Donald Westlake: What's So Funny?

Dortmunder didn't really look at the picture, just gave it a skim before he shook his head and said, with regret, "Sorry, I never saw him before."

"You see him every morning when you shave," Eppick said.

Dortmunder frowned. What was this, a trick? Was that himself in the picture? Trying to recognize himself in that burdened figure there, that crumpled-over dark comma against the bricks, he said, "What's goin on here?"

"That's the back of an H & R Block," Eppick told him. "It's Sunday afternoon, it isn't tax season, they're closed. You took four computers out of there, don't you remember?"

Vaguely, Dortmunder did. Of course, when you're at your job, after a while the work all blends together. Carefully, he said, "I'm pretty sure that isn't me."

"Listen, John," Eppick said, then paused to pretend he was polite, saying, "You don't mind if I call you John, do you?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"That's good. John, the point is, if I wanted to turn some evidence on you over to some former co-workers of mine, you'd already be in a place where everything goes clang-clang, you know what I mean?"

"No," Dortmunder said.

"It seems to me pretty clear," Eppick said. "One hand washes the other."

Dortmunder nodded. Pointing his jaw at the picture, he said, "Which hand is that?"

"What you want, John—"

"Well, the negative, I guess."

Sadly Eppick shook his head. "Sorry, John," he said. "Digital. It's in the computer forever. One you won't be carrying anywhere, not even to that fence friend of yours, that Arnie Albright."

Dortmunder raised a brow in surprise. "You know too much," he said.

Eppick frowned at him. "Was that a threat, John?"

"No!" Startled, almost embarrassed, Dortmunder stuttered, "I only meant, you know so much, I don't know how you'd know all that much, I mean, whadaya wanna know all that much about me for, that's all. Not you know too much. So much. You know so much, uh, Mr. Eppick."

"That's okay, then," Eppick said.

At this point there was a slight interruption as the street door beside their booth opened and two guys walked in, bringing with them a touch of the outer nippiness of the air. Dortmunder sat facing that door, while Eppick faced the bar, but if Dortmunder recognized either of these new customers he made no sign. Nor did Eppick seem to notice that fresh blood was walking past his elbow.

The first of the fresh blood was a carrot-headed guy who walked in a dogged unrelenting manner, as though looking for a chip to put on his shoulder, while the other was a younger guy who managed to look both eager and cautious at the same time, as though looking forward to dinner but unsure what that sound was he'd just heard from the kitchen.

These two didn't become aware of Eppick until they'd already entered the place, the bar door closing behind them, and then they both faltered for just a frame or two before moving smoothly on, unhurried but covering ground, passing Andy Kelp with no recognition on either side and making their way without unseemly haste around the end of the bar and out of sight in the direction of Pointers and Setters and the phone booth and the back room.

Hoping Eppick had made nothing of this exit and entrance, and trying to ignore the army of butterflies now investigating the nooks and crannies of his stomach, Dortmunder tried to keep the conversation on track and his voice unbutterflied by saying, "I mean, that's a real question. Knowing all this stuff about me and having this picture and all this. What's the point in here?"

"The point, John, is this," Eppick said. "I have a client, and he's hired me to make a certain retrieval on his behalf."

"A retrieval."

"That's exactly right. And I looked around, and I looked at old arrest records, you know, MOs of this guy and that guy, I still got my access to whatever I want over there, and it seemed to me you're the guy I want to help me in this issue of this retrieval."

"I'm reformed," Dortmunder said.

"Have a relapse," Eppick suggested. "Recidify." Picking up the picture, he returned it to his coat pocket, then pushed the business card closer to Dortmunder, saying, "You come to my office tomorrow morning, ten a.m., you'll meet my employer, he'll explain the whole situation. You don't show up, expect to hear knocking on your door."

"Urm," Dortmunder said.

Rising up out of the booth, Eppick nodded away, grinned in an amiable fashion, and said, "Give my hello to your friend Andy Kelp. But it's just you I want to see in the morning."

And he turned and walked out of the bar to the outer sidewalk, leaving behind a sopping dishrag where there once had been a man.

WHEN DORTMUNDER'S BREATHING had returned to normal, he twisted around on the seat to look for Kelp, who had already departed for the back room. He knew he was supposed to follow the others back there now, where, instead of the original agenda, they would expect him to answer a whole lot of questions. He didn't think he'd enjoy that.

Facing the other way — toward the street, in fact — trying to decide what to do, he was in time to see another arrival push through the door, this one distinctive in every way. If people come in sizes, this guy was jumbo. Maybe even colossal. What he looked mostly like was the part of the rocket that gets jettisoned over the Indian Ocean, plus a black homburg. In addition to the homburg, he wore many yards of black wool topcoat over a black turtleneck sweater that made it seem as though his massive head were rising out of a hillside.

This fellow stopped just inside the closing door to lower a very large beetled brow in Dortmunder's direction. "You were talking," he said, "to a cop."

"Hello, Tiny," Dortmunder said, for that was, improbably, the monster's name. "He isn't a cop any more, not for seventeen months. Did his twenty, turned in his papers, decided to go freelance."

"Cops don't go freelance, Dortmunder," Tiny told him. "Cops are part of the system. The system doesn't do freelance. We are freelance."

"Here's his card," Dortmunder said, and handed it over.

Tiny rested the card in his giant palm and read aloud: " 'For Hire. Huh. There's rent-a-cops, but this isn't like that, is it?"

"I don't think so, no."

Tiny with great gentleness handed the card back, saying, "Well, Dortmunder, you're an interesting fellow, I've always said so."

"I didn't go to him , Tiny," Dortmunder pointed out. "He came to me."

"But that's it, isn't it," Tiny said. "He came to you . Not Andy, not me, just you."

"My lucky day," Dortmunder said, failing to hide his bitterness.

"A cop that isn't a cop," Tiny mused, "that you could rent him like a car. And with you he wanted a nice conversation."

"It wasn't that nice, Tiny," Dortmunder said.

"I been in the limo outside," Tiny said, that being his preferred method of transportation, given his immensity, "I spotted you in there, I figured, maybe Dortmunder and this cop want to be alone, then I see Stan and the kid go in, no introductions, no high fives, and now the cop comes out, and turns out, what he wanted with you, he wanted to give you his new card, he's opened shop, cop for lease."

"Not a cop, Tiny," Dortmunder said. "Not for seventeen months."

"I think that transition takes a little longer," Tiny suggested. "Maybe three generations."

"You could be right."

"Again," Tiny agreed. "You wanna talk about it, Dortmunder?"

"Not until I think about it a while," Dortmunder told him. "And I don't really want to think about it, not yet."

"So some other time," Tiny said.

"Oh, I know," Dortmunder said, and sighed. "I know, there will be some other time."

Tiny looked around the bar. "Looks like everybody else is around back."