What's So Funny

by Donald Westlake

  Neither of the others liked that one. Eppick said, “John, we are talking in the order of Johnny Yuma, Johnny Midnight, Johnny Jupiter, Johnny Ringo.”

  “Johnny Appleseed,” Mr. Hemlow added.

  “Wel–ll,” Eppick said, “that’s a little far afield, Mr. Hemlow.”

  Dortmunder said, “Johnny Cash?”

  “Johnnie Walker,” announced Mr. Hemlow.

  Dortmunder turned to him. “Red or Black?”

  “Oh, Black,” Mr. Hemlow said. “Definitely Black. But that isn’t the point.” Shifting his mass in the general direction of Eppick, he said, “The point is, you do vouch for this man.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Eppick said. “I have used the entire resources of the NYPD to research the kind of specialist we need and, of those not currently counting the days on the inside, John here is just about the best you can get. He’s a thief when he wakes up in the morning, and he’s a thief when he goes to sleep at night. An honest thought has never crossed his brain. If he were any more crooked, you could open wine bottles with him. In his early days he did some time, but he’s learned how to avoid that now. I guarantee him to be the least trustworthy, most criminal scalawag you’ll ever meet.”

  “Well,” Dortmunder said, “that’s maybe a little overboard.”

  Still talking to Mr. Hemlow, Eppick said, “You trust me, and I trust John, but it’s even more than that. You know where to find me, and I know where to find John. He’d double–cross us in a minute if he —”

  “Aw, hey.”

  “— thought he could get away with it, but he knows he can’t, so we can all have perfect trust in one another.”

  “Excellent,” said Mr. Hemlow, and nodded his head at Dortmunder a while, not in rhythm with his twitching knee, which was a distraction. “So far,” he said, “I like what I see. It would seem that Johnny has chosen well. You keep your own counsel. You don’t bluster, but you do stand up for yourself.”

  Dortmunder could not remember ever having been the center of attention to this excruciating a degree, not even in a court of law, and he was beginning to chafe under it. Itch. Not like it so much. He said, to try to shorten the interview if at all possible, “So you want me and somebody else to go get this chess set for you, so all you —”

  Mr. Hemlow said, “Somebody else?”

  “You said it was too heavy for one man to lift.”

  “Oh, yes.” Mr. Hemlow did that nodding thing some more. “That’s what my father told me, that impressed me at the time. I hadn’t thought of the implications, but you’re right. Or, could you do it in multiple trips?”

  “When you’re burglaring,” Dortmunder told him, showing off a little expertise, “you don’t do more than one trip.”

  “Yes, of course, I do see that.” Turning to Eppick, he said, “How long will it take you to find a second person?”

  “Oh, I think John could come up with somebody,” Eppick said, and grinned at Dortmunder. “Your friend Andy, maybe.”

  “Well,” Dortmunder said, “he’d probably have to look in his appointment book, but I could check, yeah.” To Mr. Hemlow he said, “So it looks to me like there’s only two questions left.”

  “Yes?” Mr. Hemlow cocked that puffy head. “Which questions are those?”

  “Well, the first is, where is it.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mr. Hemlow, a little impatiently. “And the second?”

  “Well, you might not think it to look at me,” Dortmunder told him, “but I got a family crest.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yeah. And it’s got a motto on it.”

  “I am anxious to hear this motto.”

  “Quid lucrum istic mihi est.”

  Mr. Hemlow squinted; the red–headed hawk in flight. “I’m afraid my Latin is insufficient for that.”

  “What’s in it for me,” Dortmunder translated.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  Mr. Hemlow roared with laughter, or at least tried to, with various noises emanating from his head area that might, with redubbing, have added up to a roar. Then he said, “Well, what would be in it for you might be millions, I suppose, if you were to manage to elude Johnny here. A rather more modest sum if you do your part like a good boy.”

  “Plus continued life in the free world,” Eppick added.

  So they were cheapskates, these two, it had all the earmarks. Dortmunder had seen it before, guys with big ideas who just needed a little bit of his help, his knowledge, his experience, but didn’t want to pay for it. Or didn’t want to pay enough.

  On the other hand, if he announced he wasn’t going along with these birds, that alley photo could very well come back to bite him on the hind parts. So, at least for now, he would follow Mr. Hemlow’s advice and do his part like a good boy. Therefore, he said, “Without knowing where this thing is, or how it’s guarded, or anything about it, I don’t know how much trouble I’m gonna have to get my hands on it, or what expenses I’m gonna run up, or if it’s maybe more than two people needed for the thing, or whatever. So right now, I’m with you, but I gotta tell you, Johnny Eppick here says I’m the specialist you want, and if I decide, being the specialist, that it can’t be done, or it can’t be done without too much danger to me, then I’m gonna have to tell you now, I’m gonna expect you to go along with how I see it.”

  Eppick frowned, clearly not liking the broadness of this escape clause, but Mr. Hemlow said, “That sounds fair to me. I think you will find the task worthy of your skills, but not to include a level of peril that might incline you to forgo what would certainly otherwise be a very profitable endeavor.”

  “That’s good, then,” Dortmunder said. “So where is it?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not the one who’s going to tell you that,” Mr. Hemlow said.

  Dortmunder didn’t like that at all. “You mean, there’s more of you in on this? I thought everybody else died or got old or didn’t care.”

  “Except,” Mr. Hemlow said, “my granddaughter.”

  “Now a granddaughter,” Dortmunder said.

  “It is true,” Mr. Hemlow said, “that the generation after mine took no interest in the stolen chess set, nor the ruined dreams of their grandparents. It was all just history to them. However, Fiona, the daughter of my third son, Floyd, takes a deep interest in the story of the chess set, precisely because to her it is history, and history is her passion.”

  Dortmunder, whose grasp on history was usually dislodged by the needs of the passing moment, had nothing to say to that, so he merely did his best to look alert.

  Which was apparently enough, because Mr. Hemlow almost immediately went on, “Fiona, my granddaughter, is an attorney, mostly in estate planning for a midtown firm. She’s the one who took an interest in the story of the chess set, came to me for what details my father might have given me, did the research and found, or at least believes she’s found, the chess set.”

  “Believes,” Dortmunder said.

  “Well, she hasn’t seen it personally, of course,” Mr. Hemlow said. “None of us will, until you retrieve it.”

  Eppick said, “The granddaughter was just happy to figure she solved the mystery, there it is, case closed. It was Mr. Hemlow explained to her the lost dreams and alla that.”

  “She agreed, at last,” Mr. Hemlow said, “to a retrieval of the chess set, for the future good of the family, to make up for the ills of the past.”

  “Got it,” Dortmunder said.

  “But she has conditions,” Mr. Hemlow warned.

  What have I gotten into here, Dortmunder asked himself, and was afraid he was going to find out the answer. “Conditions,” he said.

  “No violence,” Mr. Hemlow said.

  “I’m in favor of that,” Dortmunder assured him. “No violence, that’s how I like it every day.”

  “One of the reasons I picked you, John,” Eppick told him, “is how you don’t go in much for strong–arming against persons.”

  “Or property,” Mr. Hem
low said.

  Dortmunder said, “Property? Come on, you know, sometimes you gotta break a window, that’s not violence.”

  Conceding the point, Mr. Hemlow said, “I’m sure Fiona would accept that level of mayhem. You can discuss it with her if you wish.”

  “Or not bother her about it,” Eppick advised.

  “So I’m gonna see this Fiona,” Dortmunder said, and looked around. “How come I’m not seeing her now?”

  Eppick said, “Mr. Hemlow wanted to vet you, wanted to reassure himself that I’d made the right choice, before sending you on to the granddaughter.”

  “Oh, yeah?” To Mr. Hemlow Dortmunder said, “So how am I? How do I vet?”

  “That I have mentioned my granddaughter’s name,” Mr. Hemlow said, “means I have agreed with Johnny’s judgment.”

  “Well, that’s nice.”

  Mr. Hemlow said, “Johnny, would you phone her?”

  “Sure.” Eppick stood, then paused to say to Dortmunder, “You free this afternoon, if she can make it?”

  “Sure. I’m between engagements.”

  “Maybe not any more,” Eppick said, and grinned, and said, “You wanna write down the address?”

  “I do,” Dortmunder told him, “but I don’t have anything to write with or on.”

  “Oh. Never mind, I’ll do it.”

  Eppick went over to the desk by the front door, sat at it, played with a Rolodex a minute, then dialed a number. While he waited, he started to write on the back of another of his cards, then paused to punch out four more numbers, then finished writing, then said, “Fiona Hemlow, please. Johnny Eppick.” Then another pause, and then he said, “Hi, Fiona, it’s Johnny Eppick. Just fine. I’m here with your granddad and we got the guy we think is gonna help us with that family matter. I know you wanna talk to him. Well, this afternoon, if you got some free time.” Cupping the phone, he said to Dortmunder, “She’s checking her calendar.”

  “For this afternoon?”

  Eppick held up a finger, and listened to the phone, then said, “Yeah, that should be long enough. Hold on, lemme see if he’s clear.” Cupping the phone again, he said to Dortmunder, “This afternoon, four–fifteen to four–forty–five, she can fit you in.”

  “Then that’s good,” Dortmunder said. “I happen to have that slot open.” In truth, he himself did not live that precise a life, but he understood there were people who did.

  Into the phone, Eppick said, “That’s fine. He’s — Hold on.” Another cupping, and he looked at Dortmunder to say, “Do you really still wanna go on being Diddums?”

  “No, do the name,” Dortmunder said. “The only one I didn’t wanna know it was you, so that’s too late, so go ahead.”

  “Fine. Fiona, his name is John Dortmunder, and he will see you at four–fifteen. Give me a call after you talk to him, okay? Thanks, Fiona.”

  He hung up, stood up, and brought to Dortmunder the card he’d written on the back of, where it now read:

  Fiona Hemlow

  C&I International Bank Building

  613 5th Ave

  Feinberg, Kleinberg, Rhineberg, Steinberg, Weinberg & Klatsch

  27

  Dortmunder said, “Twenty–seven?”

  “They got the whole floor,” Eppick explained. “Hundreds of lawyers there.”

  “We’re all very proud of Fiona,” Mr. Hemlow said. “Landing at such a prestigious law firm.”

  Dortmunder had had dealings with lawyers once or twice in his life, but they mostly hadn’t come with the word “prestigious” attached. “I’m looking forward,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  In conversation over breakfast with his Mom, before she went off for a day of driving her taxi for the benefit of an ungrateful public, Stan Murch gradually came to the conclusion that he wasn’t just irritated by what had happened last night, or what in fact had not happened, but he was really very pissed off about it and getting more so by the minute, and who he blamed for the whole thing was John Dortmunder.

  At first his Mom didn’t get it: “He wasn’t even there.”

  “That’s the point.”

  He had to explain it all about seven times before she saw what he was aiming at, but at last she did see it, and it was really very simple and, straightforward. At the O.J. last night, they had been a little group of people who would come together like that from time to time for what they hoped would turn out to be profitable expeditions and employments, and there was always at least that one preliminary conversation to kick it off, to see if this new project sounded like it might work, to see if everybody wanted to come on board. Each of them in the group had his own specialty — Tiny Bulcher, for instance, specialized in lifting large and heavy objects, while he himself, Stan Murch, was the driver — and John Dortmunder’s specialty was in laying out the plan.

  Now, it wasn’t often that Stan brought the original idea to the group, but this time he had one, and it was a good one, and if Dortmunder had been there he would definitely have understood the concept and started working out how to make it a reality, and all of that, and by now they’d be on their way. Instead of which, Dortmunder isn’t even at the meeting, he’s out in the bar with some cop.

  But everybody else wants to know what the idea is. So Stan tells them, and they hate it. Because Dortmunder isn’t there to tell everybody how it could work, the idea gets shot down like a duck. So it’s all Dortmunder’s fault.

  After his Mom took off in her cab, Stan continued to brood a while longer, and then he decided the thing to do was call John and see if he’s ready to take a meeting now, just the two of them, and after that they could get everybody else to come around. So he called John, but got May, who said, “Oh, you just missed him, and I’m halfway out the door myself, I got to get to work.”

  “Do you know where John went?”

  “He had a meeting at ten this morning —”

  “With the cop?”

  “Oh, did he tell you?”

  “Not yet. Where’s the meeting, do you know?”

  “Lower East Side, some funny address. John had never been anywhere around there before, he was going to take a bus.”

  “You got the address?”

  “He wrote it down a couple places, so he wouldn’t forget. I’ll look, Stan, but I don’t have much time. I don’t wanna be late. They’re short on cashiers at the Safeway as it is. Hold on.”

  So he held on, and about three minutes later she came back and said, “It’s 598 East Third, and the cop is named Eppick. He says he’s retired.”

  “Then why does he want to talk to John?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “I intend to.”

  • • •

  If you only need a car for a few hours, there’s nothing better, after taking the subway up out of Canarsie, than to go to the parking garage under one of the big Manhattan office buildings, where they have sections set aside for employees of the various businesses upstairs, so the car you choose will not be missed before five p.m., by which time you’ve returned it. Also, being in white–collar employment, they tend to drive pretty nice cars. All you need is to find somebody who leaves his parking–space ID in the car, which many people do.

  It was in a recent Audi 9000, forest green, 17K on the odometer, that Stan cruised the area of 598 East Third Street, a neighborhood not used to seeing cars of that quality abroad on its streets. Being New York, though, everybody in the district was cool about it.

  May had said the meeting was scheduled for ten, and Stan got there at quarter past, so it should still be going on. In the check–cashing place? Unlikely; more probably somewhere upstairs. Motor running and flashers on, to assure the world he was not abandoning this nice car, Stan left it beside a handy fire hydrant long enough to run over and look at the names for the upstairs tenants, and found it right away: EPPICK. He hadn’t known it was spelled that way.

  It was a long meeting John was having with this cop, as Stan waited in the car
next to the fire hydrant, now with flashers on but engine off. Ten fifty–two read the very nice dashboard clock when at last John came out and started to walk away. Stan honked, but John just kept walking, so Stan had to start the engine, open his window, chase John around the corner, and yell, “Hey!”

  Nothing. John just kept plodding forward, head down, arms and legs moving as though the machinery were a little rusty, and apparently now operating without functioning ears.

  “Hey!” Stan yelled again, and honked, all of which had the same effect as before. Nil.