What's So Funny?

by Donald E. Westlake

  Naturally, as you would, as I would, they asked each other why anybody would put up an electric fence in the woods. They followed the fence to a gate—which was, in fact, the staff entrance—and from there found the big house with the little houses around it. The outbuildings were all shut down, but the big house had water and electricity and even useful food in a freezer, as though the owner hadn’t realized he wouldn’t be coming back, and maybe still didn’t know it. They had made good use of the freezer food, and supplemented it by little late-night visits to towns fifteen and twenty miles away. They’d been here three weeks now, in a place that, from the dust all over everything when they arrived, had not been occupied for years and showed no signs of potential future occupancy as well. It was all theirs. Heaven, they called it, and they were probably right.

  But now their heaven had been invaded by some very dubious people lounging around in the big living room by the big fireplace, talking about where to hide whatever it was. Which, he noticed, whatever it was, they didn’t have it here with them. From what they said to one another, this trip was to find the hiding place, then another trip would be to bring the thing itself. Kind of roundabout, Brady thought, but that was their business.

  Which they weren’t in much hurry to get done and over with, so Brady and Nessa could go back to bed. They just talked along, and then the one that thought he was in charge, that the others called Johnny, finally said, “What I’ve been thinking, you want to hide something, why not the kitchen? Lots of places there.”

  The weary one said, “We don’t know how big this is yet, so how do we know what size place we gotta put it?”

  “Just big enough,” Johnny said. “I mean, how big could it be?”

  “The purloined letter,” the chipper one said.

  Both of the others seemed stymied by that. Johnny finally said, “Was that supposed to be something?”

  “Short story by Edgar Allan Poe,” the chipper one said. “Whatsamatta, Johnny, you never went to high school?”

  “Yeah, that’s all right,” Johnny said. “What’s this letter? We’re not talking about a letter.”

  So what, Brady asked, are you talking about?

  “We’re talking about something where you hide it,” the chipper one told him, “that nobody’s gonna find it. In the story, it’s a letter. And where the guy hid it, turns out, was right there on the dresser, where nobody’s gonna see it because what they’re looking for is something hidden.”

  “Crap,” Johnny announced.

  The weary one said, “You know, Johnny, maybe not. You got something, you can’t find it, turns out, it’s right in front of you. Happens all the time.”

  “Nobody’s gonna look at that set,” Johnny insisted, “and not notice it.”

  Set? What the hell is it? Brady was about to go out and ask, unable to stand it any more.

  But then the chipper one said, “How about this? We get it. On the way up here, we get cans of spray paint, black enamel and red enamel. We paint ’em all over, this team red, this team black, nobody sees any gold, nobody sees any jewels, it just looks like any chess set. We can leave it right out, like on that big table over there with all that other stuff.”

  Gold. Jewels. Any chess set.

  Tiptoeing as fast as the first night he ever sneaked into Nessa’s house back in Numbnuts, Brady made his way to the second floor, where Nessa, tired and sweaty, was just finished bringing all their dirty used stuff up from the kitchen. “Baby!” he whispered, exulting. “We’re in!”

  “They still here?”

  “Just for a little while. Then we can go back to bed and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Oh, no.”

  This being the first time Nessa had ever said no to the idea of going back to bed, Brady stumbled to a halt on his way to the front window to watch and wait for the interlopers’ departure, turned back, and said, “What?”

  She gestured. Dirty kitchen detritus was all over the upstairs hall floor. “The first thing we’re gonna do,” she said, “is clean up this stuff. We can’t go on living like this, Brady, we gotta have it neater around us.”

  There were warning signs in that sentence, but Brady was too distracted by two different kinds of lust to notice them. “You’re right, baby,” he said, and proceeded to the window, and grinned back at her. “Comere and I’ll tell you all about it. We’re gonna clean that stuff up because we’re gonna stay here for a while. And we’re gonna stay here because our ship is comin in.”

  “What ship?” She came over to the window with deeply furrowed brow.

  “Look, there they go,” he said, and they watched out the window as the three men headed out for their limo, all talking at the same time.

  Nessa said, “Will they be back?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Brady said, with a big wide grin. “They’ll be back. Honey, we’re waitin for them to come back.”

  18

  SO FAR AS she knew, Fiona had only seen Livia Northwood Wheeler once in her life, more than a year ago, shortly after she’d been taken on here at Feinberg. She’d had no idea at the time, of course, that Mrs. Wheeler’s father had stolen an incredibly valuable property from her own great-grandfather and his friends, but she’d noticed the woman anyway, because Mrs. Wheeler was God knows noticeable, and she’d said at the time to her cubicle buddy Imogen, “Who’s that?”

  “Livia Northwood Wheeler,” Imogen told her. “She’s richer than God. In fact, she pretty well thinks of God as a parvenu.”

  Fiona watched the woman out of sight, Livia headed toward the area of the associates’ offices, following one of the secretaries who, like most of the secretaries here, was dressed much more elegantly than the young female lawyers. This Mrs. Livia Northwood Wheeler left in her wake an image of someone who might not actually be richer than God, but who certainly looked older than any deity you might care to mention. A very tall, unbelievably thin, ramrod-straight, hawk-nosed, gaunt-cheeked, laser-eyed creature with a helmet of snow-white hair that gleamed like radiation, she was garbed totally in black and walked with a stiff but determined gait, as though here to foreclose on your property and glad of the opportunity to do so.

  That time, Fiona had watched her go with a slight shudder and the thought, “I’m glad she isn’t here to see me,” an opinion which seemed to be confirmed half an hour later when Mrs. Wheeler, led by the same secretary, marched through once more in the opposite direction, looking as though her session with her lawyer had neither mollified her nor increased her rage; so it must be a steady thing, like a sanctuary candle.

  Now it was Friday morning, the day after her meeting with Mr. Dortmunder and the retelling of the story of the stolen chess set, and Fiona was graced with her second viewing of Mrs. Wheeler, this one identical to the first. Into view the lady marched, following a different secretary this time (secretarial turnover was much faster than lawyer turnover), and looking as though that sanctuary candle of discontent burned just as brightly in her breast as ever.

  Fiona watched her go, this time armed with her knowledge of their secret and surprising link, and after the woman was out of sight it became impossible to focus her mind back on her work. There was this link, and Fiona found it fascinating. It was as though a character from a history book, a George Washington or a Henry Ford, were to suddenly walk by; wouldn’t she want to share a word with the person, just to touch, however tangentially, that history? She would.

  Fiona did very little to earn Feinberg’s salary the next fifty minutes, but kept an eye on that route among the cubicles, knowing Mrs. Wheeler must eventually pass by once more, on her way out of the building. When at last, an eternity later, it did happen, Mrs. Wheeler again preceded by today’s secretary, Fiona immediately leaped to her feet and went after them.

  There was always a wait of a minute or two in the reception area before the elevator arrived; that would be her opportunity. She knew that what she was doing was wrong, to speak directly to a client with whom she had no legitimate intercourse, she
knew she could even theoretically be fired for what she was about to do, but she simply couldn’t help herself. She had to meet Mrs. Wheeler’s eye, she had to hear Mrs. Wheeler’s voice, she had to have Mrs. Wheeler herself acknowledge Fiona Hemlow’s existence.

  There they were, standing in front of the elevator doors. The secretary, Fiona noticed, wasn’t even trying to make conversation with this gargoyle, nor did the gargoyle seem to expect much in the way of what, in other circumstances, might be called human contact. Well, she was about to get some.

  Striding forward, covering her nervousness and insecurity with a bright smile and a brisk manner, Fiona gazed steadily at Mrs. Wheeler as she crossed the reception area, and just at the instant when the woman became aware of her approach, Fiona exclaimed, with happy surprise, “Mrs. Wheeler?”

  The distrust came off the lady like flies off a garbage truck. “Ye-ess?” The voice was a baritone cigarette croak, but with power in it; a carnivore’s croak.

  “Mrs. Wheeler,” Fiona hurried on, “I’m Fiona Hemlow, just a very minor lawyer here, but I did have the opportunity to work on just one tiny corner of your case, and I so hoped some day I would get the chance to tell you how much I admire you.”

  Even the secretary looked startled at that one, and Mrs. Wheeler, flies rising in clouds, said, “You do?”

  “The stand you have taken is so firm,” Fiona assured her. “So many people would just give up, would just let themselves be trampled on, but not you.”

  “Not me,” agreed Mrs. Wheeler, grim satisfaction almost melodious in that croak of a voice. Fewer flies were in evidence.

  “If I may,” Fiona said, “I would just like to shake your hand.”

  “My hand.”

  “I don’t want anything else, ” Fiona assured her, and tried for a girlish-chum sort of chuckle. “I could even get in trouble just by talking to you. But of all the people I’ve learned about since I came to work here, you’re the one I absolutely the most admire. That’s why—if it isn’t too much—if it isn’t an imposition—may I?” And she extended her small right hand, keeping that perky hopeful smile on her face and worshipful gleam in her eye.

  Mrs. Wheeler did not take the hand. She didn’t even look at it. She said, “If, Miss—”

  “Fiona Hemlow.”

  “If, Miss Hemlow, Tumbril sent you after me to butter me up, please assure him it did no good.”

  “Oh, no, Mrs.—”

  But the elevator had arrived. Without another glance at Fiona or the secretary, Mrs. Wheeler marched into the elevator as though it were the captain’s bridge and she were usurping command. Silently, the door slid shut.

  The secretary said, “I don’t think you ought to tell Jay that.”

  “I don’t think anybody needs to tell—Jay—anything about any of this,” Fiona said, and went her way, finding herself for the first time brooding on the whole issue of family feuds that go on generation after generation, and doubting very much that her own family, in such a situation against the Northwood family, would ever be on the winning side.

  19

  BY SURREPTITIOUSLY RUNNING the last few feet to the limo—not an easy thing to do—Dortmunder managed to get absolute uncontested first shot at the seating. Settling with a sense of beleaguered triumph into that soft and comfortable backward-facing seat, he looked around to see Kelp sliding in next to him and was just as glad he wouldn’t have to make conversation with Johnny Eppick the next two hundred miles.

  Eppick himself, arriving at the limo one pace too late, smiled benignly in at the two on the bench seat, said, “Enjoy the trip,” paused to shut the rear door, then got into the front seat next to Pembroke and said, “We’ll go back to New York now.”

  “I thought we would,” Pembroke said, and started the engine.

  As the car rolled down the long drive, Kelp, facing that empty rear compartment of the limo, said in a conversational voice, “We’ll have to stop somewhere to eat, won’t we, Johnny?”

  No answer. The glass partition behind Pembroke was half open, but apparently that wasn’t enough. Kelp winked at Dortmunder and raised his voice slightly: “Isn’t that so, Johnny?”

  Still nothing, so Kelp twisted around and spoke directly into the open section of the partition: “Isn’t that right, Johnny?”

  Eppick’s head slued around. “Isn’t what right?”

  “We’ll have to stop for lunch somewhere.”

  “Sure. Pembroke probably knows a place.”

  “Let me think,” Pembroke said.

  Kelp faced front—that is, rear—and said, “So they can’t hear us unless we want them to.”

  Up front, Pembroke and Eppick were in conversation, presumably about lunch, but the words couldn’t be made out from back here. Dortmunder said, “You’re right, they can’t. Is there something we want to say?”

  “About that idea of mine with the chess set.”

  “The purloined chess set thing,” Dortmunder said, and nodded. “That was pretty cute, I gotta say.”

  “It’s more than cute for us,” Kelp said.

  “It is? How?”

  “Once they’re all painted red and black enamel,” Kelp said, “who’s to say that’s the real piece or maybe some imitation we slid in, help keep all that gold from going to waste?”

  Dortmunder frowned at Kelp’s profile, but then, for security reasons of not being overheard, he faced the rear of the limo again as he said, “You’re acting as though we’re gonna get that thing.”

  “Never say die,” Kelp advised.

  “Die,” Dortmunder said. “We’re not gonna get into that vault.”

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Kelp told him. “In the meantime, you gotta talk to that granddaughter again.”

  “I already asked her for building plans,” Dortmunder said. “She doesn’t think she can get them.”

  “They’d be nice, too,” Kelp said, “but what I’m thinking about is pictures of the chess set.”

  “Pictures?”

  “It’s been on display. It’s part of a court case. There are gonna be pictures. If we wanna bring in a couple ringers on the day, we got to know what they look like.”

  “They look like chess pieces in a vault under a bank,” Dortmunder guessed.

  “Well, you’ll talk to the granddaughter,” Kelp said. “Can’t do any harm.”

  The food in New England was part hard black and part soft white. Fortunately, they carried national brands of beer in the dark-brown-laminated, green-glass-globed, black-flounce-skirted-waitress imitation Klondike/Yukon something or other where they broke their journey, so starvation was held at bay.

  “I like that seat, I think I’ll keep it the rest of the trip,” Dortmunder announced grimly when they left the scene of their designer lunch, and nobody even argued, so he got to sit up in the balcony with Kelp the whole rest of the way.

  As they neared Riverside Drive, Eppick twisted around to the space in the partition and said, “You two don’t have to see Mr. Hemlow. I’ll report.”

  Grinning, Kelp said, “Gonna tell him the enamel chess set was your idea?”

  Eppick grinned right back. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” Kelp said, “Pembroke can drop us off downtown.”

  Eppick frowned a little, not sure that was part of the deal, but Pembroke, professional eyes remaining on the road, said, “Of course, sir,” so that was all right.

  Soon they were easing to a stop at the curb in front of Mr. Hemlow’s building, and if the uniformed doorman who came trotting out and down the steps to open first the rear—“Not us, him,” Kelp said—and then the front door had any attitude toward what was coming out of this particular limousine, it didn’t show on his face.

  Eppick, before departure, looked meaningfully back at Dortmunder and said, “You’ll keep in touch. Progress, and all that.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Pembroke’s mild gaze was on them in the rearview mirror: “Sirs?”

  “I
’m the first stop,” Kelp told him. “The West Thirties.”

  “Sir.”

  They set off, and Kelp said, “Not so bad, go home by limo.”

  “They’ll probably raise my rent,” Dortmunder said.

  Kelp nodded at the floor. “Is that as comfortable down there as it looks?”

  “Try it,” Dortmunder suggested.

  20

  WHEN HER CUBICLE phone rang at seven-thirty, Fiona assumed it was a wrong number, or some other kind of mistake. Who would call her at the office, particularly after working hours? Certainly not Brian, who would always wait for her to phone him so he could put on tonight’s gourmet dinner. Nor would it be any of her friends or relatives, who would never phone her at work, not even during the business day.

  Ring, it went again, while she tried to think it through. A wrong number would be a distraction, but if she ignored it and let it go on into voice mail, then it would merely be a distraction postponed. In fact, having rung once—twice now—it was already a distraction, taking her away from the implications of mortmain as applied to this particular real estate bequest in this thinned-out old upstate Patroon family.

  Ring. That was three; after four, it would go to voice mail.

  And what if Brian had been hit by a taxi or something and it was the hospital calling, needing to know his blood type or whatever? Not that she knew his blood type, and not that the hospital wouldn’t be able to work it out for themselves, but nevertheless, just before the fourth ring that would have sent the call irrevocably down that black vertical chute into the echoless dungeon of voice mail, Fiona snapped up the receiver with her left hand, hit the button with her right, and was reaching for a pen as she said, “Fiona Hemlow.”

  “Hey, you’re still there.” The voice was vaguely familiar, a little rough, not the sort of person she would know.