But how?
41
WHEN KELP AND Dortmunder and Tiny and the kid walked into the fake OJ Tuesday afternoon at two, Doug and Marcy and Roy Ombelen and Rodney the bartender and the camera crews were already there, clustered around the left end of the bar, where in the real joint the regulars reigned. As they approached the bar, Rodney was saying, “No way Shakespeare wrote those plays. He didn’t have the education, he hadn’t been anywhere, he was just a country bumpkin. An actor. A very good actor, everybody says so, but just an actor.”
Doug said, “Isn’t some duke supposed to be the real guy?”
“Oh, Clarence,” Rodney said, in dismissal.
“I heard that, too,” Marcy said. “That’s very interesting.”
“No, it wasn’t him,” Rodney said, scoffing at the idea. “In fact, if you study those plays the way I did, you’ll see they couldn’t have been written by a man at all.”
Marcy, astonished, said, “A woman?”
“No sixteenth-century guy,” Rodney said, “had that kind of modern attitude toward women or instinctive understanding of the woman’s mind.”
One of the camerapersons said, “My husband says it was Bacon.”
Another cameraperson, dripping scorn, said, “They’re not talking about meat, they’re talking about Shakespeare.”
“Sir Francis Bacon.”
“Oh.”
Roy said to Rodney, “I venture to say you have someone in mind.”
“Queen,” Rodney pronounced, “Elizabeth the First.”
Kelp and Dortmunder looked at one another. “You build it,” Kelp murmured, “they will come.”
Turning, Doug said, “Oh, there you are.”
“Here we are,” Dortmumder agreed.
“Can you start without me?” Kelp said. “I got a little gippy tummy this afternoon.”
“Oh, sure,” Doug said. He had a slightly manic appearance this afternoon, as though he’d forgotten and taken his medication twice. “You go ahead, we’ll be setting up for a while.”
So Kelp exited the set, rounded the corner, and headed for the stairs. This was the top floor, so he only had to go up the one flight to the roof door, to check into what they’d done to refix the lock and alarm now that he’d told them about its being rigged. Whatever they’d done, Kelp was ready to disarm it right now, from inside, with the various equipment in his various pockets.
And they hadn’t done a thing. Was that possible? The rerouted wire was taped exactly where Kelp had left it. The lock was still nonexistent.
Hadn’t they believed him? Or maybe they’d just had too many other things on their minds. In any case, it did make life simpler. Kelp opened the door, looked out at the roof, closed the door, and hurried back downstairs to the non-OJ.
Doug met him as he came into the set. “You okay, Andy?”
“Oh, fine,” Kelp said. “Just one of those little things, you know, it comes along and then it goes right away.”
“Stress gets to everybody, Andy,” Doug said.
“Yeah, I guess so. Oh, there’s my bunch.”
Marcy and the rest of the cast were now clustered at one of the side booths, and Marcy waved to Kelp and called, “Come on over, Andy, we’re working out the story line.”
The story line. 1) You go in. 2) You take what you came for. 3) You go out. If civilians are present, insert 1A) You show, but do not employ, weapons.
Marcy’s story line would be a little more baroque. Kelp went over, found a sliver of bench available next to Tiny, perched on it, and Marcy leaned in to be confidential, saying, “I hope you held out for a lot more money.”
“Oh, sure,” Kelp said. “You know us.”
Because, of course, Marcy didn’t know anything. She didn’t know why they’d left, and she didn’t know why they were back. So, as with the reality show, she was making up her own story line, which was perfectly okay.
“What we need, in the next couple weeks of the show,” Marcy told them, “is some sense of menace. Not from you guys, some other outside force.”
Dortmunder said, “Like the law, you mean?”
“No, we don’t want to bring the police in until the very end of the season. The escape from the police will be the great triumph, and it’ll make up for you not getting the big score you were counting on from the storage rooms.”
Kelp said, “Oh, we’re not getting that?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Marcy said. “I don’t want you to know the story too far ahead, because it can affect the way you play it. But I can guarantee you, the escape from the police will be the climax of the first season.”
“I’d watch it,” the kid said.
“For a menace from the outside,” Marcy said, “what do you think of another gang going after the exact same target?”
Kelp said, “Wasn’t that in a Woody Allen movie?”
“Oh, it’s been in dozens of movies,” she said. “That’s all right. Nobody expects reality to be original. People will see that, and they’ll laugh and they’ll say, ‘Just like the Woody Allen movie, and here the same thing happens in real life.’ ”
Dortmunder said, “That’s what they say, huh?”
“Oh, people get very caught up in these stories,” Marcy told him. “It’s like their own reality, only better. More interesting.”
Tiny said, “Where does this frightening other gang come from?”
“Well,” Marcy said, “we were hoping you all might know some people.”
Tiny said, “People to muscle in on our score? Point them out.”
Marcy looked troubled. “You don’t like that idea.”
“Not much,” they agreed.
“Well, Babe suggested,” Marcy said, sounding unconvinced, “maybe one of you double-crosses the rest of the gang, sells you out to the owner of the storage place.”
Dortmunder said, “Get Real is the owner of the storage place.”
“Well, yes.” Marcy nodded, but wasn’t happy. “Whenever there’s a problem like that,” she said, “Doug says we’ll work around it, but I don’t see how we could work around that one.”
Kelp said, “Just for curiosity’s sake, which of us did you tap for the Judas?”
“We hadn’t decided,” Marcy said. “We thought we’d leave that up to you.”
“Then I guess we’d vote for Ray,” Dortmunder said.
“That’s right,” Kelp said. “He’s already got the experience.”
Marcy blushed. It was an uncomfortable sight, because she didn’t do it well, but just came out all blotchy, like measles, or a face covered with cold sores. The others looked away, giving her a chance to get control of herself, and she coughed and said, “Most of us didn’t really think that was a good idea, anyway.”
“Most of you were right,” Tiny said.
The clatter of the elevator was heard, rising through the building. “Oh, that’ll be Babe,” Marcy said.
Dortmunder said, “Coming to shut us down again?”
Marcy laughed, as though that had been a joke. “He’s coming with Darlene and Ray,” she said. “That’s the other thing we’re going to do, to build suspense. Today—Oh, wait,” she shouted. “That’s too loud.”
It was. They all waited. They couldn’t see the elevator from inside the set, but they could hear when at last it stopped.
Marcy, talking more rapidly now, said, “You’re all going to be in here, at the bar, just talking, and it would be nice if you could be reminiscing, you know, about other robberies you did. How you found out the target was there, and how you did it, and how you got away.”
“And how,” Tiny said, “the crime remained unsolved until now.”
“Well, I expect you to change some details,” Marcy said, and Darlene and Ray and Babe came into the joint.
Babe was in a good mood for once. “Hello, all,” he said. “No, I’m not here to shut you down.”
“That’s too bad,” the kid said. “There’s a matinee I wanted to see.”
“Ha ha,” Babe said. “Marcy, did you try out those ideas on the guys?”
“They don’t seem to like them,” Marcy said. “And they don’t have any other gangs they’d like to work with.”
“And the traitor in their midst?”
Nodding at Ray but talking to Babe, Dortmunder said, “That’s already been tried.”
“Oh, now,” Babe said.
Marcy said, “I was just starting to tell them about the action today. All of you are in the bar here, including Darlene, and you’re all just talking about your old successful robberies, with changes, of course, with changes. And then a mysterious man comes in and sits in the back there, back near where the door would be if there was a door.”
“That’s me,” Babe said.
“Everybody becomes aware of him because he’s just watching people, but nobody knows who he is.”
“Mine is one of the faces we can show,” Babe said. He sounded modest about it.
“And then the camera,” Marcy said, “the camera sees, and so do the people at home, that Darlene knows who he is, and doesn’t want anybody else to catch on. Is he her father? An ex-husband? A hitman, sent to kill her by somebody from her past? She seems to be afraid of him, right, Darlene?”
“I’ve been practicing,” Darlene said.
Marcy approved. “Good.” To the others she said, “So this is a mystery and some suspense, and we’ll run it out as long as we can. But for today, you all just become aware of him, but don’t do any big reactions, don’t try to talk to him or anything like that. Okay?”
“You want us to be cool,” the kid said.
“Exactly.”
So everybody agreed with that idea, and then Babe said, “I’ve been around these shows a few years now, even dreamed up a couple of them, but I’ve never actually been in one before. Seemed like a good time to get my feet wet.”
Roy Ombelen said, “And we’re very glad indeed to have you among us, Babe. And now, lady and gents, if we could begin with Rodney in place, and Tiny and Judson sitting at—”
“Oh, that’s me,” the kid said. “I almost forgot.”
“I believe in names,” Roy told him. “In any event, you’ll both be at the bar, chatting with Rodney, nothing important, and then you other four come in all together. Now, Darlene, I need you at the left end of the group along the bar, so when Babe comes in you’ll have a clear view of him. The group chats—”
“About the hits of yesteryear,” Kelp said.
“Even so. Now we’ll be doing an existing storefront entrance for Babe’s coming into the bar from the street, so at the moment that’s supposed to happen, Darlene, I’ll snap my fingers. You look over that way, toward the pretend door, and you see him. You’re startled, and then you cover up, and the conversation goes on. Everyone all right with that?”
Everyone was all right.
“Good.” Roy turned to Babe, saying, “Now, you don’t look at anybody, you just come in and walk to the right end of the bar, away from the others. Rodney, you go to Babe. He orders a beer, you give him the can and the glass, he pays you and goes back to that table there, and you go back with the group. Okay?”
Everybody was still okay.
“We’ll probably,” Roy said, “have to take a break at that point to relight that table, but up till then, you people just do your conversation, that’s the ostensible focus of our scene. Okay?”
Still okay.
“Very good. Places, please.”
So everybody slid once again into reality. Kelp found it an easy place to be, no difficult demands, just talking like tough guys. Nobody even thought about cameras any more.
Kelp watched Darlene, and she really did a nice job of it. A real actress, she knew how to get the effects with really very small moves.
Meanwhile, the group cut up old jackpots, the bank in the trailer, the emerald they had to keep going back and getting again and again, the ruby that was too famous to hock so they had to put it back where they got it, the cache of cash in the reservoir. The time just seemed to go by.
Walking up Seventh Avenue with Dortmunder when the day’s work was done, Kelp said, “I didn’t think Babe was very good at that stuff.”
“I know what you mean,” Dortmunder said. “He was too stiff like.”
“He doesn’t have a natural ease in front of the camera.”
“Well,” Dortmunder said, “his is really a very small part, it won’t matter much.”
“And the rest of us,” Kelp said, “can carry him.”
42
STAN DROVE the GMC Mastodon hybrid from where he’d found it, alone and unattended on a dark side street in Queens, across Northern Boulevard to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to Manhattan, the quickest most direct route after midnight, which this was, making today Wednesday, three weeks since the Wednesday since they had first heard of the existence, from Stan’s Mom, of Doug Fairkeep and reality.
Once in Manhattan, Stan paused at various street corners to pick up some friends. By the time he turned westward onto Fourteenth Street from Park Avenue, he had Dortmunder to his right and Kelp beyond that, with the kid in the usually roomy backseat making do with whatever was left over after Tiny came aboard.
“Even late at night,” Stan explained, as they drove toward Varick Street, “I can’t just park forever in front of that building. There’s still some tunnel traffic at any hour, so the cops come by a lot to keep it clear, and if a cop decides to tell me to move along he just might also decide to have a look at my paperwork first.”
“We know how it works,” Dortmunder said.
“Good.” Stan braked for a red light, and never even glanced at the patrol car parked in the bus stop. “What I’ll do,” he said, “I’ll let everybody off and then just go around the block until I see you all.”
“Fine,” Dortmunder said.
“If it turns out,” Stan said, “you have a little problem and I shouldn’t wait around but just go home, try to open that garage door. Like a signal.”
Kelp said, “What if we wanna give you a signal you should come in and help out with something?”
“I don’t think we’re gonna need that signal,” Stan said.
There was no more discussion along those lines, and then they reached the building, hulking dark in the middle of the block next to the well-illuminated bank building stretching to the corner. Stan drove past the GR Development building to the darker big structure at the next corner, where he stopped. His passengers all got out to the sidewalk there and, as Stan drove off to begin his orbits, the kid did a whole lot of quick stretches and bends to counteract the effects of spending the last half hour squeezed between Tiny and the ungiving flank of the Mastodon.
Meanwhile, the others followed Kelp around the corner. They were going in the same way Dortmunder and Kelp had slipped in two weeks ago. At the small side door, Kelp bent briefly over the lock meant to protect from pilferage the deep fryers, menu holders, and microwave ovens of the restaurant supply wholesaler who called this place a living. The kid had caught up by the time Kelp was pushing open the door to lead the way inside.
The stairwell, as they now knew, was on the far side of this building, across all these unemployed furnishings. Trooping through, guided by the pink light from the wall clock at the rear of the showroom and then the dim lights at every level of the stairwell, up they went to the sixth floor and into the offices of the olive oil importer who would provide the window through which they could step onto the GR Development roof.
That door, down into Get Real, had still not been restored to service, so they simply went in and down the stairs. At the second floor, Combined Tool, Dortmunder and Tiny stopped, while Kelp and the kid continued on down to the massed vehicles on one.
With one flashlight, held by the kid, they threaded through the cars to the rear door and out, where they now had to work with only the light that New York City’s sky continued to reflect down onto the crowded jumble below. Over there in the corner was the ladder, which t
hey quickly moved into place, slanted up to beside the pantry window. Kelp climbed the ladder as the kid held it, and when he was in position he took the handled suction cup from one of the pouches in the rear of his jacket, fixed it into place against the middle of the pane of the lower half of the window, and took out the glass cutter he’d purchased new, with his own money, at a hardware store on Bleecker Street yesterday afternoon.
This was the tricky part, to cut and not break. He started at the top, which was the hardest to get at, running the cutter horizontally in as straight a line as possible along the glass, as near to the top rail as he could get, the cut angled just a bit toward the wood.
Because he didn’t want to have to do finicky after-work with the window almost completely free, he went back and cut the same line a second time, then did the same kind of cut down both stiles, first on the left, then on the right. He was aware of the kid watching him from below, but kept his concentration on the work at hand.
The slice across the bottom was the hardest. Having cut just a few inches along that line, he felt he had to hold on to the suction cup handle, just in case the pane decided to fall out before he was ready. Left hand holding the handle, left elbow braced against the jamb, he slid the cutter across once, then twice, then pocketed the cutter and leaned a little forward pressure onto the glass.
At first he thought he hadn’t done enough, but then, with unexpected speed, the pane angled backward into the room. Kelp needed both hands on the handle and both elbows down against the stool in order to keep control of the glass, which was pretty heavy, particularly from this angle. Holding tight, he lifted the pane up and away from himself, then lowered it into the room. Partway, he switched his left hand to grip the glass at the top, keeping away from the fresh-cut edge.
Tink, the glass said, when it touched the floor, but landed with no harm. Kelp used both hands to reach in and down and move the pane to the left, leaning forward against the handle. Then he rattled the ladder to get the kid’s attention, looked down, and waved that he was going in.
It wasn’t easy to get through the glassless window. There were metal shelves to both sides of it in there, but they were a little too far away to give him much help. Mostly, he had to try to slither on his belly, using first elbows and then knees to keep himself clear of the strip of sliced glass below him. From time to time he’d stop to shift position, then inch a little farther along the way, until at last he could firmly grasp a metal shelf on the right and use it to bring his legs the rest of the way into the room.
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