Don’t Ask

by Donald Westlake

  For what? What did Diddums want, beyond simple revenge? Clearly it wasn’t merely simple revenge the man had in mind, or he wouldn’t have shown up with seven friends. In fact, if Diddums was here because he wanted something, that was more or less good news for Dr Zorn, because it meant there was some probability he would survive this encounter.

  Whatever it was Diddums wanted, Zorn decided, he would give to the man, at once and without equivocation. Betray Hradec Kralowc? Done. Assist in some new scheme of Diddums’s own? No problem. Provide poisons or a weapon or an alibi or anything at all? Just ask. Thy will, as they used to say in this building, be done.

  From some distance away, some large, heavy wooden object was dragged across the stone floor of the nave with a sound that even Dr Zorn could tell was unpleasant. The sound continued, at first advancing and then retreating, and at last it came to a stop, leaving once again only that irregular drip, drip, drip from the columbarium.

  Were they merely here to rob him? To pry through his delicate experiments with their unlettered fingers? Though breathing was difficult, though movement was virtually impossible, the eternal verities of science called, and Dr Zorn struggled to lift his head, to warn them to leave his laboratory alone! ‘Don’t—!’

  The man monster seated on the doctor’s back whomped him across the top of his head. ‘Sharrap,’ he said, and shifted position.

  Oh! No! Don’t do that! Dr Zorn sharrapped; he lowered his aching head; he remained very still and obedient; he did absolutely nothing that might cause this huge creature on top of him to shift position any more. Don’t shift position!

  ‘Okay,’ said Diddums’s voice from somewhere, and the monster climbed off, leaving a somewhat-pressed Dr Zorn prone on the pew. Did they want him to go somewhere? He didn’t think he could move; certainly couldn’t stand; beyond possibility to walk.

  But that didn’t matter. Hard hands gripped him by the elbows and knees, he was lifted from the pew, and he was carried in that prone position across the chancel and nave, head drooping, eyes blearily watching the movement of the stone floor beneath him and the scissoring of legs all around.

  Into the columbarium. The recesses for the ashes of the dead were empty now, and Dr Zorn had found no other use for the high-ceilinged, bare stone room. The sound of the drip was louder here, echoing faintly against the stone. There was a pause, with Dr Zorn continuing to hang like a canopy in the middle of them all, seeing nothing, smelling damp stone, tasting dinner – he personally still ate food – and then he was flipped like a pancake, dropped onto a long wooden bench – that’s what they’d been dragging! – and tied with many ropes and extension cords.

  Off to the side, Diddums watched with gloomy satisfaction. Ask me, Dr Zorn telepathed at that bony brow, ask me anything and I’ll do it. Just ask!

  But, no. The bench was picked up with him on it, now supine and strapped. It was carried across the room and put down, then shifted this way and that until it was just so. With his forehead under the leak. Drip, went a drop of cold water on his pale brow. Drip.

  Diddums came over and looked down at him. ‘See you later,’ he said.

  It took Dr Zorn, distracted by the dripping water, a second too long to realize what was happening. They were all going away! ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘I’ll do it! Whatever it is, I’ll do it!’

  But they were gone. Drip.

  Oh, this is ridiculous, he thought, struggling against his bonds, twisting his head back and forth. I’m just going to get wet here, cold and wet, the Chinese water torture doesn’t – drip – actually work, you’re wasting your time, Diddums, you could – drip – merely ask me.

  The drips are not – drip – rhythmic, they do not fall – drip – to any pattern, you can never guess when the next one will land.

  Drip.

  Daylight stained the stained-glass windows, and still he was alone. Dr Zorn had yelled himself hoarse, and then grown silent, and then yelled again, and then grown quiet again, merely whimpering from time to time. He’d turned his head this way and that, filling his ears with water, to no effect. He’d struggled against the ropes and extension cords. He’d grown convinced this was the revenge; they would never come back.

  Capillary action is what makes water spread from where it is to where you are. Dr Zorn was soaked. His clothing was soaked. His head seemed to burn with an ice-cold burn wherever the drips touched. The squlsh of water when it struck his flesh sounded through his brain, dissolved his brain, dropped his brain into an acid bath. He shivered, his breathing was irregular, he was exhausted but couldn’t – drip – sleep.

  And you never knew when it would drip again; you’d wait and tense and wait and nothing and then drip and you’d think at last and drip immediately and you’d be even more tense than before, and on and on and on …

  ‘How you doing, Doctor?’

  This was one of the periods when the doctor’s eyes were squeezed tight shut, because water spraying in them had made them ache with cold. Now his eyes popped open – DRIP! – and there was Diddums. ‘Please,’ the doctor whispered.

  ‘What we want you to do,’ Diddums said.

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Isn’t gonna be that hard.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘The hypodermic needle full of stuff you shot into me that time—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Diddums, I’m heartily sorry.’

  ‘I want you to make up some more hypodermic needles just like that.’

  ‘I will. Absolutely.’

  ‘Don’t do anything different.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Just do like you did before.’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  ‘And a couple other little tasks along the way. Easy ones.’

  ‘Anything! Anything!’

  Diddums stood there, frowning down at the wide-eyed Dr Zorn, and another droplet of water came and went, shattering the doctor’s brain, permitting him just time enough to gather again the shattered pieces when another droplet—

  A second person came and stood beside Diddums and looked down at the doctor. This was a sharp-nosed fellow with a bright and amiable eye. ‘You know, John,’ he said, ‘I think he’s ready.’

  My benefactor! Dr Zorn loved this person; he admired and esteemed and trusted him; he would follow this person to the gates of hell; he would never never fail this godlike person. ‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered. Drip. ‘I’m ready.’

  41

  it said, on the side of the blue-gray van driven by stout ex-cop Joe Mulligan and containing the rest of the seven-man guard team: Fenton, the wiry little old head of the crew, perched on the only good seat in the van, next to the driver; Garfield and Morrison in the row behind that; Block and Fox next; and Dresner spreading out (but taking the bumps) at the rear.

  They were the graveyard shift, midnight to eight, on yet another miserable, insulting third-rate assignment; when, oh when, would the perfectly understandable lapses of the past be forgotten so they could relax into the good life again, out on Long Island? The construction company owner weddings, the rock impresario’s daughter’s high school graduation party, the shopping center openings, the accountancy firm cruises on the Great South Bay. Jobs a man could be proud of, jobs completely free of peril or complication, jobs with some meat and potatoes to them.

  But, no. The seven bouncing down Second Avenue in this van, on their way to some kind of kooky Eastern European embassy on a boat, if you could believe it, these seven able men, all ex-cops or ex-MPs, all perfectly qualified for a job of contented ease amid the good citizens of Long Island – far from the Boschian hell of New York City – had run into a string of bad luck, that’s all, could have happened to anybody, and now look. Siberia.

  They used to work on Long Island, this same crew of seven. But then, one night, they lost a bank. Well, nobody’d ever found it, not the combined police forces of Nassau and Suffolk counties, not the feds, not anybody, so why did opprobrium have to land so heavily and exclusively on Sergeant Fent
on’s team, from the Continental?

  Well, it did, that’s all. And life hadn’t been improved a couple of years after that, either, when the team had been guarding a rich man’s party at a town house on the East Side – the wealthy East Side – and the place was broken into by a whole lot of robbers, extremely armed robbers, who took everything in sight, locked the guards in closets, and got away clean. (The party host, some nasty snob named Chauncey, had refused to pay the agency for the guards; can you believe it?)

  So here they were, still at the bottom of the bottom. Working Manhattan, dangerous, crummy Manhattan, where a fellow in a uniform could get hurt real bad real fast, instead of being out in the lush Eden of Long Island. And working graveyard shifts.

  Saturday night; the hairiest night of the week. At least it wasn’t the full moon. They were taking over for the original crew on this shift, who would be off now till Wednesday, so tonight they were to arrive a few minutes early for orientation from the four-to-midnight guys.

  According to the clock on the van’s dash, they’d make it in plenty of time, even though Second Avenue was littered with traffic pouring in on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and through the Midtown Tunnel from Queens and Brooklyn and (admit it) Long Island. (Traffic outbound to those calmer climes clogged the cross streets.) Stately, plump Joe Mulligan steered the company van carefully through the cluttered traffic, and took it easy. No more screwups.

  He made the turn onto East Twenty-eighth Street with no trouble, proceeded eastward according to directions all the way to the FDR Drive and on under the Drive and beyond, and there, on its far side, was the chain-link fence he was to park beside. He did, and said, ‘Here we are.’

  ‘All out, boys,’ Fenton said, unnecessarily, since everybody was already clambering toward the sliding door in the van’s side. But Fenton liked being the fellow in charge, and kept making little fellow-in-charge noises, which were generally ignored. He would have liked it, too, if the crew were to call him Chief, but they never did.

  The guys from the four-to-midnight shift were there, inside the fence, waiting. The two groups were dressed alike, in dark blue policelike uniforms, with the triangular badge on the left shoulder echoing the one on the van door. Policelike shields over their hearts were embossed CDI, plus a number, and to complete the look they all wore gun belts and holsters containing. 38-caliber Smith & Wesson Police Positive revolvers.

  The sergeant of the earlier shift was a comfortable fat man named Edwards, who unlocked the gate for them, locked it again behind them, and said, ‘Well, boys, it’s a piece of cake.’

  ‘Good,’ Fenton said. ‘I like a quiet tour myself. Leave the excitement to the paratroops, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Edwards agreed. ‘Come along, let me show you what we’ve got.’

  All seven crew members went along, and what Edwards showed them did indeed look like a piece of cake. A ship and an old ferry slip. Access through the gate in the chain-link fence on the landward side. Theoretical access by boat from the East River. The crew would divide into three pairs, one at the gate, one out at the river end of the slip, and one inside the access door in the hull. Comfortable-looking folding chairs were set out for them at all three locations so they wouldn’t have to spend the entire eight-hour shift on their feet. Fenton, in charge, would move among the three groups, seeing to it that everything remained calm.

  Edwards turned over to Fenton his clipboard, saying, ‘Nothing to it. There’s only three residents in the ship, and you’ve got their photos right there. That’s the two clerks, Lusk and Terment, and they’re already in for the night; you won’t be seeing them anymore. That’s the ambassador there. His name is Hradec Kralowc; he’s a bit of a rake, you know. He’ll come rolling in around one in the morning with something very delectable on his arm. Remember her going in, you’ll probably see her going out.’

  Fenton took the clipboard and said, ‘What’s it all about, then? This is more security than you’d be likely to give an outfit like this.’

  ‘They’ve got something in there,’ Edwards said. ‘Don’t ask me what it is; I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s valuable, that’s all I know about it.’

  ‘Then that’s all I need to know,’ Fenton said. (Pity; Mulligan would have liked to know more.)

  ‘Apparently,’ Edwards went on, ‘there was some sort of run at it once before, and they’re afraid the same bunch might try again.’

  ‘Not while we’re on,’ Fenton said firmly, and Mulligan fervently hoped he was right.

  ‘The ambassador’s the only one you take orders from,’ Edwards said. ‘Nobody in or out without him saying yes.’

  ‘I like it simple,’ Fenton said.

  ‘Then you’re gonna like it here,’ Edwards told him.

  Mulligan handed over the van keys to his opposite number on the other crew, a tall, bony Jamaican named Kingsbury, and then the four-to-midnight guys drove away back to headquarters uptown while Fenton dished out assignments; Block and Fox out at the watery end of the slip; Morrison and Garfield inside the entrance to the hull; and Mulligan and Dresner on the gate.

  ‘Keep a sharp eye out,’ Fenton said, unnecessarily. ‘Though I don’t suppose you’ll see much.’

  Which, for the first fifteen minutes, was absolutely true. Seated on the folding chairs by the locked gate, Mulligan and Dresner could look up and catch glimpses of the traffic hurtling by up there on the FDR Drive, but no traffic at all came to this dead end down here. Nor was it a spot likely to attract pedestrian traffic after dark. A quiet night, then; exactly what the doctor ordered. Mulligan and Dresner sat at their ease on the folding chairs and whiled away the time with Superghost.

  Headlights. Approaching; stopping. Would this be the ambassador coming home? Mulligan looked forward to eyeballing the good-looking girl who would allegedly be with him.

  But, no, this was not the ambassador, unless the ambassador moonlighted delivering pizzas. That out there was a white with red trim Dominick’s Pizza truck, a famous national brand, and here came a cheerful-looking, narrow-nosed guy in the white Dominick’s delivery uniform, carrying what looked like two pizza boxes.

  Careful, Mulligan told himself. This could be a trick. Or a trap. Or trouble. He and Dresner both rose, both stood warily, hands on holstered guns, as the cheerful-looking guy approached and said, ‘This the Votskojek embassy?’

  Mulligan and Dresner looked at one another. Votskojek? Was it? Temporizing, Mulligan said to the delivery guy, ‘It’s the embassy.’

  ‘Right,’ said the guy. ‘And this is the pizza. It’s a treat from the ambassador, uh, wait a minute, wait a minute—’ He turned the boxes around until he could read the delivery slip taped on top. ‘What kinda name is that?’ he wanted to know. ‘Hradec Kralowc.’ Bright-eyed, he looked at them through the fence. ‘That’s your guy, right?’

  It was indeed. Mulligan remembered the name and remembered looking at a photo of the guy on the clipboard Fenton was now carrying in this direction. ‘That’s right,’ Mulligan said, and Fenton arrived to say, ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Pizza,’ Dresner told him, while Mulligan said to the delivery guy, ‘The pizza’s for the ambassador?’

  ‘No no no no no,’ the guy said. ‘The pizza’s from the ambassador, for you guys. To welcome you – what’s he say? – aboard. Because it’s your first night, right?’

  The smell of pizza wafted through the chain-link fence. It smelled great. Dresner said, ‘Now that’s what I call a boss.’

  ‘Things are looking up, boys,’ Fenton said, and told Mulligan, ‘Open up, Joe, we’ll watch your back.’

  ‘Right.’ Mulligan unlocked the gate and opened it, while Dresner and Fenton peered into the darkness, alert to any opponent who might suddenly rush the fence, and the delivery guy stepped through all alone, grinning. He put the two boxes on one of the folding chairs, looking brightly at them all, and said, ‘Enjoy your pizzas.’

  ‘We will,’ Mulligan assured him, standing there
by the open gate.

  When the delivery guy made no move to leave, when he went on standing there, bright-eyed, expectantly smiling, Mulligan tensed up for a second, thinking, It is a trap! But then Fenton caught on, and dug into his hip pocket. Dragging out his skinny old wallet, he slipped a couple bucks out of it and passed them to the delivery guy, saying, ‘Thanks, pal.’

  ‘Anytime, sport,’ the delivery guy said, and went grinning through the gate. While Mulligan relocked, the delivery guy hopped in his truck and drove away, and Fenton and Dresner checked out the boxes. ‘Both the same,’ Dresner announced. ‘Sausage and cheese.’

  ‘Not a bad thing, sausage and cheese,’ Mulligan allowed.

  Fenton picked up one of the boxes. ‘I’ll distribute this one,’ He said. ‘You guys start on that. Don’t eat the whole thing, though, the two of you.’

  ‘Who, us?’ Mulligan said, and chortled, because he could probably get through that entire pizza all by himself with no help from Dresner at all.

  It was nice, though, a nice way to start the job. Mulligan put the pizza box on the ground between himself and Dresner, and they each pulled out slices and started to eat. It was excellent. They had no reason to be suspicious at all.

  42

  The fourth time Hradec saw Nana: The Musical, it still didn’t make any sense, but by now he was used to that. The British import was a Broadway sellout, in more ways than one, but who knew what the Broadway audience was anymore or what that audience thought made sense? The green-tinged lighting, the smoke and mirrors, the gritty evocation of low Parisian dives, the all-singing, all-dancing, all-gyrating sansculottes, the coloratura climaxes, the utter Technicolor despair at the curtain, it was all loud and spectacular and expensive, with every penny of expense visible right there onstage in the whirling sets and lunatic effects, and that’s what it presumably was all about. The audience applauded the sets and came out humming nothing, and seemed to believe it was having a good time.