What's The Worst That Could Happen? d-9

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Very,” Walter Greenbaum’s voice said, surprisingly close.

  “But it’s also very late. When can we talk?”

  That sounded ominous. Max said, “Walter, I’m not sure. I’m due at the Ivory Exchange Bank in Nairobi tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll be back in the States till—”

  “I’m here.”

  Max blinked. “Here? You mean in London?”

  “I Concorded last night. When are you free?”

  If Walter Greenbaum were troubled enough by something to fly personally to London rather than phone, fax, or wait, Max should take it seriously. “Now,” he said, and hung up, and said to the managers, “Good-bye.”

  * * *

  Walter Greenbaum was a stocky man in his fifties, with deep bags under his eyes that made him look as though he spent all his time contemplating the world’s sorrows. Once, when a friend pointed out to him that the removal of such bags was the easiest trick in the plastic surgeon’s playbook, he had said, “Never. Without these bags I’m no longer a lawyer, I’m just a complainer.” And he was right. The bags gave his every utterance the gravity of one who has seen it all and just barely survived. And yet, he was merely doing lawyer-talk, like anybody else.

  “Good morning, Walter.”

  “Morning, Max.”

  “Coffee? Have you had breakfast?”

  “There was a break-in at the Carrport facility on Long Island last weekend.”

  I am hearing this for the first time, Max reminded himself. Sounding mildly concerned, he said, “A break-in? That’s what comes from leaving the place empty. Did they get much?”

  “Perhaps a quarter million in silver and other valuables, plus a car.”

  Max’s mouth dropped open. His mind stalled. He couldn’t think of a single response to pretend to have.

  Walter smiled thinly into the silence he’d created, and said, “Yes, Max. He went back. He escaped from the police, and he went back to the house.”

  “Back? Back?” What does Walter know?

  They were standing in the white-and-gold living room of the suite, with views of the Thames outside the windows, where black birds tumbled in a strong wind beneath plump hurrying clouds. Neither of them gave a thought to the view, as Walter gestured at a nearby white sofa, saying, “Why don’t you sit down, Max? Before you fall down.”

  Max sat. Walter pulled a white-and-gold Empire chair over near him, leaving tracks in the white carpet. Seating himself in front of Max like a sorrowing headmaster, he said, “I’m your attorney, Max. Try to tell me the truth.”

  Max had now regained control of himself. So; the burglar had escaped from those incompetent policepersons, had gone back to the house (in search of his ring?), had stripped the place, and then had stolen a car to transport his loot away from there. And somehow, as a result, Max’s own participation in the evening’s events had become known. Not good.

  He said, “Walter, I always tell you the truth. If there’s something I don’t want to tell you, I simply don’t tell you. But I don’t lie.”

  “You should have told me,” Walter said, “that you meant to violate the orders of the bankruptcy court.”

  “You would have insisted I not do it.”

  “Who was the woman?”

  “With me, in Carrport?” Max shrugged. “Miss September.” But then another awful thought struck. “Does Lutetia know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Walter, this is not something for a wife to hear, not now, not ever. You know that, Walter.”

  “I certainly do,” Walter agreed. “Which is another reason I wish you’d mentioned your plans before acting on them.”

  “I don’t see . . . why . . . why . . .” Max ground to a halt, took a deep breath, and started again: “How did it come out? About me ?”

  “Apparently,” Walter told him, “the officers originally meant to cover up for you, but once their prisoner slipped out of their hands they could no longer do that, they didn’t dare do it, they were in too much trouble as it was. There was also the fact you made the 911 call.”

  “I can’t believe—Walter, if you’d seen that fellow, that burglar, you wouldn’t—How on earth did they manage to lose him? He was as docile as a cow!”

  Walter shook his baggy head. “Don’t trust those who are docile as cows, Max.”

  “I can see that. So he went back,” Max mused, rubbing the ring against the point of his chin. “Looking for the ring, I suppose.”

  “The what?”

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  “Max,” Walter said, leaning back in his chair so it made a noise like a mouse, “you know better than this. You’re supposed to confide in your attorney.”

  “I know, I know, you’re right.” Max wasn’t used to feeling embarrassment in the presence of other human beings, and he didn’t like it; soon, he’d start to blame Walter. He said, “I’m just not sure you’ll think it funny.”

  Walter raised his eyebrows, which made his bags look like udders. “Funny? Max? I’m supposed to find something in this situation funny?”

  Max grinned a little. “Well, in fact,” he said, “I stole the burglar’s ring.”

  “You stole . . .”

  “His ring.” Max held up his hand, to show it. “This one. You see? It has the trigram on it, and—”

  “You just happened to be holding a gun on him anyway, so you thought—”

  “No, no, after. When the police came.”

  “You stole the burglar’s ring, with the police standing there?”

  “Well, they suggested I look around, see if he’d taken anything, and it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, I said, that ring on his finger, right there, that’s mine. And they said, give Mr. Fairbanks back his ring.” Max beamed. “He was furious.”

  “So furious,” Walter pointed out, “that he then escaped from the police and came looking for you, and found a quarter million dollars worth of loot instead.”

  “Not a bad trade, from his point of view,” Max said, and held his hand up to admire the ring. “And I’m happy as well, so that’s the end of it.” Dropping his hand, he shrugged and said, “And the insurance company will certainly pay. We own it.”

  “And the judge,” Walter said, “will ask questions.”

  “Yes, I suppose he will,” Max agreed, as a faint cloud darkened his satisfaction. “But we can limit the damage, can’t we? What I mean is, I can surely say I merely went out there to get some personal items that are not a part of the Chapter Eleven, and I happened upon the burglar just as he was breaking in, lucky thing I was there and so on, and we needn’t mention Miss September. Which is to say, Lutetia. That’s where there could be trouble, if we’re not careful.”

  “It doesn’t look good to the court,” Walter said, “you leaving the country immediately after.”

  “It wasn’t immediate, Walter, and this trip has been planned for months. Every move I make is planned well ahead, you know that.”

  Walter said, “I’ve been on the phone with the judge.”

  “And?”

  “My most difficult job,” Walter said, “was to get him to agree to begin with a private conversation in chambers, rather than a session with all parties in open court.”

  “A session in court? For what?”

  “Oh, Max,” Walter said, exasperated. “For violating the terms of the Chapter Eleven.”

  “For God’s sake, Walter, everybody knows that’s just a dance we’re all doing, some folderol, not to be taken seriously.”

  “Judges,” Walter said, “take everything seriously. If you are making use of assets that are supposed to be frozen, he can if he wishes reopen the negotiation, bring in the creditors’ representatives—”

  “Those miserable—”

  “Creditors.”

  “Yes, yes, I—”

  “Including the IRS.”

  Max grumbled. He didn’t like to be crowded, he didn’t like it at all. Feeling ill-used, he said, “What do you want me to do?”

&nbs
p; “Put off Nairobi.”

  “Walter, that’s very difficult, they—”

  “You can do what you want, and you know you can, at least on that front. Put off Nairobi, fly back to New York with me tomorrow, meet with the judge in chambers at one on Thursday afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “And look penitent,” Walter said.

  Max screwed his face around. “How’s that?”

  “You can work on it,” Walter said. “On the plane.”

  15

  “The thing is,” Dortmunder said.

  “Washington,” May suggested.

  “That’s it. That’s it right there.”

  They were walking home from the movies in the rain. May liked the movies, so they went from time to time, though Dortmunder couldn’t see what they were all about, except people who didn’t need a lucky ring. When those people in the movies got to a bus stop, the bus was just pulling in. When they rang a doorbell, the person they were coming to see had to have been leaning against the door on the inside, that’s how fast they opened up. When they went to rob a bank, these movie people, there was always a place to park out front. When they fell off a building, which they did frequently, they didn’t even bother to look, they just held out a hand, and somebody’d already put a flagpole sticking out of the building right there; nice to hold onto until the hay truck drives by, down below.

  Dortmunder could remember a lot of falls, but no hay trucks. “Washington,” he said.

  “It’s just a city, John,” May pointed out. “You know cities.”

  “I know this city,” Dortmunder told her, pointing at the wet sidewalk between his feet. “In New York I know what I’m doing, I know where I am, I know who I am. In Washington I don’t know a thing, I don’t know how to go, to do this, to do that, I don’t know how to talk there.”

  “They talk English in Washington, John.”

  “Maybe,” Dortmunder said.

  “What you need,” May said, “is a partner, somebody who knows that place, can help you along.”

  “I dunno, May. What do I give him? Half the ring?”

  “This Fairbanks is very rich,” May pointed out. “A place he lives, there’s got to be other stuff around. Look how much you got from his place on the Island.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Dortmunder said. “But on the other hand, who do I know in Washington? Everybody I know is from around here.”

  “Ask,” May suggested.

  “Ask who?”

  “Ask everybody. Start with Andy, he knows a lot of people.”

  “The thing about Andy,” Dortmunder said, as May unlocked them into their apartment building, “is he likes knowing people.”

  They went up the stairs in companionable silence, Dortmunder thinking about a nice glass of bourbon. Spring rains are warm, but they’re still wet.

  May unlocked them into the dark apartment. Switching on the hall light, Dortmunder said, “Andy isn’t here. Think of that.”

  “Andy isn’t here all the time.”

  “He isn’t?”

  May concentrated on relocking the door. Dortmunder said, “You want some bourbon? A beer?”

  “Tea,” she said. “I’ll make it.” Probably something she’d picked up in one of the magazines she was always reading.

  “I’ll stick to bourbon,” Dortmunder decided. “And I’ll make it.”

  They headed to the kitchen, switching on lights along the way, and Dortmunder made himself a bourbon on the rocks that just looked warm; even with the ice cubes floating around in there, you knew that drink would warm your insides.

  May was still waiting on her tea. “I’ll be in the living room,” Dortmunder said, and left the kitchen, then turned back to say, “Here he is. I told you, remember?”

  Not looking up from her tea, May called, “Hi, Andy.”

  Andy, just entering, shut the hall door and called, “Hi, May.”

  Dortmunder headed again for the living room, saying to Andy, “You might as well come along.”

  “Long as I’m here.”

  “That’s it.”

  Andy was carrying some kind of leather shoulderbag with a flap, like a scout on horseback in a western movie. Dortmunder wasn’t positive he really wanted to know what was inside that bag, but he was pretty sure he’d be finding out. In the meantime, Andy shifted this bag around on his shoulder, indicating it was fairly heavy, and said, “I’ll just get a beer first.”

  Dortmunder thought. He looked at the glass in his own hand. Rising with some difficulty to the responsibilities of host, he said, “You want a bourbon?”

  “Thanks for asking, John,” Andy said, “but I’ll just stick to beer.”

  So they went their separate ways, Dortmunder settling himself into his own chair in his living room, tasting the bourbon, and finding it every bit as satisfying as he’d hoped. Then Andy came in with his beer, sat on the sofa, put the beer and the shoulderbag on the coffee table, reached for the shoulderbag’s flap, and Dortmunder said, “Before you do that, whatever it is, lemme ask you a question.”

  “Sure,” Andy said. His hand, en route, made a left turn and picked up the beer instead.

  “Who do you know in Washington?”

  Andy drank beer. “The president,” he said. “That senator, whatsisname. An airline stewardess named Justine.”

  Dortmunder tasted bourbon; that was still good, anyway. “Who do you know,” he amended, “that isn’t a civilian?”

  Andy looked alert. “You mean, somebody in our line of work? Oh, I see, to be the local for when you do the Watergate.”

  “May says, probably there’ll be enough stuff in the guy’s place to make it worth somebody’s while.”

  “That’s true, judging from last time. Lemme think about it,” Andy decided, and leaned forward, putting down his beer. “In the meantime,” he said, reaching again for the shoulderbag, “here’s the reason I’m here.”

  “Uh huh.” Dortmunder held tight to his bourbon.

  Andy flipped back the shoulderbag’s flap, and pulled out a smallish black metal box with a telephone receiver on one side of it. “I’m gonna have to unplug your phone for a few minutes,” he said.

  Dortmunder glared at the box. “Is that an answering machine? I told you before, Andy, I don’t want—”

  “No no, John, I told you, I gave up on you with technology.” Grinning in an amiable way, Andy shrugged and spread his hands, saying, “I understand you now. The only reason you’re willing to travel in cars is because there’s no place in an apartment to keep a horse.”

  “Was that sarcasm, Andy?”

  “I don’t think so. What this is,” Andy said, “is a fax. You’ve seen them around.”

  Well, that was true. A fax was something you picked up and carried to the fence. In the straight world, they were yet another way to tell people things and have them tell you things back. Since telling people things and hearing what bad news they had to impart had never been high among Dortmunder’s priorities, he didn’t see where the fax figured into his own lifestyle. If he had a fax, who would he send a message to? What would it say? And who would send a message to him, that they couldn’t send by telephone or letter or over a beer at the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue?

  Andy carried this black box of his over to the telephone on its end table, hunkered down beside it, and briskly unhooked the phone from the wall outlet so he could hook up his fax instead, while Dortmunder said, “Why do I have this, all of a sudden? And how long am I gonna have it?”

  “The thing about a fax, John,” Andy explained, “it’s harder to bug. It isn’t impossible, the feds got a machine that can pick up a fax and it still goes on to the regular party, without anybody being the wiser, but it isn’t routine, not yet, not like a phone call. Just a minute.” Andy picked up the phone part of the fax and started tapping out a number.

  Dortmunder said, “Is that a local call?”

  “No, it isn’t.” Andy listened, then said, “Hi, it’s Andy. Go
ahead,” and hung up.

  “Don’t mind me,” Dortmunder said. His bourbon glass was almost empty, except for ice.

  Hunkering beside the fax, Andy swiveled around to Dortmunder and said, “Wally called me. He’s got news, but none of us wants him to tell me on the phone. So he’s—”

  The phone rang. Dortmunder said, “Get that, will you? You’re right there.”

  “No, no, this is Wally,” Andy said, and the phone rang a second time, and May appeared in the doorway with a mug of tea. She looked around at everything and saw the black box and said “What’s that?” just as the box suddenly made a loud, high-pitched, horrible noise, like a lot of baby pigeons being tortured to death all at once. May’s eyes widened and the tea sloshed in her mug and she said, “What’s that?”

  The pigeons died. The box chuckled to itself. Dortmunder said, “It’s a fax. Apparently, this is the only way Wally likes to talk now.”

  “Here it comes,” Andy said.

  Dortmunder and May watched in appalled fascination as the box began slowly to stick its tongue out at them; a wide white tongue, a sheet of shiny curly paper that exuded from the front of the thing, with words on the paper.

  Andy smiled in paternal pleasure at the box. “It’s like a pasta machine, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes,” Dortmunder said. It was easier to say yes.

  The white paper, curling back on itself like a papyrus roll, kept oozing from the box. Then it stopped, and the box made a bell bing sound, and Andy reached down to tear the paper loose. Straightening, he went back to the sofa, sat down, took some beer, unrolled the fax—he looked exactly like the herald announcing the arrival in the kingdom of the Duke of Carpathia—and said, “Dear John and Andy and Miss May.” Smiling, he said, “What a polite guy, Wally.”

  “He’s a very nice person,” May said, and sat in her own chair. But, Dortmunder noticed, she didn’t sit back and relax, but stayed on the edge of the chair, holding the mug of tea with both hands.