Why Me? d-5

by Donald E. Westlake

  Plus, Tony Costello's additional misfortune was that he was a black Irishman, with thick black hair all over his head, and a lumpy prominent nose, and a short and chunky body. Oh, he was doomed right enough, that he was.

  If only it were possible to bring it out into the open, to talk about it, go up to some of these dumb micks—Chief Inspector Francis X. Mologna, for instance, there was a tub of dolphin shit for you—and say to these fellas, "God damn it to hell and back, I'm Irish!" But he couldn't do that—the prejudice, the old boys' club, the whole Irish Mafia that runs the Police Department and always has would have to be acknowledged that way, which of course was out of the question—and as a result all the best scoops, the inside dope, the advance words-to-the-wise all went to that son of a bitch Scotsman, that Jack Mackenzie, because the dumb micks all thought he was Irish.

  "Looks like spring today!" said a pretty girl in the elevator at noon on Saturday, but Tony Costello didn't give a shit. His days as police-beat reporter were numbered, the numbers were getting smaller, and there was nothing he could do about it. A month, six weeks, two months at the outside, and he'd be shipped bag and baggage to Duluth or some damn place, some network affiliate where the police beat was automobile accidents and Veterans' Day parades. Maybe it looked like spring today, maybe last night's drenching rain had been winter's valedictory, maybe this morning's soft breezes and watery sun heralded the new season of hope, but if there was no hope in Tony Costello's heart—and there was none—what could it matter to him? So he snubbed the pretty girl in the elevator, who spent the rest of the day looking rather bewildered, and he stamped down the corridor past all the other busy-busy network employees into his own cubicle, where he asked Dolores, the secretary he shared (for as long as he was still here) with five other reporters, "Any messages?"

  "Sorry, Tony."

  "Sure," Costello said. "Sure not. No messages. Who would call Tony Costello?"

  "Buck up, Tony," Dolores said. She was slender, but motherly. "It's a beautiful day. Look out the window."

  "I may jump out the window," Costello said, and his phone rang.

  "Well, well," Dolores said.

  "Wrong number," Costello suggested.

  But Dolores answered it anyway: "Mister Costello's line." Costello watched her listen, nod, raise her eyebrows; then she said, "If this is some sort of prank, Mister Costello's far too busy—"

  "Huh," said Costello.

  Dolores was listening again. She seemed interested, then intrigued, then amused: "I think maybe you ought to talk to Mister Costello himself," she said, and pressed the hold button.

  "It's Judge Crater," Costello suggested. "He was captured by Martians, he's spent all these years in a flying saucer."

  "Close," Dolores said. "It's the man who burgled Skoukakis Credit Jewelers."

  "Skoukakis…" The name rang a bell, then exploded: "Holy shit, that's where the Byzantine Fire was grabbed!"

  "Exactly."

  "He says—he says he's, uh, uh, Whatsisname?" (Not being on the inside track with the boys at Headquarters, Costello mostly got his police news from the radio and had heard Mologna's announcement in the car on the way downtown. Oh, it was an uphill fight for Tony Costello every inch of the way.)

  "Benjamin Arthur Klopzik," Dolores reminded him. "And what he says is, he robbed the place. To prove his point, he described the store."

  "Accurately?"

  "How would I know? I've never been there. Anyway, he wants to talk to you about the Byzantine Fire."

  "Maybe to set up a return." A rare smile lightly touched Costello's features, making him look a bit less like an Irish bog (or an Italian swamp). "Through me," he said, in wonderment. "Is that possible? Through me!"

  "Talk to the man."

  "Yes. Yes, I will." Seating himself at his desk, switching on the tape that would record the call, he lifted his phone and said, "Tony Costello here."

  The voice was low in volume and with a faint echo, as though the speaker were in a tunnel or something. "I'm the guy," it said, "that robbed Skoukakis Credit Jewelers."

  "So I understand. Klop, uhh…"

  "Klopzik," said the voice. "Benjamin Arthur—I mean, Benjy Klopzik."

  "And you have the Byzantine Fire."

  "No, I don't."

  Costello sighed; hope dashed, yet again. "Okay," he said. "Nice talking to you."

  "Wait a minute," Klopzik said. "I know where it is."

  Costello hesitated. This had all the characteristics of a prank or crank phone call, except for one thing: Klopzik's voice. It was a gruff voice, with a weariness, a many-battles-lost quality that reminded Costello of himself. This voice would not pull pranks, would not do dumb stunts for fun. Therefore Costello stayed on the line, saying, "Where is it?"

  But then Klopzik had to go and say, "It's still in the jewelry store."

  "So long," Costello said.

  "God damn it." Klopzik's voice sounded really annoyed. "What's the matter with you? Where you going? Don't you want the goddam story?"

  Which stung Costello: "If there is a story," he said, "naturally I want it."

  "Then stop saying good-bye. The reason I picked you, I seen you on the TV and I don't think you're in the cops' pocket like that guy Mackenzie. You know the one I mean?"

  Costello's heart warmed to this stranger: "I do indeed," he said.

  "If I give this to Mackenzie he'll give it very quiet to the cops, and they'll do it very quiet, and I'll still be in a jam."

  "I don't follow."

  "Everybody's on my tail," Klopzik explained. "They're looking for the guy hit the jewelry store because they think I got the ruby, too. But I don't. So what I want, I want a lot of publicity when you get the ruby, so everybody knows I never had it, so they'll get off my back."

  "I am beginning," Costello said, "to believe you, Mr. Klopzik. Tell me more."

  "I broke in there that night," Klopzik said. "Must of been just after they put the ruby there. I didn't see them or anything, I'm not a witness. I just went in, I opened the safe, I took what I wanted, I saw this big red stone on a gold-looking ring, I figured it had to be fake. So I left it."

  "Wait a minute," Costello said. "Are you telling me the Byzantine Fire has been in that jewelry shop the whole time?" He was peripherally aware of Dolores staring at him, open-mouthed.

  "Absolutely," said Klopzik, with ringing sincerity. "This whole thing has been very unfair to me. It's strained my relationship with my friends, made me the object of a police dragnet, driven me from my home—"

  "Hold on, hold on." Costello gazed at Dolores with wondering eyes, as he said to the man he was now convinced was an honest, truthful burglar, "Can you tell me exactly where you saw the Byzantine Fire?"

  "Sure. It's in the safe, in a tray on the lower right. You know, the kind of tray you pull out like a drawer. It's there with a lot of little gold pins shaped like animals."

  "That's where you saw it." ,

  "And that's where I left it. A great big red stone like that in a little jewelry store in South Ozone Park, you got to figure it for a fake, right?"

  "Right," said Costello. "So the police-and the FBI, by God, the police and the FBI—they all went to that jewelry store, they all searched the place, and none of them saw the Byzantine Fire, and it was there all along!"

  "Definitely," said Klopzik. "I never had it on my person. I never so much as touched it."

  "Let's see." Costello scratched his head through his thick black hair. "Would you be willing to do an interview? Just a silhouette, you know, no names."

  "You don't need me," Klopzik said. "The whole point is, I never had nothing to do with that ruby in the first place. Listen, the store's empty now, it's closed, there isn't even a police guard. What you do, what I think you ought to do, if you don't mind my giving you advice—"

  "Not at all, not at all."

  "I mean, it's your business."

  "Give me advice," Costello instructed.

  "Okay. I think you oughta go out there wi
th Skoukakis' wife, or whoever has a key and the safe combination, and bring along a camera, and you can film the stone just lying there on that tray."

  "My friend," Costello said warmly, "if I can ever do you a favor—"

  "Oh, you're doing me a favor," Klopzik said, and there was a click, and he was gone.

  "Lordy lordy lordy," Costello said. He hung up and sat there nodding thoughtfully to himself.

  Dolores said, "From the half I heard, he says he never took it."

  "It's still there." Costello looked at her, wide-eyed with hope. "I believe him, Dolores. The son of a bitch was telling the truth. And I am going to ram the Byzantine Fire so far up those dirty bastards at Police Headquarters, they'll have red molars. Get me—" He stopped, frowning, gathering his thoughts. "Skoukakis is in jail; he has a wife. Get me the wife. And put an order in for a remote unit. Oh, and one thing more."

  Dolores paused, halfway out the door toward her own desk. "Yes?"

  "You were right before," Tony Costello told her, with a big happy grin. "It is a beautiful day."

  46

  Dortmunder was still hidden in the telephone tunnel during the six o'clock news, so he watched the repeat that night at eleven. By then the news was generally known, the heat was off, and Dortmunder was free to sit in his own living room on his own sofa and gaze in contentment at his own television set. The cops, the crooks, the terrorists and spies and religious fanatics, all were gone away now, somewhere else, minding their own business. Dortmunder was, at last, out from under.

  Since the O.J. had been the subject of a very severe police raid last night, immediately after Benjy Klopzik's spy equipment had started picking up CB, and was therefore now closed for repairs, Dortmunder had agreed that Stan Murch's postponed meeting could take place here in the apartment tonight, with only one proviso: "I need to watch the news at eleven."

  "Sure," Stan had said, on the phone. "We'll all watch."

  And so they did. Stan Murch, a blocky, ginger-haired man with freckles on the backs of his hands, was the first to arrive, shortly before eleven, saying, "I was out in Queens anyway, so I took Queens Boulevard and the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and came down Lex."

  "Uh-huh," Dortmunder said.

  "The trick is," Stan said, "you don't turn off on Twenty-third like everybody else. You take Lex down to the end, you go around Gramercy Park over to Park, you save a lot of lights, a lot of traffic, and you got a lot easier left turn onto Park."

  "I'll remember that," Dortmunder said. "You want a beer?"

  "Yes, I do," Stan said. "Hiya, Kelp."

  Kelp was on the sofa, watching the end of a prime time rerun. "Whadaya say, Stan?"

  "I bought a car," Stan said.

  "You bought a car?"

  "A Honda with a Porsche engine. The thing flies. You gotta throw out a parachute to stop it."

  "I believe you."

  Dortmunder came back with Stan's beer as the doorbell rang again, and this time it was Ralph Winslow and Jim O'Hara, the two guys Dortmunder had met at that first aborted meeting at the O.J. Everybody said hello, and Dortmunder went back to the kitchen for two more beers. On his return, handing them out, he said, "We're all here but Tiny."

  "He won't be along," Ralph Winslow said. He didn't sound unhappy.

  "Why not?"

  "He's in the hospital, sick. When the cops raided the O.J. last night, Tiny was alone in the back room with all those files listing everybody's crimes and whereabouts and whatnot for Wednesday night."

  Dortmunder stared. "Did the cops get all that?"

  "No," Winslow said. "That's just it. Tiny barricaded the door. He didn't have any matches to burn the papers, so he ate them. All of them. The last batch, the cops broke through the door, they're beating on him with sticks, he's chewing and swallowing and fighting them off with chairs."

  O'Hara said, "The word is, he'll be in the hospital at least a month."

  Winslow said, "Some of the guys are getting up a collection. I mean, that was a noble act."

  "I'll contribute," Dortmunder said. "In a kind of a way, I almost feel some responsibility, you know?"

  "I hate to tell you this, John," Stan Murch said, "but even I began to think you were the guy with the mark on his back."

  "Everybody did," Dortmunder said. His eye was level, his voice was clear, the hand holding his beer can was steady. "I don't blame people, it was just one of those things. It was circumstantial evidence."

  "Don't tell me about circumstantial evidence," O'Hara said. "I did a nickel-dime once for hitting a lumberyard safe, and all they had on me was sawdust in my cuffs."

  "That's terrible," Kelp said. "Where'd they nab you?"

  "In the lumberyard office."

  "So that's the way it was with me," Dortmunder said. "And the bad mood everybody was in, I didn't dare come out and explain myself."

  "Wasn't that Klopzik something?" Winslow grinned in something like admiration, swirling his beer can as though it might contain ice cubes to clink. "Working both sides against the middle. Wired up for the cops, and he knocked over that jeweler all along."

  "Without even taking the Byzantine Fire," O'Hara said. "A thing as famous as that. How dumb can you get?"

  "It's coming on," Kelp said.

  So they all sat down to watch. The anchorman introduced the story, and then a tape of the six o'clock report came on, starting with Tony Costello seated at a desk in front of a blue drape, his head and right hand bandaged but his expression cheerfully triumphant. He said, "The intensive nationwide search for the missing Byzantine Fire came to an abrupt and bizarre end this afternoon, back where it all started, at Skoukakis Credit Jewelers on Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park."

  Then there was film of the jewelry store, showing Tony Costello—unbandaged—with a woman identified as Irene Skoukakis, wife of the store's owner. While a voice-over narration explained that Benjamin Arthur Klopzik himself, object of the most intense manhunt in New York Police Department history, had phoned this reporter earlier today with the astounding revelation that had led to the recovery of the missing priceless ruby ring, the camera showed Costello watch Irene Skoukakis unlock the front door and then go inside and open the safe. The camera panned in close as she pulled open the tray—here's where the voice-over repeated Dortmunder's story about having left the Byzantine Fire behind—and there it was, the goddam ruby, big as life, huge and gleaming and red amid the little gold menagerie.

  Next there came a cut back to the bandaged Costello at his desk, saying, "Naturally, we informed both the police and the FBI the instant we'd verified Klopzik's story. The result was, to this reporter at least, something of an astonishment."

  More film: official cars slamming to a stop in front of the jeweler's, uniformed and plainclothes cops milling around. And then the astonishment: film showing a man identified by the voice-over as FBI Agent Malcolm Zachary, on the sidewalk in front of the store, in the process of punching Tony Costello in the face. Costello went down and, while the camera ground on, the stout form of Chief Inspector Francis X. Mologna came running into the scene and started kicking the fallen journalist.

  "Holy cow," Dortmunder said.

  Another cut back to Costello at his desk, now looking serious and judicious and just a teeny bit sly. "This unfortunate incident," he told the viewers at home, "merely shows how tempers can fray when the heat is really on. This network has already accepted the apologies of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Mayor of the City of New York, and I personally have accepted the apologies of Agent Zachary and Chief Inspector Mologna, both of whom have been granted leaves of absence for reasons of health. In all of this, only one minor element truly pains me, and that was Chief Inspector Mologna's reference to this reporter, in the heat of the moment, as a 'dirty Wop. Now, it happens that I am one hundred percent Irish extraction, though of course that doesn't matter one way or the other, but even if I weren't Irish, even if I were Italian which I am not, or if I were a Scotsman, such as Jack Mackenzie, my
opposite number on another network, no matter what ethnic group I might belong to, I would still have to be saddened and distressed at this suggestion of ethnic stereotyping. Even though I'm Irish, I must say I would be proud to be called a Wop or a Dago or anything else such misguided people might choose to say. Some of my best friends are Italian. Back to you, Sal."

  "Right on," said Andy Kelp, as Dortmunder switched off the set.

  "Okay," Stan Murch said. "Enough of the past. We ready to talk about the future?"

  Kelp said, "Sure we are. You got a caper, Stan?"

  "Something very nice," Stan said. "I'll drive, of course. Ralph, there's some very tough locks to get through."

  "I'm your man," Ralph Winslow said.

  "Jim, Andy, there'll be climbing and carrying."

  "Sure thing," Kelp said, and Jim O'Hara, his prison gray already receding, said, "I'm ready to get back into action. Believe me."

  "And, John," Stan said, turning to Dortmunder, "we're gonna need a detailed plan. You feel good?"

  "I feel very good," Dortmunder said. It was too bad he couldn't tell the world about his greatest triumph, but since his greatest triumph had turned out to be no more than a circle in which he wound up putting his most magnificent haul back where he'd found it, maybe it was just as well to keep it to himself. Still, a triumph is a triumph is a triumph. "In fact," he said, "I would say I'm at the beginning of a lucky streak."

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