What's The Worst That Could Happen

by Donald Westlake

  • • •

  Not since the glory days of Versailles, with its completely artificial cross–shaped great canal on which gondolas took palace guests for outings, sham battles were fought by real ships, and musical extravaganzas by torchlight were presented on great floating barges, had the world seen the like of the Battle–Lake at the Gaiety Hotel, Battle–Lake and Casino on the Strip at Las Vegas. The recirculated waters of the lake housed thousands of fish imported from all five continents, gliding sinuously together through the plastic lily pads near the concrete shores o’erhung with plastic ferns and miniature plastic weeping willows.

  At the hotel end of the lake yawned a great cave opening, closed by barred gates at all times except when the ships came out. These were great sailing ships, men–o–war and frigates, one–half life–size replicas of such famous seagoers as John Paul Jones’s Bon Homme Richard, Captain Kidd’s Adventure, and Sir Francis Drake’s The Golden Hind. Radio–controlled, these ships wheeled and ran, regardless of wind, their sails flapping every which way as they fired loud and smoky broadside after loud and smoky broadside, sometimes at one another, to the cheers of the crowds in the stands ashore. Some ships were even equipped with masts that would suddenly flop over and dangle, having presumably been severed by a musketball from somewhere or other.

  These sea battles took place twice a day, at 4:00 P.M. and again half an hour after sunset, the earlier one being devoted mostly to wheeling and racing, while the evening show featured gaudy broadsides and at least two ships catching spectacularly afire.

  The sound effects for all the battles came from speakers in the trees spaced around the lake, the same speakers that produced birdcalls at other times of the day, so that the effect was truly stereophonic, meaning you couldn’t tell exactly where any particular sound came from, but a loud boom occurring at the same instant that a ship out on the lake released a great puff of white smoke led most observers to conclude that the boom and the smoke were somehow connected.

  The lake ranged from four to nine feet deep, and tourists were not encouraged to throw coins into it, but many of them did anyway, which meant a problem with the homeless, three of whom had so far drowned in their efforts to harvest some of the cash stippling the Gunite bottom. Still, the Battle–Lake was a major tourist attraction, at least as popular as that other place’s volcano, and so the occasional loss of a homeless person (who by definition was not a paying customer, after all) was a not unreasonable price to pay.

  What a way to go, here in Paradise, your hands full of coins, your lungs full of recycled water.

  • • •

  When Brandon entered the spacious living room of cottage number one at three that afternoon, Earl Radburn in his knife–crease tan clothing stood at the picture window, with its view out over the Battle–Lake, at the moment peaceful, with the tall Moebius shape of the hotel beyond it. Hearing Brandon enter, Earl turned and said, “I don’t like that lake.”

  “Most people speak well of it.”

  “Most people don’t have to protect a fellow with ten billion dollars.”

  How do you respond to a statement like that? Brandon looked around, and over in the conversation area he saw Wylie Branch sprawled in the angle of the sofas, one arm thrown out over the sofa–back on each side, one cowboy–booted foot up on the glass coffee table. His tan chief of security uniform was its normal neat self, but next to Earl Radburn’s air–brushed display even Wylie looked sloppy. And when he sat all casual and easygoing like that, like the rancher he would have been if his daddy hadn’t played too many tables too long here in Vegas — at other people’s joints, needless to add — when he seemed completely relaxed and amiable like this, it almost always meant he was utterly riled about something. Looked as though Earl had already put Wylie’s nose out of joint.

  And now the damn man was trying the same thing with Brandon, who would not rise to the bait. Nodding at the lake, he said, “Well, Earl, if you’re worried about submarines coming up out of there to kidnap Mr. Fairbanks and take him away to Russia or someplace, make your mind easy. The lake has no outlet, and nobody with a submarine is currently registered at the hotel.”

  Ignoring that, Earl came away from the window toward the conversation area, saying, “We got a very specific problem here this time.”

  “Which us boys,” Wylie explained, smiling broadly the while, “ain’t up to handling by ourself.”

  Earl, who really could be obtuse, took that statement at face value: “We’ll bring in whatever additional manpower we decide we need,” he said. “Wylie, of course, your people will be at the center of our defensive structure, since they already know the terrain.”

  Wylie’s smile grew as broad as that cave mouth over there. “Us dogs will surely appreciate that bone, Earl,” he said.

  Which snagged Earl’s attention for just a second or two, Brandon could see the faint loss in the man’s momentum, but Earl’s capacity for narrow concentration could sail past bigger boulders than Wylie Branch’s irritation. Almost immediately back on track, Earl seated himself at catty–corners to Wylie (but out of arm’s reach, Brandon noted) and said, “Sit down, Brandon, let me tell you about it.”

  No point getting annoyed at Earl; he was who he was. So Brandon merely sat down, some distance from both of them, and Earl said, “Mr. Fairbanks played a little joke a while back that he’s beginning to regret.”

  Ah. Although Brandon himself had never seen this side of the big cheese’s character, there had always been rumors throughout TUI that Max Fairbanks had an antic element within him that could suddenly erupt in messy or embarrassing ways. He waited eagerly to hear what the man had done this time, and Earl went on, “There’s a corporate house out on Long Island, off New York City —”

  “I’ve been there,” Brandon assured him. “On several retreats and seminars.”

  “Well, Mr. Fairbanks was there,” Earl said, “a few weeks ago, and he caught a burglar.”

  Wylie made a surprised laugh, and said, “Well, good for him.”

  “If,” Earl answered, “he’d left well enough alone. But he didn’t. He had to go ahead and steal a ring from the burglar.”

  Brandon said, “He did — He stole from the burglar?”

  With a low chuckle, Wylie said, “That happens, yeah,” which gave Brandon an unexpected look into the workings of the Gaiety’s security force.

  Earl said, “The burglar escaped from the police, small–town cops, and he’s been after Mr. Fairbanks ever since, either trying to get his ring back, or revenge, who knows.”

  “He must,” Brandon said, “have felt a certain humiliation.”

  “It got him sore,” Earl agreed, “we’re sure on that much.”

  Brandon said, “But what do you mean, he’s been after Mr. Fairbanks? A man like Mr. Fairbanks, nobody could be after him.”

  “This one is,” Earl said. “Went back to the Long Island house soon as he escaped, but fortunately Mr. Fairbanks was already gone. So he got some kind of gang together, this fella did, and they broke into Mr. Fairbanks’s house in New York City. Missed him again, but both places they stole a lot of valuable stuff, antiques and like that. Then Mr. Fairbanks went to Washington, but he didn’t go to the apartment where he’d usually go, and damn if the fella didn’t show up again and steal some more stuff. Alone this time, or with others.”

  Wylie said, “Persistent.”

  “He’s making too much trouble,” Earl said. “That’s why Mr. Fairbanks put a secrecy order on all his movements.”

  “I saw that,” Brandon said. “And I noticed, I wondered about it, the only exception is when he’s here.”

  “That’s right,” Earl said.

  Wylie laughed. “You’re gonna set a bear trap, huh?”

  Brandon, wide–eyed, said, “What? In my hotel? Earl, I protest! We have children here! Families!”

  Earl was unfazed. “The fella’s coming this way,” he said. “Nothing we can do about that, Brandon, we know he’s on his way.
It’s our job, protect Mr. Fairbanks and nab this burglar once and for all.”

  “Here,” Brandon breathed, his voice hollow, his chest suddenly full of skittery nerve endings. “Here at the Gaiety.”

  Wylie said, “Brandon, I know how you feel, and you know I got to feel the same way. Our first job is, protect the hotel, and the guests —”

  “Of course!”

  “— but at the same time,” Wylie insisted, “Mr. Max Fairbanks is the owner of this place, and our boss. If he’s in trouble, and this is the only way we can help him out, then that’s our duty.”

  Earl said, “I knew I could count on you, Wylie.”

  Wylie likes this, Brandon thought, in horror. He can spout all the pious claptrap he wants about protecting the hotel and the guests, but the truth is, he smells a war coming and he likes it. Hand grenades among the slot machines. Mortars in the wading pool.

  Submarines in the Battle–Lake.

  Earl was saying, “Wylie, from this point on, we’ll want a check on every single guest that comes in here, to be sure they are who they say they are.”

  “And,” Wylie said, “I’ll infiltrate some of my people among the guests, in civvies, keep them moving around on the paths outside, watch for interlopers.”

  Wylie’s forgotten his snit, Brandon realized. Earl has brought Wylie a war, and Wylie has forgiven him everything.

  Brandon looked over toward the big window, and the view out over the Battle–Lake at his Paradise. Near him on the sofas, the two mercenaries put their heads together to continue their discussion. Weapons. Stakeouts. Lines of fire. Lines of defense. Perimeter patrols.

  Oh, my.

  Chapter 40

  * * *

  The phone started ringing a little before one on Wednesday afternoon. At least this time Dortmunder wasn’t under the sink; this time, he was trying to pack.

  The meeting last night at the O.J. had been shorter than such meetings usually went, because he didn’t yet have a detailed plan, but on the other hand it had been longer than necessary, because none of the other four could believe he didn’t have a detailed plan, and they wanted to keep talking about it.

  “You must have an idea,” Andy Kelp had said at one point, for instance, but that was the whole problem. Of course he had an idea. He had a whole lot of ideas, but a whole lot of ideas isn’t a plan. A plan is a bunch of details that mesh with one another, so you go from this step to this step like crossing a stream on a lot of little boulders sticking out, and never fall in. Ideas without a plan is usually just enough boulders to get you into the deep part of the stream, and no way to get back.

  So, while he was packing, he kept thinking about his ideas. Or trying to. For instance, the one in which Andy had a heart attack on top of a dice table and Stan and Ralph were the EMS medics and Tiny was a rent–a–cop, and while they were knocking over the cashier’s cage Dortmunder was waiting outside the cottage for the security forces there to be rushed over to cover the robbery. Lots of missing boulders in that stream.

  Or the one where they knocked out the power lines, having first drawn trails in fluorescent paint to the places they wanted to reach; like the middle of the stream.

  Or the bomb scare.

  Or the one where they stole the tiger from the zoo — Wally Whistler would be better than Ralph Winslow at that part, actually — and released it into the casino.

  Or the one …

  Well. The point was, the details would have to wait, that’s all, until Dortmunder got to Vegas, which would be tonight, on the late flight out of Newark, if he could ever get finished packing here.

  But, no. The phone had to keep ringing. Briefly, that first time, he considered not answering it, but it could be May from the supermarket; since she wasn’t coming along on this trip, she might have some last–minute thing she wanted to say. Or it could be any of the other four guys in the caper, with a problem; people sometimes have problems. So every time the phone rang he answered it, and every time it was the same thing, and what it was was, everybody wanted in.

  The first was Gus Brock: “John, I thought we were pals again.”

  “I got no problems with you, Gus,” Dortmunder admitted.

  “So how come I’m included out?”

  “Oh, you mean, uh …”

  “I mean the little visit to Vegas,” Gus said. “Andy Kelp just happened to mention it.”

  “Mention should be Andy Kelp’s middle name,” Dortmunder said.

  “My lady and his lady and him and me,” Gus said, “knocked back a little omelette for lunch, and the subject come up, and my question is, where am I in this thing?”

  “Gus,” Dortmunder said, “it isn’t that we aren’t pals, you know that, but for what I need —”

  “You’re talking an awful lot of security,” Gus said, “a place like that.”

  “I know I am,” Dortmunder agreed, “but I’ve always said, if you can’t do a task with five guys, you —”

  “I want aboard, John,” Gus said. “And this time, it isn’t for the percentage, you know what I mean?”

  “No,” Dortmunder said.

  “I want to be there,” Gus told him, “when you get the ring. Okay? I wanna help. Just solidarity, like.”

  “Well, say, Gus,” Dortmunder said, extremely uncomfortable, “that’s, uh, that’s pretty, uh …”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gus said. “I’ll ride along with Andy.”

  “Okay, Gus,” Dortmunder said. He felt unexpectedly pleased and cheerful and buoyed up, and at the same time he was thinking he could always alter the plan a little, do different details when it came time to do the details, and Gus would probably be a useful addition to the crew anyway, and the five man rule wasn’t written in stone, so what the heck. “See you there,” he said, and hung up, and went back to his packing, and barely had a drawer open when the phone rang.

  This time, it was Fred Lartz, the one–time driver whose wife, Thelma, these days did the actual driving. “John,” he said, “I was talking to Ralph Winslow this morning, I hear you’re gonna get that ring back.”

  “I hope I am.”

  “The way Ralph describes it,” Fred said, “you’re gonna need more than one driver. I mean, you got Stan, am I right?”

  “More than one driver? Why would I —”

  “You’re gonna have vehicles comin’ into town,” Fred said, “and goin’ out of town. Think about it, John.”

  “You mean, you want in.”

  “Thelma and me,” Fred said, “we haven’t had a vacation out west in a long time. Nice driving out there. We’d like to do our bit with you, John. Thelma and me. We talked it over, and that’s what we think.”

  So Dortmunder agreed that Fred and Thelma should take part, and this time he wasn’t even back in the bedroom when the phone rang, and it was another longtime associate, with the same story, and no way to tell the guy no.

  It went on like that, phone call after phone call. And then there came a phone call from A.K.A., who said, “John, I hear you’re gonna make a trip.”

  “And you want to come along.”

  “John, I really would if I could,” A.K.A. said. “But you know me, I always got these little stews on the fire, stews on the fire, you gotta stick around those little stews if you got them goin’, you know.”

  “I remember,” Dortmunder said. “Fred Mullins of Carrport told me about that.”

  “And wasn’t that a shame, John?” A.K.A. asked. “I remember that whole thing like it was yesterday.”

  “So do I,” Dortmunder said. “Some of the names are fading, though.”

  “What I feel,” A.K.A. said, “is I owe you a little something for things that didn’t work out, here and there, now and again, once and a while.”

  “It’s good of you to feel that way,” Dortmunder assured him.

  “So do you remember,” A.K.A. asked, “a guy named Lester Vogel? Used to be in the luggage business, making luggage, you know.”

  “I don’t think I do,
” Dortmunder said.

  “Went to jail for a while, some time back.”

  “For making luggage?”

  “Well, you know,” A.K.A. said, “Lester liked to put his initials on his luggage, expression of pride and all that, and turns out, with the initials on, and the designs and so on, his stuff looked an awful lot like some other stuff that had the edge on him in terms of getting there first. There was this talk of counterfeit and all this, and these other people had the inside track with the law, you know, so Lester went inside, carrying his goods in a pillowcase, nobody’s initials on it.”

  “Same thing,” Dortmunder said, “happened to a guy I know, making watches. He called them Rolez.”