Watch Your Back

by Donald Westlake

  “I noticed that myself,” Dortmunder admitted. “I guess it doesn’t travel.”

  Tiny said, “Whadawe gonna do about the O.J.?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Kelp told him, “John and me, we’ll go over, see what the story is, are they finished whatever they’re doing over there. Right, John?”

  “Sure,” Dortmunder said. “Could we get to the actual topic now? The reason we’re here?”

  “If I’m gonna get back to Canarsie before my bedtime,” Murch’s Mom said, “we better.”

  “Good,” Dortmunder said. “This opportunity comes to us courtesy of Arnie Albright.”

  “He’s off in rehab,” Stan said.

  Dortmunder sighed. “No,” he said, “he’s back.” And he then related, with footnotes from Kelp, everything Arnie had said to them in his apartment.

  When he finished, Stan said, “This elevator goes up the outside of the apartment building?”

  “Right,” Dortmunder said. “And it’s only got doors at the top and bottom.”

  “Something goes wrong up top,” Stan said, “that sounds like maybe you’re trapped.”

  Kelp said, “Stan, that’s not the only way in and out. That’s the best way, for us. But the apartment’s got a front door, too, and a hall, and other elevators, and even staircases.”

  Murch’s Mom said, “That part’s okay, Stanley. What I wonder about is this seventy percent.”

  “That’s not natural,” Tiny said. “For a fence to take the light end of the seesaw.”

  Murch’s Mom appealed to Dortmunder: “So what do you think, John? Did he mean it?”

  “Well, in a way,” Dortmunder said. “I think he meant he was that mad at the guy owns the apartment. He’s still that mad at the guy, so that right now what he thinks he wants is revenge.”

  “I agree,” Kelp said. “But this is before Arnie has paper money in his hand.”

  “Green beats revenge,” Tiny said, “every time.”

  “The thing is,” Stan said, “seventy percent of what? We give him, I dunno, a silver ashtray, he says I got a hundred bucks for it, here’s your seventy. Whadawe know what he got for it? He doesn’t deal with people where you’re gonna have invoices, receipts.”

  “If Arnie ever saw a paper trail,” Dortmunder said, “he’d set fire to it.”

  “So what it comes down to,” Murch’s Mom said, “we do the work, we take the risks, he gives us whatever he wants to give us.”

  “Like always,” Kelp said. “It’s trust makes the world go round.”

  “Tomorrow,” Tiny said, “I’ll go look at this place.” To Stan and his Mom he said, “You wanna be there?”

  They looked at each other and both shook their heads. “We just drive,” Stan said. “You guys say it’s good, we’ll show up.”

  “Right,” his Mom said.

  “Fine.” Tiny looked at Dortmunder and Kelp. “You two are going to check on the O.J.?”

  “That’s the plan,” Kelp said.

  “So where do we meet after?”

  “Not the O.J., I don’t think,” Dortmunder said. “Not until we know for sure what’s what.” He looked around his crowded living room. “And maybe not here.”

  “It’s daytime,” Tiny said. “We’ll meet at the fountain in the park. Three o’clock?”

  “Fine,” Dortmunder said, and they all heard the apartment door open. The others looked at their host, who stood and called, “May?”

  “You’re home?”

  May appeared in the doorway, gazed around the room, and said, “You’re all home.”

  Everybody else got to their feet to say hello to May and get likewise back, and then she said, “How come you didn’t go to the O.J.?”

  “It’s a long story,” Dortmunder said.

  “We’ve all heard it,” Tiny said, moving toward the door. “Night, May. Three o’clock tomorrow, Dortmunder.”

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  Judson Blint entered names and addresses into the computer. He printed out labels and affixed them to the small cardboard boxes of books, along with appropriate postage from the Pitney Bowes stamp machine. He stacked the labeled boxes on the tall–handled metal cart and, when it was full, wheeled it out of the office to the elevator, then on down to the postal substation on the Avalon State Bank Tower lobby level. After turning the boxes over to the United States Postal Service, he used the tagged keys J.C. Taylor had given him to open Box 88, Super Star Music Co.; Box 13, Allied Commissioners’ Courses, Inc.; Box 69, Intertherapeutic Research Service; and Box 222, Commercial Attaché, Republic of Maylohda. Back upstairs, he put all the mail on his desk except the few items for Maylohda, which appeared to come from real countries and official organizations connected with the United Nations. After a discreet knock on the door to the inner office, he then brought the Maylohda mail in and placed it on the desk in front of J.C. herself, who was usually on the phone, sounding very official and occasionally foreign. Back at his own desk, he next entered the newly hooked customers into the database and prepared a deposit of their just–received checks into one of J.C.’s three bank accounts in the Avalon Bank branch, also on the lobby level, having first forged J.C. Taylor on each check, a skill he had picked up in no time.

  If everything he did didn’t happen to be breaking some law or another — mail fraud, misuse of bulk rate, identity theft of the endorsements, plagiarism, sale of inappropriate material to minors, on and on — all of this activity would be very like a job. But it was better than a job. It was a world, a world he’d always believed had to exist somewhere, but hadn’t known how to find. So it had found him.

  When he had assembled his fake job resume out on Long Island, he’d thought he was being brilliant, and in a way he was, though not in the manner he’d thought.

  No wonder J.C. had caught on so immediately. When Judson, with his eyes freshly opened, studied J.C. Taylor’s businesses, she had done exactly the same thing for references. The police chiefs and district attorneys who’d endorsed the detective course, all dead or retired or otherwise unavailable. And the same for the music publishers, disc jockeys, and songwriters boosting Super Star, and likewise the psychiatrists, “medical professionals,” and marriage counselors urging the purchase of Intertherapeutic’s book of dirty pictures. (Was that J.C. herself in some of those pictures? Couldn’t be.)

  Ultimately, though, what made the routine in office 712 of the Avalon State Bank tower so much better than an actual job was that the job hadn’t existed until he’d come along. J.C. had planned to shut down all three of these operations and had changed her mind only when she’d seen his brilliant résumé — seen through his brilliant resume, in a New York minute — and realized he was the perfect person to pick up the torch.

  He would not fail her. She has faith in me as a con artist and a crook, he told himself, and I will not let her down.

  At just after ten in the morning on the second day of his illicit employment, he was at his desk, busy with labels and Pitney Bowes, when the hall door opened. This was the first such occurrence, but he’d already been told what to say in such a circumstance — J.C. Taylor isn’t here, did you make an appointment, leave your name, go away — so he was already opening his mouth before the door was fully open, but then it turned out to be the man improbably called Tiny, who was presumably J.C.’s boyfriend, though the word had never seemed more inadequate.

  “Oh, hello,” Judson said, since his mouth was open anyway.

  “That’s a better getup, kid,” Tiny said, closing the door and waving a hand at Judson’s polo shirt and slacks, which were, in fact, a much better getup than the costume he’d worn while job hunting.

  “Thank you,” Judson said, pleased. “Am I supposed to tell J.C. you’re here?”

  “I’ll tell her myself.” Tiny seemed to consider for a minute, then said, “You got a credit card?”

  Surprised, Judson said, “Sure. A couple.”

  “One will do. This afternoon, rent a car. A full
–size one, you know?”

  “For you, you mean.”

  “That’s right. Two o’clock, meet me at Lex and Seventy–second, northwest corner. When you get your credit card bill, I’ll pay you back in cash.”

  “Oh, sure. No problem.”

  “Don’t be too trusting, kid,” Tiny advised him. “I’ll square your absence with Josey. Two o’clock.”

  “Seventy–second and Lex. I’ll be there.”

  “So will I,” Tiny said, and advanced into the inner office, closing the door behind himself.

  Whatever it is that’s happening, Judson thought, I’m getting in deeper. The thought made him smile.

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  Silent as the tomb. When Dortmunder and Kelp walked into the O.J. a little before two that afternoon, even the floor didn’t creak. There seemed to be fewer regulars than usual, huddled together at the left end of the bar, as silent and miserable as kittens in a sack with the bridge getting close. The two watchful guys in the booth on the right were not the same as the two from last night, but they weren’t that different, either. Rollo had a newspaper folded open on the bar at the right end, far from the immobile regulars, and was bent over it with a red Flair pen in his hand.

  Approaching the bar, Dortmunder felt the eyes of the guys in the booth on him, but ignored them. Then he saw that Rollo was not reading the Daily News, like a regular person, but the larger paper, the New York Times. And then he saw that what Rollo was reading in the New York Times was the want ads.

  Rollo didn’t raise his eyes from the columns of jobs awaiting the qualified when Dortmunder and Kelp bellied up to the bar in front of him, but he was not unmindful of their presence. “Sorry, fellas,” he said, eyes down, pen poised. “Still no go.”

  “Rollo,” Dortmunder said, “all’s we want’s a beer.”

  “Two beers, in fact,” Kelp said.

  Now Rollo did look up. He seemed wary. “Nothing else in mind?”

  “What else?” Kelp asked him. “It’s a hot August day, the time seems right for a nice beer.”

  Rollo shrugged. “Coming up,” he said, and went away to draw two.

  While they waited, Kelp said, “I think it’s my round, John.”

  Dortmunder looked at him. “What are you up to?”

  “What up to? I feel like I wanna buy you a beer. It happens, we have another one, then you buy for me. That’s how it works, John.”

  Dortmunder said, “What if we only have the one?”

  “My feeling is,” Kelp said, whipping out his wallet and putting cash money on the bar next to the glasses Rollo was putting down in front of them, “some day we’ll be in a bar again.”

  Dortmunder could only agree with that. “You’ll keep track, I guess,” he said, as Rollo took Kelp’s money away to his open cash register and rummaged around in there a while.

  “No problem,” Kelp assured him, and lifted his glass. “To crime.”

  “Without punishment,” Dortmunder amended, and they both drank.

  Rollo came back to put crumpled bills on the bar in front of Kelp, who took a few, left one, and said, “Thanks, Rollo.”

  Rollo leaned close over the bar. Very softly he said, “I just wanna say, this isn’t the best place right now.”

  “We noticed that, Rollo,” Kelp said, and nodded, and smiled in an amiable way, inviting confidences.

  “The thing is,” Rollo said, more sotto voce than ever, “there are people around here right now, what they are, they’re criminals.”

  Dortmunder leaned very close to Rollo over the bar. “Rollo,” he murmured, “we’re criminals.”

  “Yeah, John, I know,” Rollo said. “But they’re organized. Take care of yourselves.”

  “Everything okay, Rollo?” demanded a nasty voice.

  It was one of today’s organized men, come from his booth to stand at the bar in front of Rollo’s Times. His strange shirt was off–puce.

  “Everything’s jake,” Rollo assured him. Scooping the loose dollar from the bar, he went back to his newspaper, while the puce, after one quick, dismissive look at Dortmunder and Kelp, headed back to his booth.

  Dortmunder said, “You think everything’s okay in life, and then something different happens.”

  Kelp gave him a look. “John? On one beer you’re turning philosophical?”

  “It’s the environment,” Dortmunder told him.

  Meanwhile, returning to his want ads, Rollo called toward the entrance, “Just put ‘em in back,” and when Dortmunder turned to look, a blue–uniformed deliveryman was wheeling in a dolly piled five–high with liquor cartons.

  “Right,” the deliveryman said, and wheeled the dolly on by. The regulars didn’t even turn to watch.

  Dortmunder and Kelp exchanged a silent glance as they sipped their beer. Soon the deliveryman returned, pushing his empty dolly, and Dortmunder stepped back from the bar to say, in a normal volume of voice, “I gotta hit the gents.”

  “I’ll watch your beer,” Kelp offered.

  “Thank you.”

  Dortmunder circled the clustered regulars and went around the end of the bar and down the hall past POINTERS and SETTERS, noticing that beneath SETTERS was a thumb–tacked handwritten OUT OF ORDER notice, and past the entry–to–the–universe phone booth, and stopped at the open green door at the very end of the hall.

  And there was the back room, where so often they had met in the past, and which was now transformed. It was so jam–packed full of stuff you couldn’t even see the round table in the middle of it any more, let alone the chairs around it. The bare bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling was partially blocked by all the materiel that had been introduced into the place. Liquor cartons were stacked everywhere, along with new barstools with their plastic wrapping still on them, at least half a dozen cash registers, a complete mini pool table, and boxes and boxes of pretzels and Slim Jims.

  “Help you, Mac?”

  It was Puce, following Dortmunder down the hall. He had an aggressive swagger in his shoulders, as though he felt it was a little past time to start sparring with somebody.

  “Gents,” Dortmunder told him, calm about it.

  “Pointers,” Puce told him, and pointed at it.

  “Thanks,” Dortmunder said, and went into POINTERS, where the aroma immediately reminded him why generally he did not go into POINTERS. He stayed the minimum time plausible, flushed, washed his hands as the grimy sign said, and went out to the hall, which was now empty.

  It wasn’t a surprise that the door to SETTERS was locked. Dortmunder headed for the bar, and on the way he passed the deliveryman, wheeling another quintet of cases, this one all rum.

  Puce was back in his booth, muttering at his pal in plum, and Kelp was where he had been, at the bar. Dortmunder joined him, and Kelp raised an eyebrow as Dortmunder raised his glass. Dortmunder shook his head, drank, and the deliveryman came back, the dolly empty. This time he went around to extend a clipboard toward Rollo and say, “Sign it there, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Rollo, in the manner of someone signing his own commitment papers, signed the form on the clipboard, and the deliveryman and his dolly went away.

  Dortmunder finished his beer. “Maybe,” he said, “I’ll buy you that round next time.”

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  “Make the left on Fifth,” Tiny said from the backseat. “Okay,” Judson said, stopped the rented black Lexus Dzilla at the traffic light, and signaled for the left.

  This was their third time around the block, over Sixty–ninth Street, down Fifth, over Sixty–eighth, up Madison, over Sixty–ninth, on and on. And Tiny never said, “Circle the block”; he always just gave the next turn, as though he hoped Judson wouldn’t notice or remember the route.

  Well, Judson did notice and remember the route, and he had even figured out what it was they were looking at. “Very slow here,” Tiny would say every time they made the left turn from Fifth Avenue to Sixty–eighth Str
eet, and every time Judson watched in the rearview mirror to see what Tiny was focused on, and every time it was the first house on the right after the big apartment building on the corner. There was something about that house that interested Tiny a whole lot.

  “Make the left on Sixty–eighth.”