Donald Westlake - Why Me?

"Ah, yes. We were introduced, Chief Inspector Mologna."

Plodding steadily around the conference table toward the door, his round belly leading the way, Mologna said, "I wonder if you and I could have a word or two in private, if all these other leaders of men would excuse us."

There was general surprise, some consternation, some murmuring. The FBI man, Zachary, seemed inclined to put his oar in, but Mologna fixed Gorsul with a meaningful stare (but with what meaning?) and said, "It's up to you, Mister Gorsul. I think it's to your own best interest."

"If it is to my nation's best interest," Gorsul responded, "of course I shall accede to your request."

"That's all right, then," Mologna said, opened the hall door, and stood to one side.

It wasn't often that Talat Gorsul faced the unexpected; it was in fact a part of his job never to place himself in a situation where he wasn't reasonably sure what would happen next. It was the piquancy of this development, then, as much as any profit that might ensue from a private conversation with Mologna, that led him to say to the table at large, "If you will all excuse me?" Getting to his feet, he walked to the door and preceded Mologna out to the hall.

Where Mologna smiled at the two uniformed city policemen on guard duty and genially told them, "That's okay, boys, take a walk down the corridor."

The boys took a walk down the corridor, and Mologna turned toward Gorsul. "Well, Mister Gorsul," he said, "so you live on Sutton Place."

This was really unexpected. "Yes, I do."

"The car in which you're normally chauffeured is license number DPL 767," Mologna went on, "and the car you drive for yourself when you go out of town on weekends, here and there, that's DPL 299."

"Both are Mission cars, not mine," Gorsul pointed out.

"That's right. Mister Gorsul, you're a diplomat. I'm not. You're an oily son of a bitch Turk, I'm a blunt Irishman. Don't make any speeches this afternoon."

Gorsul stared at him in utter astonishment. "Are you threatening me?"

"You're damn right I am," Mologna said, "and what are you goin to do about it? Over there at that Mission of yours you got a dozen chauffeurs and secretaries and cooks. I got fifteen thousand men, Mister Gorsul, and do you know what those fifteen thousand men think every time they see a car with diplomat plates parked by a fire hydrant or in a tow-away zone? Do you know what my boys think when they see those DPL plates?"

Gorsul glanced at the two police guards chatting together down at the end of the hall, hands on hips above their guns and gunbelts. He shook his head.

"They're pissed off, Mister Gorsul," Mologna said. "They can't ticket those cars, they can't tow those cars away, they can't even chew out the owners of those cars like a normal citizen. I wish I could get those sons of bitches, is what my boys think. You ever been burgled, Mister Gorsul, over there on Sutton Place?"

"No," Gorsul said.

"You're lucky. Lot of burglaries over there. Rich people need a lot of police protection, Mister Gorsul. They need a lot of police cooperation. Ever have a motor vehicle accident in the City of New York, Mister Gorsul?"

Gorsul licked thin lips. "No," he said.

"You're a lucky man," Mologna assured him. Then he leaned forward—Gorsul automatically recoiled, then cursed himself for having done so—and more quietly and confidentially he said, "Mister Gorsul, I put my nuts in the wringer on this one, a little earlier today. Normally, I wouldn't give a fuck what you say, what you do, you or anybody else. But just this minute, just today, I can't afford any more shit hittin the fan. You follow me?"

"I might," Gorsul said.

"Good man." Mologna thumped him on the shoulder. "They convinced you in there, right?"

"Yes."

"They did, not me. So no speech this afternoon."

Gorsul's heavy-lidded eyes hated, but his mouth said, "That's right."

Another shoulder thump from the detested Mologna's disgusting hand. "That's fine," the rotten Mologna said. "Let's go back in and give those assholes the good news."

When May came home from her job at the supermarket, two sacks of groceries in her arms, the phone was ringing. She didn't particularly like events to pile up like that, so she squinted with some alarm and dislike at the ringing monster through the cigarette smoke rising up past her left eye as she dumped the groceries on the sofa. Plucking the final smoldering ember of cigarette from the corner of her mouth and flicking it into a handy ashtray, she picked up the phone and said, with mistrust, "Yes?"

A voice whispered, "May."

"No," she said.

"May?" The voice was still a whisper.

"No obscene calls," May said. "No breathers, none of that. I've got three brothers, they're all big, mean men, they're ex-Marines, they—"

"May!" the voice whispered, shrill and harsh. "It's me! You know!"

"And they'll come beat you up," May finished. She hung up, with some sense of satisfaction, and lit a new cigarette.

She was carrying the groceries on into the kitchen when the phone rang again. "Bother," she said, put the sacks on the kitchen table, went back to the living room, picked up the phone, and said, "I warned you once."

"May, it's me !" whispered the same voice, loud and desperate. "Don't you recognize me?"

May frowned: "John?"

"Sssssshhhhh!"

"Juh—what happened?"

"Something went wrong. I can't come home."

"Are you at An—"

"Sssssshhhhhhh!"

"Are you at, uh, that place?"

"No. He can't go home either."

"Oh, dear," May said. She had hoped against hope, but she had known this was a possibility.

"We're hiding out," the now-familiar voice whispered.

"Until it blows over?"

"This isn't gonna blow over, May," the voice whispered. "We can't wait that long. This thing's got the staying power of the pyramids."

"What are you going to do?"

"Something," whispered the voice, with a kind of dogged hopelessness.

"Juh—I brought home steak." She moved the phone to her other hand and the cigarette to the other corner of her mouth. "Can I get in touch with you somewhere?"

"No, we're—This phone doesn't have a number."

"Call the operator, she'll tell you."

"No, I don't mean there isn't a number on it, I mean it doesn't have a number. We plugged into a line. We can dial out, but nobody can call in."

"Does An—Uh. Does he still have that access?"

"Not any more. We took a lot of stuff and left. Listen, May, somebody may come around. Maybe you oughta go visit your sister."

"I don't really like Cleveland." In truth, May didn't really like her sister.

"Still," the voice whispered.

"We'll see what happens," May promised.

"Still," the voice insisted.

"I'll think about it. You'll call again?"

"Sure."

The doorbell rang.

"There's somebody at the door," May said. "I better get off now."

"Don't answer!"

"They don't want me, Juh—I'll just tell them the truth."

"Okay," the voice whispered, but sounded very dubious.

"Be well," May told him, and hung up and went to open the door. Four big burly men—rather similar to May's mental image of her nonexistent ex-Marine brothers—shouldered their way in, saying, "Where is he?"

May shut the door after them. "I don't know any of you people," she said.

"We know you," they said. "Where is he?"

"If you were him," May said, "would you be here?"

"Where is he?" they demanded.

"If you were him," May said, "would you tell me where you were?"

They looked at each other, stymied by the truth, and the doorbell rang. "Don't answer it!" they said.