Donald Westlake - Why Me?

"No," Dortmunder said.

"How come?"

"Well, uh, it was Andy's phone. And my woman was at the movies."

Continuing to gaze at Dortmunder, Tiny asked his assistants generally, "Kelp mention Dortmunder to anybody?"

"No," they all said.

"Well," Kelp said.

"Shadap."

"Okay."

The guy with Dortmunder's file said, "You went to see Arnie Albright Thursday."

Oh, no. God, let it be not so. I'll be good. I'll get a Social Security card. A real one. "Yeah, I did," Dortmunder said.

"You told him you made a score."

"Tuesday," Dortmunder said. Unfortunately, his voice squeaked on the first syllable.

"But you went to Arnie Thursday," the guy said. "And you were looking up another fence, name of Stoon, the same day."

"That's right."

"You had some stuff to sell."

"That's right."

"What stuff?"

"Um…jewelry."

General alertness animated the room. Tiny said, "You did a jewelry heist? Wednesday night?"

"No," Dortmunder said. "Tuesday night."

A terrorist said, "Where?"

"Staten (cough) Staten Island."

The guy with Dortmunder's file said, "What fences did you see Wednesday?"

"Nobody," Dortmunder said. "I was kind of sick Wednesday. It was raining Tuesday night—" (it's always good to throw a little truth into a story, like adding salt to a recipe) " — and I got like a cold. Just one of those twenty-four-hour bugs."

Another guy said, "Where in Staten Island?"

"On Drumgoole Boulevard. It didn't make the papers."

One of the terrorists said, "What did you rob?"

Dortmunder looked at him, wondering if he was one of the religious fanatics. "Just some engagement rings, watches, stuff like that. Ordinary stuff."

Tiny said, "What fence did you sell it to?"

"I didn't," Dortmunder said. "I couldn't. The blitz came along, and—"

"So you've still got the stash."

Dortmunder hadn't been ready for that one. In the millionth of a second which was the only delay he dared offer, he considered the alternatives: Say no, and they'll wonder why he got rid of a perfectly ordinary jewelry haul which could be hidden a thousand different places until the blitz was over. Say yes, and they'll want to see it. "Yes," Dortmunder said.

Tiny said, "Dortmunder, we know each other a while."

"Sure."

"There's a stink coming off you, Dortmunder. I never smelled it before."

"I'm nervous, Tiny."

"We'll look at your stash," Tiny said. "We'll send six guys with you, and—"

"Breaker! Breaker? said a loud metallic voice, everywhere in the room.

Tiny frowned around, this way and that: "What?"

"I don't care about that," said the loud metallic voice.

Seven or eight people in the room spoke at once. Then the loud metallic voice spoke over all of them, saying, " Well, I'm stuck here on West End Avenue with a busted transmission and I want to talk to my wife in Englewood, New Jersey."

"A radio," said a terrorist.

"CB," said one of Tiny's co-judges.

"Wire," Tiny said. His eyebrows were lowering practically to his upper lip. "Some dirty son of a bitch bastard in this room is wired, is bugging us, is—"

"Because" said the loud metallic voice in deep exasperation, "my wife is listening on this channel."

A terrorist said, "His equipment is picking up these CB signals. A similar terrible thing happened to a late acquaintance of mine in Basra."

"I'll report you," yelled the loud metallic voice, "to the FCC, that's what I'll do, you filthy air-hog!"

"Who," said Tiny, flexing many of his muscles. "Who."

People looked this way and that, wide-eyed, listening for the return of the loud metallic voice.

"If I could get my hands on you— "

"BENJY!"

The little man was already halfway to the door. Bouncing off a terrorist's chest, ducking under a tough guy's clutching hands, he shot from the room like a freed parakeet.

Naturally, Dortmunder and Kelp joined in the chase.

Talat Gorsul, Turkish Chargé d'Affaires at the United Nations, a sleek, smooth, swarthy, heavy-lidded man with a nose like a coat hanger, emerged from his limousine and paused, his opaque eyes taking in the upright brick finger of Police Headquarters in Police Plaza. "Only a nation with no sense of history," he said, in his velvety uninflected voice, "would build a police headquarters that looks like the Bastille."

His aide, a stocky spy named Sanli, a man who perspired a lot and never shaved very well, snickered. It was a major part of his job at the UN to snicker at Talat Gorsul's asides.

"Ah, well," Gorsul said. "Wait," he told the driver, and, "Come," he told Sanli. He that he told to wait, waited, and he that he told to come, came. They crossed the brick forecourt to the brick building, went through the security check in the main lobby, and rode up in the elevator to a high floor, where they passed a second security check and at last entered a conference room packed with people, half of them in uniform.

At the last such meeting of these people in this room, Gorsul had sent Sanli. Now, he nodded noncommittally as Sanli introduced him to a man named Zachary, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who in turn introduced him to everybody else: police officials, government officials, even an assistant district attorney, though there was hardly anyone at this point to prosecute.

The introductions complete, Talat Gorsul sat for the next fifteen minutes at the foot of the conference table, smoothfaced, heavy-lidded, and unemotional, while he listened to several reams of platitude, jargon, and cant from one after the other of those present: the steps that were being taken, the plans for recovery of the Byzantine Fire, the increased security already laid on for after the Byzantine Fire had been found, on and on and on. At the end of it all, Zachary from the FBI rose to say, "Mister Gorsul, I hope and trust this display of our determinativeness has convinced you of our sincerability." To the room at large, Zachary explained (as though it were necessary), "Mister Gorsul has been consid-erating an address to the United Nations with the implicatory thrust that we might for some reason be in a foot-dragging posture on this investigatory situation."

Smoothly but promptly Gorsul was on his feet. "I do appreciate, Mister Zachary," he said, "your interpreting me for all these industrious professional persons, but if I may make the slightest correction to the general line of your statement, please permit me to assure all of you ladies and gentlemen that neither in my heart nor on my lips have I ever had the slightest doubt as to your professionalism, your dedication, or your loyalty to your own national government. The questions I intend to raise this afternoon at the United Nations are most certainly not intended to cast doubt upon any of you in this room. No, nor to cast doubt anywhere at all, come to that. I shall wonder, a bit later today at the United Nations, how such a security-conscious nation as this—I was, by the by, impressed with the two layers of security through which I passed on my way in here—how such a security-conscious nation as the United States, so large, so powerful, so experienced in these matters, could have permitted this admittedly minor bauble to slip through its all-powerful fingers in the first place. A small question, a matter of personal curiosity only, which I intend, somewhat later today, to share with my colleagues at the United Nations."

"Mister Gorsul."

Gorsul looked toward the voice, seeing a blue-uniformed stout man with a storm-tossed face. "Yes?"

"I'm Chief Inspector Francis X. Maloney," the stout man said, heaving himself to his feet. (Mologna, Gorsul remembered.)