Don’t Ask

by Donald Westlake

  ‘Call, um, er, umm, that fellow, you know, the fellow we don’t call.’

  The clerk nodded, looking thoughtful. After the briefest of pauses, he said, ‘Would you mean the Votskojek embassy, Your Grace?’

  ‘Can’t call them,’ the archbishop said, laying a scrawny finger aside his scrawny nose to indicate slyness. ‘Can’t indicate bias. Not a hint of bias.’

  ‘Of course not, Your Grace.’

  ‘Not an issue now, eh? Get him for me, that, uh, umm …’

  ‘I believe, Your Grace, his name is Ambassador Kralowc.’

  ‘That’s the fellow. Ring him up.’

  ‘At once, Your Grace.’

  As the clerk turned away, still holding the fax in both hands, the archbishop waggled bony fingers at him. ‘And leave that.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  The clerk let go of the fax with one hand, and it flexed shut like a clam. He handed this tube to the archbishop, then retired to his outer office while the archbishop spread the fax faceup on the desk, weighing the corners with a stapler, a Scotch tape dispenser, a pocket calculator, and a small plaster statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague. Making these moves, grunting with the effort of shifting around inside all his vestments as he reached out across the gleaming teak surface of his desk, he looked like some major chess player of mythology, losing another big one to the devil.

  The archbishop read the fax again, savoring it, and then the phone at his right elbow rang, and he disrupted the whole construct in his effort to swivel around and pick the damn thing up. ‘What!’

  ‘Ambassador Kralowc, Your Grace.’

  ‘What? Here?’

  ‘On line one, Your Grace. I rang him for you.’

  ‘Oh! Right!’ The archbishop punched a button and then another button and said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Archbishop?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What did you want?’

  ‘Archbishop, this is Hradec Kralowc, from Votskojek, you remember me, your clerk said you wanted to—’

  ‘Yes! Yes, of course! Well, my boy, are you relishing the good news?’

  ‘Good news, Archbishop?’ Kralowc didn’t sound like a man who believed in good news.

  ‘The press release. Didn’t those people send you the press release?’

  ‘Who, Archbishop?’

  ‘Who? Them! Those upstart pretenders at the, over there in the, you know, the competition.’

  ‘Tsergovia?’

  ‘That’s the place. They didn’t send you the press release?’

  ‘No one has sent me anything, Archbishop,’ the ambassador said, but the tone of self-pity in his voice was lost on the archbishop, who was distracted at that moment by his struggle to recapture all the corners of the fax without losing the telephone. Slamming the Infant Jesus of Prague onto the final corner, he said, ‘There! Now stay there!’

  ‘Archbishop?’

  ‘Wait, I’ll read it to you,’ the archbishop said. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Listen. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, Archbishop. I’m here, and I’m listening.’

  ‘Good. Listen, now.’ Squinting through his wire-framed spectacles and down past his pale, old, narrow hawk nose, the archbishop read, ‘“Immediate release. Major General Zara Kotor, Ambassadress to the United States from the free and sovereign state of Tsergovia, has received today permission from her government at Osigreb to announce the result of certain tests made at Osigreb Polytechnic, in Osigreb, Tsergovia, in an effort to authenticate a certain relic, known as the Relic of St Ferghana, consisting of a thighbone purporting to be the thighbone of the martyred St Ferghana of Carpathia. Knowing that a similar relic has existed for some time at the Rivers of Blood Cathedral in Novi Glad in our sister republic of Votskojek, and knowing further that the question of the authenticity of these two supposed relics has served to complicate and exacerbate the relations between these two sister republics, and to further complicate and exacerbate the question of the successor seat available to one but not to the other of our nations at the United Nations in New York City, United States of America, it is our sad duty to announce that the result of our scientific investigation of the Relic of St Ferghana in our possession at Osigreb is that it is, in fact, false. We no longer—”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There, now, you see, my boy?’ the archbishop said, chortling and wheezing over the fax. ‘Good news comes unexpectedly, does it not? Let me go on,’ he said, and, not hearing the long, low moan that then emanated from the throat of Ambassador Kralowc into the telephone system known as NYNEX because it is run by Venusians, he continued to read:

  ‘“We no longer make any claim toward the authenticity of the relic in our possession, nor do we demand of Votskojek that she produce any evidence, scientific or historical or otherwise, in support of the claim that the relic in her possession is the true relic. It is our understanding that the true relic is currently in New York City, under the protection and in the care of the government of Votskojek on behalf of the people of Votskojek. When the government of Votskojek, or its representatives, shall present this relic to the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York City, United States of America, we, the sovereign state of Tsergovia, will give up, cede, and relinquish for all time from this moment until the end of the world any and all claims we might have had to the successor seat at the United Nations. We would pray to that august body that we be considered for a new seat, at the earliest opportunity. By the grace of God and the order of the freely elected and democratic government seated at Osigreb, sovereign state of Tsergovia. Signed, Zara Kotor, Major General.”’

  Chuckling and panting, the archbishop said, ‘Well, Ambassador, what do you think of that?’ He waited. ‘Ambassador? Ambassador?’

  Very faintly came the voice of the ambassador: ‘It’s wonderful, Archbishop.’

  ‘Overcome, are you? Well, I don’t blame you, my boy; it’s been a long struggle and those Tsergovians didn’t mind fighting dirty, I can tell you that, and I can tell you now it’s a great relief to me to have this matter resolved, because it was, I’ll admit it now, it was difficult not to show bias toward those sneaking, underhanded, sacrilegious—’

  ‘Archbishop?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Was that release sent to anyone else?’

  ‘Anyone else? My boy, it was faxed to everyone. Down at the bottom here, wait just a minute, here’s a list, it’s – Yes, every United Nations member—’

  ‘Every one?’

  ‘Every one. All major news media, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York – Ambassador? Was that a moan?’

  ‘No, no, Archbishop, I was merely clearing my throat. Uh, this is wonderful news, as you say. I can hardly wait to tell my superiors back in Novi Glad. Archbishop, uh, would you mind faxing me that fax?’

  ‘Not at all,’ the archbishop said. ‘Delighted to be the bearer of good tidings. I’ll fax the fax at once. I have your fax number?’

  ‘Your people have my fax number.’

  ‘As long as they have your fax number, there’s no problem. We’ll fax the fax in just a moment.’

  ‘Fax you – uh, I mean, thank you, Archbishop.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ the archbishop said; which was more accurate than he knew.

  51

  Hradec had barely hung up from talking with Archbishop Minkokus, that doddering old fool, when Lusk came in to say, ‘Sir, the president is on the phone.’

  ‘The president?’ As weighed down by worry and care as he was, it took a few seconds to work that one out. ‘My president?’

  ‘Our president, yes, sir,’ Lusk agreed. ‘On the phone from Novi Glad.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Bad news travels fast. Or, that is, good news travels fast. Whatever. That damn helicopter; why wasn’t this ship equipped with antiaircraft weapons? That’s Votskojek airspace you’re violating up there, pal, I’d have every legal right to shoot you down, blow you away, knock you out of the sky. />
  ‘Sir?’

  Reality calls; that is to say, the president calls. ‘What time is it in Novi Glad?’

  Lusk consulted a wristwatch, made a calculation, said, ‘Quarter after six, sir. P.M.’

  ‘Did he sound drunk?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  More’s the pity. What to do? Impossible to tell the president the truth; that would lead to immediate recall, dismissal, public shame, and possible dismemberment. Was there still a way out of this mess? Temporize, Hradec, temporize. ‘Leave me,’ he said.

  ‘Sir.’ Lusk bowed, departed, and Hradec painted a huge smile on his face, breathed rapidly three times, picked up the phone, and said into it, at top speed, ‘Isn’t that wonderful news? I just heard it myself this minute from the arch—’

  ‘What? What? What’s all that?’

  It was only when he heard the president’s gravelly voice yelling Magyar-Croat in his ear that Hradec realized he’d been speaking in English. Will nothing go right? Switching at once to his native tongue, Hradec said, ‘Oh, Your Excellency, I’m sorry, I thought I was speaking to the New York Times. The entire city is agog at the news.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said His Excellency. ‘What sort of ceremony do you plan for the occasion?’

  ‘Ceremony, Your Excellency?’

  ‘Of course, ceremony,’ grated the voice that used to bring a chill to many a heart and a confession to many a lip in the old days when His Excellency was a hands-on head of the VIA, the Votskojek Intelligence Agency. (From leading the nation’s spies to leading the nation is a rather common route to power these days; Andropov in the former Soviet Union, for instance. Other examples come to mind.) ‘You’ll want to give the relic a first-rate ceremony at the United Nations,’ this terror-striking voice went on. ‘Votskojek expects it of you. The world expects it of you. I expect it of you.’

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency, of course.’

  ‘You aren’t going to just walk over there and flash it at them like a ticket of admission to a film show.’

  ‘No, of course not, Your Excellency. But,’ as a ray of hope seemed to gleam before him, a tiny ray, a temporary ray, but still a ray, ‘a ceremony will take a little while to organize, Your Excellency, to arrange. This won’t be immediate.’

  ‘No one expects it to be immediate,’ His Excellency snarled. ‘Let them wait a little.’

  ‘Your wish is my command, Excellency.’

  ‘The waiting game, Kralowc,’ that voice purred, heavy with awful memories, ‘it has its uses in many departments of life.’

  If he ever finds out, Hradec thought, if this brute of a president ever finds out, he’ll restore flaying to the Votskojek code of justice, just for me. ‘I’ll let them wait, Your Excellency,’ he promised, his voice hardly trembling at all. ‘I’ll drag it out, I promise you, just as long as I can.’

  52

  Somehow, Guy just didn’t like having these carpenters in his house. They kept looking around all the time; it was unnerving.

  That may be why he didn’t bargain with them, haggle them down from their arbitrary thirty thou. Not that he didn’t have the money, or the reasonable assurance he would get it back and tenfold, but merely that it wasn’t his nature, under any circumstances, to accept the first number he heard. But with these two, playing the game was somehow just not worth it. Get them in, get them out, get it over with.

  And so he did, early Tuesday morning. They went away from his basement with thirty thousand dollars in cash tucked away in their pockets, looking around at everything on their way out, heads turning back and forth, eyes glancing off locks, windows, electric outlets, who knew what. Guy, in relief, shut and locked the basement door on them, hurried upstairs to his office, and phoned Perly.

  Jacques Perly was an old associate, a known quantity. A private investigator by trade, his specialty was art theft and his employers usually insurance companies or banks – those who had to pay for insured losses, those who had to absorb uninsured losses. As Guy had supposed, there was more than one insurance company involved in the Harry Hochman art collection; there were three, and Jacques Perly represented them all. Guy had phoned him yesterday to say he might be of use in the present instance – ‘I rather thought you might,’ Perly had answered, a bit too dryly for Guy’s taste – and now today Guy phoned to say he’d made contact with the thieves and was prepared to be the go-between.

  ‘Fine,’ Perly said. ‘Lunch? Or are you doing one of your own today?’

  ‘Not today, or at all this week. I’ve cleared the decks for this, Jacques.’

  ‘Lunch, then,’ Perly decided, and they met at one o’clock at Tre Mafiosi on Park Avenue, a smooth, hushed place in white and green and gold, with yellow flowers. Perly had arrived first, and he rose with a smile and an outstretched hand when Tony the maître d’ escorted Guy to the table. A round, stuffed Cornish game hen of a man, Jacques Perly retained a slight hint of his original Parisian accent. A onetime art student, a failed artist, he viewed the world with a benign pessimism, the mournful good humor of a rich, unmarried uncle, who expects nothing and accepts everything.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Guy said as Tony seated him and Angelo distributed menus and Kwa Hong Yo brought rolls, butter, and water. ‘You’re looking well.’

  ‘And you.’

  Menus were consulted, food and wine were ordered, and then Guy took the bulky envelope from his inner pocket and, without a word, handed it over. Perly raised an eyebrow, removed the photos from the envelope, leafed through them, and smiled dolefully as he said, ‘A well-documented felony.’

  ‘These are professionals,’ Guy assured him. ‘We don’t have to worry about any of the works being harmed.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. May I keep these?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Food and wine arrived and were consumed, with small talk about the city, the weather, the disappointing Broadway season – ‘Although Nana: The Musical isn’t bad,’ Perly suggested – and one’s plans for the summer. Then, over espresso and raspberries, Perly said, ‘Honestly, Guy, the extreme professionalism of these people, with all these Polaroid prints, gives me pause. Are we creating this monster, you and I?’

  Guy looked askance. ‘Which monster is that, Jacques?’

  ‘These thieves,’ Perly explained. ‘If they were to steal a loaf of bread, it would be to eat. If they steal money, it’s to spend; jewelry, to pawn. But when they steal an art collection like this’ – tap-tap on the envelope of photos – ‘it is only to sell it back. And how could they do that, if it were not for you and me? We are certainly collaborators in their crimes, but are we more? Do we encourage the commission of these crimes, by our very existence? Do we instigate them?’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Guy said in automatic disagreement. ‘People will steal anything; you know that as well as I do. We don’t encourage the theft; we encourage the recovery.’

  ‘Without the punishment of the perpetrators.’

  ‘With or without,’ Guy said, dismissing that. ‘Capturing is the police’s job. Recovery is ours.’

  ‘But if we didn’t exist, Guy, you and I, what would these very professional thieves do with all these paintings and sculptures they’ve just loaded so precisely into their truck? Would they present their demands direct to Harry Hochman? He’d set the dogs on them.’

  Guy smiled faintly. ‘Or the shotguns, more likely.’

  ‘Exactly. We are the go-betweens, and necessary, if anything useful is to be done. But in this instance, don’t the go-betweens create the very condition they’re supposed to be alleviating?’

  Guy shook his head, irritated by this conversation and surprised that a man like Jacques Perly would demonstrate such compunction. ‘The thieves will sell Hochman’s art to the insurance companies, through us. You want to know what they would do without us? Or without the insurance companies, who, after all, put up the money, so maybe they create the monster.’

  ‘Very possible,’ Perly said, nodding.

  Guy didn�
��t need that particular agreement. ‘Without any of us,’ he said, ‘the thieves would find a way to make contact with art dealers in Europe. Switzerland, for instance, or Holland. Or maybe South America. The dealers would buy, no questions asked. The dealers – some of the dealers, anyway, and you know a number of them yourself, Jacques – those dealers would be happy to cobble together brand-new authentication and sell the works to collectors anywhere. There’s a market beyond us, Jacques, and you’re just being provocative to suggest there isn’t, and you know it. What we do is keep the collection together, no small consideration, and in the rightful owner’s hands.’

  Eyes twinkling, Perly sipped espresso, bit delicately into a raspberry, and said, ‘So, Guy. You mean we are without guilt?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Guy said. Blotches of red stood on his cheeks.

  ‘Such a relief,’ Perly murmured.

  53

  When Dortmunder walked into the OJ Bar & Grill, the regulars were discussing why cable television needs wires. ‘It’s because of the vibrations,’ one of them was saying. ‘They send these vibrations down the wire, and that tells the TV what to show.’

  ‘How?’ asked a second regular.

  The first regular stared at him. ‘Whadaya mean, how? I just told you how. With vibrations.’

  A third regular weighed in. ‘That’s a load of crap,’ he announced, and gestured forcefully with his beer glass.

  The second regular adapted his question to the new circumstances: ‘How come?’

  ‘If a TV’s gotta have vibrations to tell it what to show,’ the third regular belligerently reasoned, ‘how come regular TV don’t need it?’

  Here came a fourth regular, saying, ‘That’s easy, pal. Regular TV works like radio, without wires.’

  ‘How?’ asked the second regular, but the first regular overrode him, saying, ‘Without wires? Radio works without wires? Whadaya think that dark brown cord is, comes outta the back, goes into the wall?’

  ‘It ain’t cable,’ said the fourth regular with supreme confidence.

  The first regular glared at him. ‘It’s a wire!’