What's The Worst That Could Happen

by Donald Westlake

  “But Vegas is still what it was.”

  “So far, anyway,” Wally said. “He’ll be at the Gaiety Hotel, Battle–Lake and Casino two nights next week, Monday and Tuesday, after he gets back from Australia.”

  “Unless he changes his mind again.”

  “I’m sorry, John,” Wally said. “I know I said I could track him for you. But this is very unusual for Max Fairbanks. Maybe the IRS is after him or something.”

  “Somebody’s after him, don’t worry about that,” Dortmunder said. “Thanks, Wally. If there’s any change —”

  “Oh, I’ll let you know, you or Andy, right away. Or probably Andy, he’s got an answering machine.”

  “Right.”

  “Tell him, there’s about four messages from me on his machine.”

  “About this conversation we’re just having right here.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Dortmunder said, and immediately forgot. “So long, Wally.”

  When he hung up, everybody wanted to know what the other, more interesting, half of the conversation had been, so Dortmunder repeated Wally’s bad news, and Andy said, “So we don’t get the ring. I’m sorry, John. Not this trip.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Dortmunder said. He was really angry. “We come all this way, and what do we get? A lousy fifty thousand dollars!”

  Chapter 36

  * * *

  For some reason, this time, when Max told the story, it seemed less funny. Maybe it was the fault of this particular audience.

  Which was certainly a possibility. For this go–round of the retailing of the story of his theft of the burglar’s ring, Max had an audience of just one: Earl Radburn, chief of security of TUI, the man whose job it was to see to it that nobody stole anything anywhere within the sovereign domain of TUI, within the Max Fairbanks fiefdom. Telling his anecdote once more, this time under the ice–blue gaze of Earl Radburn, Max couldn’t help but feel that somehow the man disapproved of him.

  Well, so be it. Who was boss here, anyway? If Earl Radburn can’t see the humor, that’s Earl Radburn’s loss.

  Anyway, Earl was not a man noted for much sense of humor. A compact, hard–muscled ex–marine probably in his fifties, he had a pouter pigeon’s chest and walk — or strut — a sand–colored nailbrush mustache, and stiff orangey hair cropped so close to his tan scalp he looked like a drought. His clothing was usually tan and always clean, creased, starched, and worn like a layer of aluminum siding. If he had a home life nobody knew it, and if he had a sorrow in his existence it was probably that this job didn’t come with a license to kill.

  Max, having left DC immediately after a quite successful congressional hearing — what a nerve the government has, taxing decent citizens — had had himself driven over highways put down some time ago by the government up to his corporate headquarters here in Wilmington, Delaware, choosing this place because everybody knew he never came here, had never been here before, and was in fact pleasantly surprised when he first laid eyes on the industrial park encircling TUI’s glass–sheathed, modern–architected, low, broad–based main building. While driving up, he’d phoned Earl Radburn in Earl’s security office in New York, and Earl had driven down to meet him.

  Now they were alone together in a bright and airy conference room, with greensward as neat as a golf course outside the large windows, their sofas comfy, their soda water bubbly, and Earl as much fun to tell an anecdote to as an Easter Island head. Nevertheless, this is the fellow to whom he must once again recount the lark of stealing a burglar’s ring.

  “In any event,” he said, when he had finished and Earl had made absolutely no response at all, “there you have it. That’s what happened.”

  Earl said, “Sir,” which was his way of saying he’d stored the information he’d been given so far and was ready to receive more. Get on with it, in other words.

  So Max got on with it. “Before the local police managed to bring the man to their station, he escaped.”

  Earl’s lip curled slightly.

  “He went back to the house,” Max said. “Fortunately, we’d, I’d, left by then. He ransacked the place.”

  “I’ve read that report,” Earl said.

  “I thought that was the end of it.”

  “But now,” Earl suggested, “you think he’s the one broke into your place in New York.”

  “I know it,” Max said.

  Earl’s expression didn’t change, but his skepticism was palpable. “Sir,” he said, “you can’t know it. You can suspect it, but —”

  Max held up his right hand, palm toward himself, displaying the ring. “He wants this ring. He wants it back. He’s going to come after me again, I know he is.”

  Earl looked at the hand. “You wear the ring, sir?”

  “Absolutely! It’s mine. I stole it fair and square, and I’m going to keep it. Don’t you see my corporate symbol on it, right there?”

  “A coincidence,” Earl assured him.

  “Of course it’s a coincidence! A wonderful coincidence! That’s why I’m going to keep this ring.”

  “There could be more than one coincidence in the world, sir,” Earl pointed out. “The robbery in New York could have been done by anybody.”

  “It was him, I tell you,” Max insisted, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to acknowledge to Earl that the reason he knew with such assurance was that the I Ching had told him, through the hexagram for the Marrying Maiden. He said, “I can feel him out there, I know he’s there. That’s why I’ve insisted on a complete blackout of my movements from now on.”

  “Which complicates all our jobs, sir,” Earl said.

  “It’s temporary, and it’s necessary. I have a plan, Earl.”

  Earl waited, a rough–hewn statue awaiting a pedestal.

  Max said, “The only place I’m going that I haven’t made a secret, the only place in this country, is Las Vegas, because that was set up and the news distributed some time ago. I’ll be there a week from now, next Monday and Tuesday, and I’m sticking to it. So that’s the only place he can try for me again. With your help, Earl, we’ll set a little trap for this burglar.”

  “You’ll be the bait, you mean.”

  “Use as many people as you need,” Max told him. “Think of me as being under your command.”

  Earl’s eyebrow flickered minimally.

  Max said, “In this situation only, of course.”

  “Sir.”

  “He’ll know I’m going to be in Las Vegas. He’ll know when, and he’ll know where. And it’s the only time and place he’ll be sure of knowing where I am. He won’t be able to resist it.”

  “If he’s pursuing you, sir,” Earl said, as the phone on the conference table rang, “then you’re undoubtedly right.”

  The phone rang again. Max said, “You take that, Earl. I’m not here.”

  “Sir.”

  Earl rose from his sofa, crossed to the conference table, picked up the phone, spoke into it: “Radburn.” Listened; spoke: “What time did you leave the message?” Listened; spoke: “What time did you go there?” Listened; spoke: “Did you mention your name in the message?” Listened; spoke: “Mr. Fairbanks will make arrangements for a second package.” Listened; spoke: “Well, it’s too late, then.” Listened; spoke: “Someone will call you.” Hung up; turned and spoke to Fairbanks: “Sir, you’re right.”

  What now, Max thought. He said, “Something happened?”

  “He was in the Watergate apartment,” Earl said. “Your burglar. He got away.”

  “I knew it! That’s why I didn’t go there! What, did he steal the ashtrays?”

  “A bit more than that, sir. There were some Pac contributions —”

  “No! That was fifty thousand dollars!”

  “Yes, sir. Your man Saunders phoned there this morning, not wanting to disturb you, but wanting to pick up the contributions, and left a message on the answering machine. When he arrived later, the package was gone and a note addressed to
him by name and signed by you said your secretary had taken care of the contributions.”

  “Saunders wouldn’t fall for a thing like that.”

  “Well, he did, sir,” Earl said. “A short time ago, however, a woman from IMPAC phoned Saunders asking after the donation. He checked around to your secretary and some of the other recipients, discovered the truth, and called my office. They put him through to me here.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Max said. “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “One of the committees,” Earl went on, “refused to accept Saunders’s explanation and apology, insisting the delay was another expression of corporate arrogance and a power play. BACPAC, I believe he said it was. Saunders said they told him you can no longer count on their senator.”

  Hell. Hell and damnation. Max did count on that goddam senator. There were a couple of banking bills … What a mess that could turn out to be.

  And all because of one stupid seedy small–time burglar.

  “Las Vegas,” Max growled. He could not remember ever having been this angry, not even during his first marriage. “We’ll get that son of a bitch in Las Vegas,” he snarled, “and personally I will tear him limb from limb.”

  “Yes, sir,” Earl said. “My people and I will be happy to deliver him to you.”

  Chapter 37

  * * *

  Detective Second Grade Bernard Klematsky, currently assigned to the Fairbanks burglary at the N–Joy, knew all kinds of people. It was useful to him in his work to maintain connections with a great variety of persons, because you never knew when somebody might have just the one fact you needed to get your job done quickly and successfully. And Klematsky liked to be quick almost as much as he liked to be successful.

  Among the variety of Bernard Klematsky’s acquaintances there were even some who spent their time on the opposite side of the law from the side where Klematsky dwelled, and among those latter was a light–fingered fellow named Andrew Octavian Kelp. From time to time, this Kelp provided a bit of information here, a kernel of knowledge there, of benefit to society generally and to Klematsky particularly, so it was an association worth cultivating.

  Not that Kelp was a stoolie; unfortunately, the man would not turn in, up, or on his friends. But he did have a certain underworld expertise that Klematsky could from time to time call upon, and the reason he could do so was because, as it turned out, from time to time Kelp, in the course of his own nefarious doings, also had need of information, which he could get nowhere except from his old friend on the force, Bernard Klematsky. There was a narrow range within which they could be useful to one another, since Klematsky would not knowingly abet a criminal enterprise any more than Kelp would turn rat, but still it was possible for them on occasion to be useful to one another. Besides which, they enjoyed one another’s company.

  All of which was why, on Sunday, May 14, in pursuit of a certain theory he found promising, Bernard Klematsky called Andy Kelp, found him not at home (he was on his way to Washington, DC), and left a message on his answering machine. He left another message Monday morning, and then went out on another part of his caseload, and when he got back to the precinct Kelp had left a message for him. So he called Kelp, got the machine again, and left a message. Later, he went home, and on Tuesday morning when he got to the precinct there was a message waiting from Kelp. So he phoned, got the machine, and left a message. Some time later, he was about to go out to lunch, and in fact was halfway down the stairs, when another detective came out to the landing and called, “Somebody’s on the phone, says you want to talk to him.”

  Klematsky was hungry, as he often was. His mind was on lunch. Still, he turned around and called up to the other detective, “Ask him if his name is Kelp.”

  The detective went away, and Klematsky listened to his stomach make rumbling noises until the detective came back and called down the stairs, “He says, who wants to know?”

  “That’s Andy,” Klematsky said, and smiled. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

  • • •

  They had lunch together in a place of Andy’s choosing, since Bernard was this time the one seeking information; Andy would pick the lunch, and Bernard would pay for it. Andy chose Sazerac, a New Orleans–influenced (but not slavishly so) neighborhood joint at the corner of Hudson and Perry streets in the West Village, down the block from the Sixth Precinct. They were supposed to meet at one o’clock, but Bernard got held up by a couple last–minute things at the precinct, so it was twenty after before he walked down Hudson and into the place, which was about average for him.

  A narrow glass–walled porch wrapped around the two exterior walls of Sazerac, and that was where Andy was seated, looking out the windows at the cops going to and from the Sixth Precinct. Bernard put his hat on a hook — he’d taken to wearing a jaunty Tyrolean hat lately, with a feather, believing it made him seem more devil–may–care — and sat across the table, his back to the Sixth Precinct, saying, “Hello, there, Andy. You look well.”

  “I like your hat,” Andy told him.

  “Why, thanks.”

  “I saw you coming down the street there, I thought it was Peter O’Toole or somebody.”

  “I think he’s taller than I am.”

  “Okay, his brother.”

  The waitress came by to ask her question and Andy said, “I believe I’ll have an Amstel and the crab cakes.”

  Because he was paying for this meal, Bernard said, “Beer? Andy, you’re going to have a drink at lunch?”

  “That’s because I feel safe, with the precinct right there,” Andy told him.

  Bernard looked at the menu and decided he’d have the jambalaya because it looked as though it would be filling without being expensive; then he decided what the heck, he’d have an Amstel, too. The waitress went away, and Andy said, “You see the taxi garage on the corner?”

  Behind him, in other words. Bernard twisted around and looked, and directly across the street was a red brick taxi garage, the yellow cabs going in and out. The precinct was half a block beyond it. Twisting back, he said, “Yeah?”

  “Does it look familiar?”

  “Why not?” Bernard asked. “I’ve seen it before, when I come down to the Six.”

  “You’ve seen it on television,” Andy told him.

  “I have?”

  “They used that for the outside of the garage in the show Taxi.”

  “No kidding.” Bernard skewed around for another look, then faced the table and said, “It looked cleaner on TV.”

  “Oh, well, you know,” Andy said. “TV.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  The waitress brought their Amstel beers and they sipped companionably, and then Bernard said, “I haven’t been hearing much about you lately.”

  “Good,” Andy said.

  “I’d hate to think you’ve reformed or retired or something,” Bernard said.

  “I did all of those things,” Andy said, and began to blink like mad. “I gave up a life of crime because I discovered that crime doesn’t pay. So now I’m legit and I’m happy —”

  “And you’re blinking,” Bernard said. As they both knew, Andy blinked a lot whenever he was telling lies, which was unfortunate in a man of his profession.

  Andy took a breath. He stopped blinking. He said, “So how are things with you, Bernard?”

  “Very interesting,” Bernard said. “We’ve been nabbing the bad guys left and right.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “That’s right. Filling up the prisons so fast they’re out there building more prisons, and we’re filling them up.”

  “I been noticing,” Andy said, “how crime is down, and the streets are safe, and the insurance companies aren’t hardly paying any claims at all any more. So that’s why, huh? The good work you and the guys are doing.”

  “We help,” Bernard said, and they smiled at each other, and the food came.

  They were both serious about food, so they didn’t do much conversation until the thor
oughly empty plates were taken away. Then, over Bernard’s dish of ice cream and Andy’s second Amstel, Bernard said, “There are crimes still, here and there.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Bernard, after all your effort.”

  “Funny you should mention insurance companies.”

  “Did I? Oh, yeah, I remember.”

  “Because there’s one kind of crime,” Bernard said, “that really gets me. Nonviolent crime, I mean. Violent crime is something else.”