What's The Worst That Could Happen

by Donald Westlake

  “Absolutely.”

  “You were never violent,” Bernard pointed out, “back before you reformed and retired, that was one nice thing about you.”

  “Thank you, Bernard.”

  “The one nice thing about you.”

  “Okay.”

  “But among nonviolent crimes,” Bernard said, “the one that really gets my back up is insurance fraud.”

  Andy looked surprised. “You care that much about insurance companies?”

  “I don’t give a damn about insurance companies,” Bernard told him, “they’d cheat their own mothers, if they had mothers. No, what gets me about insurance fraud is, the crook is using me.”

  “Ah.”

  “Oh, Mr. Detective,” Bernard said, imitating a fluttery householder of indeterminate sex, “somebody broke in and stole all my goodies and here’s my list of what they took and please give me the docket number to give my insurance company, and then you can go away and run in circles trying to solve a crime that never happened.”

  “Straight citizens, you’re talking about,” Andy suggested.

  “They’re supposed to be straight,” Bernard said. “Sometimes, though, they get themselves professional assistance, you know?”

  “You mean,” Andy said, “these are people that like hire a couple guys of the type I used to hang with before I —”

  “Reformed and retired.”

  “And all that. Hires them to do what they do anyway, only they bring the stuff back after the insurance is paid?”

  “I think they get a cut,” Bernard said, “or maybe a flat fee. I don’t know how it works. Would you?”

  “Not me,” Andy said, blinking.

  “I suppose you’ve forgotten all that stuff,” Bernard agreed.

  “If I ever even knew it. Are you looking for somebody that helped an honest citizen steal his own goods, Bernard? Is that what this is about?”

  “Absolutely not, Andy,” Bernard said. “I know you wouldn’t give me a friend of yours.”

  Nodding, Andy said, “We respect one another, Bernard. That’s why I was surprised.”

  “Who I’m after,” Bernard said, “who I really and truly want, is not the guys that waltzed out of the place with the stuff, but the owner that set it up.”

  “Because he’s making you part of his scam.”

  “Exactly. And him I’ll get on my own.” Bernard ran his spoon around his empty bowl six or seven times, hoping to find more ice cream, then said, “But I want to be fair.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Maybe this guy didn’t set it up. I admit, I feel a prejudice against him.”

  “That’s big of you, Bernard.”

  “He just gets my back up,” Bernard said. “But if he didn’t set up the job, I don’t want to waste my time on him, spinning my wheels, letting the real bad guys get away.”

  “You want to conserve your energy,” Andy suggested.

  “That’s exactly it. So I’m not asking names or anything like that, I’d just like to know in a theoretical kind of way, did any of your former associates from the bad old days, did they recently say anything about a fake burglary in midtown.”

  “In midtown,” Andy echoed, frowning slightly.

  “That new theater place on Broadway,” Bernard told him, “with the hotel next to it and everything. Called the N–Joy.”

  “And there was a burglary in there recently?” Andy asked. “That you think it doesn’t smell right?”

  “And I could be wrong, I admit that. But I was wondering,” Bernard said, “if the arrogant son of a bitch bankrupt bum that owns the place didn’t maybe set it up himself.”

  “And you’d like to know,” Andy said, “if I heard from anybody that any kind of scam like that was going down anytime recently.”

  “That’s it.”

  Andy looked solemnly at Bernard. His eyes blinked steadily, like a metronome. He said, “I never heard a word of anything like that, Bernard. Not a word.”

  Bernard looked at those blinking eyes. “Thanks, Andy,” he said, “I appreciate it.” And he waved for the check.

  Chapter 38

  * * *

  When Dortmunder walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at three minutes before ten on Tuesday night, Rollo the bartender, a tall meaty balding blue–jawed guy in a dirty long–sleeved white shirt and dirty white apron, was kneeling on the shelf inside the left front plate–glass window, installing a new neon beer sign. “With you in a minute,” he said, nodding to Dortmunder, his hands full of neon tubes, electric cords, and lengths of chain for hanging the thing.

  “Right,” Dortmunder said, and moved toward the bar, where the regulars were discussing those black lines that’s on everything you buy now that make the cash register go beep.

  “It’s a code,” the first regular was saying. “It’s a code and only the cash registers can read it.”

  “Why do it in code?” the second regular asked him. “The Code War’s over.”

  A third regular now hove about and steamed into the conversation, saying, “What? The Code War? It’s not the Code War, where ya been? It’s the Cold War.”

  The second regular was serene with certainty. “Code,” he said. “It was the Code War because they used all those codes to keep the secrets from each other.” With a little pitying chuckle, he said, “Cold War. Why would anybody call a war cold?”

  The third regular, just as certain but less serene, said, “Anybody’s been awake the last hundred years knows, it was called the Cold War because it’s always winter in Russia.”

  The second regular chuckled again, an irritating sound. “Then how come,” he said, “they eat salad?”

  The third regular, derailed, frowned at the second regular and said, “Salad?”

  “With Russian dressing.”

  Dortmunder leaned on the bar, off to the right of the main conversation, and watched Rollo in the backbar mirror. The barman also had several screwdrivers, a hammer, pliers, and a corkscrew, and was using them all, one–handed, while holding up the beer sign with the other.

  Meanwhile, the conversation was continuing, as the first regular rejoined it, saying, “Code. That’s what I’m talking about, the black lines. It’s some kinda conspiracy, that’s all I know.”

  A fourth regular, who until now had been using the bottles on the backbar as a kind of impromptu eye test, now reared around, righted himself, and said, “Absolutely. A conspiracy.” Closing one eye to focus on the other regulars, he said, “Which conspiracy you mean?”

  “The little black lines on everything you buy,” the first regular said, bringing him up to speed.

  The fourth regular considered that, closing first one eye and then the other: “That’s a conspiracy?”

  “Sure. It’s in code.”

  “Like the war,” said the second regular, with a smirk at the third regular.

  The fourth regular nodded, closed both eyes, clutched the bar, opened both eyes, closed one eye, and said, “Which conspiracy?”

  The first regular was affronted by this question. “How do I know? It’s in code, isn’t it? That’s what makes it secret. If it wasn’t in code, we’d know what it was.”

  The third regular suddenly slapped the bar and said, “That’s what it is. Now I remember.”

  The others all swiveled around on their stools to consider Mister Memory. The first regular said, carefully, “That’s what what is?”

  “The Code War,” the third regular told him. “That’s what they call those little black lines, on accounta that’s what they’re for. When they have price wars.”

  “The Code War,” the second regular announced, incensed that his definition had been taken from him, “was the war between us and Russia that’s over now.”

  “Wrong,” the third regular said, showing his own brand of serenity.

  The first regular said, “I think everybody’s wrong,” and called, “Rollo! What’s the name of that code, all the black lines on everyth
ing you buy?”

  “Bar,” Rollo answered, dropping some pliers and a screwdriver.

  “There’s a one–track mind for you,” said the first regular, and all the regulars chuckled, even the fifth regular, who was asleep with his head pillowed by a copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

  “This is a bar, Rollo,” the third regular called, and they all chuckled again, as Andy Kelp walked in, shared a hello with Rollo, and walked over to join Dortmunder.

  The first regular was saying, “There is a name, though, for those black lines, I know there is.”

  Andy said, “We the first?”

  The second regular, doubt in his voice, said, “Morse?”

  “Yes,” Dortmunder said.

  The third regular, blossoming with scorn like time–lapse photography, said, “Morse! Man, do you get things haywire. Morse code is what they put on those little notices they stick on the bottom of the furniture that you’re not supposed to take off. It’s a federal law, and it’s named after Senator Morse.”

  “Civil,” said the fourth regular, with both eyes open.

  The third regular turned to repel this new attack. “We’re bein’ civil,” he announced. “All except somebody I don’t feel I wanna mention.”

  “Civil code,” said the fourth regular, being civil. “That’s what they call the black lines.”

  A quick bzt sound came from the general direction of Rollo, followed by a curse, and the dropping of a lot of tools.

  “No,” the first regular said, “it is not the civil code, which is something to do with the subways. It’s called something else. I’d know it if I heard it.”

  Still on his knees, Rollo backed away from the window, then stood.

  “Area?” suggested the fourth regular.

  “No no no,” the first regular said, “area codes is another word for zoning.”

  Rollo picked up his tools and the neon sign and headed for the bar.

  “Zip?” suggested the fourth regular.

  The other regulars all looked down at their pants.

  Rollo made his way around the end of the bar, dropping his tools onto the shelf there.

  “A zip is a gun,” the first regular said.

  Rollo approached Dortmunder and Kelp, dropping the neon sign into the trash barrel along the way. “Nobody likes foreign beers anyway,” he explained. “They’re made with foreign water.”

  “Well, when you put it like that,” Kelp said.

  Rollo nodded. “You want the back room, right?”

  “Yeah,” Dortmunder said. “There’ll be five of us.” It had long been a tenet of his that if you couldn’t accomplish a task with five men you shouldn’t try it at all. He’d seen exceptions to that rule, of course, just as there are exceptions to all rules, but as a general guide of thumb, so to speak, he still went with it.

  “I’ll send them back,” Rollo said. “Who’s coming?”

  Understanding Rollo’s idiosyncracy, that he knew his customers by their drink, which he felt gave him some kind of marketing advantage, Dortmunder said, “There’ll be the vodka and red wine.”

  “Big fella,” Rollo said, who was no slouch himself.

  “That’s him,” Dortmunder agreed. “And the rye and water.”

  Rollo considered. “Lotta ice? Clinks a lot?”

  “Right again. And the beer and salt.”

  “Him,” Rollo said, with a downturn of the mouth. “What a boon to business he is.”

  Kelp explained, “Stan’s a driver, you see, he’s got himself used to not drinking too much.”

  “I’d bet my money,” Rollo said, “he’s got a black belt in not drinking too much.”

  “So that’s why the salt,” Kelp went on. “He gets a beer, he sips it slow and easy, and when the head’s gone he adds a little salt, pep the head right back up again.”

  “What I like to pep up,” Rollo said, “is the cash register. But it takes all kinds. I’ll get your drinks.”

  Rollo turned away, and pulled out a tray, while down at the other end of the bar the regulars had segued in a natural progression into consideration of cold cures. At the moment, they were trying to decide if the honey was supposed to be spread on the body or injected into a vein. Before they’d solved this problem, Rollo had put ice into two glasses, put the glasses on the tray, and taken down from the shelf a fresh bottle of some murky dark liquid behind a label reading AMSTERDAM LIQUOR STORE BOURBON — “OUR OWN BRAND.” With the bottle also on the tray, Rollo turned and slid the whole thing toward Dortmunder, saying, “Happy days.”

  “It’s feed a cough,” said the first regular.

  “Thanks, Rollo.”

  Dortmunder took the tray and followed Kelp past the regulars, who were now all demonstrating various kinds of cough, and on back beyond the bar and down the hall past the two doors marked with dog silhouettes labeled POINTERS and SETTERS and past the phone booth, where the string dangling from the quarter slot was now so grimy you could barely see it, and on through the green door at the very back, which led into a small square room with a concrete floor. All the walls were completely hidden floor to ceiling by beer and liquor cases, leaving a minimal space in the middle for a battered old round table with a stained felt top that had once been pool–table green, plus half a dozen chairs. The room had been dark, but when Kelp hit the switch beside the door the scene was illuminated by a bare bulb under a round tin reflector hanging low over the table on a long black wire.

  Kelp held the door while Dortmunder carried in the tray and brought it around to the far side of the table and put it down. The chairs facing the door were always the most popular ones, and tended to be taken by the earliest arrivals.

  Dortmunder sat in the chair facing the door head–on, while Kelp, to his right, stood a moment to pick up the bottle, study its top, and with admiration say, “Boy, they do a good job. Looks just like a government seal, and you could swear the cap was never opened.”

  “My ice cubes are melting,” Dortmunder commented.

  Kelp looked in both glasses, then said, “Well, John, you know, they would anyway.”

  “But not alone. My ice cubes don’t like to melt alone.”

  “Gotcha.” Kelp opened the bottle, poured murky liquid over the ice cubes in both glasses, placed the glasses on preexisting circular stain marks on the felt, and put tray and bottle on the floor between their chairs. Then he sat down, as the door opened again, and a stocky open–faced fellow with carroty hair came in, carrying a glass of beer in one hand and wearing a salt shaker in his shirt pocket. He looked at Dortmunder and Kelp, seemed dissatisfied, and said, “You got here ahead of me.”

  “Well, we said ten o’clock,” Dortmunder said. “It’s ten o’clock.”

  “Hi, Stan,” said Kelp.

  “Yeah, hi, Andy,” said the newcomer, who still seemed dissatisfied. His name was Stan Murch, and when things had to be driven, he was the driver. Taking the seat next to Kelp, so he’d have no worse than his profile to the door, he said, “They’re tearin’ up Sixth Avenue again. Would you believe it?”

  “Yes,” Dortmunder said.

  Stan lived in the depths of Brooklyn, in Canarsie, with his cabdriver mother, so plotting the ramifications and combinations of travel between his place and anywhere in Manhattan was his ongoing problem and passion. Now, sipping in an agitated way at his beer, taking the salt shaker from his pocket and putting it on the table, he said, “So I took the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, right? This time of night, what else would you do?”

  “Exactly,” Kelp said.

  “From there it’s a straight shot,” Stan explained. “Up Sixth Avenue, into the park, out at Seventy–Second, over to Amsterdam, wham, bam, I’m here.”

  “That’s right,” Dortmunder agreed. “You’re here.”

  “But not this time,” Stan said darkly.

  Dortmunder looked again, but he’d been right; Stan was definitely here. He decided to let that go.

  Stan said, “This time, I get up into the Twenti
es, there it is again, those big lumber pieces painted white and red, half of Sixth Avenue all torn up, backhoes and bulldozers and who knows what all inside there, we’re down to no lanes. And you know something else?”

  “No,” Dortmunder said.

  “It’s always the left side! They go along, a year, two years, the left side of Sixth Avenue all tore up, and then finally they repave it, they take all the barriers away, you figure, now they’re gonna do the right side. But no. Nothing happens. Four months, six months, and then bam, they’re tearin’ up the left side again. If they can’t do it right, why don’t they just quit?”