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

Dortmunder, in the window of cottage three, lit a match and blew it out. Then he checked the glowing numbers on the dial of the watch he’d borrowed for this evening’s work.

Ralph Demrovsky strolled back to the Battle-Lake, in time to see Wally and the lockman Ralph reunite, neither now carrying a bottle of spring water. Ralph Demrovsky took a little machine from his pants pocket, pressed a button on its top and tossed it into the lake, where it floated inobtrusively. Then Wally and Ralph and Ralph all strolled off to the Invidia and climbed aboard. Laughter sounded from within. Then the door opened, and an extremely trussed and irritated Earl Radburn was carried out and laid gently on the tarmac between two parked cars, his head cradled by his hat. His eyes shot sparks, but nobody seemed to care.

Herman had some doors to unlock. The first led from a corridor near the kitchens to a side corridor that angled around behind the casino to a second door that needed his services, which led to the casino manager’s office, where the night-shift manager slept cozily, head on desk. There were two other doors in this office. The one leading via the manager’s secretary’s office to the casino floor was not locked, nor was it of interest. The other one was of interest, since it led to the cashier’s cage.

This last door was the only one Herman had to deal with while breathing tonight’s enriched air, though he wouldn’t be in here long enough to feel any real effect. The knowledge, however, did make him a little nervous and caused him to slip slightly and take a few seconds longer than he should have, which annoyed him. He thought of himself as cooler than that.

When Herman opened this last door, it was to find the six guys in guard uniforms and gas masks standing there waiting for him, now all holding full and heavy black plastic bags. There were muffled greetings, and Herman led the others back the way he’d come.

In the security offices, the monitors showed all this activity, none of which disturbed the sleepers at all, though the two recently inserted guards, being still awake, did stare at the monitors, and at one another, goggle-eyed.

Stan Murch steered the big garbage truck onto Gaiety property and around back, where Gus waved from his post at the barrier. Stan waved back, drove on in, made a U-turn, backed up against the loading dock, and Herman and the six guards came out. All the plastic bags and all the gas masks were thrown into the back of the garbage truck. Jim and Gus joined Stan in the garbage truck cab, and he drove them away from there.

Most of the people who’d come here in the Invidia, except the substitute doorman, went back to the Invidia, and Fred and Thelma drove them away.

The three guys who’d dealt with the security offices joined Herman and they walked through the hotel and past the check-in desk, and the other three went on out the front door while Herman paused at the house phones, dialed Anne Marie’s room, and let it ring once.

Anne Marie’s phone rang once. She and Andy Kelp turned away from the window. “I’m off,” Kelp said.

“You must be,” Anne Marie told him.

They kissed, and Kelp said, “Will I see you in the city?”

“I’ll phone you.”

“Okay.”

He left, and she went back to the window, to look at the nothing outside and think some more, while Kelp took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped outside. The limo waited, with Herman at the wheel, in his chauffeur’s cap. The side windows of the limo were shaded dark, so nothing could be seen inside there. The doorman came over to open the door for Kelp to get aboard, which he did. Then the doorman got aboard after him, and pulled the door shut behind him. Herman put the limo in gear, and it hummed away into the night.

Five minutes later, Dortmunder looked at his watch. “They’re done by now,” he told himself, and went over to the cottage phone. He dialed 9 for an outside line, and then dialed police headquarters. “I want to report a robbery,” he said.

Max dreamt of Elsie Brenstid, the brewer’s daughter. She still loved him, but she wanted him to drink warm beer. Then the phone rang. Odd; it was an American phone, not British. Then there were excited voices, disturbances somewhere, and Max opened his eyes. The burglar!

Where am I? Las Vegas, the Gaiety, cottage one, waiting for the burglar. Dark in this bedroom, the door outlined in light. But all the lights in the cottage had been switched off when at last he’d come to bed, too exhausted by tension to stay up any longer.

He’d been sleeping in most of his clothes, having taken off only pants and shoes. Now he hurried back into both, listening to the raised voices outside. What was going on? Was this the burglar, or wasn’t it? Why didn’t somebody come in here to tell him what was happening?

Max hurried from the bedroom, just a second before the bathroom window behind him was pushed open and a dark figure, made cumbersome by what he was wearing, climbed cautiously inside.

The scene in the living room was utter confusion. His guards moved this way and that, bumping into one another, hands hovering near holstered sidearms, as they stared at doors and at draped windows, waiting for who knows what. Other guards jittered in the open doorway, looking stunned; the darkness beyond them was full of running people and voices shouting.

On the telephone in the conversation area was Earl Radburn, looking both messier and more furious than Max had ever seen him. The messiness he remarked on first, because Earl was always so neat, so inhumanly perfect in his appearance. But look at him now, grease-smeared, pebble-dotted, dirt-daubed. He looked as though he’d been rolling around in parking lots, for God’s sake.

And as filthy as he was, that’s how angry he was. Enraged. Yelling into the phone, demanding action, finally slamming the receiver down, spinning around, glaring at Max, shrieking, “Well, this is what we get!”

“What we get? Earl? What’s going on here?”

“The casino was robbed!”

Max couldn’t believe it. Robbed? The casino? Stunned, he looked down at his right hand, and the ring was still there, where it was supposed to be. It was still there.

So what could have gone wrong? “Earl? Robbed the casino? Who did? And what on earth for? ”

Acidly, Earl said, “For the money, if you ask me. Probably two million, maybe more.”

“The money? But—But it was this ring he was after!”

“ That’s the goddam beauty of it,” Earl snarled, and with some astonishment (and resentment) Max realized that Earl Radburn was mad at him, at Max Fairbanks, at his employer! “You’ve got us all,” Earl snarled, “bending ourselves out of shape to keep an eye on you and that goddam ring, and that’s just the chance those sons of bitches needed! It couldn’t have worked out better if you were in it with them!”

“Which he was, of course,” said a voice from the doorway.

Max turned, blinking, trying to absorb one astonishment after another, and be damned if it wasn’t that insane New York City policeman, Klematsky, whatever his name was. Walking in here, bold as brass, with a pair of Las Vegas uniformed cops behind him.

Max shook his head at this new wonder, saying, “What are you doing here?”

One of the Las Vegas cops said, “You’ve got yourself a strong gasoline smell out there.”

But nobody listened to him; there was too much else going on. And particularly what was going on was Detective Klematsky, who came over to Max, smiled in a knowing fashion, and said, “Been busy, haven’t you? Up to your old tricks.”

“What now, Klematsky?” Max demanded. “I have no time for you and your nonsense now, this hotel has just been robbed.”