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

Ah. Although Brandon himself had never seen this side of the big cheese’s character, there had always been rumors throughout TUI that Max Fairbanks had an antic element within him that could suddenly erupt in messy or embarrassing ways. He waited eagerly to hear what the man had done this time, and Earl went on, “There’s a corporate house out on Long Island, off New York City—”

“I’ve been there,” Brandon assured him. “On several retreats and seminars.”

“Well, Mr. Fairbanks was there,” Earl said, “a few weeks ago, and he caught a burglar.”

Wylie made a surprised laugh, and said, “Well, good for him.”

“If,” Earl answered, “he’d left well enough alone. But he didn’t. He had to go ahead and steal a ring from the burglar.”

Brandon said, “He did—He stole from the burglar?”

With a low chuckle, Wylie said, “That happens, yeah,” which gave Brandon an unexpected look into the workings of the Gaiety’s security force.

Earl said, “The burglar escaped from the police, small-town cops, and he’s been after Mr. Fairbanks ever since, either trying to get his ring back, or revenge, who knows.”

“He must,” Brandon said, “have felt a certain humiliation.”

“It got him sore,” Earl agreed, “we’re sure on that much.”

Brandon said, “But what do you mean, he’s been after Mr. Fairbanks? A man like Mr. Fairbanks, nobody could be after him.”

“This one is,” Earl said. “Went back to the Long Island house soon as he escaped, but fortunately Mr. Fairbanks was already gone. So he got some kind of gang together, this fella did, and they broke into Mr. Fairbanks’s house in New York City. Missed him again, but both places they stole a lot of valuable stuff, antiques and like that. Then Mr. Fairbanks went to Washington, but he didn’t go to the apartment where he’d usually go, and damn if the fella didn’t show up again and steal some more stuff. Alone this time, or with others.”

Wylie said, “Persistent.”

“He’s making too much trouble,” Earl said. “That’s why Mr. Fairbanks put a secrecy order on all his movements.”

“I saw that,” Brandon said. “And I noticed, I wondered about it, the only exception is when he’s here.”

“That’s right,” Earl said.

Wylie laughed. “You’re gonna set a bear trap, huh?”

Brandon, wide-eyed, said, “What? In my hotel? Earl, I protest! We have children here! Families!”

Earl was unfazed. “The fella’s coming this way,” he said. “Nothing we can do about that, Brandon, we know he’s on his way. It’s our job, protect Mr. Fairbanks and nab this burglar once and for all.”

“Here,” Brandon breathed, his voice hollow, his chest suddenly full of skittery nerve endings. “Here at the Gaiety.”

Wylie said, “Brandon, I know how you feel, and you know I got to feel the same way. Our first job is, protect the hotel, and the guests—”

“Of course!”

“—but at the same time,” Wylie insisted, “Mr. Max Fairbanks is the owner of this place, and our boss. If he’s in trouble, and this is the only way we can help him out, then that’s our duty.”

Earl said, “I knew I could count on you, Wylie.”

Wylie likes this, Brandon thought, in horror. He can spout all the pious claptrap he wants about protecting the hotel and the guests, but the truth is, he smells a war coming and he likes it. Hand grenades among the slot machines. Mortars in the wading pool.

Submarines in the Battle-Lake.

Earl was saying, “Wylie, from this point on, we’ll want a check on every single guest that comes in here, to be sure they are who they say they are.”

“And,” Wylie said, “I’ll infiltrate some of my people among the guests, in civvies, keep them moving around on the paths outside, watch for interlopers.”

Wylie’s forgotten his snit, Brandon realized. Earl has brought Wylie a war, and Wylie has forgiven him everything.

Brandon looked over toward the big window, and the view out over the Battle-Lake at his Paradise. Near him on the sofas, the two mercenaries put their heads together to continue their discussion. Weapons. Stakeouts. Lines of fire. Lines of defense. Perimeter patrols.

Oh, my.

The phone started ringing a little before one on Wednesday afternoon. At least this time Dortmunder wasn’t under the sink; this time, he was trying to pack.

The meeting last night at the O.J. had been shorter than such meetings usually went, because he didn’t yet have a detailed plan, but on the other hand it had been longer than necessary, because none of the other four could believe he didn’t have a detailed plan, and they wanted to keep talking about it.

“You must have an idea,” Andy Kelp had said at one point, for instance, but that was the whole problem. Of course he had an idea. He had a whole lot of ideas, but a whole lot of ideas isn’t a plan. A plan is a bunch of details that mesh with one another, so you go from this step to this step like crossing a stream on a lot of little boulders sticking out, and never fall in. Ideas without a plan is usually just enough boulders to get you into the deep part of the stream, and no way to get back.

So, while he was packing, he kept thinking about his ideas. Or trying to. For instance, the one in which Andy had a heart attack on top of a dice table and Stan and Ralph were the EMS medics and Tiny was a rent-a-cop, and while they were knocking over the cashier’s cage Dortmunder was waiting outside the cottage for the security forces there to be rushed over to cover the robbery. Lots of missing boulders in that stream.

Or the one where they knocked out the power lines, having first drawn trails in fluorescent paint to the places they wanted to reach; like the middle of the stream.

Or the bomb scare.

Or the one where they stole the tiger from the zoo—Wally Whistler would be better than Ralph Winslow at that part, actually—and released it into the casino.

Or the one . . .

Well. The point was, the details would have to wait, that’s all, until Dortmunder got to Vegas, which would be tonight, on the late flight out of Newark, if he could ever get finished packing here.

But, no. The phone had to keep ringing. Briefly, that first time, he considered not answering it, but it could be May from the supermarket; since she wasn’t coming along on this trip, she might have some last-minute thing she wanted to say. Or it could be any of the other four guys in the caper, with a problem; people sometimes have problems. So every time the phone rang he answered it, and every time it was the same thing, and what it was was, everybody wanted in.

The first was Gus Brock: “John, I thought we were pals again.”

“I got no problems with you, Gus,” Dortmunder admitted.

“So how come I’m included out?”

“Oh, you mean, uh . . .”

“I mean the little visit to Vegas,” Gus said. “Andy Kelp just happened to mention it.”

“Mention should be Andy Kelp’s middle name,” Dortmunder said.

“My lady and his lady and him and me,” Gus said, “knocked back a little omelette for lunch, and the subject come up, and my question is, where am I in this thing?”

“Gus,” Dortmunder said, “it isn’t that we aren’t pals, you know that, but for what I need—”

“You’re talking an awful lot of security,” Gus said, “a place like that.”

“I know I am,” Dortmunder agreed, “but I’ve always said, if you can’t do a task with five guys, you—”

“I want aboard, John,” Gus said. “And this time, it isn’t for the percentage, you know what I mean?”