Donald Westlake - What's So Funny?

Once again, they all piled out of the cars, but this time Stan and Judson took green plastic tarpaulins from the back of the van and spread them on the weedy patch while the other three dragged the box containing the chess set out far enough to get at the interior box containing the chess pieces. This part of the set was heavy enough all by itself for Tiny, who carried it over to the green tarps, to say, "Huh," before putting it down.

While he was doing that, Dortmunder and Kelp were pulling several cans of spray enamel out of the van and placing them on the periphery of the tarps.

"We'll see you up there," Stan said, when everything was ready.

"Shouldn't take us long," Kelp said. "Save us some lunch."

"Tell Tiny," Stan suggested.

"Don't be too long," Tiny suggested.

Judson gestured at the tarps. "The people up at the house," he said. "What are they supposed to think about all this?"

"They're servants," Tiny told him. "They're supposed to think, what a nice job I got."

"Oh. Okay."

As Stan and Judson got into the front of the Colossus, Tiny resumed his usual occupation of the backseat. Dortmunder and Kelp started rattling spray paint cans, listening to the little balls bounce around inside, and the Colossus disappeared around the next curve into the pines.

Kelp said, "Hold on, I need the red queen."

"Right."

Now they bent to the chess pieces and distributed them into two sections on the tarps, all standing in place, the red-gem pieces over here, the white-gem pieces over there. Kelp took the Earring Man's red queen from his pocket, put the original into his pocket in its place, and now the two of them went to work. Dortmunder sprayed his bunch black, Kelp went for the red. Fortunately, there was very little breeze, so they managed not to spray one another but still could circle the clusters of chessmen and get a pretty good shot at them from all sides.

As they sprayed, Dortmunder said, "We're only switching the one piece. We're leaving a lot of value up here."

"The way I figure," Kelp said, bending to get to the deeper crevices, "the four hundred bucks we paid for the queen was like seed money. We break up the queen and sell the parts and Anne Marie goes back to Earring Man for a few more second-team members, after the chess set heist is yesterday's news. We know the set's gonna stay up here. We just come back from time to time, do another little switcheroo. Money in the bank."

"Kings and queens in the bank," Dortmunder said. "Even better."

The job didn't take long. The box that had held the pieces went back into the van, along with a couple unused cans of paint, and then they got into the van, Kelp driving, to go the rest of the way to the compound.

As they started off, Dortmunder looked back at the two clusters of martial figures spread on the green tarps like a pair of abandoned armies, as though feudalism had just abruptly shut down in this part of the world. He said, "They'll be okay there, right?"

"Sure, why not," Kelp said. "Stay out in the air, dry overnight, tomorrow we'll set them up in that big living room. In the meantime, what could happen?"

WHEN FIONA GOT back from lunch at her favorite bistro down on Seventy-second, it was not quite one-thirty, and Mrs. W was waiting, perhaps patiently, in the office Fiona shared with Lucy Leebald. "You heard me on the phone," she said, "that there is to be a meeting this afternoon about this dreadful event."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I want you with me."

Surprised, Fiona said, "You do?"

"I will want a reliable witness," Mrs. W said. "I may want a lawyer, of which you are still one, and with some familiarity with the case involved. And I may need moral support."

" You , Mrs. W?"

"We'll see," said Mrs. W, pulling on her gray suede gloves. "Come along. We'll be back anon, Lucy."

"Yes, ma'am."

The meeting was in a large conference room at Feinberg, her old stamping grounds. It felt very strange to walk through this tasteful gray territory as someone else entirely, no longer a wee beastie, but… well. No longer their wee beastie, but Mrs. W's wee beastie, a far better job description indeed.

The sleekly dressed secretary who led them through the Feinberg maze was a new one, but that was often the case. They turned at last into a short corridor and there, obviously waiting for them, was Jay Tumbril, as hateful-looking as ever. He gave Fiona a quick dismissive sneer and said to Mrs. W, "You brought her. Good."

"You said you would explain why when we got here," Mrs. W said.

"All in good time," Tumbril said, and gestured to the nearby open door. Inside there, Fiona could see, was the conference room, full of people, none of them looking happy.

But that wasn't the point. She said, "Mrs. W? He asked you to bring me?"

"All in good time, as I say," Tumbril answered, and pointed at one of the two low sofas along the corridor. "Wait there, young woman," he said. "Do not try to leave the building."

"Why would I leave the—"

But he had already turned away, ushering Mrs. W in. Without another glance in her direction, he also entered the conference room and shut the door.

This was a dead space in the Feinberg domain, a short corridor with a large conference room on each side, for meetings that wouldn't fit into the smaller rooms such as the one where Fiona had first talked with Mr. Dortmunder. There was no other furniture here than the sofas, each accompanied by a low end table on which reading matter was carelessly stacked, most of it three-year-old New York magazines.

Having nothing else to do — leave the building, indeed! — Fiona sat down and tried to find a New York too old for her to remember the articles inside.

The meeting went on and on. Fiona read New York magazines. She read TIME way out of time. She read Golf Digest . She even read Yachting .

Inside the conference room, the meeting was occasionally stormy. From time to time she could hear voices raised, male and female, though never what they were saying.

Every once in a while, she sensed movement and would look up to see one of her former co-workers staring at her from the end of the corridor. They always fled away like Eloi when she caught their eye, too afraid to be seen with her to allow them to satisfy their curiosity as to why she was here. And to think she used to like some of those people.

The meeting, which had begun at two, didn't end until nearly four, and then seemed to trickle away more than finish. The door opened and people began to come out, but they were all still talking, arguing, gesturing at one another. They paused in the corridor or back in the conference room or the doorway between, to make another point. None of them had grown any happier since the meeting had started. The exodus was like the end of a church service, but hostile.

And then, among the departing parishioners, here came Mrs. W and Jay Tumbril. Fiona stood, the two approached her, and Mrs. W said, "Well, Jay? Now will you tell us what it's all about?"

"Ms. Hemlow will, I believe," Tumbril said, and gestured at the closed door to the other conference room. "We'll have some privacy in here."

So the three went in, Tumbril shut the door, and he turned to say, "We might as well sit."

It was a very long conference table. Tumbril sat at its head, with Mrs. W on his left hand and Fiona on his right. Mrs. W said, "Jay, I don't handle suspense particularly well. Say what you have to say."

"Let's give Ms. Hemlow the opportunity." Tumbril turned his spotlight glare on her. "Would you like to tell us about it?"

Bewildered, Fiona said, "About what? I don't know what you mean."

"No?" Another smirk from the senior partner. Sitting back in his chair — they were actually quite comfortable chairs — he said, "Perhaps I should tell you, your coconspirator has already been arrested."