Donald Westlake - What's The Worst That Could Happen?

“That’s right, a few minutes talk and—Whoa. Wait a minute. Back up here.”

“That’s right,” she said. She was more disappointed in him than she would have thought possible. “Back way up.”

“Anne Marie,” he said, “get that thought out of your head this second. There are some things in life that are team efforts, and there are some things in life that are solos, you see what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“My friend,” Andy said, “needs to have a conversation about Washington, DC, and then—”

“Why?”

“He’ll explain. He’d like to come talk, maybe five minutes at the max, and then he goes away, and if there’s more to it he’ll give you a phone call sometime, but at least now you know who he is.”

“Who is he?”

“A friend of mine. I’d like to bring him over. Okay?”

She looked around the room. Do I trust Andy? Do I trust my own instincts? The bed was a mess, clothes were strewn around, the TV was on, though silent. “How soon would you get here?” she asked.

“Two minutes.”

Surprised, she said, “Where are you? In the bar?”

“Closer. Be there in two minutes,” he said, and hung up.

Two minutes later, the bed was made, the clothes were put away, the TV was off, and there was a knocking at the door. Anne Marie still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on here, but Howard was gone, her New York week was winding down, the future was completely unknowable, and her new slogan might as well be Caution To The Winds. So she opened the door, and there was Andy, smiling, and his friend, not smiling.

Well. This new guy wasn’t somebody to be afraid of, though at first glance he didn’t look right to be Andy’s friend. He was not chipper, not at all chipper. He was closer to the kind of men she already knew, except he was down at the end of the struggle, after all the hustling has failed, all the energy has been spent on futile struggle, and the exhaustion of despair has set in. He looked to be in his midforties, and what a lot of rough years those must have been. He was the picture of gloom from his lifeless thinning hair through his slumped shoulders to his scuffed shoes, and he looked at her as though he already knew she wasn’t going to be any help.

“Hello,” she said, thinking how complicated life could get if you merely kept saying hello to people. She stepped aside, and they came in, and she shut the door.

“Anne Marie,” Andy said, “this is John. John, my friend Anne Marie.”

“Harya,” said John, in a muted way, and stuck his hand out.

She took the hand, and found he was in any event capable of a firm handshake. “I’m fine,” she said. “Should we . . . sit down on something?” One bed and one chair; that was the furniture, except for stuff with drawers.

“I’m not staying,” John said. “Andy says you grew up in Washington.”

“There and Kansas,” she acknowledged. “We had homes both places. Usually I went to school in Kansas, but college in Maryland, and then lived mostly in Washington for a few years. With my father and his second wife, and then his third wife.”

“The thing is,” John said, apparently not that fascinated by her family, “I gotta go to Washington next week, I got a little something to do there, but I don’t know the place at all. Andy figured, maybe you could fill me in, answer some questions about the place.”

“If I can,” she said, doubtful, not knowing what he had in mind.

“Not now,” he said. “I know you’re busy. But I could like make up a list, my questions, give you a call tomorrow. Now you know who I am.”

No, I don’t, she thought. She said, “What is it you have to do in DC?”

“Oh, just a little job,” he said.

This was not a good answer. She was starting to wonder if she should be worried. What had she got mixed up with here? Terrorists? Fanatics? She said, “It wouldn’t involve anything blowing up, would it?”

He gave her a blank look: “Huh?”

Andy said, “Anne Marie, it isn’t anything like—” But then he saw the expression on her face, and he shook his head and turned to his friend, saying, “John, the best thing, I think, is level with her.”

John obviously didn’t think that was the best thing at all. He stared at Andy as though Andy had asked him to change his religion or something. He said, “Level? You mean, level level? On the level?”

Andy said, “Anne Marie, just as a hypothetical, what would you say if I told you we weren’t entirely honest?”

“I’d say nobody’s entirely honest,” she said. “What kind of not honest are you?”

“Well, mostly we pick up things,” he said.

John said, “Right. That’s it. Pick up things.”

She shook her head, not getting it, and Andy said, “You know, like, we see things lying around and we pick them up.”

Anne Marie felt her way through the maze of this locution. She didn’t quite know how to phrase her next question, but went ahead anyway: “You mean . . . you mean you’re thieves?”

Beaming, happy she’d got it, Andy said, “Personally I prefer the word crook . I think it’s jauntier.”

“You’re crooks.”

“See? It is jauntier.”

“These appointments, late at night . . .”

“We’re out picking up things,” he said. “Or planning it. Or whatever.”

“Picking up things.” Anne Marie struggled to find firm ground. First tonight she’d thought Andy was slightly enigmatic but fun, then she’d thought he was sexually kinky and maybe dangerously kinky, and then she’d thought he was a homicidal terrorist, and now it turned out he was a thief. Crook. Thief. Too many lightning transformations. Having no idea what she thought of this most recent one, she said, “What did you pick up tonight?”

John, grumbling, said, “Not what I was looking for.”

“But a lot of nice things,” Andy said. “I would say tonight was one of our more profitable nights, John. In a long time.”

“Still,” John said. He seemed very dissatisfied.

So she turned her attention to John, saying, “What was it you wanted that you didn’t find?”

He merely shrugged, as though the memory were too painful, but Andy said, “Tell her, John. She’ll understand. I don’t know Anne Marie that long, but already I can tell you, she’s got a good heart. Go ahead and tell her.”

“I hate telling that story, over and over,” John said. “It’s got the same ending every time.”

“Do you mind, I tell it?”

“It’ll still come out the same,” John said, “but go ahead.”

John ostentatiously looked at the blank TV screen, as though waiting for a bulletin, while Andy said, “What happened, about a week ago John and another fella went to a place that was supposed to be empty—”

“To pick up some things,” Anne Marie suggested.

“That’s it. Only it wasn’t empty, after all, the householder was there, with a gun.”

“Ouch,” Anne Marie said.

“John’s feelings exactly,” Andy said. “But that’s what we call your occupational hazard, it’s all in the game. You know. But what happened next wasn’t fair.”

John, watching the nothing on TV, growled.

Andy said, “The householder called the cops, naturally, no problem with that. But when the cops got there the householder claimed John stole a ring and was wearing it. Only it was John’s ring, that his best close personal friend, her name is May, you’d like her, she gave him. And the cops made him give it to the householder.”

“That’s mean,” Anne Marie said, and she meant it. She also thought it was kind of funny, she could see the humor in it, but from the slope of John’s shoulders she suspected she would be wiser not to mention that side.