What's So Funny? d-14

by Donald E. Westlake

Captain Kransit seemed slightly embarrassed on the armored car's behalf. "Yes, sir," he said. "Seems it got stuck in there."

  Three or four men in dark blue overalls had been standing near the entrance. Now one of them came over to say, "Captain, we ready to pull this mother out of here?"

  "Not just yet," the captain told him. "When forensics is finished."

  "It's gonna take some doing," the overalled guy said, not without satisfaction. "Those guys really stepped on their dick in there."

  "I'll let you know when," the captain promised, and Perly said, "Captain, what did happen? And where are the guards?"

  "They were all shaken up by the event," the captain told him. "They've been taken down to Centre Street for a little rest and then a debriefing, but I can tell you both, now that you're here, Mr. Woolley, what occurred here tonight. This armored car arrived at about one-thirty—"

  "Well, that's wrong," Perly said. "It was supposed to appear at two-thirty."

  "We'll find out about that," the captain promised him. "But in fact, it did get here at one-thirty, when, too late, they discovered the vehicle was too bulky to make that tight turn up the ramp. Trying to correct, back and fill, you know, they wedged themselves in tighter."

  The overalled guy still stood nearby, and now he said, "We might have to take some of that stone wall out."

  Perly said, "What? Now you're going to tear my building down?"

  "Well, that's a very valuable piece of machinery in there," the overalled guy said.

  Perly gave him a dangerous look. "More valuable, do you think," he said, "than my building?"

  Becoming belatedly cautious, the overalled guy said, "I guess we'll leave that to the insurance companies. I'm out of it." And he walked away to join his pals, dignity intact.

  Woolley said, "Captain, so far, we have this vehicle wedged onto this ramp. I take it something happened next."

  "Five men appeared, in civilian clothes," the captain told him. "I don't have every detail, but this is based on the preliminary investigations up here, before the witnesses were taken downtown. Five men approached the armored car from over there, said they worked for Mr. Perly."

  Woolley said, "They came from inside the building?"

  "That's right. They were already in place before the armored car arrived. The guards in the car assumed they came from the ground floor offices."

  "I don't have ground floor offices," Perly said. "That's all storage."

  "The men in the armored car didn't know that," the captain told him. "These men said they were your outside supplemental security, and they had a van with them, and they assisted in transferring the chess set from the armored car to the van, which would be small enough to make the curve up the ramp. Then — the men on the scene have expressed great embarrassment and chagrin over this — the van drove away."

  Woolley looked very sad. "I'm afraid, Mr. Perly," he said, "you haven't been very lucky in this affair. No sooner do you take over the responsibility for the chess set than it disappears."

  Perly rounded on him. "Responsibility? I never had responsibility for that goddam chess set."

  "Sir, I am a Christian."

  Perly was beside himself. "I don't care if you're a Girl Scout, my responsibility does not begin until that chess set enters my office. My office." Perly pointed a rage-trembling finger. "That ramp is not my office. Not verifying the size vehicle needed was not my responsibility, and what happens to the chess set before it actually enters my office is also not my responsibility. It was still property entrusted to the bank that underwent an armed robbery, not property entrusted to me."

  "Er, Mr. Perly," Captain Kransit said, "it wasn't actually an armed robbery. None of the thieves showed any weapons. They merely showed up, took the chess set, and went away."

  "Which somehow doesn't make things much better," Perly told him. "But the point remains, the bank continues to maintain sole custody of that chess set, as it has for lo these many years, and as it will continue to do until the chess set crosses the threshold into my office."

  Woolley shrugged; no skin off his nose. "We'll let the lawyers sort that out," he said.

  Envisioning a future full of C&I International bank lawyers, not to mention all the lawyers attached to all those Northwood heirs, Perly turned to glare at that stupid Tonka toy stuck in his beautiful building. It's Clanson, he told himself. Brian Clanson, he set this up somehow. I'm not going to mention his name, not tonight, but I'm going to get the goods on that white-trash son of a bitch if it's the last thing I do.

  "All done, Captain," said the head of the forensics team, as at last they all trooped out to the sidewalk, carrying their cases of equipment and samples and supplies.

  "Thank you," the captain said, and turned to the blue-overalled crowd. "It's all yours, boys."

  "Thanks, Captain!" The boys headed for the armored car. They were all smiling, ear to ear.

  Perly closed his eyes.

  56

  WHEN FIONA GOT to the office Monday morning, Lucy Leebald, who was already there, typing more of Mrs. W's memoir — Fiona was, in fact, a bit late this morning — said, "Mrs. W says come see her."

  "Thanks."

  Though she'd had trouble getting out of bed this morning, despite Brian calling to her from the kitchen every three minutes, Fiona did in fact feel better today than yesterday. Saturday night's March Madness party, followed by the pub crawl instigated by Mrs. W, had just about finished her off. She knew she'd drowsed a bit in the limo after the final bar, and Brian had had to hold her arm to steer her from curb to elevator and from elevator to apartment, where she'd slept heavily but not restoratively until almost midday, so that yesterday had become a completely lost and wasted day, but by this morning her recuperation was very nearly complete, so it was with a clear eye and a firm step that she crossed the hall to Mrs. W's office.

  Where Mrs. W looked as chipper as the first robin of spring. Fiona had never guessed the woman had such stamina. Closing the door behind her, she said, "Good morning, Mrs. W."

  "Good morning, my dear," Mrs. W said, and then, a bit archly, "Where have you been keeping young Brian?"

  "Oh, I'm glad you liked him, Mrs. W"

  "He's a charming young man. Sit down, dear."

  Fiona perched on the uncomfortable settee, notepad in lap, and Mrs: W said, "Apparently, he's quite a talented young man, as well. Some of the decorative work on the walls was his, I understand."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Somehow," Mrs. W said delicately, "that television station— What is it called?"

  "GRODY."

  "Exactly so. It somehow doesn't seem quite the right place over the long haul," Mrs. W suggested, "for a person of maturity and talent. Wouldn't you say?"

  "Brian does enjoy it there," Fiona said, which was as close as she could honestly come to defending his occupation.

  "Oh, I'm certain he must. His co-workers are such a jolly lot. Especially that Sean. I quite enjoyed myself with them all."

  "Well, your costume was wonderful," Fiona said. "Everyone was just in love with it."

  Mrs. W came as close as she could to a simper. "I must admit," she said, "I was pleased at the effect it had. Do you suppose Brian would like to go back to university?"

  Surprised, Fiona said, "He has his degree, Mrs. W In broadcast communications."

  "Oh, really?" Mrs. W seemed quite interested. "One obtains a degree in broadcast communications, does one?"

  As Fiona looked for a response to that, the phone on Mrs. W's desk tinkled, and she picked it up: "Yes, Lucy? Thank you, dear, I'll speak to him." Smiling at Fiona and holding up one finger to indicate that this wouldn't take long, she pressed the button on the phone and said, "Yes, good morning, Jay. How are you this morning? Really? Why's that? What? My God! Jay, how could that— That's horrible, Jay. For all of us, yes. What do the police say? Have they no idea— Yes, of course, of course. Well, obviously. Two o'clock. I will be there, Jay."

  Mrs. W hung up and turned toward Fiona a th
understruck face. At this moment, she looked less like the wicked witch of the west and more like Munch's Scream. "Unbelievable," she said.

  Fiona, bursting with curiosity, said, "What is it, Mrs. W? What's happened?"

  "The Chicago chess set has been stolen. '

  "Oh, my God," Fiona said, and inside she was saying, Oh, my God. They did it.

  57

  BECAUSE OF ITS proximity to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge over to Queens, the easternmost part of East Sixtieth Street is pretty well lined with parking garages, for those members of the bridge and tunnel crowd who prefer to keep their Manhattan driving experience to a minimum; say, seventeen feet. The garages are large, and full, and given to heavy turnover of both customer and employee, so any one of them would make a good place to stash, for just one overnight, an anonymous little van full of chess pieces, if you didn't mind paying the exorbitant fee, just this once.

  Dortmunder had not accompanied the van last night — that had been Stan and Judson's duty — but he knew what to look for to find the right garage, and that was Tiny. Yes, there he stood, midblock, looking from a distance like a grand piano about to be hoisted through an upper-floor window.

  Approaching, yawning — that had been a late night last night, and this meet was scheduled for 10 a.m. — Dortmunder eventually saw Judson beyond Tiny, and at that moment the kid saw him back and grinned and waved, which caused Tiny to turn around and acknowledge Dortmunder's approach, but did not cause him to grin and wave. He did, however, say, "Kelp's not here yet."

  "He's probably waiting for the doctor to get out of the car," Dortmunder said, and to Judson he said, "Stan in there?"

  "He should be right out."

  "And you got the directions."

  Patting his shirt pocket, Judson said, "Andy wrote it all out for me, gave it to me when we met last night."

  Tiny said, "What about Kelp calling Eppick to call the guy, make sure the house is open?"

  Dortmunder said, "He was gonna do that this morning, before he went for wheels."

  "It's a hell of a distance to go," Tiny suggested, "to stash one box."

  "Well, its not a stash, Tiny—"

  Judson said, "Here comes Andy."

  "— it's more of a delivery. The guy that it's his house, he's the customer."

  "And we do home deliveries," Tiny commented. "That's real good of us."

  Now out of the bowels of the garage came last night's small black van, Stan at the wheel, as simultaneously there came to a halt nearby a bright red Cadillac Colossus with MD plates, an SUV large enough for the rear seat to accommodate a basketball team; or Tiny.

  "See you up there," Dortmunder told Judson, waved to Stan at the wheel of the van, and turned to climb into the front passenger seat of the Colossus, as Tiny occupied the rear seat in much the way the Wehrmacht once occupied France.

  The van moved off first, Kelp following it down the block to the corner, where the light, for once, was green. The van went straight through the intersection, keeping to the left lane for the bridge approach.

  Following, Kelp said, "What's he doing? He's going to Queens."

  "Maybe he knows something," Dortmunder said.

  "Maybe I do, too," Kelp said, keeping to the right, headed for the northbound entrance to FDR Drive. "We're not going east to Queens, we're going north to New England."

  Dortmunder twisted around, to look back past the bulk of Tiny, but the van was already out of sight. "I wonder why he did that," he said.

  "We'll ask him up at the compound," Kelp said. "We'll have to wait for them a while, though."

  58

  NESSA REACHED BEHIND her to clamp Chick's thrusting hip. "A car!" she cried, her words half muffled by the pillow.

  The metronome that was Chick abruptly clenched. "A what?"

  "A car! See what it is."

  Chick wasted seconds staring around the bedroom, as though expecting to see some car drive through here, but then at last he did hop out of her and out of bed and over to stare out the window. "It is a car!" he confirmed. "Two cars!"

  Could this be the bozos with the chess set after all? Nessa didn't believe it for a second. "Time to get dressed," she said, feeling grim.

  There'd been a few men in Nessa's life since, last November, four months ago, she'd switched from the dreamer Brady to the completely unreliable Hughie the roadie, and if she were the contemplative sort, she would be contemplating right now the fact that her men had not been getting better along the way. Chick, for instance, did not have Brady's deftness with locks, nor Hughie's cleverness and constant cash flow, nor much of anything else to recommend him except a large strong tireless body and an amiable willingness to let Nessa lead him by the nose or some other part, but he was an easy companion in her slow drifting progress toward somewhere or other, so what the hell.

  Nessa had not so much hardened in the last four months as jelled toward the person she would eventually be. Leaving Numbnuts with Brady had not been a serious life decision, but just a fun goofy thing to do, on a par with cutting school or piling into a car with a bunch of other kids some summer night to go skinny-dipping out to Lake Gillespie. Leaving Brady for Hughie the roadie had been almost as impulsive and unthinking, but calculation had begun to enter her head: the indolent and unfocused Brady was proving to be useless in her life, but Hughie appeared to be a man with uses. And when he too in very different ways disappointed, there turned out to be somebody else. By now she had become serious enough to understand that she was not yet actually serious, but would be. There was still time to grow up. At the moment, but not forever, she was with Chick, who was gaping out the window, at a loss.

  So she pulled on her jeans, crossed to the window next to Chick, said, "Put something on," and looked out and down at two simple sedans parked in front of the garage and, did they but know it, parked also in front of Chick's dented gray PT Cruiser, which was at the moment stashed inside that garage. Another complication, maybe.

  A total of four people, all bundled up because in Massachusetts it was still definitely winter in late March, had climbed out of the two cars and, as Nessa watched and behind her Chick finally put his clothes on, the four began to pull other things out of the cars to carry with them off to the guesthouse, away to the right. Mops, brooms, squeegees, buckets holding cans and boxes of cleaning supplies.

  Servants, these were, two men and two women, come to clean the guesthouse. We're about to have guests.

  Won't they come to this house, too? A good thing they started their work over there. Nessa and Chick wouldn't be able to leave this vicinity while their car was bottled up in that garage, but at least they'd have time to erase their presence from this house before any of the cleaners arrived.

  There wouldn't be much evidence of their presence to eliminate, in fact, since Nessa and Chick had only slipped past the locked rear gate and into the compound last night. Driving northward, she had told him about the big empty house in the Massachusetts woods, and how Brady had found the way to circumvent the lock, which she could now do as well. She told him about the people who'd showed up at the place to choose somewhere to hide a valuable chess set they planned to bring up, but then how they never did return, with or without anything of value.

  "I still think they're bozos," she'd said last night, "but what else've we got to do? We'll stop by there, see if they actually ever did show up with that chess set, sleep in a nice bed, defrost some of the food there, and take off tomorrow."

  "Then let's go to Ohio," Chick had said, for no real reason, and she'd said, "Sure. Why not?"

  Why not? One place was as good as another, until it would be time to get serious. In the meantime, that chess set might have come in handy, but of course it hadn't been here. If there was one thing Nessa had learned so far in her travels it was this: Bozos are bozos.

  59

  AS BRIAN SAW it, the problem was how to make Mother Mean, the new consort for the Reverend Twisted, recognizably enough the Wicked Witch of the West for the viewer
to get it but not so recognizable that all the property rights lawyers of the world would rise up en masse to smite him, and so he was hard at work in his octagonal office at GRODY late this Monday morning, forgetting all about lunch, deeply engrossed in his petty piracy, when someone knocked on the frame of his doorless doorway.

  Now what? Looking around with that sudden spasm of guilt known to all pilferers, he saw standing there in his doorway what looked very much like a plainclothes detective, fortyish, a bulky body in a rumpled suit and tie. But he couldn't be, could he? A detective?

  "Help you?"

  "Brian Clanson?"

  "Guilty," Brian said, with a leftover leer.

  The man drew a narrow billfold from his inside jacket pocket, flipped it open, and showed Brian an overly designed police badge; too busy. "Detective Penvolk," he said. "I'd like you to come with me, if you would."

  More startled than frightened, at least at first, Brian said, "But I'm working here, I…"

  "It won't take long," Detective Penvolk assured him. "You can just answer a few questions for us."

  "What questions?"

  "Mr. Clanson," the detective said, with a sudden bit of steel in his voice, "we prefer our interviews in settings other than this."

  "Well, that made sense. In truth, Brian would have preferred his entire work experience in a setting other than this. However, it didn't seem as though he were going to be given many options at the moment, so Brian obediently rose, saying, "Will this take long?"

  "Oh, I don't think so," the detective said. He turned to look both ways along the corridor, then said, "You probably know the shortest way out of here."

  "Probably," Brian agreed. "Unless they did some carpentry last night." Nodding to the right, he said, "It should be that way."

  The corridors were too narrow to walk two abreast, though people meeting could squeeze past one another. The occasional pregnancy among the staffers was usually blamed on the corridors. Brian therefore led the way, the detective followed him, and Brian said over his shoulder, "Could you tell me what this is all about?"