Donald Westlake - Nobody's Perfect

"Didn't you know who he was?"

"I could see he was some rich-type lawyer," Dortmunder admitted. "For a while, I figured he was in the wrong cubicle. I kept telling him, 'Look, my name's Dortmunder, I'm up for B&E.' And he kept saying, 'Tell me all about it.' So finally I told him all about it. The cops had me cold, and I told him so, and he nodded and said, 'That's okay. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.' And I said, 'Yeah, and I know where I'm going, and it's upstate.'"

"That wasn't any way to talk to J. Radcliffe Stonewiler."

"I wasn't feeling cheerful."

"Naturally," May agreed. "So what happened?"

"This Stonewiler," Dortmunder said, "he kept me going over and over the details of what happened, and then he went away to make a phone call, and when he came back he had a skinny little guy with him called George."

"Who's George?"

"Stonewiler said, 'Here's my movie expert. Tell him the story, George.' And George told me the whole story of this movie, Sex Sorority, so I could tell it to the judge in case I was asked. Only I don't think it's legal to even tell a story like that in court. Do they really make movies where a girl takes her–"

"Never mind movies," May said. "What happened next? Where does this door business come into it?"

"It was Stonewiler's whole idea, completely. He even wrote my story down for me, and then made me write it myself, copying from him, so I'd remember it. Not word for word, but so I could tell it smooth and easy when I got to court. I didn't believe in it, you know, because he didn't tell me the part where he was gonna make a monkey out of the cop. He just gave me this song-and-dance about carrying TV sets in instead of out – I mean, you couldn't get away with that one in Sunday school. I kept saying, 'Why don't we make a deal? Why don't we trade them a guilty plea for a lesser charge?' And Stonewiler kept saying, 'Trust me.'"

"So you trusted him."

"Not exactly," Dortmunder said. "I thought he was crazy, but on the other hand he looked rich and he acted sure of himself, and what the hell did I have to lose anyway? So finally I said, 'All right, I'll do it. Things can't get worse.' And I did it, and the judge looked at me like he figured maybe it was time to bring back some cruel and unusual punishments, and then Stonewiler did his little number with the cop and the door, and all of a sudden you could see the judge wanted to laugh. He looked at the cop, with his ass stuck out behind him and the TV sets hanging off his hands, and he rubbed his hand over his mouth like this, and he went, 'Rrrumph rrrumph,' and then he said something like, 'Counselor, you have created reasonable doubt, though I still have reason to doubt you. Case dismissed.' And I come home."

May's expression, around the cigarette in the corner of her mouth, combined equal portions of wonder and delight. "What a defense," she said. "Not every lawyer in the world could have pulled it off."

"I'll have to go along with that," Dortmunder admitted.

"But why? Why'd he do it?"

"I don't know."

"What's this gonna cost?"

"I don't know," Dortmunder said. "He didn't say."

"Didn't he say anything at all?"

Dortmunder took an embossed business card from his breast pocket. "At the end there, after he shook my hand, he gave me this, he told me call this guy." Dortmunder frowned at the card, reading off the name as though the sound of the syllables would give him a clue to what was going on: "Arnold Chauncey. What kind of a name is that?"

"Arnold Chauncey." It sounded just as mysterious when May said it. Shaking her head, she asked, "Who's he supposed to be?"

"I don't know. Stonewiler gave me the card, told me to call, said good luck, and went away."

"When are you supposed to call?"

"Today."

"Why don't you do it now?"

"I don't want to," Dortmunder said.

May frowned. "Why not?"

"People don't do people favors just for the fun of it," Dortmunder said. "This guy Chauncey, he wants something."

"So?"

"The whole thing makes me nervous," Dortmunder said. "I'm not gonna call."

"But you've got to–"

"I don't want to," Dortmunder said, and set his jaw. Nobody could be quite as mulish as Dortmunder, when he put his mind to it.

"You took the man's assis–" May started to say, and the phone rang. She snapped it a quick irritated glance, then got up and crossed the room and answered on the second ring. Dortmunder lapped up some more beer, and then May told the phone, "Hold on," and turned to say, "It's for you."

Dortmunder hunched his shoulders, and pushed himself lower in his chair. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody on the telephone. He said, "Who is it?"

"J. Radcliffe Stonewiler."

"Oh," said Dortmunder. He hadn't given Stonewiler his phone number or his right home address. "So it's like that," he said, and got to his feet, and went over to take the phone, saying into it, "Stonewiler?"

But it was an English-accented female voice that answered, snippily, saying, "Hold on for Mister Stonewiler, please." And there was a click.

Dortmunder said into the phone, "Hello?" When there was no answer, he frowned at May, saying, "Who's that?"

May, elaborately whispering, told him, "His sec-re-ter-ry."

"Oh," Dortmunder said, and the phone said hello to him with Stonewiler's deep confident voice. "Yeah," Dortmunder answered. "Hello."

"I just spoke with Mr. Chauncey," Stonewiler said. He sounded cheerful, but in charge. "He says you haven't called yet."

"I been thinking about it," Dortmunder said.

Stonewiler said, "Mr. Dortmunder, why don't you drop by Mr. Chauncey's house now for a chat? It's on East 63rd Street, you could be there in half an hour."

Dortmunder sighed. "I suppose that's what I'll do," he said. "Right."

"The address is on the card."

"Yeah, I saw it."

"Goodbye, Mr. Dortmunder."

"Yeah, goodbye," Dortmunder said, and hung up, and turned a bleak eye toward May, who was back in her chair, watching him through cigarette smoke. "He didn't threaten me," Dortmunder said.

May didn't get it. "I don't get it," she said.

"He could have said, 'I got you off the hook, I can put you back on.' He could have said, 'I got weight I could throw around.' There's lots of things he could have said, and he didn't say any of them."

May continued to frown at him. "So?"

"His not threatening me," Dortmunder said, "was a lot more threatening than if he threatened me."

"What did he want?"

"I'm supposed to go see Chauncey at his house in half an hour."

"You'd better go."

"I don't like this, May."

"Still, you'd better go."

Dortmunder sighed. "Yeah, I know." And he sat down, to put his shoes back on.

May watched him, frowning, thinking her own thoughts, and when he stood up to leave she said, "One thing."

Dortmunder looked at her. "What?"

"That business about backing out a door if you're carrying things in both hands. That is true, people do that."

"Sure," Dortmunder said. "That's how I got off."

"Then how come you were facing the police car?"

"It was a different kind of door," Dortmunder explained. "It didn't have a spring closer. I just opened it and picked up the TV sets and walked out."

May's frown deepened. "That's all there was to it?"

"They didn't ask about the door," Dortmunder said. "They might have, if we just talked about it straight out, but the way Stonewiler worked things, he had everybody thinking about that cop's ass."

May nodded, thoughtfully. "You better watch your step with those people," she said.

"I figure to," Dortmunder told her.

The third time Dortmunder walked past the house, in the raw November afternoon, its front door opened and a guy with long yellow hair leaned out, calling, "Mr. Dortmunder?"