Donald Westlake - Why Me?

"What a night!" May said, when Kelp eased enough on the throttle so she could peel herself off the seatback. "I knew this was you when I saw the MD plates."

Kelp tossed Dortmunder a quick triumphant grin: "See? It's my trademark." Looking in the rearview mirror he said, "Nobody behind us."

May was studying Dortmunder like a mother hen. "How are you, John?"

"Fine."

"You look all right," she said doubtfully.

"I haven't been gone that long, May."

"Have you been eating?"

"Sure I been eating."

"We had a pizza before," Kelp said. He turned another corner—on a red light, illegal in New York City—and lined out uptown.

"You need more than pizza," May said.

Dortmunder didn't want to talk about his dietary habits: "You brought the stuff?"

"Sure." She handed over a small brown paper bag, the kind you carry a sandwich in.

Taking the bag, Dortmunder said, "Both things?"

"You don't have to do that, John."

"I know I don't. I want to. Is it in here?"

"Yes," she said. "They're both there."

Kelp said, "How was the movie?"

"Good. It was about the evils of European influence in Africa in the last part of the nineteenth century. Very interesting soft-focus camera work. Lyrical."

"Maybe I'll go see it," Kelp said.

Dortmunder kneaded the brown paper bag in his hands. "There's something else in here."

"Socks," she said. "I figured, a night like this, you'll need dry socks."

Kelp said, "I don't dare drop you off at your place, May. But within a block, okay?"

"Sure," she said. "That's just perfect." Touching Dortmunder's shoulder, she said, "You'll be all right?"

"I'll be fine," he said. "Now that I finally know what I'm doing."

"Make sure nobody recognizes you," she said. "It's dangerous for you two to be out and around."

"We've got ski masks," Kelp said. "Show her."

Dortmunder took the two ski masks out of his coat pocket and held them up. "Very nice," May said, nodding at them.

"I want the one with the elks," Kelp said.

May unlocked the apartment door and walked into a living room full of cops. "For heaven's sake," she said. "If I'd known there was a party I'd have stopped and bought some cookies."

"Where've you been?" said the biggest, angriest, most rumpled plainclothesman.

"To the movies."

"We know that," said another one. "After the movies."

"I came home." She squinted at the clock on top of the TV set. "The movie got out at twenty to twelve, I took a cab, and now it isn't even midnight."

The cops looked a bit uncertain, then pretended they hadn't looked uncertain at all. "If you're in contact with John Archibald Dortmunder—" the big angry rumpled plainclothesman started, but May interrupted:

"He doesn't use his middle name."

"What?"

"Archibald. He never uses the Archibald."

"I don't care," said the cop. "You see what I mean? I don't give a fart."

Another of the cops said, "Harry, take it easy."

"It's getting me down, that's all," the big angry rumpled cop said. "Blitzes, stakeouts, crashing around, everybody on double shift. All over one goddam stumblebum with sticky fingers."

"Everybody," May told him solemnly, "is innocent until proved guilty."

"The hell they are." The cop moved his shoulders around, then said to the other cops, "All right, let's go." Glaring at May, he said, "If you're in contact with John Archibald Dortmunder, you tell him he'll be a lot better off if he gives himself up."

"Why should I tell him a thing like that?"

"Just remember what I said," the cop told her. "You could be in trouble, too, you know."

"John would be much worse off if he gave himself up."

"That's all right, that's all right." And the cops all pounded their feet on out of there, leaving the door open behind them.

May closed it. "Poo," she said, and went away to open an Airwick.

The jewelry store door said snnnarrrkk. Dortmunder pressed his shoulder against it: "Come on" he muttered.

snik, responded the door, yawning open. This time, knowing this particular door's wiles and stratagems, Dortmunder already had one hand gripping the frame, so he didn't lose his balance but merely stepped across the threshold into the store, where he stopped to look back at Kelp, standing lookout at the curb in the rain, gazing assiduously up and down empty Rockaway Boulevard. Dortmunder gestured, and Kelp happily squelched across the sidewalk and joined him in the warm interior of the store. "Nice little place," he said, as Dortmunder shut the door.

"This ski mask itches," Dortmunder said, peeling the thing off.

Kelp kept his on; his eager eyes sparkled amid gamboling elks on a field of black. "It sure keeps the rain off," he said.

"It isn't raining in here. The safe's over this way."

The "Closed For Vacation To Serve You Better" sign was still in the front window, and the mustiness of the air inside the store suggested no one had been in it since the cops had arrived Wednesday night to find the Byzantine Fire missing. The store owner was in jail now, his relatives had things other than his shop to think about, and the law had no more use for the place.

Or at least that's what they thought.

"Forty-eight hours," Dortmunder said. "See those clocks?"

"They all say twenty to one."

"That's what they said Wednesday night, when I came in. What a forty-eight hours!"

"Maybe they're stopped," Kelp said, and went over to listen to one.

"They're not stopped," Dortmunder said, irritated. "It's just one of those coincidences."

"They're working," Kelp agreed. He came back and watched Dortmunder seat himself cross-legged, tailor-fashion, on the floor in front of the familiar safe, spreading his tools out around himself. "How long, you figure?"

"Fifteen minutes, last time. Shorter now. Go watch."

Kelp went over to the door to watch the still-empty street, and twelve minutes later the safe said plok-chunk as its door swung open. Dortmunder shined his pencil flash in at the trays and compartments, now stripped of everything except the junk he'd rejected last time, and saw one tray full of junky pins—gold-plated animals with polished stone eyes. That would do.

Reaching into his pocket, Dortmunder took out the Byzantine Fire, then spent a long moment just looking at it. The intensity of the thing, the clarity, the purity of the color. The depth—you could look down for miles into that damn stone. "My greatest triumph," Dortmunder whispered.

Over at the door, Kelp said, "What?"

"Nothing." Dortmunder put the Byzantine Fire on the tray with the junky animals; dubious peacocks and lions stared pop-eyed at this aristocrat in their midst. Dortmunder sort of piled the animals around the ruby ring, obscuring it slightly, then slid the tray back into place.

"How you doing?"

"Almost done." Chock-whirrr; he shut and locked the safe and spun the dial. His tools went back into their special pockets inside his jacket, and then he got to his feet.

"Ready to go?"

"Just one second." From another pocket he took May's watch and pressed the button on the side: 6:10:42:11. Crossing to the display case, he beamed his pocket flash at the watches behind the glass until he found another of the identical kind, in a small felt-lined box with the lid up. Going behind the counter, opening the sliding door in the back of the display case, he took out this new watch and saw that in the box with it was a much-folded paper headlined INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE.Right. 6:10:42:11 went back on the counter display where he'd originally found it, and the new one with its box and its instructions went into his jacket pocket. And the itchy ski mask went back on his face. "Now I'm ready," Dortmunder said.