‘Oh, no, I vouldn’t.’
‘We don’t have a car now, so could you drive me out?’
‘Vad, are you giving id back?’
‘No, they need another picture, don’t ask me why.’
‘Oh. Hokay.’
‘It’s out on Long Island, in Farport, on Merrick Avenue, in a big gray truck that says J & L CARTING on the doors.’
‘You’re comin vid me, aren’d choo?’
‘Sure, me or somebody with a camera. I just want you to know where it is. I’ll come to your place around eight in the morning.’
‘I’ll be here, Chon. Oo! Zorry.’
‘S’okay.’
62
The neighborhood was a lot more bearable now that they’d taken the right truck away at last. On the other hand, it was a lot more populated after they brought the wrong truck and very carefully parked it exactly where it had been parked before.
There were vans, with men in the back, parked now at both ends of that block. Even after the video store in the middle of the block closed for the night, there were still people faintly visible moving around inside there. There were also people moving around on the roof of a two-story warehouse very near where the truck had been reparked. There was more traffic in the area than usual, and a lot of it consisted of slow-moving, plain four-door sedans with two burly guys in front. Pedestrians also made more of a presence than was usual at night in a Long Island commercial/suburban south shore community. It kind of made you wonder, in a way.
It was a little after one in the morning, and the active population of the neighborhood was still surprisingly high, though maintaining a rather low profile, when a vehicle with diplomat license plates and two occupants drove slowly down that block, braked slightly beside the returned truck, then drove on. Eight minutes later, it drove by once more, even slower than last time. And seventeen minutes after that, according to several videotaped records of the incident then being taken, the same vehicle appeared again, inched past the truck, pulled in behind it, and parked. Its lights switched off. Silence and darkness ensued for another three minutes.
The passenger door of the new arrival opened, and a figure dressed in black emerged. He moved forward cautiously to the rear of the truck, which was closed with a segmented metal door that would slide up to open. He reached out and grasped the handle of this door, and as his fingers closed around it a million floodlights suddenly flashed on, aimed directly at him, and a million voices shouted, ‘Freeze! Police!’
Like a rabbit in headlights, Hradec Kralowc spun about and pressed his back against the truck. ‘Diddums!’ he wailed, voice cracking. ‘It’s Diddums!’
In the car, the Lada with diplomat plates, Dr Karver Zorn lowered his forehead to the steering wheel and wished himself dead. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
‘Diddums,’ Hradec mumbled brokenly, over and over, as they handcuffed him and read him his rights and stuffed him into a squad car. ‘Diddums. Diddums. It’s Diddums.’
‘Going for an insanity defense,’ the cops told one another. And with these lousy liberal judges, they figured, he’d probably get away with it, too.
63
So that’s that,’ Dortmunder said, watching from the window of a darkened, closed laundromat a block away as Kralowc and Dr Zorn were arrested in a blaze of light. Handing the binoculars to Kelp, he said, ‘He doesn’t look happy.’
‘None of us look happy, John,’ Kelp said, and peered into the binoculars.
‘The cops do.’
What had happened was, the instant Guy Claverack said, ‘They want another picture,’ Dortmunder knew what it meant: The cops had found the truck, and were staked out all around it. He knew that, as clearly and instinctively as you know how to scratch where it itches, but of course instinctive knowledge always has to be verified scientifically, or it isn’t worth anything, so the question was how to put some other puppy’s paw in the snare and see if it went spannnggg.
It was Tiny who remembered that Kralowc had at one time put a bug on the Tsergovian embassy’s phones, a fact that still stuck in Tiny’s craw. ‘Maybe it’s still there,’ he said.
Turns out, it was.
Dortmunder and Kelp had come out to Farport by themselves, much earlier today, to see what happened to their puppy, and now, while waiting for the massive police presence to dissipate, they sat on adjoining driers with their feet swinging and discussed whether or not Guy Claverack knew he was sending them into a trap. Kelp kind of thought he did, and felt they should avenge themselves by visiting Mr Claverack’s storage rooms, but Dortmunder disagreed. ‘You didn’t talk to him on the phone, I did. He didn’t sound sly or guilty or nervous or anything like that; he just sounded irritated, like he wanted to get this show on the road and didn’t see why there had to be all these delays.’
‘I still think we oughta visit him.’
‘Maybe,’ Dortmunder agreed. ‘Later on. But maybe not to burn our bridges there. It could be, down the road, we could do business with Claverack again.’
‘I don’t think I could afford it,’ Kelp said.
The cops took quite a while to vacate the field of play, long enough for Kelp, having no choice, to become philosophic. ‘There are some bright sides to this,’ he announced.
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Well, we didn’t get nabbed, that’s one thing.’
‘True.’
‘And you and me and Stan, we come out about eight grand ahead. Almost.’
‘Not the numbers we had in mind.’
‘No, but it’s something.’
‘And the other guys got less than three.’
‘Don’t forget the extra three cents to Tiny.’
By the light of departing police cars, Dortmunder looked at his friend. ‘You gonna mention that to Tiny, when we get back?’
‘Maybe not,’ Kelp said.
64
Zara, Grijk, and the archbishop stood admiring the sacred relic of St Ferghana, gleaming inside its jewel-encrusted glass reliquary, standing atop a marble and iron fourteenth-century table, originally a side altar in a long-ago-sacked Moravian or Moldavian church, now given pride of place in the archbishop’s office in the United Nations building, centered on the wall directly opposite the archbishop’s desk, so that every time he looked up from his heavy labors, there it would be, safe and sound.
For the foreseeable future, this would be the femur’s home, that having been agreed to three weeks ago, once the relic and all the rest of Harry Hochman’s art collection had been recovered out there on Long Island. Those involved, being the Tsergovian government, the United Nations secretariat, and the archbishop himself (but not Votskojek), had agreed that not only was this the safest location for the holy artifact under present unsettled global conditions but that it was only justice that the archbishop, who had worked so diligently to protect the saint’s remain, should have her care put into his palsied yet capable hands.
The new friends had come here after Zara Kotor’s investiture as delegate to the United Nations from that body’s newest member, Tsergovia, assuming the seat of the no-longer-extant nation of which at one time it had formed a part. The archbishop provided sherry, in very small glasses, they drank to their new understanding, and then they admired the relic a while.
‘It’s hard to believe depravity like Kralowc’s,’ the archbishop commented. ‘To hand over this symbol of purity and beauty and eternal truth to a mere temporal prince. The dear St Ferghana is not to be of the mundane things of this mundane world.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Zara said, and smiled upon the archbishop.
Who smiled back, saying, ‘Well, at least we know we shan’t have the unspeakable Kralowc to worry about anymore. Though it’s a pity he didn’t get his just desserts.’
‘You mean,’ Zara said, ‘the punishment he so richly deserved?’
‘That’s it exactly.’
‘Not that he got off scot-free,’ Zara acknowledged.
In fact, Kralowc had
escaped by the skin of his teeth, having plea-bargained his way onto a one-way flight out of America forever and back to Novi Glad (and Mrs Kralowc) permanently. The videotaped confession he’d made in exchange for his freedom, in which he’d outlined his part in Harry Hochman’s scheme to bilk the insurance companies of $6 million – a scheme carefully described to him beforehand by the federal prosecutors – was expected to feature prominently in Hochman’s trial, upcoming in just a few months, once his lawyers’ delaying tactics were exhausted, despite Kralowc’s craven refutation of the confession once he was beyond the reach of American justice.
‘Id looks bigger in daydime,’ Grijk said, frowning through the glass at the bone.
The archbishop said, ‘Eh?’
Grijk abruptly looked terrified, but Zara distracted the archbishop’s attention by grasping the elderly prelate’s forearm and saying, ‘I was just thinking the same thing. You know, for people like Grijk and me, the only time we could ever see the holy relic of St Ferghana was in the cathedral in Novi Glad, where they kept it in such a dark little corner.’
‘Dod’s righd,’ Grijk said, bobbing his head. ‘Dod’s vhad I meand.’
‘Well, the Votskojeks won’t be getting their hands on this precious relic again anytime soon,’ the archbishop said with unsaintly satisfaction.
Zara said, ‘Once they get into the UN, though, won’t they petition for its return?’
Chuckling deep inside his Adam’s apple, the archbishop said, ‘That won’t be for some little time, I’m afraid. There’s a certain protocol to these things, you know, a certain dignity and ceremony; only one new nation’s application would normally be considered at a time. You have come in ahead of Votskojek, and I believe next there will be some small island nation in the Atlantic, Maylohda, I believe, a former colony, and then … oh, someone. It’s a changing world, you know.’
‘Well, Archbishop,’ Zara said, ‘the nicest change is how we’re all getting along.’
The archbishop agreed with that and pressed another eighth of an ounce of sherry on them, but Zara felt she shouldn’t take up any more of his valuable time, and so they made their escape, and when they were out on First Avenue, with 163 flags flapping in the breeze and the UN building glinting over their shoulders in the sunlight, Zara said, as though she’d just thought of it that second, ‘I tell you what. Let’s go see your cousin!’
‘You mean Diny?’ Grijk was dubious. ‘I don’t know, he’s maybe—’
‘It’ll be a nice surprise,’ Zara predicted. ‘Come on.’
65
Tiny had called Dortmunder and Kelp and said, ‘J.C.’s back; there’s something she wants to talk to us about; come on over,’ so they went over, and they were all there, greeting one another, when the doorbell rang. ‘We’re all here,’ Tiny pointed out.
‘So it’s somebody else,’ said J.C., who hadn’t gotten to her subject matter yet and so was a little irritated by the interruption. ‘Come on, Tiny, get em in and get em out.’
‘You got it.’
Tiny buzzed for the downstairs door, then opened to the upstairs bell, and here came Zara Kotor and Grijk Krugnk, Zara beaming a big wide dolphin smile at Tiny, saying ‘Tchotchkus!’ while Grijk grinned uneasily and said, ‘Hi, Diny.’
Kelp said, ‘Who?’
‘I brought champagne!’ Zara announced, and held it up like a flag on the barricades. Smiling coquettishly at Tiny, she said, ‘You’ve been avoiding me, you bad boy.’
‘Aw, naw, Zara,’ Tiny said. ‘I just been busy. Especially since Josie here come back.’ He gestured at J.C., who smiled like a shark and said, ‘Hi-i.’
Grijk, extremely uncomfortable, said, ‘Hi, J.Z.’
‘Hi, Grijk.’
‘Chon’s still d’only one can pronounce id.’
Zara looked at J.C., and the champagne went to half-mast. ‘Hello?’ she asked.
Tiny made the introductions: ‘Zara, this is my roommate, Josie. Most people call her J.C. Josie, this is Zara Kotor; she went to Bronx Science.’
‘Did she?’ J.C. smiled on Zara. ‘I bet you were good at it, too.’
‘Zara’s,’ Tiny explained, ‘ambassador of Grijk’s country, Tsergovia.’
‘And today,’ Zara said, getting some of her wind back at the thought, ‘we are a member of the community of nations!’
‘No kidding,’ J.C. said. ‘So am I.’
‘What I mean,’ Zara said, ‘today we are a member of the United Nations.’
‘That, I’m not,’ J.C. said.
‘Congratulations!’ Kelp said, and Dortmunder chimed in, ‘That’s great news.’
‘Though I’ve got my application in,’ J.C. said.
‘And we owe it all,’ Zara proclaimed, ‘to you guys!’
J.C. said, ‘Tiny? Do we still have champagne glasses? Or did you bust them all while I was away?’
‘Josie, you can believe me,’ Tiny said, crossing the room to the nice glass-doored cabinet, ‘I never once touched your champagne glasses while you were gone.’
‘I believe you,’ J.C. said.
While Tiny got out the glasses, Kelp sidled over to Zara, pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Tiny, and murmured, ‘What was that you called him?’
Zara was about to answer when Grijk, with abrupt, unexpected forcefulness, said, ‘She called him Diny, same like you and me.’
Zara thought about it. Kelp watched her. Zara’s expression cleared. ‘That’s right. I called him Tiny.’
Tiny brought over the glasses, Grijk wrung the bottle’s neck, and they toasted the newest member of the world’s least exclusive club. Then Kelp said, ‘J.C. had something she wanted to talk about,’ and Dortmunder said, ‘Maybe she just wanted to talk to a couple of us,’ and Zara said, ‘That’s okay, we’ll go; we just wanted you to know, you can always count on Tsergovia.’
‘In da schoolbooks!’ Grijk promised. ‘Anonymous, bud in da schoolbooks.’
‘That’s right,’ Zara said. ‘Well, we’ll be off.’
‘Hold it a second,’ J.C. said. ‘You people feel grateful to these guys?’
‘Forever!’
‘So they could trust you.’
‘Vid dere lifes!’
‘Well, it won’t come to that,’ J.C. said, ‘but why don’t you two sit down? Let me tell my story.’
So they all sat down, and some of the group switched to beer, and others stuck to champagne, and J.C. said, ‘When Grijk was here the last time, and I saw the advantage in being a country, I figured, Why not? So I’ve got my own country now, and I’m ready to cash in.’
Tiny said, ‘Josie? Whadaya mean, you got your own country?’
‘I’ve got consular agency offices set up in Geneva and Amsterdam and Nairobi and Tokyo, and now I’m setting up the commercial attaché’s office here in New York, and then the embassy in Washington, that’s next.’
Zara was frowning like a steam engine. She said, ‘Excuse me. You and what army? Who are all these people?’
‘What people?’
‘The offices in all those cities.’
‘Mail drops,’ J.C. said. ‘All forwarded here to the commercial attaché. You’d be surprised how many little countries do business by mail drop in different parts of the world.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Zara said. ‘The world is an expensive place.’
‘Exactly. Mail order has been my business for more years than I’m gonna tell you, and if I can be a songwriter and a police chief and a wife by mail order, I can be a country.’
Grijk said, ‘J.Z., vere is dis country?’
J.C. airily waved the hand not holding champagne. ‘Somewhere in the Atlantic,’ she said.
‘Vad’s ids poppalation?’
‘Well, you know,’ J.C. said, ‘if truth be told, since it doesn’t have any landmass, it really can’t support that much of a population. The population’s pretty much me.’
Dortmunder said, ‘J.C., you’re gonna get caught.’
J.C. looked at him. ‘Who’s gonna
catch me? All the countries there are in the world, and more every day, and the old ones breaking up into smaller and smaller independent pieces, who’s to say Maylohda isn’t a legitimate country?’
Zara said, ‘What was that? What do you call it?’
‘Maylohda,’ J.C. repeated, and explained, ‘You know, with my New York accent, it’s how I say mail order.’
‘Me, too!’ Zara cried, and laughed, and said, ‘You’re ahead of Votskojek! You’re applying to the UN!’
‘Sure. It’s part of the legitimacy, but, you know, that’s gonna string out for years. Cause I don’t really want to belong, too much trouble. I’d have to hire a whole diplomatic staff, maybe even find an actual island somewhere. I’m better off just being a lot of commercial consular offices, and a lot of brochures. See, here they are.’
She brought out and distributed nice four-color brochures, describing the wonders, natural attractions, scenic beauty, history, and economic potential of Maylohda, former colony (under other names, of course) of the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Spain. ‘This stuff was a lot easier to write than the how-to-be-a-detective book,’ she said. ‘I used the same printer as always. With this stuff, I can get seed money for feasibility studies of joint ventures in tourism, development of natural resources, and expansion of infrastructure. I can deal with banks, governments, trade associations, the UN, and the IMF. It’s harder now at the beginning because there isn’t any track record, which is why I was going to ask the guys to travel to some other countries and send me back orders and commissions and stuff, but maybe me and you people could trade somehow. Sell me something, or buy something from me. Maybe you’d like a million copies of the detective book, or some national anthems.’
Sounding mournful, Grijk said, ‘If only you could be a customer for our rocks.’
‘Oh, I remember your rocks,’ J.C. said. ‘Sure, I’ll buy them.’
Zara was never far from suspicion. Squinting at J.C., she said, ‘How?’
Don’t Ask Page 31
