What's So Funny? Part 35

"I gotta go- I gotta-"

Kelp, with Judson right behind him, climbed into the van. Dortmunder and Tiny turned and made their silent way back to the house, where Dortmunder found a nice old rocking chair not too close to the fire and sat there and waited for events to unfold.

They didn't take long. Kelp and Judson came back with the news that the green tarps were still there. The servant girl came downstairs with a slender pair of cherry-red panties. "They were under a pillow," she said. "What made me look, the bed wasn't made the way we make it."

"How could this have happened?" Mr. Hemlow wanted to know. He'd developed an extra two or three rumba routines this morning.

The answer arrived soon, in the person of Eppick, who came back from inspecting the rear entrance to the compound. "It's been rigged so you can bypa.s.s it, if you know how. It doesn't show itself to the eye, but if you know how you can get in. And out."

Mr. Hemlow said, "Johnny, you came up here with John to make sure the place was still secure."

"That was four months ago, Mr. Hemlow. I didn't do any sweep this time. We're all staying here."

Kelp said, "Mr. Hemlow, this is a blow to everybody, but at least you know one thing for sure. The chess set isn't ever going back to the Northwoods."

"Nor is it going," Mr. Hemlow said, "in any fas.h.i.+on at all, to its rightful inheritors."

Tiny, not sympathetic, said, "They can't miss what they didn't have."

"I keep reminding myself," Mr. Hemlow said, "just yesterday, I saw all those pieces, out there, beside the driveway. The lost chess set. I saw it, if only just the once, with these eyes."

"Hold the thought," Tiny suggested. "And before the rest of us get on the road here, let's work out how you're gonna get us our money."

Astonished, Mr. Hemlow said, "Are you serious? The set is gone."

"We delivered it," Tiny said. "We found it and we got it and we delivered it. If this place of yours is a sieve, that's no skin off our nose."

Mr. Hemlow said, "I am not without resources."

"That's right, so you can-"

"No, I mean, resources of self-defense." Mr. Hemlow glowered around at all the faces glowering right back at him. "I am not going to pay one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a chess set I do not have."

Eppick said, "Mr. Hemlow, be fair. They worked hard. They delivered it to your door. And this isn't their fault. You gotta give them something."

Mr. Hemlow brooded. Never before in the history of the world has a wheelchair-bound sick man surrounded by hostile professional criminals looked less troubled by his situation. The loss of the chess set troubled him. About the att.i.tudes and potential threats of the half-dozen men gathered around him he couldn't have cared less.

But he did finally say, "They deserve something, that's true.

Smiling, Stan said, "I knew you were a decent guy, Mr. Hemlow."

"I do not have the chess set, nor will I ever, but it is true the work was done, and as you point out the Northwoods will never have the set again either. I will pay ten thousand dollars per man."

Stan, no longer smiling, said, "That's a third!"

"Take it or leave it," Mr. Hemlow said. "You'll have a third of the original price. I'll have the chessboard. Fifty thousand dollars is a mighty steep price for a chessboard, gentlemen."

A long slow sigh circled the room. "We'll take it," Dortmunder said.

67.

THE DOCTOR, WHEN Trooper Hemblatt reached him by phone at his hospital down in New York City, was pretty steamed, and the trooper didn't see as how he could blame the man. "They just came right into the hospital parking lot and waltzed out with my car."

"Yes, sir."

"I had less than seven K on that car."

"Just over seven K now, sir. But at least they didn't bang it up."

"I'll want my garage to do a complete diagnostic on it, as soon as I get it towed down here."

"That's up to you, sir."

"But you got the thieves, did you?"

"We do have two individuals in custody, yes, sir, but we're still sorting that out."

"What do you mean, sorting out?"

"Well, there's little question about the man who was operating the vehicle when it was stopped. Chester Wilc.o.x doesn't deny he took it, sir."

"He was driving it! How could he deny it?"

"Exactly, sir. The one oddity is, he claims he didn't pick it up in New York City, but down in Ma.s.sachusetts, in some estate down there."

"Ma.s.sachusetts! I don't even know anybody in Ma.s.sachusetts. He took it from the hospital parking lot, right here on Third Avenue, yesterday morning. You say he was with a woman?"

"She claims to be a hitchhiker who boarded the vehicle this morning near New Lebanon, just this side of the New Hamps.h.i.+re state line."

"Is she telling the truth?"

"That's hard to say, sir. Wilc.o.x claims she was with him at the estate, that she was the one, not him, who knew how to find the place, and that it was in fact her idea to take your vehicle, but he doesn't seem to know much about her, other than her first name. He may be telling the truth, but I doubt we'll develop sufficient cause to hold her."

"Just so he's put away, and I get my car back. What is he up to, Trooper, claiming he stole my car in some other state and saying some hitchhiker put him up to it? Is he hoping for an insanity defense?"

"I think what Wilc.o.x mostly has is a stupidity defense, sir," Trooper Hemblatt said. "But let me go over the rest of it, if I may."

"There's more?"

"We want to be sure there's nothing missing from the vehicle, sir. Your garage door opener and cell phone and medicated cus.h.i.+on are all there, and the chess pieces are still in the trunk."

"The what?"

"Chess pieces, sir, a full chess set, but without the board. They're pretty heavy, they could be made of cement." This rural part of northern New Hamps.h.i.+re was too remote to know or care about some stolen chess set way down in New York City.

"I don't have a chess set." The doctor, on the other hand, was too self-centered to pay much attention to the news.

"It's in the vehicle, sir, in the trunk. Red pieces and black pieces."

"I don't even play chess."

"Well, sir, the pieces are there."

"I don't want them. They're not mine, I don't want them."

"I don't think we're gonna get a straight answer from Wilc.o.x, sir. If he says the pieces came from the estate it won't help because he claims he doesn't know where the estate is, and the woman claims never to have been there."

"Trooper, I really don't want that chess set."

Trooper Hemblatt considered. "I tell you what," he said. "If you don't want the set, do you mind if we give it away? There's an old age home in town here, run by the Little Sisters of Eternal Misery. They could probably make a board out of a piece of plywood or something, put some pleasure in the old folks' lives."

"That's very thoughtful of you, Trooper," the doctor said. "You do that."

"I will, sir."

"I'll let you know when I've arranged for the tow."

"Yes, sir. Sorry for all this trouble, sir."

"Oh, well," said the doctor. "All's well that ends well."

end.