Nobody's Perfect (dortmunder)

by Donald E. Westlake

  Tiny lifted his shoulders in a shrug – seismograph needles trembled all over the Northern Hemisphere – and said, "I got nothing but time." And he knocked back about a third of the red liquid in his glass.

  "How have things been inside?" Dortmunder asked.

  "Bout the same. You remember Baydlemann?"

  "Yeah?"

  Tiny chuckled, like far-off thunder. "Fell in a vat of lye."

  "Yeah? Get hurt?"

  "His left thumb come out pretty good."

  "Well," Dortmunder said, "Baydlemann had a lot of enemies on the inside."

  "Yeah," Tiny said. "I was one a them."

  There was a little silence after that, while both men thought their own thoughts. Dortmunder sipped at his drink, which didn't taste even remotely like the nectar called bourbon that Chauncey had given him. Maybe there'd be a bottle or two of the stuff upstairs the night of the heist; not to drink on the job, but to take away for the celebration afterwards.

  Dortmunder was tasting one kind of bourbon, and dreaming about another kind, when the door opened and a stocky open-faced fellow with carroty hair came jauntily in, carrying a glass of beer in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. "Hey, there, Dortmunder," he said. "Am I late?"

  "No, you're right on time," Dortmunder told him. "Tiny Bulcher, this is–"

  The newcomer said, "I took a different route. I wasn't sure how it'd work out."

  "Your timing is good," Dortmunder assured him. "Tiny, this is Stan Murch – he'll be our–"

  "You see," said Stan Murch, putting his glass and shaker on the table and taking a chair, "with the West Side Highway closed it changes everything. All the old patterns."

  Tiny said to him, "You the driver?"

  "The best," Murch said, matter-of-factly.

  "It was a driver got me sent up my last stretch," Tiny said. "Took back roads around a roadblock, made a wrong turn, come up behind the roadblock, thought he was still in front of it. We blasted our way through, back into the search area."

  Murch looked sympathetic. "That's tough," he said.

  "Fella named Sigmond. You know him?"

  "I don't believe so," Murch said.

  "Looked a little like you," Tiny said.

  "Is that right?"

  "Before we got outa the car, when the cops surrounded us, I broke his neck. We all said it was whiplash from the sudden stop."

  Another little silence fell. Stan Murch sipped thoughtfully at his beer. Dortmunder took a mouthful of bourbon. Tiny Bulcher slugged down the rest of his vodka-and-red-wine. Then Murch nodded, slowly, as though coming to a conclusion about something. "Whiplash," he commented. "Yeah, whiplash. That can be pretty mean."

  "So can I," said Tiny, and the door opened again, this time to admit a short and skinny man wearing spectacles and a wool suit, and carrying a round bar tray containing the bottle of Amsterdam Liquor Store bourbon, plus a glass with something that looked like but was not cherry soda, and a small amber glass of sherry. "Hello," said the skinny man. "The barman asked me to bring all this."

  "Hey, Roger!" Stan Murch said. "Where you been keeping yourself?"

  "Oh," said the skinny man, vaguely. "Just around. Here and there." He put the tray on the table and seated himself, and Tiny reached at once for his new vodka-and-red-wine.

  Dortmunder said, "Tiny Bulcher, this is Roger Chefwick." Tiny nodded over his glass, and Roger said, "How do you do?"

  Dortmunder explained to Tiny, "Roger is our lock-and-alarm man."

  "Our terrific lock-and-alarm man!" Stan Murch said.

  Roger Chefwick looked pleased and embarrassed. "I do my best," he said, and delicately lifted his sherry from the tray.

  Tiny washed down some red stuff and said, "I'm the smash-and-carry man. The terrific smash-and-carry man."

  "I'm sure you're very good at it," Chefwick said, politely. Then he pointed at the glass of red stuff and said, "Is that really vodka and red wine?"

  "Sure," said Tiny. "Why not? Gives the vodka a little taste, gives the wine a little body."

  "Ah," said Chefwick, and sipped sherry.

  Murch said, "Roger, somebody told me you were in jail in Mexico."

  Chefwick seemed both embarrassed and a bit annoyed at the subject having come up. "Oh, well," he said. "That was just a misunderstanding."

  "I heard," Murch insisted, "you tried to hijack a subway car to Cuba."

  Chefwick put his sherry glass on the felt surface of the table with some force. "I really don't see," he said, "how these silly rumors spread so far so fast."

  "Well," Murch said, "what did happen?"

  "Hardly anything," Chefwick said. "You know I'm a model-train enthusiast."

  "Sure. I seen the layout in your cellar."

  "Well," Chefwick said, "Maude and I were in Mexico on vacation, and in Vera Cruz there were some used New York City subway cars awaiting shipment to Cuba, and I– well– I actually merely intended to board one and look around a bit." A certain amount of discomfort was evident in Chefwick's face now. "One thing led to another," he said, "and I'm afraid the car began to move, and then it got out of control, and the first thing I knew I was on the main line to Guadalajara, having a great deal of difficulty staying ahead of the two-thirty express. But, so far from hijacking a subway car to Cuba, the Mexican police at first accused me of stealing the car from Cuba. However, with Maude's help we got it all straightened out in a day or two. Which," Chefwick concluded petulantly, "I'm afraid I can't say for the rumors and wild stories."

  Tiny Bulcher abruptly said, "I did a bank job once with a lock man that thought he was a practical joker. Give me a dribble glass one time, exploding cigar one time."

  Dortmunder and Murch both looked at Tiny a bit warily. Dortmunder said, "What happened?"

  "After we emptied the vault," Tiny said, "I pushed him in and shut the door. He thought he was such hot stuff, let him get himself out from the inside."

  Dortmunder said, "Did he?"

  "The bank manager let him out, Monday morning. I hear he's still upstate."

  "That wasn't very funny," Roger Chefwick said. His expression was very prim.

  "Neither was the cigar," Tiny said, and turned to Dortmunder, saying, "We're all here now, right?"

  "Right," Dortmunder said. He cleared his throat, sipped some more bourbon, and said, "What I got here is a simple breaking and entering. No fancy caper, no helicopters, no synchronize-your-watches, just come in through an upstairs window, take what we pick up along the way, and go after our main thing, which happens to be a painting."

  Tiny said, "Valuable painting?"

  "Four hundred thousand dollars."

  "Do we have a buyer?"

  "That we got," Dortmunder said, and went on to explain the whole story, finishing, "So our only problems are the burglar alarm and the private guards, but we got the best kind of inside help, and a guaranteed buyer."

  "And twenty-five thousand a man," said Stan Murch.

  "Plus," Dortmunder reminded him, "whatever we pick up on the upper floors."

  Tiny said, "I don't know about that six-month wait. I like my money right away."

  "The guy has to get it from the insurance company," Dortmunder said. "He said to me, and it makes sense, if he had a hundred thousand cash on him he wouldn't have to pull anything like this."

  Tiny shrugged his huge shoulders. "I guess it's okay," he said. "I can make a living in the meantime. There's always heads to crack."

  "Right," Dortmunder said, and turned to Roger Chefwick. "What about you?"

  "I've seen Watson Security Services and their installations," Chefwick said, with some disdain. "The easiest thing in the world to get through."

  "So you're with us?"

  "With pleasure."

  "Fine," Dortmunder said. He looked around at his string – an erratic genius lock-and-alarm man, a compulsive one-track-mind driver, and a beast from forty fathoms – and found it good. "Fine," he repeated. "I'll work out the timing with the owner, and get back to you."r />
  Chapter 5

  Dortmunder was sitting on the sofa with his feet up on the coffee table, a beer in his right hand and a luncheon-loaf sandwich on white with mayo in his left hand, his sleepy eyes more or less focused on Angels with Dirty Faces, being screened this afternoon on WNEW-TV, channel five, when the doorbell rang. Dortmunder blinked slowly, but otherwise didn't move, and a minute later May walked through the living room, trailing a thin wavy line of smoke from the cigarette in the corner of her mouth as she dried her sudsy hands on a dishtowel. She crossed the line of vision between Dortmunder and the television set – he blinked again, as slowly as before – and went on out to the foyer to open the door.

  A loud and rather angry voice cut through the background music of Angels with Dirty Faces: "Where is he?"

  Dortmunder sighed. He filled his mouth with bread and mayo and luncheon loaf, sat up a bit straighter on the sofa, and waited for the inevitable.

  Out in the foyer, May was saying something soothing, which was apparently not doing its job. "Just let me at him," insisted the loud angry voice, and then there were heavy footsteps, and in came a wiry sharp-nosed fellow with a chip on his shoulder. "You!" he said, pointing at Dortmunder.

  May, looking worried, followed the sharp-nosed fellow into the room, saying, in a ghastly attempt at cheeriness, "Look who's here, John. It's Andy Kelp."

  Dortmunder swallowed white bread and luncheon loaf and mayo. "I see him," he said. "He's between me and the TV set."

  "You got a job!" Kelp yelled, in tones of utter outrage.

  Dortmunder gestured with his sandwich, as though shooing a fly. "Would you move over a little? I can't see the picture."

  "I will not move over." Kelp folded his arms firmly over his chest and stamped his shoes down onto the carpet, legs slightly spread, to emphasize his immobility. Dortmunder could now see about a third of the screen, just under Kelp's crotch. He scrunched down in the sofa, trying to see more, but then his own feet on the coffee table got in the way.

  And Kelp was repeating, "You got a job, Dortmunder. You got a job, and you didn't tell me."

  "That's right," Dortmunder said. He sipped beer.

  "I brought you a lotta jobs," Kelp said, aggrieved. "And now you got one, and you cut me out?"

  Stung from his lethargy, Dortmunder sat up straighter, spilled beer on his thumb, and said, "Oh, yeah, that's right. You brought me jobs. A kid that kidnaps us."

  "He never did."

  "A bank," Dortmunder said, "and we lose it in the goddam Atlantic Ocean."

  "We took over two thousand apiece out of that bank," Kelp pointed out.

  Dortmunder gave him a look of disgusted contempt. "Two thousand apiece," he repeated. "Remind me, was that dollars or pesos?"

  Kelp abruptly shifted gears. Switching from antagonism to conciliation, he spread his hands and said, "Aw, come on, Dortmunder. That isn't fair."

  "I'm not trying to be fair," Dortmunder told him. "I'm not a referee. I'm a thief, and I'm trying to make a living."

  "Dortmunder, don't be like that," Kelp said, pleading now. "We're such a terrific team."

  "If we were any more terrific," Dortmunder said, "we'd starve to death." He looked at the sandwich in his left hand. "If it wasn't for May, I would starve to death." And he took a big bite of sandwich.

  Kelp stared in frustration, watching Dortmunder chew. "Dortmunder," he said, but then he just helplessly moved his hands around, and finally turned to May, saying, "Talk to him, May. Was it my fault the bank fell in the ocean?"

  "Yes," said Dortmunder.

  Kelp was thunderstruck: "B-b-b-b-b- How?"

  "I don't know how," Dortmunder said, "but it was your fault. And it was your fault we had to steal the same emerald six times. And it was your fault we kidnapped some child genius that boosted the ransom off us. And it was your fault–"

  Kelp reeled back, stunned by the number and variety of charges. Hands spread wide, he lifted his head and appealed to Heaven, saying, "I can't believe what I'm hearing in this room."

  "Then go to some other room."

  Having had no help from Heaven, Kelp appealed again to May, saying, "May, can't you do something?"

  She couldn't, and she must have known she couldn't, but she tried anyway, saying, "John, you and Andy have been together so long–"

  Dortmunder gave her a look. "Yeah," he said. "We just been reminiscing."

  Then he stared at the television set, which was now showing a commercial in which ballerinas in tutus danced on top of a giant can of deodorant spray, to the music of Prelude a l'après midi d'un faune.

  May shook her head. "I'm sorry, Andy."

  Kelp sighed. His manner now was stern and statesmanlike. He said, "Dortmunder, is this final?"

  Dortmunder kept watching the ballerinas. "Yes," he said. Kelp drew his tattered dignity about himself like a feather boa. "Goodbye, May," he said, with great formality. "I'm sorry it ended like this."

  "We'll still see you around, Andy," May said, frowning unhappily.

  "I don't think so, May. Thanks for everything. Bye."

  "Bye, Andy," May said.

  Kelp exited, without looking again at Dortmunder, and a few seconds later they heard the front door slam. May turned to Dortmunder, and now her frown showed more annoyance than unhappiness. "That wasn't right, John," she said.

  The ballerinas had at least been replaced by the angels with dirty faces. Dortmunder said, "I'm trying to watch this movie here."

  "You don't like movies," May told him.

  "I don't like new movies in movie houses," Dortmunder said. "I like old movies on television."

  "You also like Andy Kelp."

  "When I was a kid," Dortmunder said, "I liked gherkins. I ate three bottles of gherkins one day."

  May said, "Andy Kelp isn't a gherkin."

  Dortmunder didn't reply, but he did turn away from the television screen to give her a look. When they'd both contemplated May's remark for a little while, he returned his attention to the movie.

  May sat down next to him on the sofa, staring intently at his profile. "John," she said, "you need Andy Kelp, and you know you do."

  His lips tightened.

  "You do," she insisted.

  "I need Andy Kelp," Dortmunder said, "the way I need ten-to-twenty upstate."

  "Wait a minute, John," she said, resting a hand on his wrist. "It's true the big jobs you've tried in the last few years didn't go well–"

  "And Kelp brought me every one of them."

  "But that's the point," May told him. "He didn't bring you this one. This is yours, you got it yourself. Even if he is a jinx in his own jobs – and you know you don't really believe in jinxes, any more than I do – but even if–"

  Dortmunder frowned at her. "What do you mean, I don't believe in jinxes?"

  "Well, rational people–"

  "I do believe in jinxes," Dortmunder told her. "And rabbit foots. And not walking under ladders. And thirteen. And–"

  "Feet," May said.

  "–black cats crossing your – What?"

  "Rabbits' feet," May said. "I think it's feet, not foots."

  "I don't care if it's elbows," Dortmunder said. "I believe in it whatever it is, and even if there aren't any jinxes Kelp is still one, and he's done me enough."

  "Maybe you're the jinx," May said, very softly.

  Dortmunder gave her a look of affronted amazement. "Maybe what?"

  "After all," she said, "those were Kelp's jobs, and he brought them to you, and you can't really blame any one person for all the things that went wrong, so maybe you're the one that jinxes his jobs."

  Dortmunder had never been so basely attacked in his life. "I am not a jinx," he said, slowly and distinctly, and stared at May as though he'd never seen her before.

  "I know that," she said. "And neither is Andy. And besides, this isn't you coming in on a job he found, it's him coming in on a job you found."

  "No," Dortmunder said. He glowered at the TV screen, but he didn't see any
of the shadows moving on it.

  "Damn it, John," May said, getting really annoyed now, "you'll miss Andy and you know it."

  "Then I'll shoot again."

  "Think about it," she said. "Think about having nobody to talk it over with. Think about having nobody on the job who really understands you."

  Dortmunder grumped. He sat lower and lower in the chair, staring at the volume button instead of the screen, and his jaw was so clenched his mouth was disappearing up his nose.

  "Work with him," May said. "It's better for both of you." Silence. Dortmunder stared through a lowered curtain of eyebrow.

  "Work with him, John," May repeated. "You and Andy, the same as ever. John?"

  Dortmunder moved his shoulders, shifted his rump, recrossed his ankles, cleared his throat. "I'll think about it," he muttered.

  "I knew you'd come around!" Kelp yelled, bounding in from the foyer.

  Dortmunder sat bolt upright. He and May both stared at Kelp, who leaped around in front of them with a huge smile on his face. Dortmunder said, "I thought you left."

  "I couldn't go," Kelp said. "Not with that misunderstanding between us." He grabbed a chair, towed it over to the sofa, sat at Dortmunder's left and leaned eagerly forward. "So what's the setup?" Then he suddenly sat back, looking concerned, glancing toward the TV. "No, not yet. Watch the rest of your movie first."

  Dortmunder frowned almost wistfully at the screen. "No," he said. "Turn it off. I think it ends badly."

  Chapter 6

  "Linda," murmured Arnold Chauncey, snuggling the girl closer to his side.

  "Sarah," she responded, and bit him rather painfully on the cheek, then got out of bed.

  "Sarah?" Rubbing his cheek, Chauncey gazed up over the jumbled sheets and blankets at the tapered bare back of the girl reaching now for her blue jeans draped on a Louis Quinze chair. Astonishing how much Sarah and Linda look alike, he thought, at least from a back view. But then, so many attractive women have that elongated-cello look from behind. "How beautiful you are," he said, and since lust had very recently been satiated it was purely the comment of a connoisseur.