Thieves' Dozen d-12

by Donald E. Westlake

  "Now what?" snarled the intercom.

  Dortmunder leaned close. He had never liked to say his own name out loud. "Dortmunder," he said.

  "Who?"

  "Cut it out, Arnie, you know who it is."

  "Oh," the intercom yelled, "Dortmunder! Why didn't ya say so?"

  The buzzer, a more pleasant sound than Arnie's voice, began its song, and Dortmunder pushed his way in and went up to

  Arnie's apartment, where Arnie, a skinny, wiry ferret in charity cast-off clothing, stood in the doorway. "Dortmunder," he announced, "you look as crappy as I do."

  Which could not be accurate. Dortmunder was having an eventful day, but nothing could make him look as bad as Arnie Albright, even normally, and when Dortmunder got a little closer he saw Arnie was at the moment even worse than normal. "What happened to you?" he asked.

  "Nobody knows," Arnie said. "The lab says nobody's ever seen this in the temperate zones before. I look like the inside of a pomegranate."

  This was true. Arnie, never a handsome specimen, now seemed to be covered by tiny red Vesuviuses, all of them oozing thin red salsa. In his left hand he held a formerly white hand towel, now wet and red, with which he kept patting his face and neck and forearms.

  "Geez, Arnie, that's terrible," Dortmunder said. "How long you gonna have it? What's the doctor say?"

  "Don't get too close to me."

  "Don't worry, I won't."

  "No, I mean that's what the doctor says. Now, you know and I know that nobody can stand me, on accounta my personality."

  "Aw, no, Arnie," Dortmunder lied, though everybody in the world knew it was true. Arnie's personality, not his newly erupting volcanoes, were what had made him the last resort on Dortmunder's list offences.

  "Aw, yeah," Arnie insisted. "I rub people the wrong way. I argue with them, I'm obnoxious, I'm a pain in the ass. You wanna make something of it?"

  "Not me, Arnie."

  "But a doctor," Arnie said, "isn't supposed to like or not like. He's got that hypocritic oath. He's supposed to lie and pretend he likes you, and he's real glad he studied so hard in medical school so he could take care of nobody but you. But, no. My doctor says, 'Would you mind staying in the waiting room and just shout to me your symptoms?"'

  "Huh," Dortmunder said.

  "But what the hell do you care?" Arnie demanded. "You don't give a shit about me."

  "Well," Dortmunder said.

  "So if you're here, you scored, am I right?"

  "Sure."

  "Sure," Arnie said. "Why else would an important guy like you come to a turd like me? And so I also gotta understand Stoon's back in the jug, am I right?"

  "No, you're wrong, Arnie," Dortmunder said. "Stoon's out. In fact, I just saw him jogging."

  "Then how come you come to me?"

  "He was jogging away from me," Dortmunder said.

  "Well, what the hell, come on in," Arnie said, and got out of the doorway.

  "Well, Arnie," Dortmunder said, "maybe we could talk it over out here."

  "What, you think the apartment's contagious?"

  "I'm just happy out here, that's all."

  Arnie sighed, which meant that Dortmunder got a whiff of his breath. Stepping back a pace, he told him, "I got something."

  "Or why would you be here. Let's see it."

  Dortmunder took the paper towel-wrapped package out of the paper bag and dropped the bag on the floor. He unwrapped the paper towels and tucked them under his arm.

  Arnie said, "What, are you delivering for a deli now? I'll give you a buck and half for it."

  "Wait for it," Dortmunder advised. He dropped the top piece of Wonder Bread on the floor, along with much of the mayo and the top slab of ham. Using the paper towels, he lifted out the

  brooch, then dropped the rest of the sandwich on the floor and cleaned the brooch with the paper towels. Then he dropped the paper towels on the floor and held the brooch up so Arnie could see it, and said, "OK?"

  "Oh, you got it," Arnie said. "I been seeing it on the news."

  "In the News."

  "On the news. The TV"

  "Oh. Right."

  "Let's have a look," Arnie said, and took a step forward.

  Dortmunder took a step back. It had occurred to him that once Arnie had inspected this brooch, Dortmunder wouldn't be wanting it back. He said, "The newspaper says that it's worth $300,000."

  "The newspaper says Dewey defeats Truman," Arnie said. "The newspaper says sunny, high in the 70s. The newspaper says informed sources report. The news-"

  "OK, OK. But I just wanna be sure we're gonna come to an agreement here."

  "Dortmunder," Arnie said, "you know me. Maybe you don't want to know me, but you know me. I give top dollar, I don't cheat, I am 100 percent reliable. I don't act like a normal guy and cheat and gouge, because if I did, nobody would ever come to see me at all. I have to be a saint, because I'm such a shit. Toss it over."

  "OK," Dortmunder said, and tossed it over, and Arnie caught it in his revolting towel. Whatever he offers, I'll take, Dortmunder thought.

  While Arnie studied the brooch, breathing on it, turning it, Dortmunder looked in his new wallet and saw it contained a little over $300 cash, plus the usual ID plus a lottery ticket. The faking of the numbers on the lottery ticket was pretty well done. So that would have been the juice in the scam.

  "Well," Arnie said, "these diamonds are not diamonds. They're glass."

  "Glass? You mean somebody conned the movie star?"

  "I know that couldn't happen," Arnie agreed, "and yet it did. And this silver isn't silver, it's plate."

  In his heart, Dortmunder had known it would be like this. All this effort, and zip. "And the green things?" he said.

  Arnie looked at him in surprise. "They're emeralds," he said. "Don't you know what emeralds look like?"

  "I thought I did," Dortmunder said. "So it's worth something, after all."

  "Not the way it is," Arnie said. "Not with its picture all over the news. And not with the diamonds and silver being nothing but shit. Somebody's gotta pop the emeralds out, throw away the rest of it, sell the emeralds by themself."

  "For what?"

  "I figure they might go for 40 apiece," Arnie said. "But there's the cost of popping them."

  "Arnie," Dortmunder said, "what are we talking here?"

  Arnie said, "I could go seven. You wanna try around town, nobody else is gonna give you more than five, if they even want the hassle. You got a famous thing here."

  Seven. He'd dreamed of 30, he would have been happy with 25. Seven. "I'll take it," Dortmunder said.

  Arnie said, "But not today."

  "Not today?"

  "Look at me," Arnie said. "You want me to hand you something?"

  "Well, no."

  "I owe you seven," Arnie said. "If this shit I got don't kill me, I'll pay you when I can touch things. I'll phone you."

  A promissory note-not even a note, nothing in writing- from a guy oozing salsa. "OK, Arnie," Dortmunder said. "Get well soon, you know?"

  Arnie looked at his own forearms. "Maybe what it is," he said,

  "is my personality coming out. Maybe when it's over I'll be a completely different guy. Whaddya think?" "Don't count on it," Dortmunder told him.

  Well, at least he had the $300 from the wallet scam. And maybe Arnie would live; he certainly seemed too mean to die.

  Heading back to Broadway, Dortmunder started the long walk downtown-no more things on wheels, not today-and at 86th Street he saw that a new edition of the New York Post was prominent on the newsstand on the corner. jer-felicia split was the front-page headline. That, apparently, in the New York Post's estimation, was the most important North American news since the last time Donald Trump had it on or off with somebody or other.

  What the hell; Dortmunder could splurge. He had $300 and a promise. He bought the paper, just to see what had happened to the formerly loving couple.

  He had happened, essentially. The loss of the pin (brioche, brooc
h) had hit the lovers hard. "It's in diversity you really get to know another person," Felicia was reported as saying, with a side-bar in which a number of resident experts from NYU, Columbia and Fordham agreed, tentatively, that when Felicia had said diversity she had actually meant adversity.

  "I remain married to my muse," Jer was quoted as announcing. "It's back to the studio to make another film for my public." No experts were felt to be needed to explicate that statement.

  Summing it all up, the Post reporter finished his piece, "The double-emerald brooch may be worth $300,000, but no one seems to have found much happiness in it." I know what you mean, Dortmunder thought, and walked home.

  ART AND CRAFT

  THE VOICE ON THE TELEPHONE AT JOHN DORTMUNDER'S EAR didn't so much as ring a distant bell as sound a distant siren. "John," it rasped, "how ya doin?"

  Better before this phone call, Dortmunder thought. Somebody I was in prison with, he figured, but who? He'd been in prison with so many people, back before he had learned how to fade into the shadows at crucial moments, like when the SWAT team arrives. And of all those cellmates, blockmates, tankmates, there hadn't been one of them who wasn't there for some very good reason. DNA would never stumble over innocence in that crowd; the best DNA could do for those guys was find their fathers, if that's what they wanted.

  This wasn't a group that went in for reunions, so why this phone call, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of October? "I'm doin' OK," Dortmunder answered, meaning, I got enough cash for me but not enough for you.

  "That makes two of us," the voice said. "In case you don't recognize me, this is Three Finger."

  "Oh," Dortmunder said.

  Three Finger Gillie possessed the usual 10 fingers but got his name because of a certain fighting technique. Fights in prison tend to be up close and personal, and also brief; Three Finger

  had a move with three fingers of his right hand guaranteed to make the other guy rethink his point of view in a hurry. Dortmunder had always stayed more than an arm's reach from Three Finger and saw no reason to change that policy. "I guess you're out, huh?" he said.

  Sounding surprised, Three Finger said, "You didn't read about me in the paper?"

  "Oh, too bad," Dortmunder said, because in their world the worst thing that could happen was to find your name in the paper. Indictment was bad enough, but to be indicted for something newsworthy was the worst.

  But Three Finger said, "Naw, John, this is good. This is what we call ink."

  "Ink."

  "You still got last Sunday's Times'!" he asked.

  Astonished, Dortmunder said, "The New York Times?"

  "Sure, what else? 'Arts and Leisure,' page 14, check it out, and then we'll make a meet. How about tomorrow, four o'clock?"

  "A meet. You got something on?"

  "Believe it. You know Portobello?"

  "What is that, a town?"

  "Well, it's a mushroom, but it's also a terrific little cafe on Mercer Street. You ought to know it, John."

  "OK," Dortmunder said.

  "Four o'clock tomorrow."

  Keeping one's distance from Three Finger Gillie was always a good idea, but on the other hand he had Dortmunder's phone number, so he probably had his address as well, and he was known to be a guy who held a grudge. Squeezed it, in fact. "See you there," Dortmunder promised, and went away to see if he knew anybody who might own a last Sunday's New York Times.

  * * *

  The dry cleaner on Third Avenue had a copy.

  Life is very different for Martin Gillie these days. "A big improvement," he says in his gravelly voice, and laughs as he picks up his mocha cappuccino.

  And indeed life is much improved for this longtime state prison inmate with a history of violence. For years, Gillie was considered beyond any hope of rehabilitation, but then the nearly impossible came to pass. "Other guys find religion in the joint," he explains, "but I found art."

  It was a period of solitary confinement brought about by his assault on a fellow inmate that led Gillie to try his hand at drawing, first with stubs of pencils on magazine pages, then with crayons on typewriter paper, and, finally, when his work drew the appreciative attention of prison authorities, with oil on canvas.

  These last artworks, allegorical treatments of imaginary cityscapes, led to Gillie's appearance in several group shows. They also led to his parole (his having been turned down three previous times), and now his first solo show, in Soho's Waspail Gallery.

  Dortmunder read through to the end, disbelieving but forced to believe. The New York Times; the newspaper with a record, right? So it had to be true.

  "Thanks," he told the dry cleaner, and walked away, shaking his head.

  Among the nymphs and ferns of Portobello, Three Finger Gillie looked like the creature that gives fairy tales their tension. A burly man with thick black hair that curled low on his forehead and lapped over his ears and collar, he also featured a single, wide block of black eyebrow like a weight holding his eyes down. These eyes were pale blue and squinty and not warm, and they

  peered suspiciously out from both sides of a bumpy nose shaped like a baseball left out in the rain. The mouth, what there was of it, was thin and straight and without color. Dortmunder had never before seen this head above anything but prison denim, so it was a surprise to see it chunked down on top of a black cashmere turtleneck sweater and a maroon vinyl jacket with the zipper open. Dressed like this, Gillie mostly gave the impression he'd stolen his body from an off-duty cop.

  Looking at him, seated there, with a fancy coffee cup in front of him-mocha cappuccino?-Dortmunder remembered that other surprise, from the newspaper, that Three Finger had another front name. Martin. Crossing the half-empty restaurant, weighing the alternatives, he came to the conclusion no. Not a Martin. This was still a Three Finger.

  He didn't rise as Dortmunder approached, but patted his palm on the white marble table as if to say siddown. Dortmunder pulled out the delicate black wrought-iron chair, said, "You look the same, Three Finger," and sat.

  "And yet," Three Finger said, "on the inside I'm all changed. You're the same as ever outside and in, aren't you?"

  "Probably," Dortmunder agreed. "I read that thing in the paper."

  "Ink," Three Finger reminded him, and smiled, showing the same old hard, gray, uneven teeth. "It's publicity, John," he said, "that runs the art world. It don't matter, you could be a genius, you could be Da Vinci, you don't know how to publicize yourself, forget it."

  "I guess you must know, then," Dortmunder said.

  "Well, not enough," Three Finger admitted. "The show's been open since last Thursday, a whole week. I'm only up three weeks, we got two red dots."

  Dortmunder said, "Do that again," and here came the willowy waitress, wafting over with a menu that turned out to be eight pages of coffee. When Dortmunder found regular American, with cream and sugar-page five-she went away and Three Finger said, "Up, when I say I'm only up three weeks, I mean that's how long my show is, then they take my stuff down off the walls and put somebody else up. And when I say two red dots, the way they work it, when somebody buys a picture, they don't get to take it home right away, not till the show's over, so the gallery puts a red dot next to the name on the wall, everybody knows it's sold. In a week, I got two red dots."

  "And that's not so good, huh?"

  "I got 43 canvases up there, John," Three Finger said. "This racket is supposed to keep me out of jewelry stores after hours. I gotta have more than two red dots."

  "Gee, I wish you well," Dortmunder said.

  "Well, you can do better than that," Three Finger told him. "That's why I called you."

  Here it comes, Dortmunder thought. He wants me to buy a painting. I never thought anybody I knew in the whole world would ever want me to buy a painting. How do I get out of this?

  But what Three Finger said next was another surprise: "What you can do for me, you can rip me off."

  "Ha-ha," Dortmunder said.

>   "No, listen to me, John," Three Finger said. Leaning close over the marble table, dangerously within arm's reach, lowering his voice and peering intensely out of those icy eyes, he said, "This world we're in, John, this is a world of irony."

  Dortmunder had been lost since yesterday, when he'd read the piece in the newspaper, and nothing that was happening today was making him any more found. "Oh, yeah?" he said.

  Three Finger lifted both hands above his head-Dortmunder flinched, but only a little-and made quotation signs. "Everything's in quotes," he said. "Everybody's taking a step back, looking the situation over, being cool."

  "Uh-huh," Dortmunder said.

  "Now, I got some ink," Three Finger went on. "I already got

  some, but it isn't enough. The ex-con is an artist, this has some ironic interest in it, but what we got here, we got a situation where everybody's got some ironic interest in them, everybody's got some edge, some attitude. I gotta call attention to myself. More ironic than thou, you see what I mean?"

  "Sure," Dortmunder lied.

  "So, what if the ex-con artist gets robbed?" Three Finger wanted to know. "The gallery gets burgled, you see what I mean?"

  "Not entirely," Dortmunder admitted.

  "A burglary doesn't get into the papers," Three Finger pointed out. "A burglary isn't news. A burglary is just another fact of life, like a fender bender."

  "Sure."

  "But if you give it that ironic edge," Three Finger said, low and passionate, "then it's the edge that gets in the paper gets on TV That's what gets me on the talk shows. Not the ex-con turned artist, that isn't enough. Not some penny-ante burglary, nobody cares. But the ex-con turned artist gets ripped off, his old life returns to bite him on the ass, what he used to be rises up and slaps him on the face. Now you've got your irony. Now I can get this sheepish kinda grin on my face, and I can say, 'Gee, Oprah, I guess in a funny way this is the dues I'm paying,' and I got 43 red dots on the wall, you see what I mean?"