What's So Funny? Part 26

"I heard all the fuss," Kelp agreed. "I figured, it was somewhere else in the building and you took off back outa there, or it was the householder and you went through him and then back outa there. I didn't figure you for the roof."

"Neither did I," Dortmunder said. "But there I was. And you were already gone."

"That was the place to be."

"Oh, I know. So I went over and I found those rungs-"

Kelp was astonished, and said so. "John, I'm astonished."

"No choice," Dortmunder said. "Down the rungs, down the fire escape. What got me was how clean you went through that bas.e.m.e.nt door."

"What bas.e.m.e.nt door?"

"Into Perly's building. What other way was there?"

Kelp was now doubly astonished. "You went into Perly's building?"

"What else could I do?"

"Did you never turn around?" Kelp asked him. "Did you never see that humongous apartment house right behind you? You get thirty-seven windows to choose from over there, John."

Dortmunder frowned, thinking back. "I never even looked over there," he admitted. "And here I thought how terrific you were, you got through that bas.e.m.e.nt door without leaving a mark, got through and out the building and not one single sign of you."

"That's because I wasn't there," Kelp said. "Where I was instead, I went into an apartment where there's n.o.body home but there's a couple nice de Koonings on the living room wall, so I went uptown to make them on consignment to Stoon, and then I went home. I never figured you to come down that same way. And wasn't that a risk, you go in there before we want to go in there? Did you leave marks, John?"

Insulted, Dortmunder said, "What kind of a question is that? Here I tell you how impressed I am how you didn't leave any marks-"

"It was easier for me."

"Granted. But then, back last night, you were like my benchmark. So what I left was what you left. Not a trace, Andy, guaranteed."

"Well, that's terrific, you found that way in," Kelp said. "Is that our route on the day?"

"We don't have to do all that," Dortmunder told him. "While I was in there anyway, I looked around, I picked up some stuff."

"Stuff they're gonna miss?"

"Come on, Andy."

"You're right," Kelp said. "I know better than that. Maybe I'm like Eppick, I'm getting a little tense. So what stuff did you come out with?"

"Their extra garage door opener."

Kelp reared back. "Their what?"

"That they don't remember they have," Dortmunder said. "Bottom drawer of the secretary's desk, way in back, under stuff, covered with dust."

"That's pretty good," Kelp admitted.

"Also some other stuff," Dortmunder said. "Perly's an organized guy, he made himself a lot of notes about the exact time the thing's coming down from the bank and all the extra security they're gonna lay on while it's there."

"He didn't."

"He did. Also, he's got a copy machine."

Kelp laughed, in pleasure and amazement. "You got their garage door opener," he said. "You got their security plans."

"Right," Dortmunder said, going for modesty.

Kelp shook his head. "And all I got was a couple de Koonings."

"Well, we took different paths," Dortmunder said, now going for magnanimity.

"We sure did." Seated on the park bench, Kelp watched a bifurcated bus make the long looping U-turn around the triangle, to go from southbound on Hudson to northbound on Eighth. "So what do you think next?" he asked.

"I think," Dortmunder said, "we make a little meet. All of us. At the O.J."

48.

"OH, I HOPE it Still fits." Brian, gazing down at the Reverend Twisted costume now spread-eagled on the bed like a steamrollered Arthur Dimmesdale, was already leering a bit. How he loved to get into that part!

"Oh, it always fits you and you know it," Fiona said, trying to sound loving rather than irritated, and the phone rang, yet again. "Not again!" she cried.

Brian's leer strengthened. "She's your boss," he said.

This was the last thing Fiona had expected to result from having invited Mrs. W to March Madness. Was this the sixth or seventh call, with hours still ahead before the actual party? Mrs. W had regressed to some antediluvian teenage past, working out her anxieties on the telephone.

Mostly the calls were about costumes, or, that is, the personae inside the costumes. So far, Fiona had gently but firmly shot down Eleanor Roosevelt, the Gibson Girl, Annie Oakley, and Ella Fitzgerald. (Ella Fitzgerald?) But the calls hadn't been entirely about the conundrum of Mrs. W's personal disguise for the evening. Should one dine ahead, or would it be a catered affair? Oh, dine ahead, definitely. Then Mrs. W would dine at home and pick up Fiona and Brian later.

Another issue. Would she be the only person of a certain age present at the party? Actually, no. Among the advertisers and other corporate types who might drop in were people of all ages, though the older ones tended to be more often male than female, and mostly interested in a new young companion to chat with.

Well, would there be anyone present whom one (Mrs. W, that is) might know? Not a chance.

Fiona answered the phone in the big room, wondering what the problem would be this time around. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Do forgive the intrusion, dear-"

"Not at all, Mrs. W. Whatever I can do to help. Do you have another idea for a costume?"

"Well, yes, I do, in fact," Mrs. W said, "but this time I don't need advice. From what you have said of tonight's festivities, I have now decided on the absolutely perfect masquerade."

"Really?" Tense, worried, wondering if she could talk Mrs. W out of whatever lunge into the past she'd made this time, Fiona said, "Who, Mrs. W?"

"No, my dear, that would be telling. You will be quite impressed when you see me. Now, my car shall pick you up at ten-twenty, is that right?"

"You don't want to tell me." Dread clutched at Fiona's bosom.

"Let it be a surprise, dear."

"I'm sure it will be."

"What I was ringing up about, in fact," Mrs. W went on, "was your friend Brian."

Fiona could see Brian, in fact, in the bedroom, just pulling on the Reverend Twisted trousers, s.h.i.+ny black wool with so much extra material and pleating that he now looked, from the waist down, like a half-blown-up Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. "Yes, Brian," she said. "What about him?"

"I should have asked this before," Mrs. W said, and she did sound a bit uneasy when she said it. "Will your Brian object to, in effect, escorting two ladies to the event?"

Out of sequence, Brian had put on the flat-brimmed Reverend Twisted hat and was viewing himself in the closet mirror, leering so hard he looked like a Cadillac grille. "He won't mind a bit," Fiona promised Mrs. W "Trust me."

49.

WHEN DORTMUNDER WALKED into the O.J. at three minutes past ten that night, Rollo appeared to be deeply involved in taking an inventory, or a census, or something, of the bottles lined up on the backbar, doubling themselves in the mirror that ran along the wall back there. Tongue between teeth and left eye scrinched up like Popeye, he pointed the business end of a pencil at each bottle, sorting like with like and subtracting for mirror image before writing down the results on a piece of stationery from Opryland Hotel. Feeling Rollo shouldn't be disturbed at such a delicate moment, Dortmunder rested a forearm on the bar and watched.

Meanwhile, down at the left end of the bar, the regulars were discussing poker, one of them now saying, "Yeah, but why a flush?"

A second regular c.o.c.ked his head in response. "And your question?" he asked.

"Just that," the first one said. "Okay, I mean, a pair, trips, I get that. Even a straight, you can see the concept, your numbers are in a straight line. But why a flush?"

A third regular, who maybe hadn't caught all the nuances of the original question, explained, "That means they're all in the same suit."

The first regular lowered a gaze on him. "And?"

"They just are," the third regular said. "All the same color."

"And?"

A fourth regular, sounding a bit tentative for a regular, said, "Well, if they're red..."

"Yeah, fine," the first regular allowed. "That could be. But what about when it's black? What about when it's clubs?"

The second regular, who hadn't been heard from for a while, said, "Well, you wanna talk about that, how come they're called clubs?"

It was the third regular who said, "That's because they look like clubs,"

"No, they don't," the second regular told him. "They look like clovers. Three-leaf clovers."

The fourth regular, still tentative, said, "So what about spades?"

"They're black," the third regular said.

The fourth regular, suddenly no longer tentative, said, "We know that, dummy, but whado they look like?"

The third regular looked into s.p.a.ce. "Dummy?" he asked, as though uncertain of his hearing.

"Well, them," the first regular said. "Them, they look like spades."

"No they don't," the fourth regular said, all tentativeness forgot. "You wanna try to dig a hole with one of those things?"

"No," the first regular told him, "I don't wanna dig a hole with one of those things, they're cards, you play games with them."

"Dummy?"

"I go back to my original question," the first regular said. "Why a flush?"

"When you lose," the second regular suggested, "your money goes down the toilet."

"What's with this dummy?" the third regular insisted.

"They don't have dummies in poker," the first regular told him. "They have dummies in bridge."

"I can see," the second regular said, "you don't play poker."

"Oh, yeah?" The first regular turned away to call, "Rollo, you got a decka cards?"

Rollo turned half away from his bottle count to say, "No, I'd rather have a license." Then, catching a glimpse of the patient Dortmunder out of the corner of his eye he turned full around and said, "There you are."

"There I am," Dortmunder agreed.

"You got an envelope under your arm."

"That's true."

Having his research materials from Perly's office to bring to the meeting, Dortmunder had commandeered from the trash a manila envelope that had once contained color photos of flat scrubland in Florida that some misguided sales agent had been certain "J. A. Dortmunder or Resident" would eagerly look upon as the site of a "dream vacation or retirement residence." Feeling a little exposed to be walking around with an envelope too big to conceal on his person, he'd written on it Medical Records, in the belief that was something n.o.body would want to look too closely at. "It's just some stuff," he explained to Rollo, "to show the guys."

"Well, you got some guys back there," Rollo told him. "The other bourbon's got your gla.s.s."

"Good. I didn't want to disturb you," he said, gesturing at the bottles along the backbar.

"You don't disturb me," Rollo said. "It's a place of business."

"Right."

Leaving Rollo and that conversation, Dortmunder walked down to the end of the bar and past the regulars, as the fourth one was saying, "You know what's a very good card game? Frisk."

"Frisk?"