What's So Funny

by Donald Westlake

  Every once in a while, she sensed movement and would look up to see one of her former co–workers staring at her from the end of the corridor. They always fled away like Eloi when she caught their eye, too afraid to be seen with her to allow them to satisfy their curiosity as to why she was here. And to think she used to like some of those people.

  The meeting, which had begun at two, didn’t end until nearly four, and then seemed to trickle away more than finish. The door opened and people began to come out, but they were all still talking, arguing, gesturing at one another. They paused in the corridor or back in the conference room or the doorway between, to make another point. None of them had grown any happier since the meeting had started. The exodus was like the end of a church service, but hostile.

  And then, among the departing parishioners, here came Mrs. W and Jay Tumbril. Fiona stood, the two approached her, and Mrs. W said, “Well, Jay? Now will you tell us what it’s all about?”

  “Ms. Hemlow will, I believe,” Tumbril said, and gestured at the closed door to the other conference room. “We’ll have some privacy in here.”

  So the three went in, Tumbril shut the door, and he turned to say, “We might as well sit.”

  It was a very long conference table. Tumbril sat at its head, with Mrs. W on his left hand and Fiona on his right. Mrs. W said, “Jay, I don’t handle suspense particularly well. Say what you have to say.”

  “Let’s give Ms. Hemlow the opportunity.” Tumbril turned his spotlight glare on her. “Would you like to tell us about it?”

  Bewildered, Fiona said, “About what? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No?” Another smirk from the senior partner. Sitting back in his chair — they were actually quite comfortable chairs — he said, “Perhaps I should tell you, your co–conspirator has already been arrested.”

  “My what?”

  “He’s probably already implicating you,” Tumbril went on, “putting all the blame on your shoulders to try to make things easier for himself. That’s what his sort generally does.”

  “Jay,” Mrs. W said, “you are perplexing the both of us. If you have something to say, man, say it.”

  “Your sweet little assistant here, Livia,” Tumbril told her, “is part of the gang that stole the Chicago chess set.”

  Fiona felt her face go beet–red, and her heart pounded as though it would explode. How could they have found out? She might have blurted something irretrievably incriminating if Mrs. W hadn’t distracted Tumbril from her flaming face by saying, “Jay! Have you lost your mind? This girl couldn’t lift that thing!”

  “She was what I believe the police call the inside man,” Tumbril said, “or in this case the inside woman. She’s the one passed on to the gang the details of where the set would be kept while out of the vault. That was all they needed.”

  These few seconds when Tumbril was distracted by having to explain things to Mrs. W were all Fiona needed to get control of herself. She could feel the blood recede from her cheeks as sanity returned to her brain. Whatever had gone wrong, what she had to do now was just keep denying everything, she knew that much. Deny deny deny. But she couldn’t help wondering, who had the police caught? Mr. Dortmunder? Somehow, she hoped not.

  Mrs. W was saying, “I don’t believe that for a second, Jay, and if you weren’t blinded by prejudice you wouldn’t believe it, either. And how is it you never mentioned this magnificent break in the case during the meeting we all just underwent together?”

  “The police don’t want it made public,” Tumbril told her, “until it’s wrapped up. Preferably with a confession. From the fellow they’ve already got, or possibly from this young lady here.”

  Now Mrs. W was openly scoffing. “Look at the girl,” she said. “She would no more gallivant with a gang than you would play basketball.”

  “Bas — Livia, try not to wander. I told you at the beginning she was up to something. Didn’t I? When she flung herself on you in these very offices.”

  “Flung her —”

  “Mr. Tumbril,” Fiona said, and, when she had the man’s gimlet–eyed attention, “who did they arrest?”

  “Ah, yes.” The smirk raised itself a notch, and Tumbril leaned forward, the better to observe her reaction. “His name is … Brian Clanson. Do you recog —”

  “Brian!” This was so astonishing, so absurd, she almost laughed out loud. “Brian? You think —” Then she did laugh, at the thought of Brian organizing a robbery like this. Or organizing anything, for that matter.

  But then the laugh cut off in her throat and she too leaned forward. “They arrested him?”

  “That’s what usually happens to thieves. Wouldn’t you like to make your plea bargain with the district attorney before he does?”

  Brian knows, she thought. I told him about Mr. Dortmunder and the chess set months ago, when I thought it couldn’t ever happen. He’s certain to remember.

  Will he tell the police, to protect himself? But how would that protect him? If he said he didn’t do it, but he’d known it was probably going to happen and he hadn’t reported it, how would that do anything to save him?

  The only thing Brian could possibly do was keep silent and wait for them to realize they’d made a mistake. The only question was, would he understand that was the only thing he could possibly do?

  Was there any way she could get to him, talk to him? Would they let him have visitors? But didn’t they secretly record jailhouse conversations? Wasn’t that in the papers all the time, that they weren’t supposed to tape private conversations but they did anyway, and then people got convicted of things?

  But even if she could see Brian, what could she say to him? And what would Brian say to the police?

  Brandishing a self–confidence she didn’t at all feel, Fiona said, “Brian didn’t have anything to do with stealing that chess set. It is just a stupid mistake, and they’ll have to let him go.”

  “Is that so?” Now Tumbril leaned back, hands folded on his paunch. “And are you claiming the chess set is not the reason you approached Mrs. Wheeler?”

  Fiona hesitated, and in the hesitation knew that the hesitation itself had given the answer, and so changed her own response even as it was forming. In fact, she was a good lawyer. “No,” she said. “I won’t deny it. It was because of the chess set.”

  “Fiona!”

  “Tell us more,” Tumbril offered, with his little smirk.

  “I’ll have to tell you the whole story.”

  “I have all the time in the world,” he assured her.

  “All right, then,” she said. “In 1920 —”

  And she went on to tell them the entire history of the chess set and the platoon members’ failed efforts to find either it or their missing Sgt. Northwood. She told them of hearing the story from her grandfather, and ended with her coming to work here at Feinberg, where she had learned about the lawsuits with all the Northwoods attached, and with that very same chess set attached.

  “And I told my grandfather,” she finished, “that at last we knew what had happened to the chess set, so he could at least be content at the end of his life knowing the answer to that awful mystery.” Turning to Mrs. W, she said, “And I did want to meet you because of that. Your father stole everything from my great–grandfather, and stole his hope from him, or all of our lives would have been very different.”

  “Dear God,” Mrs. W said, in the faintest voice she’d ever used in her life.

  “Tell me about your grandfather,” Tumbril suggested, smirking as though he thought he was being sly.

  “He’s an eighty–year–old millionaire in a wheelchair,” she told him, “with a fortune from patents of his inventions in chemistry.”

  Tumbril blinked, slowly. For the first time, he seemed to have nothing to say.

  “And to think,” Mrs. W said, “you wanted to accuse this child of theft. How long, Jay, do you suppose it would be before that story of hers went public? Our fortune, our lives, based on a despicable crime? M
y father stole from his own soldiers!”

  “I remember you said, Mrs. W,” Fiona said, “every fortune starts with a great crime.”

  “Balzac, dear,” Mrs. W said. “Always give credit where due.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I do not want to see,” Mrs. W told Tumbril, “my name, my family or my face on the cover of New York.”

  “No,” Tumbril said. “No, that’s true.”

  “So now, you horse’s ass,” Mrs. W said, “for once in your life do something sensible. Get on the phone. Get that poor boy out of quod.”

  Chapter 62

  * * *

  Johnny Eppick and Mr. Hemlow, having started north in Mr. Hemlow’s limousine after lunch, didn’t reach the compound until half past four. The trip up, with Mr. Hemlow’s wheelchair buckled to the floor so that Mr. Hemlow faced forward toward Eppick on the rear–facing seat behind Pembroke, was not devoid of accomplishment. By the time they arrived, they’d come to a number of satisfactory conclusions.

  Mr. Hemlow began, once they were north of the city, by saying, “Johnny, I must tell you, you chose well.”

  “I’m pleased with John,” Eppick agreed. “And his companions, too.”

  “There are five of them now?”

  “That does seem to be what it took.” Eppick grinned in an admiring way. “I talked with a couple friends still on the Job, and I must say what they did was as smooth as Mister Softee ice cream. They went up against half a dozen armed professional security men, and pulled the job without a shot being fired, with no violence of any kind, without even a threat. Sir, it was a heist even your granddaughter would approve.”

  “Oh, she’ll approve the result, I have no doubt of that.” Mr. Hemlow brooded out the window a bit, Eppick watching that profile that itself looked a bit like a Mister Softee ice cream. Then he turned back to Eppick to say, “They will expect to be paid.”

  “Yes, sir, they will.”

  “If I intended to sell the set,” Mr. Hemlow mused, “it would be a simple matter of giving each a percentage. And you, too, of course.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But that would require destroying the set, extracting the individual jewels and melting the gold down into ingots, which would be a far worse crime, in my opinion.”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Eppick said piously.

  “So,” Mr. Hemlow went on, “since converting the set to cash is out of the question, let us consider what we should offer these fellows as recompense for their good work.”

  “It will all be coming out of your own pocket, Mr. Hemlow.”

  “I realize that. On the other hand, my pockets are deep enough to allow me such an indulgence. And when the day is done, I and my descendents will still have the set, with all its value intact.”

  “That’s true, sir.”

  Mr. Hemlow brooded at the Hutchinson River Parkway a while, and then said, “The question is, what would constitute a proper payment? How much should I offer? What amount would fellows like that think was fair, and what would they think was insulting?”

  “That’s a very good question, sir,” Eppick said. “Give me a minute to think about it.”

  “Of course.”

  Now it was Eppick who brooded a while at the Hutch, occasionally nodding or shaking his head as the argument progressed within. Finally he turned back to Mr. Hemlow to say, “If it were me, sir, I would begin by offering them ten thousand dollars apiece. They would not be satisfied with that number.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Mr. Hemlow said.

  “So you would allow them to negotiate with you,” Eppick explained, “to argue you up to fifteen or twenty thousand. I’m believing a payout of a hundred thousand dollars would be all right with you.”

  “Of course. Let me think about this.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Mr. Hemlow took his turn studying what by now had become Route 684, and did some of his own head–shaking, just visible mixed in there with his normal head–shaking. Then he looked again at Eppick and said, “I think that’s too low. I think ten thousand dollars is not a strong enough bargaining first step, but would be seen as an insult. They know as well as we do they did more than ten thousand dollars’ worth of work last night.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I might offer them twenty, however.”

  “You’ll still have the argument, though, sir,” Eppick pointed out. “And then you’ll wind up at twenty–five or thirty.”

  “Well, thirty thousand dollars doesn’t seem out of the way, considering the job that was done.”

  “So that would make it a hundred–fifty–thousand–dollar payout for you.”

  “One hundred eighty thousand,” Mr. Hemlow said.

  “Sir?”

  “You would be getting the same amount, Johnny,” Mr. Hemlow said. “In addition to the normal fees I’m paying you.”

  Astounded, Eppick said, “I would?”

  “None of this would have been possible without you, Johnny. You knew how to assemble the team, and you knew how to keep them in good order. You kept them honest.”

  “In a way,” Eppick said.

  “Yes, in a way.”

  Eppick laughed. “Mr. Hemlow,” he said, “if I’m getting the same size piece as everybody else, I’ve been negotiating on the wrong side here.”

  “It was better that way, Johnny, better for you to think your advice was disinterested. I take it you would be content with thirty thousand dollars.”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “And the others?”

  “I don’t see any problem there, sir,” Eppick said. “I truly don’t.”

  “Fine.”

  When they gazed out at the Taconic State Parkway now, both were smiling.

  • • •

  Pembroke buzzed them in at the gate, and they drove the winding road up through the massive pines. Pale late–afternoon light was steadily darkening, the snow around the trees looking gray and tired and old. They drove part of the way up to the house and then Mr. Hemlow barked, “Pembroke! Stop.”

  Pembroke stopped, and Eppick turned to see what Mr. Hemlow was staring at. Out there, in a small clearing beside the road, on green tarpaulins, were two armies of chessmen, one the brightest crimson, the other deepest black.

  “Beautiful,” Mr. Hemlow breathed. “No one would guess what lies beneath that paint. On, Pembroke.”

  Pembroke drove on.

  Chapter 63

  * * *

  Mrs. W said, “What’s taking so long?”

  Fiona, seated on the next settee, had wanted to ask the same question, but was still somewhat intimidated by Jay Tumbril, particularly here in his own office, and so had kept silent.

  “In my experience,” Tumbril answered, “arrest is sudden, but release takes a little longer.”

  “It’s nearly six o’clock,” Mrs. W pointed out. “They’ve had nearly two hours to let poor Brian go.”

  Tumbril started, “Yes, but —” and was interrupted by his phone. “Maybe this is Michael now,” he said, reaching for it.

  While Fiona, Mrs. W, and Tumbril waited here in Tumbril’s office, another Feinberg beastie, not so wee, named Michael, a cadaverous seven–footer in a black suit that made him look like an exclamation point, had been sent to retrieve Brian from the police, after Tumbril had phoned to explain the situation to the assistant district attorney who’d been assigned the case. Now, into the phone, Tumbril said, “Yes, Felicity? Good, put him on. Michael, what’s the delay there? What? Jacques is absolutely certain of this? Put Roanoke on.” That being the name of the assistant DA. Tumbril raised baffled eyebrows at Mrs. W, then said into the phone, “Mr. Roanoke? Jay Tumbril here. Are you certain Jacques Perly’s certain? Well, if you don’t mind, we’d like to be on our way there as well. Mrs. Livia Northwood Wheeler, with her assistant, and I shall come along personally. We’ll get downtown just as rapidly as we can.”

  Breaking the connection, Tumbril pressed anothe
r button on the phone and said, “Felicity, call us a car. Soonest.”

  Mrs. W, increasingly irritated and impatient, said, “Jay? What is this? What’s going on? Where’s Brian?”

  “Jacques Perly,” Tumbril said, “the private investigator whose office —”

  “Yes, we know who he is. What about him?”

  Tumbril spread his hands. “He says he has proof positive Clanson was part of the gang.”