Hot Rock

by Donald E. Westlake

  The current tenant, a fish handler named Friedkin, was sitting in the air at the head of the outside steps to the second floor. Friedkin’s wife made Friedkin sit out in the air any time there wasn’t actually a blizzard or an atomic explosion going on out there. Friedkin waved, an aroma of the sea wafting from him, and called, “How you doing, boychick?”

  “Yuh,” said Murch. He wasn’t too good at talking to people. Most of his conversations were held with cars.

  He went on into the house and called, “Mom?” He stood there in the kitchen.

  She’d been downstairs, in the extra room. Besides the three-and-a-half they had a semi-finished basement, what most of the neighbors considered a family room, down in the semi-dank downstairs. Murch and his mother had turned this underbelly into Murch’s bedroom.

  Murch’s mom came upstairs now and said, “You’re home.”

  “Look what I got,” Murch said and showed her the record.

  “So play it,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  They went into the living room together and while Murch put the record on the turntable he said, “How come you’re home so early?”

  “Aahhh,” she said in disgust. “Some wise-ass cop out at the airport.”

  “You were taking more than one passenger again,” Murch said.

  She flared up. “Well, why not?” she wanted to know. “This city’s got a shortage of cabs, don’t it? You oughta see all those people out there at the airport, they got to wait half an hour, an hour, they could fly to Europe before they could get a cab and go to Manhattan. So I try to help the situation a little. They don’t care, the customers don’t care, they’d have to pay the same meter anyway. And it helps the city, it improves their goddamn public image. But try to tell a cop that. Play the record.”

  “How long you suspended for?”

  “Two days,” she said. “Play the record.”

  “Mom,” he said,, holding the tone arm above the turning record, “I wish you wouldn’t take those chances. We don’t have all that much dough.”

  “You got enough to throw it away on records,” she said. “Play the record.”

  “If I’d known you were gonna get yourself suspended for two days—”

  “You could always get yourself a job,” she said. “Play the record.”

  Stung, Murch put the tone arm back on its rest and his hands on his hips. “Is that what you want?” he said. “You want me to get a job at the post office?”

  “No, never mind me,” his mother said, suddenly contrite. She went over and patted his cheek. “I know something’ll come through for you pretty soon. And when you do have it, Stan, nobody on God’s green earth spends it as free or as open as you do.”

  “Damn right,” Murch said, appeased but still a little grumpy.

  “Put the record on,” his mother said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Sure.”

  Murch put the tone arm on th opening grooves of the record. The room filled with the shrieking of tires, the revving of engines, the grinding of gears.

  They listened to side one in silence, and when it was done Murch said, “Now, that’s a good record.”

  “I think that’s one of the best, Stan,” his mother said. “I really do. Let’s hear the other side.”

  “Right.”

  Murch went over to the phonograph and picked up the record, and the phone rang. “Hell,” he said.

  “Forget it,” his mother said. “Play the other side.”

  “Okay.”

  Murch put the other side on, and the ringing of the phone was buried in the sudden roar of twenty automobile engines turning over at once.

  But whoever was calling wouldn’t give up. In the lulls in the record the ringing could still be heard, a disturbing presence. A racing driver going into the far turn at one hundred twenty miles an hour shouldn’t have to answer the telephone.

  Murch finally shook his head in disgust, shrugged at his mother, and picked up the phone. “Who is it?” he said, yelling over the sounds of the record.

  A distant voice said, “Stan Murch?”

  “Speaking!”

  The distant voice said something else.

  “What?”

  The distant voice shouted, “This is Dortmunder!”

  “Oh, yeah, How you doing?”

  “Fine! Where do you live, in the middle of the Grand Concourse?”

  “Hold on a second!” Murch shouted and put the phone down and went over to turn off the record. “I’ll play it in a minute,” he told his mother. “This is a guy I know, it might be a job.”

  “I knew something would turn up,” his mother said. “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

  Murch went back to the phone. “Hello, Dortmunder?”

  “That’s a lot better,” Dortmunder said. “What did you do, shut the window?”

  “No, it was a record. I turned it off.”

  There was a long silence.

  Murch said, “Dortmunder?”

  “I’m here,” Dortmunder said, but he sounded a little fainter than before. Then, stronger again, he said, “I wondered if you were available for a driving job.”

  “I sure am.”

  “Meet me tonight at the O. J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue,” Dortmunder said.

  “Fine. What time?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there. See you, Dortmunder.”

  Murch hung up the phone and said to his mother, “Well, looks like we’ll have some money pretty soon.”

  “That’s good,” said his mother. “Play the record.”

  “Right.”

  Murch went over and started side two from the beginning again.

  SEVEN

  “TOOT TOOT,” said Roger Chefwick. His three H-O gauge trains were all in motion at once and his H-O guage track, traveling hither and yon around the basement. Relays tripped, electrical signals were given, and all sorts of things happened. Flagmen slid out of their shacks and waved their flags. Gondola cars stopped at appropriate places and filled with grain, only to stop again far away and dump their grain out again. Mailbags were picked up on the fly by mail cars. Bells rang at highway-railway crossings, bars went down, and when the train had gone by the bars went back up again. Cars coupled and uncoupled. All sorts of things went on.

  “Toot toot,” said Roger Chefwick.

  A short and skinny man of late middle age, Chefwick was seated now on a high stool at his grand console, his practiced hands moving over the array of transformers and special switches. The waist-high plywood platform, four feet wide, flanked the wall on three sides of the basement, so that Chefwick in the middle of it all was like a man in the ultimate Cinerama. Model houses, model trees, even model mountains gave veracity to his layout His trains traveled over bridges, through tunnels and around intricately curved multilayers of track.

  “Toot toot,” said Roger Chefwick.

  “Roger,” said his wife.

  Chefwick twisted around and saw Maude standing midway down the cellar stairs. A vague, fussy, pleasant woman,

  Maude was his perfect mate and he knew how lucky he was to have her.

  “Yes, dear,” he said.

  “Telephone, Roger,” she said.

  “Oh dear.” Chefwick sighed. “One moment,” he said.

  “I’ll tell them,” she said and turned to go back upstairs.

  Chefwick faced his console again. Train number one was in the vicinity of the Chefwick freight yards, so he rerouted it from its original destination, Center City, and sent it instead through the Maude Mountain tunnel and on into the yards. Since train number two was just approaching the Rogerville station, he simply ran it onto a subsidiary track there to leave the main line open. That left train number three, currently heading through Smoke Pass. It took some intricate planning, but he finally brought it out of the Southern Mountains and shunted it onto the spur track leading to the old Seaside Mining Corporation. Then, pleased with his work, he shut off the mas
ter switches on the console and went upstairs.

  The kitchen, tiny and white and warm, was full of the aroma of fudge. Maude was at the sink, washing dishes. Chefwick said, “Mmm. Smells good.”

  “Be cool in just a little while,” she said.

  “Can’t wait,” he said, knowing it would please her, and went through the tiny house to the living room, where the telephone was. He sat down on the doily-covered flower-pattern sofa, picked up the phone receiver, and said mildly, “Hello?”

  A rough voice said, “Chefwick?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Kelp. Remember?”

  “Kelp?” The name did ring a bell, but Chefwick couldn’t exactly remember why. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “At the bakery,” the voice said.

  Then he did remember. Of course, the robbery at the bakery. “Kelp!” he said, pleased to have been reminded.

  “How good to hear from you again. How have you been keeping yourself?”

  “Little a this, little a that, you know how it is. What I—”

  “Well, it certainly is good to hear your voice again. How long has it been?”

  “A couple of years. What I—”

  “How time flies,” Chefwick marveled.

  “Yeah, don’t it. What I—”

  “But I should certainly not have forgotten your name. I must have been thinking of something else.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. What I—”

  “But I’m keeping you from telling me why you called,” Chefwick said. “I’ll listen now.”

  Silence.

  Chefwick said, “Hello?”

  “Yeah,” said Kelp.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  “Yeah,” said Kelp.

  “Did you want something?” Chefwick asked him.

  It sounded as though Kelp sighed before saying, “Yeah. I wanted something. I wanted to know are you available.”

  “One moment, please,” Chefwick said. He put the receiver down on the end table, got to his feet, and walked out to the kitchen, where he said to his wife, “Dear, do you know offhand the state of our finances?”

  Maude dried her hands on her apron, looking thoughtful, and then said, “I believe we have just about seven thousand dollars left in the checking account.”

  “Nothing in the basement?”

  “No. I took the last three thousand at the end of April.”

  “Thank you,” Chefwick said. He went back to the Living room, sat down on the sofa, picked up the receiver, and said, “Hello?”

  “Yeah,” said Kelp. He sounded tired.

  “I am quite interested,” Chefwick said.

  “Good,” Kelp said, but he still sounded tired. “We’re meeting tonight,” he said, “at ten o’clock, at the O. J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue.”

  “Fine,” Chefwick said, “See you then.”

  “Yeah,” said Kelp.

  Chefwick hung up, got to his feet, went back to the kitchen, and said, “I’ll be going out a while this evening.”

  “Not late, I hope.”

  “Not tonight, I don’t believe. We’ll just be discussing things.” Chefwick got a sly look on his face, a pixie grin on his lips. “Is that fudge ready yet?”

  Maude smiled indulgently at him. “I believe you could try a piece,” she said.

  EIGHT

  “SO THIS is your apartment!” the girl said.

  “Mm, yes,” said Alan Greenwood, smiling. He shut the door and pocketed the keys. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

  The girl stood in the middle of the room and turned in a big admiring circle. “Well, I must say,” she said. “It certainly is well kept for a bachelor’s apartment.”

  Greenwood, walking toward the bar, said, “I do what I can. But I do feel the lack of a woman’s touch.”

  “It doesn’t show at all,” she said. “Not at all.”

  Greenwood switched on the fireplace. “What’s yours?” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, shrugging, doing the coquette a little, “just anything light.”

  “Coming up,” he said. He opened the bar portion of the bookcase and made her a Rob Roy just sweet enough to hide the deadliness of the Scotch.

  When he turned, she was admiring the painting between the maroon-velvet-draped windows. “My, that’s interesting,” she said.

  “It’s the Rape of the Sabine Women,” he told her. “In symbolic terms, of course. Here’s your drink.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  He raised his drink—light on the Scotch, heavy on the water—and said, “To you.” Then, with hardly any pause at all, he added, “Miranda.”

  Miranda smiled and ducked her head in embarrassed pleasure. “To us,” she whispered.

  He smiled his agreement. “To us.”

  They drank.

  “Come sit down,” he said, leading her to the white sheepskin sofa.

  “Oh, is that sheepskin?”

  “So much warmer than leather,” he said softly and took her hand, and they sat down.

  Seated side by side, they gazed a moment into the fireplace, and then she said, “My, that is realistic, isn’t it?” “And no ashes,” he said. “I like things—clean.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean,” she said and smiled brightly at him.

  He put his arm around her shoulders. She lifted her chin. The phone rang.

  Greenwood closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Ignore it,” he said.

  The phone rang again.

  But it might be something important,” she said.

  “I have an answering service,” he said. “They’ll get it.”

  The phone rang again.

  “I’ve thought about getting an answering service,” she said. She sat forward a bit, dislodging his arm, and turned half toward him, one leg tucked under her. “Are they expensive?”

  The phone rang the fourth time.

  “Around twenty-five a month,” he said, his smile becoming a bit forced. “But it’s worth it for the convenience.”

  Fifth time.

  “Oh, of course,” she said. “And not to miss any important calls.”

  Sixth.

  Greenwood chuckled realistically. “Of course,” he said, “they aren’t always as reliable as you’d like.”

  Seven.

  “Isn’t that the way with people nowadays,” she said. “Nobody wants to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

  Eight.

  “That’s right.”

  She leaned closer to him. “Is that a tic in your eyelid?

  The right eye.”

  Nine.

  He jerked a hand to his face, “Is it? I get that sometimes, when I’m tired.”

  “Oh, are you tired?”

  Ten.

  “No,” he said quickly. “Not in particular. Maybe the light in the restaurant was a bit too dim, I might have been straining my—”

  Eleven.

  Greenwood lunged at the phone, yanked the receiver to his head, shouted, “What is it?”

  “Hello?”

  “Hello yourself! What do you want?”

  “Greenwood? Alan Greenwood?”

  “Who’s this?” Greenwood demanded.

  “Is that Alan Greenwood?”

  “God damn it, yes, What do you want?” He could see from the corner of his eye that the girl had risen from the sofa, was standing looking at him.

  “This is John Dortmunder.”

  “Dort—” He caught himself, coughed instead. “Oh,” he said, much calmer, “How are things?”

  “Fine. You available for a piece of work?”

  Greenwood looked at the girl’s face while thinking of his bank accounts. Neither prospect was pleasing. “Yes, I am,” he said. He tried a smile at the girl, but it wasn’t returned. She was watching his a bit warily.

  “We’re meeting tonight,” Dortmunder said. “At ten. You free?”

  “Yes, I think I am,” Greenwood said. Not happily.

  NINEr />
  DORTMUNDER walked into the O. J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at five minutes to ten. Two of the regulars were having a game at the bowling machine, and three more were remembering Irish McCalla and Betty Page at the bar. Behind the bar stool Rollo, tall, meaty, balding, blue-jawed, in a dirty white shirt and dirty white apron.

  Dortmunder had already set things up with Rollo on the phone this afternoon, but he stopped at the bar a second as a courtesy, saying, “Anybody here yet?”

  “One fellow,” Rollo said. “A draft beer. I don’t think I know him. He’s in the back.”

  Thanks.”

  Rollo said, “You’re a double bourbon, aren’t you? Straight up.”

  Dortmunder said. “I’m surprised you remember.”

  “I don’t forget my customers,” Rollo said. “It’s good to see you back again. You want, I’ll bring you the bottle.”

  “Thanks again,” Dortmunder said and walked on down past the memory trippers and past the two doors with the dog silhouettes on them and the sign on one door POINTERS and on the other door SETTERS and past the phone booth and through the green door at the back and into a small square room with a concrete floor. None of the walls could be seen because practically the whole room was taken up floor to ceiling with beer cases and liquor cases, leaving only a small opening in the middle big enough for a battered old table with a green felt top, half a dozen chairs, and one bare bulb with a round tin reflector hanging low over the table on a long black wire.

  Stan Murch was sitting at the table, half a glass of draft beer in front of him. Dortmunder shut the door and said, “You’re early.”

  “I made good time,” Murch said. “Instead of goin’ all the way around on the Belt, I went up Rockaway Parkway and over Eastern Parkway to Grand Army Plaza and right up Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge. Then up Third Avenue and through the part at Seventy-ninth Street. At night you can make better time that way than if you went around the Belt Parkway and through the Battery Tunnel and up the West Side Highway.”