What's So Funny? Part 31

59.

AS BRIAN SAW it, the problem was how to make Mother Mean, the new consort for the Reverend Twisted, recognizably enough the Wicked Witch of the West for the viewer to get it but not so recognizable that all the property rights lawyers of the world would rise up en ma.s.se to smite him, and so he was hard at work in his octagonal office at GRODY late this Monday morning, forgetting all about lunch, deeply engrossed in his petty piracy, when someone knocked on the frame of his doorless doorway.

Now what? Looking around with that sudden spasm of guilt known to all pilferers, he saw standing there in his doorway what looked very much like a plainclothes detective, fortyish, a bulky body in a rumpled suit and tie. But he couldn't be, could he? A detective?

"Help you?"

"Brian Clanson?"

"Guilty," Brian said, with a leftover leer.

The man drew a narrow billfold from his inside jacket pocket, flipped it open, and showed Brian an overly designed police badge; too busy. "Detective Penvolk," he said. "I'd like you to come with me, if you would."

More startled than frightened, at least at first, Brian said, "But I'm working here, I..."

"It won't take long," Detective Penvolk a.s.sured him. "You can just answer a few questions for us."

"What questions?"

"Mr. Clanson," the detective said, with a sudden bit of steel in his voice, "we prefer our interviews in settings other than this."

"Well, that made sense. In truth, Brian would have preferred his entire work experience in a setting other than this. However, it didn't seem as though he were going to be given many options at the moment, so Brian obediently rose, saying, "Will this take long?"

"Oh, I don't think so," the detective said. He turned to look both ways along the corridor, then said, "You probably know the shortest way out of here."

"Probably," Brian agreed. "Unless they did some carpentry last night." Nodding to the right, he said, "It should be that way."

The corridors were too narrow to walk two abreast, though people meeting could squeeze past one another. The occasional pregnancy among the staffers was usually blamed on the corridors. Brian therefore led the way, the detective followed him, and Brian said over his shoulder, "Could you tell me what this is all about?"

"Oh, let it wait till we get there," the detective advised.

Brian's boss, Sean Kelly, had his office on the right along here, an elongated rectangle that looked as though it wanted to grow up to be a bowling alley. Sean was at his Star Trek replica control panel in there when Brian walked by, and he was deep in conversation with Detective Penvolk's older gloomier brother. Sean rolled his eyes as Brian walked by, though Brian had no idea what he meant by that.

Had something bad happened during March Madness? There hadn't been any overdoses, had there? That was so old century. Still, something was going on, if one detective wants to talk to Brian and another detective wants to talk to Sean.

As they continued down the angling corridor, Brian dropped unconsciously into a prison shuffle, and said over his shoulder, "The reason I asked, I mean, what this is all about, you know, this kind of thing could make you nervous. I mean, not knowing. What it's all about."

"Oh, don't let it worry you," the detective advised. "If you're innocent, you've got nothing to be afraid of."

Irrepressible at all the wrong times, "Innocent?" Brian asked. "Moi?"

Detective Penvolk chuckled. Faintly.

60.

WHEN KELP STEERED the Colossus up to the closed gate to Mr. Hemlow's compound in Ma.s.sachusetts around one-thirty that afternoon, the van was already there, parked in front of the gate. Stan and Judson, with all the time in the world, strolled back and forth on the recently snow-cleared drive, working out the kinks after all those hours in the car.

Looking grim, Kelp said, "I'm not gonna ask him," as he pulled in behind the van.

"I will," Tiny said.

"He'll only tell you," Kelp warned him.

"Then I'll know something," Tiny said.

They all climbed out of the Colossus and said h.e.l.los back and forth, and then Tiny said, "Kelp wants to know how you went to Queens and got here first."

"I don't care one way or the other," Kelp said.

"If you're headed north," Stan told them all, "that's the best way out of midtown. You take the bridge and Northern Boulevard, then the BQE to Grand Central to the Triboro Bridge-"

"And there you are back in Manhattan," Kelp said.

"They call it Triboro because it goes to three boroughs," Stan said. "You take it north to the Bronx, to the Major Deegan, which happens to be the Thruway, which is the widest fastest road in any of the boroughs. Meanwhile, when you do it your way, you're in traffic jams on the FDR, traffic jams on the Harlem River Drive and traffic jams on the West Side Highway, and you're not even outa Manhattan yet. Also, I suppose you had to fill the tank on that thing six, seven times to get here."

"It is a little thirsty, this beast," Kelp admitted, and spread his hands, forgiving everybody. "But we're all here now, so what difference does it make?"

Judson, admiration in his voice, said, "Stan is one heck of a driver."

"We know," Kelp said.

"Andy," Dortmunder said, before any tension could develop, "you're supposed to buzz them now, aren't you?"

"Right."

Kelp went off to the intercom mounted on the post beside the gate, and Dortmunder said to Stan, "There's a flat clear spot we found the last time in there. That's where we'll switch."

Stan, not sounding thrilled, said, "And I get to drive the monster."

"It's not so bad," Dortmunder told him. "It's kinda like driving a waterbed."

As Kelp got off the intercom, the two halves of the gate swung silently outward. "They say they got lunch ready for us," he said.

"That's a good thing," Tiny said.

They climbed back into the vehicles and drove through, the van moving over to let the Colossus go first. Behind them as they went, the gate closed itself.

Soon Kelp stopped once more, at a spot where, on the left side of the driveway, there was a small clearing. There might have been a little house there at one time, or just a turnaround for cars, or possibly extra parking for parties. Whatever the original idea, the s.p.a.ce now was just a small clearing without the usual towering pines, the land at this time of year showing hardy weeds growing up through old snow.

Once again, they all piled out of the cars, but this time Stan and Judson took green plastic tarpaulins from the back of the van and spread them on the weedy patch while the other three dragged the box containing the chess set out far enough to get at the interior box containing the chess pieces. This part of the set was heavy enough all by itself for Tiny, who carried it over to the green tarps, to say, "Huh," before putting it down.

While he was doing that, Dortmunder and Kelp were pulling several cans of spray enamel out of the van and placing them on the periphery of the tarps.

"We'll see you up there," Stan said, when everything was ready.

"Shouldn't take us long," Kelp said. "Save us some lunch."

"Tell Tiny," Stan suggested.

"Don't be too long," Tiny suggested.

Judson gestured at the tarps. "The people up at the house," he said. "What are they supposed to think about all this?"

"They're servants," Tiny told him. "They're supposed to think, what a nice job I got."

"Oh. Okay."

As Stan and Judson got into the front of the Colossus, Tiny resumed his usual occupation of the backseat. Dortmunder and Kelp started rattling spray paint cans, listening to the little b.a.l.l.s bounce around inside, and the Colossus disappeared around the next curve into the pines.

Kelp said, "Hold on, I need the red queen."

"Right."

Now they bent to the chess pieces and distributed them into two sections on the tarps, all standing in place, the red-gem pieces over here, the white-gem pieces over there. Kelp took the Earring Man's red queen from his pocket, put the original into his pocket in its place, and now the two of them went to work. Dortmunder sprayed his bunch black, Kelp went for the red. Fortunately, there was very little breeze, so they managed not to spray one another but still could circle the cl.u.s.ters of chessmen and get a pretty good shot at them from all sides.

As they sprayed, Dortmunder said, "We're only switching the one piece. We're leaving a lot of value up here."

"The way I figure," Kelp said, bending to get to the deeper crevices, "the four hundred bucks we paid for the queen was like seed money. We break up the queen and sell the parts and Anne Marie goes back to Earring Man for a few more second-team members, after the chess set heist is yesterday's news. We know the set's gonna stay up here. We just come back from time to time, do another little switcheroo. Money in the bank."

"Kings and queens in the bank," Dortmunder said. "Even better."

The job didn't take long. The box that had held the pieces went back into the van, along with a couple unused cans of paint, and then they got into the van, Kelp driving, to go the rest of the way to the compound.

As they started off, Dortmunder looked back at the two cl.u.s.ters of martial figures spread on the green tarps like a pair of abandoned armies, as though feudalism had just abruptly shut down in this part of the world. He said, "They'll be okay there, right?"

"Sure, why not," Kelp said. "Stay out in the air, dry overnight, tomorrow we'll set them up in that big living room. In the meantime, what could happen?"

61.

WHEN FIONA GOT back from lunch at her favorite bistro down on Seventy-second, it was not quite one-thirty, and Mrs. W was waiting, perhaps patiently, in the office Fiona shared with Lucy Leebald. "You heard me on the phone," she said, "that there is to be a meeting this afternoon about this dreadful event."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I want you with me."

Surprised, Fiona said, "You do?"

"I will want a reliable witness," Mrs. W said. "I may want a lawyer, of which you are still one, and with some familiarity with the case involved. And I may need moral support."

"You, Mrs. W?"

"We'll see," said Mrs. W, pulling on her gray suede gloves. "Come along. We'll be back anon, Lucy."

"Yes, ma'am."

The meeting was in a large conference room at Feinberg, her old stamping grounds. It felt very strange to walk through this tasteful gray territory as someone else entirely, no longer a wee beastie, but... well. No longer their wee beastie, but Mrs. W's wee beastie, a far better job description indeed.

The sleekly dressed secretary who led them through the Feinberg maze was a new one, but that was often the case. They turned at last into a short corridor and there, obviously waiting for them, was Jay Tumbril, as hateful-looking as ever. He gave Fiona a quick dismissive sneer and said to Mrs. W, "You brought her. Good."

"You said you would explain why when we got here," Mrs. W said.

"All in good time," Tumbril said, and gestured to the nearby open door. Inside there, Fiona could see, was the conference room, full of people, none of them looking happy.

But that wasn't the point. She said, "Mrs. W? He asked you to bring me?"

"All in good time, as I say," Tumbril answered, and pointed at one of the two low sofas along the corridor. "Wait there, young woman," he said. "Do not try to leave the building."

"Why would I leave the-"

But he had already turned away, ushering Mrs. W in. Without another glance in her direction, he also entered the conference room and shut the door.

This was a dead s.p.a.ce in the Feinberg domain, a short corridor with a large conference room on each side, for meetings that wouldn't fit into the smaller rooms such as the one where Fiona had first talked with Mr. Dortmunder. There was no other furniture here than the sofas, each accompanied by a low end table on which reading matter was carelessly stacked, most of it three-year-old New York magazines.

Having nothing else to do - leave the building, indeed! - Fiona sat down and tried to find a New York too old for her to remember the articles inside.

The meeting went on and on. Fiona read New York magazines. She read TIME way out of time. She read Golf Digest. She even read Yachting.

Inside the conference room, the meeting was occasionally stormy. From time to time she could hear voices raised, male and female, though never what they were saying.

Every once in a while, she sensed movement and would look up to see one of her former co-workers staring at her from the end of the corridor. They always fled away like Eloi when she caught their eye, too afraid to be seen with her to allow them to satisfy their curiosity as to why she was here. And to think she used to like some of those people.

The meeting, which had begun at two, didn't end until nearly four, and then seemed to trickle away more than finish. The door opened and people began to come out, but they were all still talking, arguing, gesturing at one another. They paused in the corridor or back in the conference room or the doorway between, to make another point. None of them had grown any happier since the meeting had started. The exodus was like the end of a church service, but hostile.

And then, among the departing paris.h.i.+oners, here came Mrs. W and Jay Tumbril. Fiona stood, the two approached her, and Mrs. W said, "Well, Jay? Now will you tell us what it's all about?"

"Ms. Hemlow will, I believe," Tumbril said, and gestured at the closed door to the other conference room. "We'll have some privacy in here."

So the three went in, Tumbril shut the door, and he turned to say, "We might as well sit."

It was a very long conference table. Tumbril sat at its head, with Mrs. W on his left hand and Fiona on his right. Mrs. W said, "Jay, I don't handle suspense particularly well. Say what you have to say."

"Let's give Ms. Hemlow the opportunity." Tumbril turned his spotlight glare on her. "Would you like to tell us about it?"

Bewildered, Fiona said, "About what? I don't know what you mean."