"No." Amelia paused. "I'll meet you later, if you like."
"All right. When later?"
"An hour?"
"All right. Where?"
"Oh, gee, I don't know. How about the drugstore?"
"Okay, the drugstore," Roger said. "What time is it now?"
"It's about two-twenty, I guess. Let's say three-thirty, to be sure."
"Okay, the drugstore at three-thirty," Roger said.
"Yes. You know where it is, don't you?"
"Sure I do. Where is it?"
Amelia laughed. "On the corner of Ainsley and North Eleventh."
"Ainsley and North Eleventh, right," Roger said.
"Three-thirty."
"Three-thirty, right." Roger paused. "Who's Mr. Charlie?"
"You're Mr. Charlie."
"I am?"
Amelia laughed again. "I'll tell you all about it when I see you. I'll give you a course in black-white relations."
"Oh, boy," Roger said.
"And other things," Amelia whispered.
"Okay," Roger said. His heart was pounding. "Three-thirty at the drugstore. I'll go home and put on a clean shirt."
"Okay."
"So long," he said.
"So long," she said.
A squad car was parked at the curb when he got back to the rooming house.
The car was empty. The window near the curb was lowered, and he could hear the police radio going inside. He looked up the steps leading to the front door. Through the glass panels on the door he could see Mrs. Dougherty in conversation with two uniformed policemen.
He was about to turn and walk off in the opposite direction when one of the cops looked through the f glass-paneled door directly at him. He couldn't turn and walk away now that he'd been seen, so he walked casually up the steps and kicked snow from his feet on the top step and then opened the door and walked into the vestibule. A radiator was hissing behind the fat cop, who stood with his hands behind his back, the fingers spread toward the heat. Mrs. Dougherty was explaining something to the cops as Roger stepped into the vestibule. "… only discovered it half an hour ago when I went down to the basement to put in some laundry, so that was when I called you, hello, Mr. Broome."
"Hello, Mrs. Dougherty," he said. "Is something wrong?"
"Oh, nothing important," she said, and turned back to the policemen as he went past. "It's not that it was new or anything," she said to the fat cop. Roger opened the inner vestibule door. "But I suppose it was worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, I don't know. What annoys me is that somebody could get into the basement and…"
Roger closed the door and went up the steps to his room.
He had just taken off his coat when the knock sounded on his door.
"Who is it?" he said.
"Me. Fook."
"Who?"
"Fook. Fook Shanahan. Open up."
Roger went to the door and unlocked it. Fook was a small, bald, bright-eyed man of about forty-five, wearing a white shirt over which was an open brown cardigan sweater. He was grinning as Roger opened the door, and he stepped into the room with an air of conspiracy, and immediately closed and locked the door behind him.
"Did you see the cops downstairs?" he asked at once.
"Yes," Roger said.
"Something, huh?" Fook said, his eyes gleaming.
"What do they want?"
"Don't you know what happened?"
"No. What?"
"Somebody robbed the bloodsucker."
"Who do you mean?"
"Dougherty, Dougherry, our landlady, who do you think I mean?"
"She's a nice lady," Roger said.
"Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy," Fook said. "A nice lady, oh boy oh boy."
"She seems like a nice lady to me," Roger said.
"That's because you've only been here a few days," Fook said. "I've been living in this dump for six years now, six years, and I'm telling you she's a bloodsucker and a tightwad and the meanest old bitch who ever walked the earth, that's what I'm telling you."
"Well," Roger said, and shrugged.
"I'm glad they robbed the old bitch."
"What'd they take?"
"Not enough," Fook said. "You got a drink in here?"
"What? No, I'm sorry."
"I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?"
"My room. I've got a bottle in there. Have you got some glasses?"
"Just the one on the sink there."
"I'll bring my own," Fook said, and went out.
Well, Roger thought, I suppose she had to find out it was missing sooner or later. It was just that I didn't expect her to find out so soon. Or maybe I didn't expect her to call the police even if she did find out. But she did and she has, and they're downstairs now, so maybe this is as good a time as any to get drunk with Fook. No, I'm supposed to meet Amelia at three-thirty.
I should have been more careful.
Still, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Maybe it was.
A knock sounded on the door.
"Come in," he said.
It was Fook. He came in carrying a partially filled bottle of bourbon with a water glass turned upside down over the neck of the bottle. He put the bottle down on the dresser and then walked quickly to the sink, where he picked up Roger's glass. He went back to the dresser, put Roger's glass down, lifted the upturned glass from the neck of the bottle, put that one down beside the other and then lifted the bottle.
"Say when," he said.
"I'm not a drinker," Roger said.
"Neither am I," Fook said, and winked and poured half a tumblerful of whiskey.
