“Ski masks,” the man muttered, not even looking at the beautiful skis.
“All set for skis?” Griswold reluctantly let the beauties lean again against the wall. “How about boots? Poles? You see hanging on the wall there, sir —”
“Masks.”
“Oh, of course, sir, that’s right here in this display case. Take your time. We also have more in the back I could bring out if you —”
“Those two,” the man said, pointing.
“These? Of course, sir. May I ask, what color is your primary ski outfit?”
The man frowned at him: “You gonna sell me these masks?”
“Certainly, sir, certainly.” Whipping out his sales book, remaining ineffably cheerful and polite, Griswold said, “Cash or charge, sir?”
“Cash.”
“Yes, sir. Let me just get a box for these —”
“Paper bag.”
“Are you certain, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Writing out the sales slip, Griswold said, “I take it, this time of year, you’re heading up Canada way. Ah, the Laurentians, they’re wonderful. Best skiing in North America.”
“Yeah,” the man said.
“Can’t beat the Alps, though.”
“Naw,” the man said.
“You get a lot of glare that far north. Could I interest you and your friend in goggles? Guaranteed Polaroid —”
“Just the masks,” the man said, and handed Griswold two twenty–dollar bills.
“That’s fine, then,” Griswold said, went away, came back with the change and a paper bag, and as he turned over the customer’s purchases made one last pitch: “Cold up there, sir. Now, our guaranteed Finnish Army parkas will keep your vital signs intact down to fifty–seven degrees below, or return with —”
“No,” the ex–customer said. Stuffing the bag full of masks inside his coat, he turned away, shoulders hunched, and joined his partner at the front door. They exchanged a glance, then left. Griswold, watching through the glass, saw them pause in the doorway and look both ways before turning their coat collars up, tucking their chins down in, shoving their hands deep in their pockets and skulking away, keeping close to the building front. Odd ducks, Griswold thought. Not your ordinary outdoor–enthusiast types.
Half an hour later, stepping back to admire a just–completed pyramid of tennis ball cans surmounted by an elasticized elbow band, Griswold suddenly frowned, pondered, turned his head, and gazed inquiringly toward the front door. But of course they were gone by then.
Chapter 40
* * *
It was raining. Eleven p.m. Dortmunder emerged from the side–street manhole into a gusty, chilly rain, slid the round cover back into place, and took refuge in the nearest storefront doorway. There were no pedestrians. A lone car squished by. Wind currents eddied in the storefront, flicking tiny cold raindrops in his face.
It was nearly five minutes before a Lincoln Continental with MD plates pulled to a stop at the curb out there. Dortmunder crossed the sidewalk, entered the dry warmth of the car, and Kelp said, “Sorry I took so long. Tough to find a car on a night like this.”
“You could of found a car,” Dortmunder told him, as Kelp eased the Lincoln forward to the nearest traffic light. “You just had to hold out for an MD.”
“I trust doctors,” Kelp said. “They’re ease–loving people, they know all about pain and discomfort. When they buy a car, they want the best and they can afford the best. You say what you want, I’ll stick with doctors.”
“All right,” Dortmunder said. Now that the chill was leaving his bones, now that he was beginning to dry, he was less annoyed.
The traffic light turned green. Kelp said, “Where is this movie?”
“Down in the Village.”
“Okay.” Kelp turned right, drove downtown to Greenwich Village, turned left on 8th Street, and parked just shy of the theater, whose marquee advertised “American Premiere — A Sound of Distant Drums.” That was the movie May had told Dortmunder she intended to see tonight, telling him about it last night, making small talk while Dortmunder’s hand had soaked in the Palmolive Liquid. A call to the theater from their ghost telephone earlier this evening had told them the last show would break at eleven–forty.
And so it did. Beginning at eleven–forty and a half, a trickle of culturally enriched patrons emerged from the theater, grimacing at the rain, making complaining noises at one another, hurrying away through the wind–blown squall.
May was among the last to come out. She stood for a moment under the marquee, hesitating, looking this way and that. Kelp said, “What’s she up to?”
“She knows what she’s doing,” Dortmunder said. “She’ll just walk around a while, so we see has she a tail.”
“Of course she has a tail,” Kelp said. “Probably half a dozen. Some pal of Tiny’s. The cops. The Terrorists’ Cooperative.”
“You’re very cheery,” Dortmunder said.
Outside there, two nondescript men also stood under the marquee, apparently indecisive as to what to do now that the world of the cinema had been replaced by the world of rain. But then May finally moved on, heading down the block away from Kelp and Dortmunder, and after a minute both dawdling men strolled off in that direction as well, having nothing to do with one another, or with May, or with anything.
“Two,” Kelp said.
“I see them.”
“If they only knew.”
“Don’t talk.”
“What she’s carrying, I mean.”
“I know what you meant.”
Kelp waited till May and her two new friends were all out of sight in the spritzing darkness, then started the Lincoln and oozed away from the curb. In midblock they passed the two men, who were having some difficulty remaining unaware of one another, and a bit farther on they passed May, walking along like a person with nothing to think about but movies.
Astonishingly, the light at the corner was green. Kelp zipped around to the right, pulled in at the curb, left the engine running but turned out the lights. Dortmunder twisted around, looking back through the water–smeared side windows at the corner, his hand reaching back for the rear door handle.
May appeared, walking purposefully but not hurriedly. She turned right, continued to walk, and the instant the corner building cut her off from the view of the following men she made a brisk dash for the car. Dortmunder shoved open the rear door, May hopped in, and Kelp accelerated, turning the next corner before switching on the headlights.
“What a night!” May said, when Kelp eased enough on the throttle so she could peel herself off the seatback. “I knew this was you when I saw the MD plates.”
Kelp tossed Dortmunder a quick triumphant grin: “See? It’s my trademark.” Looking in the rearview mirror he said, “Nobody behind us.”
May was studying Dortmunder like a mother hen. “How are you, John?”
“Fine.”
“You look all right,” she said doubtfully.
“I haven’t been gone that long, May.”
“Have you been eating?”
“Sure I been eating.”
“We had a pizza before,” Kelp said. He turned another corner — on a red light, illegal in New York City — and lined out uptown.
“You need more than pizza,” May said.
Dortmunder didn’t want to talk about his dietary habits: “You brought the stuff?”
“Sure.” She handed over a small brown paper bag, the kind you carry a sandwich in.
Taking the bag, Dortmunder said, “Both things?”
“You don’t have to do that, John.”
“I know I don’t. I want to. Is it in here?”
“Yes,” she said. “They’re both there.”
Kelp said, “How was the movie?”
“Good. It was about the evils of European influence in Africa in the last part of the nineteenth century. Very interesting soft–focus camera work. Lyrical.”
“Maybe I’ll
go see it,” Kelp said.
Dortmunder kneaded the brown paper bag in his hands. “There’s something else in here.”
“Socks,” she said. “I figured, a night like this, you’ll need dry socks.”
Kelp said, “I don’t dare drop you off at your place, May. But within a block, okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s just perfect.” Touching Dortmunder’s shoulder, she said, “You’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Now that I finally know what I’m doing.”
“Make sure nobody recognizes you,” she said. “It’s dangerous for you two to be out and around.”
“We’ve got ski masks,” Kelp said. “Show her.”
Dortmunder took the two ski masks out of his coat pocket and held them up. “Very nice,” May said, nodding at them.
“I want the one with the elks,” Kelp said.
Chapter 41
* * *
May unlocked the apartment door and walked into a living room full of cops. “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “If I’d known there was a party I’d have stopped and bought some cookies.”
“Where’ve you been?” said the biggest, angriest, most rumpled plainclothesman.
“To the movies.”
“We know that,” said another one. “After the movies.”
“I came home.” She squinted at the clock on top of the TV set. “The movie got out at twenty to twelve, I took a cab, and now it isn’t even midnight.”
The cops looked a bit uncertain, then pretended they hadn’t looked uncertain at all. “If you’re in contact with John Archibald Dortmunder —” the big angry rumpled plainclothesman started, but May interrupted:
“He doesn’t use his middle name.”
“What?”
“Archibald. He never uses the Archibald.”
“I don’t care,” said the cop. “You see what I mean? I don’t give a fart.”
Another of the cops said, “Harry, take it easy.”
“It’s getting me down, that’s all,” the big angry rumpled cop said. “Blitzes, stakeouts, crashing around, everybody on double shift. All over one goddam stumblebum with sticky fingers.”
“Everybody,” May told him solemnly, “is innocent until proved guilty.”
“The hell they are.” The cop moved his shoulders around, then said to the other cops, “All right, let’s go.” Glaring at May, he said, “If you’re in contact with John Archibald Dortmunder, you tell him he’ll be a lot better off if he gives himself up.”
“Why should I tell him a thing like that?”
“Just remember what I said,” the cop told her. “You could be in trouble, too, you know.”
“John would be much worse off if he gave himself up.”
“That’s all right, that’s all right.” And the cops all pounded their feet on out of there, leaving the door open behind them.
May closed it. “Poo,” she said, and went away to open an Airwick.
Chapter 42
* * *
The jewelry store door said snnnarrrkk. Dortmunder pressed his shoulder against it: “Come on” he muttered.
snik, responded the door, yawning open. This time, knowing this particular door’s wiles and stratagems, Dortmunder already had one hand gripping the frame, so he didn’t lose his balance but merely stepped across the threshold into the store, where he stopped to look back at Kelp, standing lookout at the curb in the rain, gazing assiduously up and down empty Rockaway Boulevard. Dortmunder gestured, and Kelp happily squelched across the sidewalk and joined him in the warm interior of the store. “Nice little place,” he said, as Dortmunder shut the door.
“This ski mask itches,” Dortmunder said, peeling the thing off.
Kelp kept his on; his eager eyes sparkled amid gamboling elks on a field of black. “It sure keeps the rain off,” he said.
“It isn’t raining in here. The safe’s over this way.”
The “Closed For Vacation To Serve You Better” sign was still in the front window, and the mustiness of the air inside the store suggested no one had been in it since the cops had arrived Wednesday night to find the Byzantine Fire missing. The store owner was in jail now, his relatives had things other than his shop to think about, and the law had no more use for the place.
Or at least that’s what they thought.
“Forty–eight hours,” Dortmunder said. “See those clocks?”
“They all say twenty to one.”
“That’s what they said Wednesday night, when I came in. What a forty–eight hours!”
“Maybe they’re stopped,” Kelp said, and went over to listen to one.
“They’re not stopped,” Dortmunder said, irritated. “It’s just one of those coincidences.”
“They’re working,” Kelp agreed. He came back and watched Dortmunder seat himself cross–legged, tailor–fashion, on the floor in front of the familiar safe, spreading his tools out around himself. “How long, you figure?”
“Fifteen minutes, last time. Shorter now. Go watch.”
Kelp went over to the door to watch the still–empty street, and twelve minutes later the safe said plok–chunk as its door swung open. Dortmunder shined his pencil flash in at the trays and compartments, now stripped of everything except the junk he’d rejected last time, and saw one tray full of junky pins — gold–plated animals with polished stone eyes. That would do.
Reaching into his pocket, Dortmunder took out the Byzantine Fire, then spent a long moment just looking at it. The intensity of the thing, the clarity, the purity of the color. The depth — you could look down for miles into that damn stone. “My greatest triumph,” Dortmunder whispered.
Over at the door, Kelp said, “What?”
“Nothing.” Dortmunder put the Byzantine Fire on the tray with the junky animals; dubious peacocks and lions stared pop–eyed at this aristocrat in their midst. Dortmunder sort of piled the animals around the ruby ring, obscuring it slightly, then slid the tray back into place.
“How you doing?”
“Almost done.” Chock–whirrr; he shut and locked the safe and spun the dial. His tools went back into their special pockets inside his jacket, and then he got to his feet.
“Ready to go?”
“Just one second.” From another pocket he took May’s watch and pressed the button on the side: 6:10:42:11. Crossing to the display case, he beamed his pocket flash at the watches behind the glass until he found another of the identical kind, in a small felt–lined box with the lid up. Going behind the counter, opening the sliding door in the back of the display case, he took out this new watch and saw that in the box with it was a much–folded paper headlined INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE. Right. 6:10:42:11 went back on the counter display where he’d originally found it, and the new one with its box and its instructions went into his jacket pocket. And the itchy ski mask went back on his face. “Now I’m ready,” Dortmunder said.
Chapter 43
* * *
Every edition of the paper. From the bulldog edition that had come out last night before Mologna had left the city for Bay Shore and home, right up to the late final that hadn’t hit the street until he was already back in his office this morning, every last rotten edition of that rotten paper had carried the same rotten editorial. “The Cost Of Blowing Your Top” it was headed, and the subject matter was Mologna’s now–famous incident of hanging up on the guy with the Byzantine Fire.
Was it those FBI assholes who’d given the story to the paper? Probably, though it had to be admitted Mologna had one or two enemies right here within the sheltering arms of the NYPD. All morning his friends on the force had been calling to commiserate, to tell him the same thing could have happened to them — and they were right, the bastards, it could have — and to assure him all the pressure in the world had been put on the editors of that rag to drop the editorial from the later editions, but in vain. The bastards had known they were safe, Chief Inspector Francis Xavier Mologna was down, they could kick him wit
h impunity now. “There’s nothin lower than a newspaperman,” Mologna said, and swept the late final edition from his desk onto the floor.
Where Leon skipped over it on his way in, saying, “Another phone call.”
Why Me? Page 20