Why Me?

by Donald Westlake

  “— the — What?”

  Zachary nodded at Leon. “The notes of the meeting.”

  “Certainly. Leon? Copy for the FBI.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Leon said.

  Leon and Mologna exchanged a glance.

  Zachary and Freedly exchanged a glance.

  Mologna said, “As I was sayin, I said this mornin this ruby ring wasn’t taken by any of your foreign political types. It’s —”

  “That appears,” Zachary said, “to be true at least in the case of the Greek Cypriot underground. We have good penetration in most of their organizations, and the word to us is, they don’t have it.”

  “That’s what I’ve been sayin.”

  “Which leaves the Turks and the Russians.”

  “And the Armenians,” Freedly added.

  “Thank you, Bob, you’re absolutely right.”

  “It also leaves,” Mologna said, “a nice homegrown burglar, ancestry as yet undetermined.”

  “Of course,” Zachary said, “there is always that possibility. At the Bureau — and I’ve discussed this now with sog — and our feeling —”

  Mologna said, “Sog?”

  “Seat of Government,” Zachary explained. “That’s what we call the main Bureau headquarters in Washington.”

  “Seat of Government,” Mologna echoed. He and Leon exchanged a glance.

  “Abbreviated, S, O, G, pronounced sog. And our feeling is, the likelihood still remains upmost for a politically motivated removal.”

  “Theft.”

  “Technically, of course, it is a theft.”

  “With a thief,” Mologna said.

  “Frankly,” Zachary said, “I hope — and I’m sure the Bureau hopes — you turn out to be right.”

  “All the fellas down there at sog.”

  Zachary frowned a bit. Was Mologna being sardonic? It didn’t seem possible, from a man with such a bad Long Island accent and such a big, big stomach. “That’s right,” he said. “And it would be much simpler and easier if in fact it is merely a domestic burglar. One of our problems otherwise is diplomatic immunity.”

  “Diplomatic immunity?” Mologna shook his head, his expression determined. “This isn’t some parkin ticket, man. There’s no immunity from grand larceny.”

  Zachary and Freedly exchanged a glance. Zachary explained, “Most of these organizations — terrorist groups, nationalist cells, rebel conclaves — have linkages to one or another standing government. Which gives them access to diplomatic pouches. Baggage leaving any of the various UN missions or the foreign consulates and embassies here in New York and in Washington, it all goes through unchecked and unsearched. That’s the diplomatic immunity I’m talking about. Anything at all can go in or out of this country in a diplomatic pouch and no one the wiser.”

  “We’re very lucky,” Freedly added, “that the original group involved in the raid at the airport had already been disavowed by the Greek government, forcing them to find an alternate method for smuggling the ring out of the country.”

  “And you’re also lucky,” Mologna told him, “that what we’re lookin for this time is just some local hooligan.”

  “We’d prefer to be that fortunate,” Zachary agreed. “Do you have any hard evidence at the moment to support your theory?”

  “Hard evidence? That bit of wire bypassin the alarm box, how’s that for evidence? The door bein jimmied that —”

  “Yes, yes,” Zachary said, raising a hand to stem the flow. “I remember all that from the meeting this morning. I meant since then.”

  Mologna and Leon exchanged a glance. Mologna said, “It’s been at best two hours since that meetin. We’re good, Mr. Zachary, but nobody’s that good.”

  Zachary and Freedly exchanged a glance. Zachary said, “But you have taken steps.”

  “Of course I’ve taken steps. We’re talkin to our informants, we’re arrestin every known criminal in the five boroughs, we’re puttin pressure on the entire underworld.” Mologna nodded in self–satisfaction. “It won’t take long. We’ll get results.”

  “How soon, do you suppose? If you’re right, that is.”

  “If I’m right?” Mologna and Leon exchanged a glance. “Two days, three days. I’ll keep you informed of progress.”

  “Thank you. Meantime, we’ll pursue the alternate theory that the ring’s disappearance has a political basis, and of course we’ll be delighted to keep you informed of our progress.”

  Mologna and Leon exchanged a glance. Mologna said, “Progress. On the international front.”

  Zachary and Freedly exchanged a glance. Zachary said, “Yes. On the international front.”

  “The Armenians,” Freedly added, “are looking particularly interesting.”

  Mologna looked particularly interested. “Are they, now?”

  Zachary nodded. “Bob’s right,” he said. “Nationalists without a current nation do tend to go to extremes. The Moluccans, for instance. Palestinians.”

  “Puerto Ricans,” added Freedly.

  “To an extent,” agreed Zachary.

  Mologna and Leon exchanged a glance.

  Zachary got to his feet. (Freedly followed suit.) “Interagency cooperation,” Zachary said, “is so important in a matter like this.”

  Mologna heaved to his feet, resting his beer belly on the desktop. “We couldn’t possibly succeed without it,” he said. “I’m very happy to have you fellows aboard in this little burglary case.”

  “We feel the same way,” Zachary assured him. “In such a delicate international affair, we’re delighted to have such able and willing cooperation at the local level.”

  Hands were shaken. Leon drew a little caricature of Freedly, wearing pendant earrings. The federal agents made their departure, closing the door behind themselves.

  “The man’s an asshole,” Zachary and Mologna said to Freedly and Leon.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  Dortmunder brought home a Whopper from the Burger King, opened a can of beer, and started phoning around. The first several guys he called weren’t home. Then he reached one fellow’s wife, who said, “Jack’s in jail.”

  “In jail? Since when?”

  “Since about half an hour ago. I just put the soufflé in the oven and in walk these cops. So much for lunch.”

  “Wha’d they grab him for?”

  “Practice. Took him in for questioning, is all. They don’t have a thing on him and they know it.”

  “So they’ll have to let him go.”

  “Sure. And here I am with cold, soggy soufflé. It’s just harassment, that’s all.”

  “Listen,” Dortmunder said. “What I wanted to ask Jack is, does he know the address of a fellow called Stoon. Would you maybe know it?”

  “Stoon? Oh, I think I know who you mean, but I don’t know where he lives.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tsokay. Sorry about Jack.”

  “It’s the soufflé I feel sorry for.”

  The next two guys weren’t home, but the one after that was. He was home, and he was mad. “I just been to the precinct,” he said. “They had me there two hours.”

  “For what?”

  “Questioning, they call it. Bullshit is what I call it. They’re grabbing people all over the city.”

  “What is it, a stunt?”

  “No, it’s that ruby, the one got knocked over out to Kennedy last night. That’s what they’re looking for, and they’re squeezing hard. I never seen nothing like it.”

  “It’s real valuable, huh?”

  “I don’t know, Dortmunder, I don’t think that’s it. Valuable things get stolen, am I right? That’s what they’re for. I mean, it happens a lot. I mean, you wouldn’t go out to steal apple cores.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “Beats me. This ruby’s important somehow. It’s got the law very agitated.”

  “It’ll blow over,” Dortmunder said. “What I’m calling about, do you kno
w a guy named Stoon?”

  “Stoon. Yeah.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “On Perry Street, in the Village. Twenty–one, I think, maybe twenty–three. His name’s on the bell.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing. I’m glad I’m not the guy boosted that ruby. The heat is intense.”

  “I know what you mean,” Dortmunder said.

  Next, he tried Kelp’s number again, just in case the idiot had retired his phone–ahead box, but it was the cheery girl who answered. “Oh,” Dortmunder said. “He’s still got that box on, huh? Sorry to bother you.”

  “No,” said the girl, “I’m here —” But Dortmunder, disgusted, was already hanging up, breaking the connection before she said, “— at Andy’s apartment.”

  Immediately, with Dortmunder’s hand still on it, the phone rang. He picked up the receiver again: “Hello?”

  “You been on the phone.”

  “I’m still on the phone,” Dortmunder pointed out. “How you doing, Stan?”

  “I’m okay,” Stan Murch said. “I think I got a nice one. Needs some planning, some leadership. You available?”

  “Very,” Dortmunder said.

  “I thought, just a couple guys. Ralph Winslow, you know him?”

  “Sure. He’s okay.”

  “And Tiny Bulcher.”

  “Is he out again?”

  “Turned out the gorilla didn’t press charges.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll meet tonight at the O.J. Ten o’clock good?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you know how I can get in touch with Andy Kelp?”

  “No,” said Dortmunder.

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  The name “Stoon” appeared among the doorbells at neither 21 nor 23 Perry Street. Coming out of the latter, pausing on the stoop to consider the perfidy of life, Dortmunder saw activity diagonally across the way. Three men were emerging from a building over there, the two flankers each holding an elbow of the one in the middle. Additionally, the flanker on the left was carrying a large blue canvas bag, which appeared to be very heavy. The three men hustled across the street to a battered light blue Ford parked near Dortmunder, who could see that the man in the middle — short, round–faced — seemed much less happy than his companions, both of whom were large, rather beefy, and obviously quite pleased with themselves. As they stuffed their short companion into the back seat of the Ford and the heavy blue canvas bag into the front seat, one of them said, “This’ll keep you inside for quite a while.” What the short man answered, if anything, Dortmunder didn’t hear.

  The two big, self–satisfied men also entered the Ford, one in front and one in back, and the car drove away. Dortmunder watched it go. At the corner, it turned and drove out of sight.

  Dortmunder sighed. There was no question in his mind, of course, but he might as well make absolutely sure. He walked across the street, entered the vestibule of the building the trio had appeared from, and scanned the names beside the bells.

  Stoon.

  “You lookin for somebody?”

  Dortmunder turned and saw a truculent fortyish Puerto Rican armed with a push broom. The super. Dortmunder said, “Liebowitz.”

  “They moved out,” the super said.

  “Oh.”

  Dortmunder walked away. At the corner, a cop looked at him very hard. By then Dortmunder was so disgusted that, forgetting the plastic bag of jewelry in his jacket pocket, he looked back at the cop just as hard. The cop shrugged and went on about his business. Dortmunder went home.

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  Jack Mackenzie got along so well with the cops because they all thought he was Irish. His ancestry was, in fact, Scottish, a shameful secret wild horses couldn’t have dragged out of him.

  Being a police reporter for a large metropolitan TV station, it was a good thing Mackenzie was so tight with the men in blue — otherwise, he wouldn’t have kept the job very long. But the cops knew good old Jack would always get their names right, would put them on camera if at all possible, would always believe their version of how the suspect fell off the roof, and would never twit them for their occasional inevitable failures. And that’s why, when Chief Inspector Francis Xavier Mologna (which Jack Mackenzie always pronounced Maloney) decided to go public with this Byzantine Fire problem, it was red–haired, freckle–faced, jovial, hard–drinking, pseudo–Irish Jack Mackenzie who got the nod for the exclusive interview.

  The meeting took place in a conference room at Headquarters, down several flights from Mologna’s own office. With its indirect lighting, serious–looking desk, and windowless walls thoroughly diapered in sound–absorbing Virgin–Mary–blue drapes, this room had been designed for television. If a police spokesman stood behind that desk, in front of those drapes, holding up an old .22 rifle while announcing that the arrest of those four college sophomores had just narrowly averted the overthrow of the Republic, you believed him.

  The meeting was scheduled at four o’clock, just early enough to make the opening segment of the six o’clock news. (The rest of the press would get the story a bit later, also in time for the six o’clock news, but not till the end of the program rather than the beginning. Friendship is a wonderful thing.) Mackenzie arrived a bit early accompanied by his three–man crew (one operated the camera, one ran the sound equipment, and the union wouldn’t tell anybody what the third man did), and he joshed with the officer on guard in the hallway while his boys set up their equipment and checked light levels over every square inch of the room.

  Mologna himself, in a uniform so rich with braid that he looked like an ocean liner at night, emerged from the elevator down the hall at three minutes past four, accompanied by his secretary, Sergeant Leon Windrift, and two anonymous plainclothes detectives carrying folders full of handouts and statistics. Mologna and Mackenzie met in the hall and shook hands, beaming with approval on one another. “Good to see you, Jack,” said Mologna.

  “How are you, Chief Inspector? You’re looking fine. Lost a couple pounds, didn’t you?”

  In fact, Mologna had gained a few pounds. His smile even broader and happier than before, he patted his beer belly — thup, thup — and said, “Hard to keep in fightin trim, stuck to that desk every day.”

  “Well, you’re looking fine,” Mackenzie repeated, which was about as far as he could take such nonsense.

  The two went on into the conference room, followed by Mologna’s minions, and Mackenzie’s crew put out their cigarettes and prepared to go to work. Since this was to be an interview rather than a press conference — that was scheduled at four–thirty, in this same room — Mologna sat at the desk rather than stand behind it (his beer belly hardly showed at all), while Mackenzie took the chair to the right of the desk. More light level readings were taken, and then the sound man asked them to just talk to one another while he took sound levels. Both participants were old hands at this and chatted about baseball — the new season just getting under way down there in Florida, if Mackenzie were a sports reporter he could be down there now in the warm, etc., etc. — until the sound man told them they could stop the drivel. Then they settled down to the business at hand.

  Mackenzie: “Maybe you better give me my lead–in question. I’m not sure exactly what you want to announce here.”

  Mologna: “I want to announce progress on this fuckin ruby ring. Why not tell me you understand I’m in charge and how’m I doin?”

  Mackenzie: “Okay, fine. Chief Inspector Mologna, you’ve been placed in charge of the investigation into last night’s theft of the Byzantine Fire. Do you have any progress to report?”

  Mologna: “Well, yes and no, Jack. We have the bunch that pulled the job out at Kennedy International Airport, but unfortunately we don’t as yet have the ring.”

  Mackenzie: “But arrests have been made?”

  Mologna: “Definitely. We’ve held back the announcement, hopin to finish the case.
The alleged perpetrators are aliens, apparently involved in the current troubles in Cyprus. We nabbed all four this mornin.”

  Mackenzie: “So the theft of the Byzantine Fire was a political act.”

  Mologna (chuckles): “Well, Jack, that may be the way they look at it. I’m a simple New York cop, and to me a holdup is a holdup.”