”
    “I did give up burglary, and I’m not exactly in trouble, but someone committed a crime last night and used the type of gloves I used to use, and the police found one