“Chauncey here.”
“You got it, did you?” Zane’s rather weedy voice, empty of strength or emphasis, suggested a kind of wasting menace that Chauncey found thrilling; like a Brueghel allegory.
“Yes, I did.” This time, apparently, the robbery had been so unreproachably real that the insurance investigation had been barely a formality, bringing settlement much sooner than anticipated. “And your pet?” Chauncey asked. “How has he been keeping?”
“In his cage. He doesn’t even want to fly away.”
“Good. I’ll see him soon. You’ll keep an eye out?”
“I’ll follow him,” Zane said, “until you’re finished. You won’t see me, but I’ll be there.”
“Exactly right.”
“When do you do it?”
“As soon as possible,” Chauncey said. “I’ll call you back.” And he phoned Dortmunder, leaving a message with the rather dry–voiced woman who answered the phone.
It was nearly three hours before the man called back, and then his voice had such a grudging surly quality that Chauncey became at once suspicious, despite Zane’s assurances. “The painting’s all right?”
“Sure it is,” Dortmunder said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Then you’ll bring it here. I have the money.”
“In cash?”
Chauncey grimaced. Nobody uses cash any more, unless buying a newspaper, so Chauncey hadn’t thought at all about the actual physical transfer of funds from himself to Dortmunder. But of course he couldn’t very well offer the man a check, could he? And even if he could, Dortmunder certainly couldn’t accept it. Nor was Dortmunder likely to be on Diners Club or Master Charge.
“Chauncey?”
“I’m thinking,” Chauncey told him. “Wait there, Dortmunder, I’ll have to call you back.” But when he tried, half an hour later, the line was busy, and this was why:
“I’m telling you, Dortmunder, it isn’t finished.”
“And I’m telling you, Porculey, the goddam man is in New York and he wants his goddam picture back.”
“You can’t give it to him unfinished.”
“I have to turn it over, period.”
“You told me I had till May.”
“He’s here now, and he wants his painting.”
“It isn’t ready.”
(And so on, for several minutes, more and more of the same, while Chauncey kept dialing Dortmunder’s number and getting the same infuriating busy signal, until Dortmunder finally asked the following question:)
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long to get it done?”
“To do it right. Two weeks. Two weeks minimum.”
“Not to do it right. Come on, Porculey, help me on this.”
There was a brief pause. The faint slobby sound in Dortmunder’s ear was Porculey sucking on his lower lip, as an aid to thought. Finally Porculey sighed, another distasteful sound, arid said, “Friday. It won’t be perfect, but —”
“This is Tuesday.”
“I know what day it is, Dortmunder.”
“Three days?”
“I have to bake it, antique it, it has to dry. Do you want it to smell of fresh paint?”
“Three days,” Dortmunder insisted. “You can’t make it shorter.”
“Shorter? Dortmunder, d–d–d–d–do you ree–ree–ree —”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take your word for it.”
“I mean, after all.”
“I believe you,” Dortmunder said.
“Friday.”
“Friday night.”
“Aw, come on.”
“Friday night.”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock.”
“Eight–thirty.”
“Avoid the rush–hour traffic, Dortmunder. Ten o’clock.”
“The rush hour doesn’t go that late. Nine o’clock.”
“Make it nine–thirty.”
“Nine,” Dortmunder said, and slammed the phone down, and it rang at him.
It was of course Chauncey, dialing yet again, ready to bite the receiver in half if he got a busy signal one more time, and being so astonished when he got the ring sound instead that at first he didn’t say anything at all when Dortmunder said, “Hello?” Then, when Dortmunder said it again — “Hello?” — even though Chauncey recognized the voice and knew it was the person he was trying to call, his surprise made him say, “Dortmunder?”
“Chauncey.”
“You’ve been on the phone.”
“It’s a friend’s birthday,” Dortmunder said. Chauncey was again surprised, this time pleasantly. Sentimental comradeship in the criminal classes; how charming. “That’s nice,” he said.
“About the money,” Dortmunder said. Apparently sentiment didn’t leave much of an afterglow with the man.
“Yes.” Chauncey cleared his throat and said, “It turns out cash is a difficult thing to acquire, at least without creating questions.”
Dortmunder, sounding exasperated, said, “Chauncey, after all this, are you saying you don’t have the money?”
Chauncey was too concerned with his own problems to wonder what after all this referred to. “Not at all,” he said. “I have the money, but I don’t yet have the cash.”
“Money and cash are the same thing,” said Dortmunder, who apparently lived in a much simpler world.
“Well, not exactly,” Chauncey told him. “The thing is, it’ll take me a while to get the cash together. I’m sorry, I hadn’t really thought about the problem before.”
“Meaning you’ll have it when?”
“This isn’t a stall, Dortmunder, I do have the money.”
“When do I get it?”
“Not till Friday, I’m afraid.”
“This is Tuesday.”
“I realize that. I apologize, and I’ve started on it, but the fact is I can’t take that much cash from any one source. I’ll need several business days to do it. I’ve made a beginning, and by Friday I’ll have it all.”
“Make it Friday night.”
“Fine. You remember the passage from my back yard to the next street?”
“Sure.”
“You come there Friday at midnight, and I’ll let you in.”
“Good.” Then Dortmunder said, “I won’t be alone.”
“You won’t? Why not?”
“We’re talking about a lot of cash,” Dortmunder reminded him. “The rest of my string’ll be with me.”
Chauncey wasn’t sure he liked that idea, his house filling up with crooks. “How many?”
“The driver stays outside. Me and three others come in.”
“Four of you? Dortmunder, don’t misunderstand me, I trust you but how can I be sure of these other people?”
“I vouch for them,” Dortmunder told him. “You can trust them completely.”
Chapter 11
* * *
Friday night. Leo Zane, in his own car, his only permanent possession, a black Mercury Cougar with a special stirrup–like accelerator so he could drive without too much pain in his right foot, was following Dortmunder and an unidentified man in a bright red Volkswagen Rabbit through the rain–splashed streets of Manhattan. The windshield wipers splashed back and forth, the cold damp spread through the metal frame of the car, and Zane peered steadily at the Rabbit taillights out ahead.
Presumably, Dortmunder was on his way to the meeting with Chauncey at midnight, half an hour from now, but in that case why was the Rabbit aiming itself so completely downtown? Appropriately enough, the Rabbit was heading for that warren of streets south of 14th and over by the Hudson River known as the West Village. The westernmost part of Greenwich Village, this area is almost nothing but trucking companies and warehouses, because of the proximity of the docks and the Holland Tunnel.
The Rabbit traveled south on Washington Street, ever deeper into this maze, the streets lined with parked trucks, no pedestrians out in the rain except the occasionall
y lonely gay hoping to meet a new friend; in the gay world this neighborhood was known as The Trucks, and with no local residents to complain, a certain vibrant street life often took place here after dark. But not on a chilly wet night like this; the few solitary strollers slogging along with their hands in their jacket pockets looked more like homeless cats than liberated swingers.
At last the Rabbit turned off Washington Street, but in the rainy dark Zane couldn’t make out exactly what street he was following it onto. Was it somewhere near Charles Lane, or Weehawken Street? Or farther south around Morton or Leroy Streets? For all he knew, in this poor visibility, with his eyes so exclusively on the taillights of the Rabbit ahead of him, they were south of Canal Street by now, down around Desbrosses or Vestry Streets.
And not every trucker or shipper or warehouse, apparently, was completely closed for the weekend; ahead of Zane, a large tractor–trailer was backing and filling, taking up most of the width of the street, facing from left to right, trying to back into position somewhere on the left. A great bulky monster of a man, in a rain–slick poncho and knit cap, was standing in the middle of the street, directing the tractor–trailer in its movements, and he’d flagged down the Rabbit, stopping it so the big truck could keep juggling itself left and right across the cobblestones.
Drat. Not wanting to be too close to the Rabbit, Zane slowed the Cougar, stopped several car lengths back, and waited for the jam–up to end. But the burly man in the street came trotting through the puddles, waving at Zane to move forward. With mighty gestures he informed Zane to get farther over to the left, where a large delivery van was parked half up on the sidewalk. Following directions, Zane tucked in beside the parked van, his door handle almost touching the van’s olive–green side.
Next, the big man motioned for the Rabbit to back up, urging it also to move in close against the side of the van. Zane ducked his head, shielding his face with one hand as the Rabbit approached, its white reversing lights gleaming. When those lights clicked off, the Rabbit was still perhaps a car length ahead, but too close for Zane’s comfort.
And now what were these people up to? While headlights in his rear–view mirror told him some other car was becoming involved in this mini traffic jam, the huge tractor–trailer that was causing all the trouble pulled completely out into the street, turning in his direction, apparently intending to start all over again in its effort to pull into the alley or loading dock or whatever it was up there. Sweeping out and around, it angled in from Zane’s right until it was as close to the Cougar on that side as the delivery van was on his left, except that the tractor–trailer was headed the other way.
When would they get this over with? The tractor–trailer just stood there, apparently unable to figure out its next move, and Zane didn’t realize anything was wrong until the lighting suddenly began to change.
First, the Rabbit’s taillights went out. It was hard to tell from here, but its headlights seemed to have been switched off as well.
Second, the Rabbit’s interior light went on, because somebody had opened its door. Both doors, in fact; Dortmunder and the driver were both getting out of their car, only the back half of which was jammed between the delivery van and the tractor–trailer.
Third, as Dortmunder and the driver shut their doors behind themselves, so that the Rabbit’s interior light snapped off again, the headlights in Zane’s rear–view mirror also went out.
Where were Dortmunder and the other one going? Was this their destination? What in hell was going on?
Some other vehicle was out front, something much larger than the Rabbit. Slowly, that vehicle was pushing the Rabbit toward Zane’s Cougar. Zane instinctively switched into reverse, but with that other car behind him there was nowhere to go. Then he shifted into drive, but if he tried to push back against that larger vehicle he would simply smash his own car against the Rabbit.
The Rabbit stopped. The other vehicle — a truck of some sort — remained where it was.
Nothing at all happened.
“This is ridiculous,” Zane said. He honked his horn: yap yap yaaaaap. The sound disappeared in the rain. The Rabbit made no response, nor did the tractor–trailer on his right, nor did the car behind him, nor did the delivery van on his left.
“Well,” he said, and opened the door. It opened about half an inch, and then it stopped.
At last Zane got the picture. Quickly switching off the Cougar’s engine, releasing his foot from the stirrup–accelerator, he slid across to the passenger door, pushed it open, and heard the thunk when it hit the side of the tractor–trailer.
Wider on this side; almost a full inch.
With the engine off, the windshield wipers had stopped, and it was through tears of rain on the glass that Zane looked out at the Rabbit, with the truck parked beyond it. No way to push through. Twisting around, he tried to look through the water–smeared rear window, but though he could make out little about the vehicle blocking him from behind, he was certain in his heart about one thing: it would have too much weight for his Cougar to move it.
Trapped. Dortmunder was up to something, that son of a bitch. He’d trapped Zane here, he was pulling something, he was doing something right now. “When I get out of here,” Zane muttered, and thumped the dashboard with a closed fist.
When he got out of here? Good God. Zane knew when he’d get out of here. When the real operators of these trucks came back to work, that’s when, and not a second before.
On Monday.
Chapter 12
* * *
At exactly midnight, Arnold Chauncey put the key into the inside lock of the passage door, turned it, opened the door, and nobody came in.
What? Holding the door ajar, blinking in the misty rain, Chauncey peered out at the street and saw no one and nothing. Where was Dortmunder? Much more important, where was the painting?
All right; no reason to panic. Anyone can be a bit late. Keeping the door partway open, turning up the skimpy collar of his suede jacket against the rain and the chill, Chauncey settled himself to wait. Dortmunder would be here. And if something went wrong with Dortmunder, then Zane would take over. Not to worry.
The passage behind Chauncey’s house was unheated, and in fact unroofed, the top only lightly covered with a trellis overgrown by vines. This offered less than no protection; the vine leaves, rather than stopping the rain, merely collected the tiny droplets into large gushes, which were dumped all at once down the back of Chauncey’s neck. Meantime, his suede jacket and silk ascot and calf–height calf–leather boots, all of which had been designed primarily for indoor stylishness, were proving themselves effete and inadequate in the harsh reality of the outside world; rather like the French aristocrats of 1789.
Fortunately, Chauncey didn’t have very long to wait, shivering in the darkness just inside the passage, peeking through the slightly open door, ducking back at the appearance of every non–Dortmunder pedestrian. After barely five minutes of this, a large dark car arrived, double–parked itself outside there, and Dortmunder’s unmistakable figure — fairly tall, very narrow, stoop–shouldered, with lowered head — hopped out and hurried tippy–toe in his direction, trying to avoid puddles and dogshit at the same time. Three others emerged scrambling from the car in Dortmunder’s wake, and followed his progression through the minefield, but Chauncey’s eye was primarily taken by the long cardboard tube in Dortmunder’s hand. Folly, home from the wars.
Dortmunder bounded through the doorway Chauncey held open for him, turned his collar down, and immediately turned it back up again, saying, “It’s raining in here.”
“There’s no roof,” Chauncey told him, and reached for the cardboard tube. “Shall I hold that?”
But Dortmunder held the tube out of reach, saying, “We’ll switch inside.”
“Of course,” said Chauncey, disappointed, and led the way to the house. At the back door, Dortmunder paused, saying, “Doesn’t this trigger the alarm?”
“I told Watson I’d use this
door tonight.”
“Okay.”
The house was wonderfully warm and dry. They climbed the two flights of stairs to the sitting room where Chauncey, sounding rather more regretful than host–like, said, “I suppose you’d all like drinks.”
“You bet,” everybody said. They were standing around rubbing their hands together, working their shoulders up and down, grimacing and twitching the way people do when they leave the cold and wet for the warm and dry.
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