DORTMUNDER, wearing black and carrying his canvas bag of burglar tools, walked across the rooftops from the parking garage on the corner. At the sixth roof, he looked over the front edge to be absolutely sure he was on the right building, and felt dizzy for just a second when he saw the distant street six stories down, floating like a ship in the glare of streetlights. Cars were parked along both sides, leaving one black lane open in the middle. A cab was going by down there, its yellow top glinting in the light. Behind the cab came a slow-moving police car; the unlit flasher dome on its roof looked like a piece of candy.

And this was the right place. The furrier’s hanging sign was visible down there, right where it was supposed to be. Dortmunder, feeling a trifle queasy about the height, leaned back from the edge, carefully turned, and walked across the roof to the opposite side, where a fire escape led down into less dizzying darkness. The building backs were crammed so close together here that Dortmunder felt he could almost reach out and touch the grimy brick wall across the way, but all of the windows along here were dark. It was three o’clock in the morning, so no one was up and about.

Dortmunder went slowly down the fire escape. The canvas bag made muffled clanking sounds whenever it hit the fire escape railing, and he grimaced and clenched his teeth at every noise. Some of the windows he was passing belonged to storage lofts and other commercial enterprises, but some were apartments, this being the kind of Manhattan neighborhood where families and factories live side by side. He didn’t want anybody to wake up, mistake him for a peeping torn, and shoot him.

Second floor. A scarred metal door, painted black, led out to the fire escape, which stopped at this level. A metal ladder could be lowered for the last flight down, but Dortmunder didn’t want the first-floor shop, he wanted the second-floor storage room. In almost total darkness, he put down the canvas bag, felt the door all over with his fingertips, and decided it would have to be a simple peeling operation. Noisy for a few seconds, but that couldn’t be helped.