Politely I said, “I wasn’t expecting you, Ray. Do you come here often?”

“You son of a gun, you.” He grinned. “Gettin’ sloppy in your old age, you know that? We’re in the car and we catch a squeal, woman hears suspicious noises. And you was always quiet as a mouse. How old are you, Bernie?”

“Be thirty-five in April. Why?”

“Taurus?” This from Loren.

“The end of May. Gemini.”

“My wife’s a Taurus,” Loren said. He had liberated his nightstick from its clip and was slapping it rhythmically against his palm.

“Why?” I asked again, and there was a moment of confusion with Loren trying to explain that his wife was a Taurus because of when she was born, and me explaining that what I wanted to know was why Ray had asked me my age, and Ray looking sorry he’d brought the whole thing up in the first place. There was something about Loren that seemed to generate confusion.

“Just age making you sloppy,” Ray explained. “Making noises, drawing attention. It’s not like you.”

“I never made a sound.”

“Until tonight.”

“I’m talking about tonight. Anyway, I just got here.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, a few minutes ago. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes at the outside. Ray? You sure you got the right apartment?”

“We got the one’s got a burglar in it, don’t we?”

“There’s that,” I admitted. “But did they specify this apartment? Three-eleven?”

“Not the number, but they said the right front apartment on the third floor. That’s this one.”

“A lot of people mix up left and right.”

He looked at me, and Loren slapped the nightstick against his palm and managed to drop it. There was a leather thong attaching it to his belt but the thong was long enough so that the nightstick hit the floor. It bounced on the Chinese rug and Loren retrieved it while Ray glowered at him.