“It’s confusing.”

“You said it.”

I picked up my drink and looked at it. It was vodka on the rocks, and it wasn’t Ludomir, because they didn’t carry the brand. This, I decided, was probably just as well.

“I knew she wouldn’t be there tonight,” I said, “and it doesn’t matter how I knew. I just knew.”

“Got it, Bern.”

“I bought two tickets anyway. I probably could have gotten a refund on one of them, but I didn’t even try.” I snapped my fingers. “Easy come, easy go.”

“You said it.”

“And I could have bought a small barrel of popcorn instead of a large one, because by then I definitely knew she wasn’t going to show. But what did I do? I went right ahead and bought a large one.”

“Easy come, easy go?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth. I told you how I got twenty dollars out of Tiglath Rasmoulian, didn’t I?”

“You did, Bern.”

“It was like taking candy from a baby. So why not blow it on popcorn?”

“They get twenty dollars for a barrel of popcorn?”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Bern, no matter how much popcorn you’ve got in your stomach, I think you’re starting to feel your drinks.”

“Was I talking loud, Carolyn?”

“Kind of.”

“Damn,” I said, and dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know why that happens.”

“It’s nothing to worry about, Bern. Especially since there’s nobody around to hear us.”

“Good point.”

“And it’s probably not a bad idea for you to get a little bit drunk. Maybe it’ll help you forget her.”

“Forget who?”

“Gee,” she said. “I never thought it would work that fast.”

“Oh, Ilona? I can’t forget her, Carolyn.”

“That’s what you think now,” she said earnestly, “but we’ve been friends a long time, and think of all the women we’ve both had to forget over the years. And where are they now? Forgotten, every last one of them. Time heals all wounds, Bern, especially when it’s got a little Scotch to back it up.”

“I’m drinking vodka tonight.”

“I know, and it’s not like you. How come?”

“For Captain Hoberman.” I picked up the glass again and gazed down into it, then raised it a little higher and looked through it at the ceiling light fixture. “The trouble with vodka,” I said, “is it’s not as good to stare at. You hold a glass full of amber whiskey to the light, it’s as though you’re looking through it and seeing the secrets of the universe. You do the same thing with vodka and it might as well be a glass of water.”

“That’s true, Bern. I never thought of it that way, but it’s true.”

“And yet,” I said, “as soon as you swallow it, it doesn’t make a bit of difference what color it is. It works just fine.” I tilted my glass and proved the point. “Carolyn? Is it okay if I stay over at your place tonight?”

“Sure,” she said, “and it’s a good idea, too. This is no night for you to be alone.”

“That’s not it.”

“And I wouldn’t want you going uptown on the subway in your condition, or even in a cab.”

“Neither would I,” I said, “but that’s not it, either. I want to get an early start tomorrow.”

“An early start on what?”

“The case.”

“What case?”

“What case?” I stared at her. “Have I been talking to myself? Haven’t you been paying any attention? A man’s dead, a portfolio is missing, a beautiful woman has disappeared-”

“ Bern,” she said, “all those things are true, and at least one of them is a shame, but what does it have to do with you?”

“I have to do something about it,” I said.

“That’s the booze talking, Bern.”

“No, I said, its me.”

“It sounds like you,” she said, “but I think it’s the booze. Ilona packed up and moved out. If she wants to be found, she knows how to get in touch with you. If she doesn’t want to be found, what do you want with her? I know it was wonderful, what the two of you had, but evidently she’s profoundly neurotic or leading some kind of a double life, and as soon as you begin to get close to her she runs away. I’ve known women like that, Bern. None of them ever disappeared quite so abruptly, but some of them pulled things that weren’t all that different.”

“I have to find Ilona,” I said, “but that’s not the main thing I have to do. I have to solve the case.”

“How?”

“By recovering the portfolio that was stolen out from under me, and finding out more about those documents that Tsarnoff and Rasmoulian are so hot to get hold of. And by figuring out what CAPHOB means and what it’s doing on the side of my attaché case. But most of all by catching the person who committed murder in that fourth-floor flat on East Seventy-sixth Street.”

“ Bern,” she said gently, “don’t you think that’s a job for the police?”

“No, it’s not. It’s my job.”

“How do you figure that?”

“When your partner is killed,” I said, “you have to do something about it. Maybe he wasn’t much good and maybe you didn’t like him much, but that doesn’t matter. He was your partner, and you’re supposed to do something about it.”

“Gee,” she said. “I never thought of it that way. I have to admit, Bern, when you put it like that it sounds so forceful and clear-cut that it’s hard to argue with you.”

“Why, thank you, Carolyn.”

“You’re welcome. ‘He was your partner, and you’re supposed to do something about it.’ I’ll have to remember that.” She looked sharply at me. “Wait a minute. Who said that?”

“I did,” I said. “Just a minute ago.”

“Yeah, but Sam Spade said it first. In The Maltese Falcon, when Miles Archer is murdered. Maybe it’s not word for word, but that’s exactly what he said.”

I thought about it. “You know,” I said, “I think you’re right.”

She reached out a hand, laid it on top of mine. “ Bern,” she said, “do you want to know what I think? I think you’ve been going to too many movies.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re starting to get yourself mixed up with Humphrey Bogart,” she said, “and that can be dangerous. The line’s a great one, but it doesn’t fit the situation.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Hugo Candlemas wasn’t your partner. If he was anything, he was an employer. He hired you to steal that portfolio, and he never even paid you.”

“That’s true. On the other hand, I never stole the portfolio.”

“And it’s not as though the two of you got to be best friends. I know you identified his body this afternoon, but look at all the trouble you had doing it.”

“I didn’t have any trouble.”

“That’s not the way it sounded when you told me about it. You hemmed and hawed and told Ray a lot of crap about how you’ve got a better memory for names than faces. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Something like that.”

“So if his features were that faintly etched on your memory-”

“His features were etched upon my memory,” I said, “as if by a diamond on glass.”

“But you said-”

“I know what I said. Don’t tell me what I said.”

“I’m sorry, Bern.”

“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to snap at you. That was Bogart talking just then, not me.” I picked up my glass. The vodka was gone but some of the ice had melted, so I took a swallow of that. “All I needed at the morgue was one quick look,” I said. “I hemmed and hawed because I didn’t want to make the identification.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wasn’t Candlemas.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, it wasn’t. You’re right, Candlemas wasn’t my partner, but that’s not who I was talking about. I mean the man who helped me get past the doorman and elevator operator at the Boccaccio.”

“Not Captain Hoberman?”

“That’s who it was, all right, and he was my partner, or as close as I had to a partner in that little caper. He didn’t have the world’s hardest task to perform, but he did what he was supposed to, and he deserved more for his troubles than a drawer in the morgue.” I drew a breath. “It doesn’t matter if I got the line from a movie or thought it up myself. It’s just as true either way. He was my partner, and he’s dead, and it’s up to me to do something about it.”