The Road To Ruin

by Donald E. Westlake

  “I was wondering,” Andy admitted. “You say you’ve been out four years, but I haven’t heard anything about you, so I don’t think you’re driving any more.”

  “Not away from banks,” Chester said. “See, it isn’t that I reformed, it’s that driving in heists wasn’t my first career choice to begin with. Movies, and some television, your circus in the slow periods, industrial films, I was making out okay. But then, when the computer muscles me outa there, how else am I gonna maintain my standard of living?”

  “So,” Andy said, “you didn’t go back to it when you got out, because you got something else?”

  “I did minimum time,” Chester told him. “Kept my nose clean, all positive reports, got parole in one, with a placement bureau that actually did some placing for once. There was this rich guy, Monroe Hall—”

  “I’ve heard that name,” Andy said, and Anne Marie felt that she too had heard it, but couldn’t think where.

  “It’s been in the news of late,” Chester said, and sounded disgusted again. “Let me get there.”

  “Take your time,” Andy agreed.

  “Monroe Hall,” Chester said, “owns one of the major antique car collections in the world, out in his estate in Pennsylvania. Probably two million dollars on wheels, he keeps them in climate-controlled barns, he does exhibits sometimes, these are his babies. But himself he’s not a great driver, so he hires a guy, like a chauffeur, to drive the cars, make sure they stay in condition. You just let a car sit around, the gasoline gums up, everything goes to hell. So around the time I’m getting out, Hall’s previous chauffeur, that he’s had almost as long as the cars, dies of natural causes and he needs a new guy. I’ve got one fall, I’ve paid my debt to society, I’ve got this movie background, it’s exciting to Hall in every possible way. Movies, jail, bank robbery, you name it. So the placement bureau puts me together with Hall, I’m hired, I relocate the family out to Pennsylvania.”

  Andy said, “Family?”

  Surprised, Chester said, “You didn’t know that? Well, I guess I kept that part away from the part you knew. Yeah, I got a wife and three kids, grown now, well, in their twenties, but outa the house. So the wife and me, we relocate, and I’ve got all these cars to play with, and I’m an employee of SomniTech.”

  “Wait a minute,” Andy said. “I’ve heard of that.”

  “Sure you have,” Chester agreed. “It’s one of your huge corporations, they’re in oil, they’re in manufacturing, they’re in communications, they’re all over the place. It’s what they call horizontal diversification, which to me sounds like a whorehouse that caters to all tastes, but if that’s how they want to call it, fine. Anyway, Monroe Hall is one of the major executives there. And everything in his life is paid for by SomniTech. My paychecks are SomniTech. I get health insurance and a retirement plan, it’s all SomniTech. The upkeep on the cars, paid for by SomniTech. His pool maintenance is a business expense, goes through SomniTech, his kids’ dentist bills.”

  “Something went wrong,” Andy said. “I’ve read about this thing.”

  “What he was doing,” Chester said, “charging everything off to the company, turns out he wasn’t supposed to do that.”

  “Cheating the IRS,” Andy suggested.

  “Well, that, too,” Chester said. “But the main thing was, he was stealing from the company. That’s shareholders’ money, that’s supposed to be profit, dividends, they just sucked it all out, him and like four other executives at the top of the heap.”

  Anne Marie said, “I remember that! Wasn’t he the white-haired man, testified in front of Congress?”

  “Anne Marie,” Andy said, “every white-haired man in America that owns a suit has testified in front of Congress.”

  “But you’re right,” Chester assured her. “Monroe Hall was one of the people testified in those business ethics hearings.”

  Andy said, “So what happens? This Hall guy gets your old cell?”

  “Not a chance,” Chester told him. “You can’t touch these guys, every one of them is surrounded by a moat filled with man-eating lawyers. He’s still fat and happy there in Pennsylvania. But here’s the thing of it,” he said, and Anne Marie saw that now he was getting angry. “The deal he cuts,” Chester explained, “he has to make restitution, partial restitution, and the reason it’s partial, he’s gotta plead poverty now, so he can’t be a guy now that his hobby is million-dollar antique cars, so he gives it—here comes a charitable tax deduction, by the way—he gives it to a foundation. And guess who the foundation is. I mean, if you lift up the rock.”

  Andy said, “How does this affect you?”

  “The foundation takes over maintenance on the collection,” Chester said, “with some federal education money, and the foundation can’t hire an ex-con.”

  Andy said, “You’re out of a job.”

  “I’m out of everything. My job is gone, my medical insurance through SomniTech is gone, my retirement is gone, everything’s gone. I asked him, on account of my faithful service, find a spot for me somewhere, all of sudden I’m not allowed on the property, nobody wants to talk to me on the phone.”

  “Jeez,” Andy said.

  Chester shook his head. “My first career is still dead, my second career still contains certain risks, and I don’t feel like getting a job at a car service in Manhattan, to be the guy out at the airport holding up the sign: Pembroke.”

  Andy said, “You have a different idea.”

  “I do.”

  “And you think it includes me,” Andy said.

  “I hope it includes you.”

  John said, “What is it you want to steal?”

  “His fucking cars,” Chester said, and nodded at Anne Marie. “Excuse the French.”

  3

  “I TELL YOU WHAT,” Monroe Hall said. “Let’s throw a party.”

  “They won’t come,” Alicia said, and walked on past him toward the stairs.

  Monroe had been standing about in the upstairs west wing hall, not thinking of much of anything, when his wife emerged from the music room with a triangle in her hand. Seeing her, the party thought had just popped into his head, fully formed, and now it was as though a big happy party was what he’d been wanting forever. Forever. “Why not?” he called after her. “What do you mean, they won’t come?”

  She turned back to give him one of the patient looks he detested so. “You know why not,” she said.

  “Who won’t come?” he demanded. “What about our friends?”

  “We don’t have any friends, darling,” she said. “Not any more.”

  “Somebody has to stand by me!”

  “I’m standing by you, dearest,” she said, this time with the sad smile that was only marginally less detestable than the patient look. “I’m afraid that will have to do.”

  “We used to throw parties,” he said, feeling very forlorn and put-upon. Nearby, the clock room erupted into a hundred cuckoos proclaiming the hour—ten (A.M., though the cuckoos didn’t know quite that much)—and Monroe and his wife automatically moved on down the hall.

  “Of course we used to throw parties,” she agreed, raising her voice a bit above the cuckoos. “You were an important and successful and rich man,” she explained, as the cuckoo chorus raggedly wound itself down. “People wanted to be seen with you, to have the world think of them as your friend.”

  “That’s who I’m talking about,” Monroe said. “Those people. We’ll invite them. You’ll do clever wording on the note, something about how the little unpleasantness is over and we can all get back to our lives again, and—Why are you shaking your head?”

  “They won’t come,” she said, “and you know it.”

  “But I’m still important and successful,” he insisted. “And I’m still rich, come to that, though I admit I can’t quite flaunt it the way I used to. But I’m still who I was.”

  “Oh, darling, no, you’re not,” she said, with the little sympathetic headshake and cluck that was also on the detestable li
st. “What you are now, Monroe,” she told him, “is notorious. What you are now is a pariah.”

  “Oh!” he cried, terribly hurt. “That you’d say that!”

  “No party, dear,” she said. “We can watch movies on the television.”

  “What about the lawyers?” he demanded. “They made enough off me, God knows. What if I invited them?”

  “They’d be happy to come,” she said.

  He smiled. “See?”

  “For three hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”

  “Oh, damn!” he cried, and actually stamped his foot. A soft man of middle height, middle age, and middling condition, his jowls rippled when he stamped his foot, which he didn’t realize and which his wife was too kindhearted to tell him, unfortunately, because it made him look like a turkey, and if he’d known that, he might have stopped doing it. But he didn’t know about his comical jowls, so he did stamp his foot, and cried out, “I can’t do anything! I can’t leave the country, I can’t even leave the state. I can’t go into the office—”

  “You don’t have an office any more, dear,” she said.

  “That’s why I can’t go into it.”

  “If you did go to the headquarters of SomniTech, Monroe,” she told him, “the remaining employees there, the ones who lost their retirement benefits, might very well string you up.”

  “For God’s sake!” he cried. “Why can’t they all just get over it? What did I do? The same thing everybody else did!”

  “Well, a little more so,” she suggested.

  “A matter of degree.” Monroe shrugged it all away. “Listen, what about the fellas? You know, the old bunch from the shop? They can’t high-hat me, they were indicted, too.”

  “If you will recall, Monroe,” she said, with the detestable patient look, “the judge was very forceful on that topic. You and the boys are not to associate with one another any more.”

  “Associate!” he cried, as though he’d never had any such idea in his mind. “I don’t want to associate. How can a fellow play golf? I want to play golf! You can’t play golf by yourself, then what is it? Just you and these sticks and the ball, and you hit and walk and hit and walk and it’s boring, Alicia, it’s the most boring thing on earth, golf, if you’re just doing it by yourself. The whole point of golf is hearty laughter with your chums. And where are my chums?”

  “Not in jail,” she pointed out, “and neither are you, and you can all consider yourselves extremely lucky.”

  “Bosh,” he said. “That wasn’t luck, that was money. Give a whole lot of money to the lawyers, stand back, let them work out the deal. So they worked out the deal. But how long do I have to—Pariah! How long does that go on? It is like being in jail, Alicia!”

  “Not quite,” she said, with the detestable sad smile. “Not quite, Monroe, though I do understand. I too would like a little fun in my life. Would you like to go for a drive?”

  “Where?” he demanded. “If I leave the compound, you never know when some reporter’s going to pop out from behind a tree with those smart-alecky questions. Or even a disgruntled stockholder, some of them are still out there, too, with their horsewhips.”

  “Around the compound, then,” she said. “We could take that Healey Silverstone, that’s such a fun car to drive.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” he said, and stuck out his lower lip. What he was feeling, in fact, was sulky. Since he’d been born rich into a family that had been a long time rich, he’d never known the need to suppress his feelings, so he pouted completely and might even have stamped his foot again, except he sensed that a kind of lumpish stillness might better illustrate the sulk he’d fallen into.

  “Well, I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “Zip around in the Healey. Wind in our hair.”

  “I don’t like the cars as much any more,” he said.

  “Because you had to let Chester go,” she suggested.

  “We all knew he was an ex-convict,” Monroe reminded her. “He was one of my good deeds, one of my many good deeds that no longer counts any more. But, no. I have to pretend I’ve given the cars away and do all that foundation rigmarole so they won’t be lost in the settlement, and fire the only person who ever really understood the cars and could make them just tick right along. I loved it when he drove me. I don’t want to drive me. I’m afraid of banging them into things.”

  “I’ll drive you,” she offered.

  “I’m afraid of you banging them into things.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “I’ve never banged a car into anything in my life.”

  “Famous last words.”

  “I’m going for a drive,” she decided, “with you or without you. In the Healey. I love that car.”

  “Associate,” Monroe said, pursuing his own thoughts. “There’s that ‘associate’ word again. I can’t associate with Chester because he’s an ex-convict, surprise, surprise, so now I don’t even get to enjoy the cars any more.”

  “Coming, Monroe?”

  “No,” he said, remembering he was sulking, and again stuck out his lower lip.

  “Well, in that case,” she said, with a smile, “I might even drive off the compound. Nobody bothers me. Here, put this away, would you?” she said, and handed him the triangle. “I won’t practice with it, after all. That’s how bored I was, Monroe. But a quick spin in the Healey is a much better idea than ting-ting-ting, sing Johnny One-Note. I’ll be back for lunch.” And off she went, down the hall toward the stairs and the great world outside.

  Because Monroe was rich, Alicia, who was his first wife, looked like a second wife, so, even when sulking, he watched her walk with a great deal of pleasure. One of the few pleasures left to him, Alicia. He knew he was lucky she’d stuck by him, when all the other rats deserted like … well, the ship thing.

  She was gone. He was alone in the hallway, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Can’t even have a party.

  God, he told himself, I wish something would happen.

  4

  WHEN DORTMUNDER WALKED INTO the O. J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at eleven that night, Rollo the bartender was nowhere to be seen. The regulars, clustered as usual at the left end of the bar, were continuing without him, like a conductorless orchestra.

  At the moment, the discussion concerned global warming. “The reason for global warming,” one of them said as Dortmunder leaned his front against the bar somewhere down to the right of them, “is air conditioners.”

  Two or three of the regulars wished to object to this idea, but he with the most powerful voice won out, speaking, perhaps, for the group as a whole: “Whadaya mean, air conditioners? Air conditioners make things cold.”

  “Indoors,” the first regular said. “What happens to all the heat used to be indoors? It’s outdoors. It’s what they call vent. All the cold air’s inside, all the hot air’s outside, there you go, global warming.”

  A third regular, who’d been outshouted the last time around, now said, “What about in the winter? Nobody’s got their air conditioner on then, they got furnaces, they’re keeping the heat inside.”

  “So?” the first regular demanded. “Is there a point in this?”

  “A point?” The third regular was astounded. “The point is, no air conditioners in the winter, so how does that make for global warming?”

  “Come on, dummy,” the first regular said. “There isn’t any global warming in the winter, everybody knows that. It’s cold in the winter.”

  “Not in South America,” said a fourth regular.

  “‘Dummy’?” said the third regular. “Did I hear ‘dummy’?”

  “Not you,” the first regular assured him, “just in general.” And to the fourth regular he said, “Okay. So maybe in South America they got global warming in the winter. In our winter. It’s their summer. It’s the same thing.”

  The third regular, trying to fix his stance in all this, muttered, mostly to himself, “Dummy in general?”

  Meanwhile, a fifth regular had chimed in. “
It isn’t air conditioners, anyway,” he informed the group. “It’s coal mine fires.”

  Nobody liked that one. The third regular even forgot his “general dummy” dilemma to say, “Coal mine fires? A couple little underground fires in Pennsylvania, you think that makes global warming?”

  “Not just Pennsylvania,” the fifth regular told him. “In Russia you got coal mine fires. All over the world.”

  The second regular, whose loud voice had not been heard for some time, now said, “What it mostly is, you know, is holidays. I mean, those other things may help, I wouldn’t know about that, but your basic cause is holidays.”

  The first regular, the air conditioner stalwart, turned on this new theorist, saying, “What do holidays have to do with anything?”

  “There’s too many of them,” the second regular said. “You got a holiday, everybody gets in their car and drives, or they take a plane. All that fossicle fuel everybody’s burning, that gives off a lotta heat.”

  Before anybody could comment on that, the third regular said, “What I wanna know is, how come all the holidays are on Monday? I mean, does it just work out like that, or is this a conspiracy?”

  Conspiracy; huh. They all thought about that. Then a woman from the regulars’ auxiliary, a little farther down the bar, said, “Thanksgiving isn’t on Monday, it’s on Thursday. I been known to cook it.”

  “All the others,” the third regular told her. “All the ones you can’t remember their names.”

  “Christmas,” the first regular suggested, “isn’t always on Monday, it’s all over the hell. I remember there was a Christmas on a Sunday once, threw everything outa whack.”

  Rollo the bartender came in then, from the street, wearing over his high-calorie apron an eleven-foot-long Bob Cratchit scarf, even though it was balmy late May outside, just past the Monday on which, or so the politicians thought, Memorial Day—remember that?—had been “observed.” Seeing Dortmunder, he said, “Be right with you.”

  “Take your time.”

  Rollo would anyway, but he said, “Thanks.” Going around behind the bar to his usual location, unwinding and unwinding the scarf, he held up a little package and said, “I ran outa D’Agostino bitters.”