Don't Ask

by Donald E. Westlake

  May left the living room and went down the hall to open the door, and indeed it was Andy, with a worried smile on his face. Even worried, he was smiling, but nevertheless he was worried. "Come on in, Andy," she said. "What are you worried about?"

  "Well, I wouldn't say I was worried," Andy said, brow furrowing. "You been watching the news at all?"

  May shut the apartment door and they walked together to the living room as she said, "Why? What's on it?"

  "Nothing, I think." They entered the living room and he gestured at the set, saying, "Okay?"

  "Sure."

  Switching it on, looking for the evening news, he said, "There was nothing on the radio news, anyway, in the cab, but radio news is all sports, so who knows?"

  Here was the local evening news, well under way. They both studied the newsreader, a blond lady who seemed delighted to report the deaths of four infants in a tenement fire, then switched them over to a blackhaired, stocky, blunt-featured guy who gripped actual paper notes in his fist and told you the news like he'd much rather punch you in the mouth. "That's Tony Costello," Andy announced,

  "their police and crime reporter. Let's see."

  Tony Costello announced that again today federal and state law-enforcement officers in a joint operation had impounded the largest haul of illegal drugs in history, umpteen zillion dollars' worth of this and that, all found in an apparently undistinguished house in the middle of Long Island. Some fat people who lived down the block were asked what they thought of this; most thought they didn't know what they thought, is what it came down to. And back to the blond lady, this time brimming with the happy news of a midair collision.

  Andy said, "Is this one of the ones that does the recaps?"

  "I think," May said uncertainly, "this is one of the ones that does coming-next."

  Andy shook his head. "I went by the mission," he said, "and there wasn't nothing, no police cars, nothing. In fact, it looked kind of closed up.

  I phoned their number, and they got their answering machine on, in some foreign language. Can you imagine? A whole country's mission, and not only they got their answering machine on, it's a foreign language."

  "Andy," May said, switching off the TV right in the middle of ethnic violence, "if you don't settle down and tell me what's going on, you're going to drive me back to cigarettes."

  "Oh. Sorry. Sit down, I-- Listen, could I have a beer first?"

  "Yes," May said, long-suffering. "And get me another. You know where it is."

  He knew. He went and came back, and they sat in the living room together and he said, "Tiny's got this foreign cousin, and to help him out we lifted this special thing from another country's mission, that's got offices on this boat on the East Side. We got the thing, at least for a while, but John got stuck getting away from the boat. I figured, we'll find out where the cops have him, maybe bust him out, something, I don't know. But there's no cops around, the mission all shut down, nothing on the news; it's like they didn't even report the theft. So, I'm sorry, May, I hate to be the one that brings the bad news, but the thing is, we don't know where John is, right now, this minute."

  May's left hand clawed in her cardigan pocket for nonexistent cigarettes. She said, "You don't know if he's dead or alive?"

  "May," Andy said, "when I last saw him, these private guards had their hands on him. He was alive and standing up, and he wasn't resisting or being hit or anything like that, and for sure they'd want him to tell where we were going with the special thing. So he's alive, we know that much. We just don't know where he's alive."

  Where there's life, in fact, there is hope. May nodded, feeling somewhat reassured. Her hand stopped stretching the cardigan pocket all out of shape. She said, "This special thing you took. What is it?"

  Andy drank beer. He sighed. "To tell you the truth, May," he said, "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that question."

  Diary of a Prisoner--Day One No food, no contact with anyone. Just as darkness was falling, there was suddenly and startlingly switched on a bright fluorescent light inset in the plank ceiling and protected by a heavy iron grating. It shone whitely on the floor in the center of the room, leaving a periphery in the semidarkness, full of shadows, all of which looked like rats.

  Then nothing else happened for a fairly long period of time-- the prisoner had no watch--until all at once a great clanking of chains and rattling of giant keys roused him from a groggy half doze and the big old wooden dungeon door creaked open, and four men entered. Two were skinny, unshaven, scared-looking people in dirty white shirts, barefoot; they carried a heavy square wooden table with a bowl and a mug on it.

  The other two were soldiers in bile-blue uniforms, submachine guns in their hands.

  The soldiers shouted barkinglike orders at the men in white, who put the table down near the door and backed away to the stone wall, keeping their eyes downcast all the time. Then the soldiers shouted a lot of stuff at the prisoner, who'd through all this remained seated on the floor against the wall under the lone window, thinking thoughts as dark as the view outside. The shouting, helped quite a bit by a lot of mean, threatening gestures with the submachine guns, communicated even without a common language the idea that the prisoner was to stand, which he did; was to come over to the table and be quick about it, which he did; and was to eat. "No chair?" asked the prisoner.

  They either didn't understand or considered the question too effete to be worthy of an answer. In any event, they simply kept pointing their gun barrels at the bowl--better than at the prisoner --and kept shouting the same short, sharp sentences over an dover.

  The prisoner looked at his dinner. The bowl contained a thick green sludge, the mug a clear liquid. To the left of the bowl was a torn-off chunk of dark bread, and to its right a large metal spoon. The prisoner considered his options--considered his option. He picked up the spoon, dipped out some of the green sludge, lifted it, lowered it, poured some back in the bowl, lifted it again, scrunched up his face like a little kid taking medicine, and inserted the spoon into mouth.

  And smiled. Smiled around the spoon. Removed spoon from mouth, and went on smiling. "Tastes like curry," he told the soldiers.

  The soldiers laughed coarsely and jabbed one another in the sides with their elbows and made raucous comments.

  Better to go on thinking of it as curry. The prisoner ate some more, tried the bread and found it fresh and tasty, tried the contents of the mug and found it water; not very cold and also kind of metallic-tasting, like it had been in a pipe somewhere too long, but water.

  The prisoner was really very hungry. He had no idea how long he'd been a prisoner, how long he'd been unconscious--plenty long, to permit a plane trip all the way from New York City to this terrible place--but this was the first food he'd tasted since lunch at home before boarding the Pride of Votskojek, an embarkation he had come to regret, and he was hungry.

  He ate it all. He even licked the back of the spoon, then put it down and used his finger to scrape the rest of the curry-tasting sludge off the inner sides of the bowl. Then, quite naturally, he said to the soldiers, I have to go to the bathroom."

  They didn't understand. They had apparently not one word of English, nor had the men in white--fellow prisoners, they must be--so the prisoner was forced to resort to uncouth gestures, the most universal of universal languages. The soldiers laughed in that heartily nasty way of theirs, then prodded the prisoner back to the center of the room and pointed to a small round hole in the floor there.

  "That?" said the prisoner. "You gotta be kidding."

  These people didn't kid. These people didn't know anything about kid.

  They just did a little more of their hearty obscene laughter, then suddenly turned mean and impatient as they barked a whole lot of fresh orders at the men in white, who scuttled forward, still keeping their eyes down, picked up the table, and lugged it back out of there. The two soldiers swaggered after them, both pausing deliberately to fart into the prisoner's airspace, then exited, slamming t
he door and creating another great hubbub with chains and locks.

  Silence. The prisoner gloomily hunched over the little hole in the floor. He thought, How do I get outta here? He looked up at the light and thought, I bet they don't turn that off. He rolled himself in the thin, rough wool blanket on the floor and thought, I'd tell them everything I know, if there was anybody around who talked English.

  And thus ended day one.

  Andy Kelp was a gregarious fellow. He got along with all kinds, even people in the NYPD. Not all the people in the NYPD, of course. Not even a lot of people in the NYPD. Well, one guy in the NYPD, actually; but that was plenty.

  The first time Kelp called the precinct and asked for Bernard Klematsky, the voice said, "Not on duty," but the second time the II voice said,

  "Hold on," and then the voice was Bernard himself, II saying very officially, "Klematsky."

  "Hi, Bernard," Kelp said. "It's me, Andy Kelp."

  "Well, hello, Andy. I was just thinking about you."

  "That wasn't me," Kelp said promptly. "I've been clean."

  "Want to come on down? I got something you could sign."

  "Maybe not right now," Kelp said. "I thought, though, maybe I could buy you a drink when you get off."

  "You want something," Bernard guessed.

  "Of course I want something," Kelp said. "Everybody wants something."

  "And I want dinner," Bernard said. "When I get off the job, I always want dinner."

  "Italian, right? Spaghettini with clam sauce."

  "Very tempting," Bernard said, "but I discovered a new cuisine recently that I like a lot."

  "Expensive cuisine, Bernard?"

  "Nah," Bernard said. "Nothing Asian is expensive, am I right?"

  "Oh, you mean Chinese."

  "No," Bernard said. "Tie."

  "We're keeping score?"

  "Thailand," Bernard explained. "Food from Thailand. You know what's great about food from Thailand?"

  "No."

  "They put peanut butter on everything."

  "That's what's great about it?"

  "You just wait. Toon's, on Bleecker Street. Ten-thirty?"

  "I'll be there," Kelp said, and was, in a smallish dark restaurant that smelled better than a place that would put peanut butter on everything.

  Bernard, of course, was late.

  But here he came, at last, at 10:45, grinning and rubbing hands together and saying, "Always nice to see you, Andy."

  "You, too, Bernard."

  Bernard Klematsky was an absolute average guy, mid-thirties, with bushy black hair, a long and fleshy nose, a rumpled gray suit and rumpled blue necktie, and no cop look to him at all. In fact, your first guess would be: math teacher, high school. Easy marker.

  Sitting across the little table from Kelp, not seeming to mind his back to the window, Bernard said, "Drinking beer, I see."

  "You want?"

  "I'm strictly a white wine man now," Bernard said, and whupped his own stomach with his palm, making a hollow gong sound like a temple bell; appropriate to the surroundings. "Gotta watch my weight. Too much time on the desk."

  "So you want a glass of white wine," Kelp hoped.

  "I thought a bottle," Bernard said. "We could share it. Or you don't have to drink any if you don't want."

  "Thank you, Bernard," Kelp said.

  The waiter came by then, looking alert. He was so thoroughly Asian that he was as tall standing up as they were sitting down, which made it easy to converse with him. Bernard said, "Well, Andy, you had time to look at the menu?"

  "Plenty of time," Kelp said, which Bernard ignored. "Not everything has peanut butter on it," he said, "that I can see."

  "So you pick the stuff that does," Bernard said, and did just that, ordering his dinner without even glancing at the menu.

  Kelp ordered things that didn't mention peanut butter, and Bernard said,

  "You don't know what's good."

  "That's okay."

  "Oh, and a bottle of the Pinot Grigio," Bernard said before the waiter could get away.

  Kelp said, "You own a piece of this place?"

  "Maybe I should, huh?"

  Kelp sipped beer, gathering his thoughts. Bernard smiled on him and said, "Well, Andy, you're looking pretty good. Clean living, huh?"

  "You know it."

  "The last time we talked like this," Bernard said, "you wanted some information about a guy. Remember that?"

  "Leo Zane," Kelp said, nodding.

  "A very bad customer," Bernard said. "Not your kind of guy at all. A hit man, wasn't he? And some cousin of yours got on his wrong side." 'That's right," Kelp said, and blinked.

  Bernard grinned at him. "You still do that thing, Andy," he said. "You blink when you're lying."

  "Everybody blinks," Kelp said, not blinking.

  "Sure. Anyway, you promised me nothing violent would happen to Zane if I could find him for you, and a few months later, you know what?"

  "No, what?"

  "Zane was arrested," Bernard said, "in Scotland of all places."

  "Oh, was he?" Kelp said, blinking.

  "You wouldn't know anything about that."

  "Of course not." Blink-blinkblink-blink.

  "But the funny part," Bernard said, "he was arrested for burglary, resisting arrest, leaving the scene of an accident, and a few other things, none of them crimes that fit his MO."

  "Huh," said Kelp, holding his eyelids up by an effort of will.

  "He's still doing time over there," Bernard said, and grinned again, shaking his head. "That cousin of yours must be something."

  "Oh, he is, he is," Kelp said, and rubbed his forehead with a band that partially screened his eyes.

  The waiter came back with the wine then, giving Kelp's eyes a rest.

  Bernard went through the tasting ritual, found the wine acceptable, and said, "Andy? You want some?" "Oh, I might as well," Kelp said, since after all he was paying for it. He finished his beer and the waiter filled his wineglass and went away.

  "So," Bernard said. "Is this another problem with your cousin?"

  "As a matter of fact," Kelp said, hiding his blinking by holding the wineglass up to the light, "that's just what it is. What he did this time, he went for a ride in a guy's boat. A little outboard motorboat.

  And he left his reading glasses in the boat."

  "Relax, Andy," Bernard said. "You're right, everybody blinks."

  Grateful, Kelp put the glass down, blinked fiercely at Bernard, and said, "After he was in it, the DBA impounded the boat. Now, my cousin has nothing to do with drugs, okay?" Not blinking at all, he said, "What I'm asking you about has nothing to do with drugs."

  "Good," Bernard said.

  "Only what it is," Kelp said, "my cousin's afraid to go to the DEA and ask for his reading glasses back, because maybe they'll think he does have something to do with drugs, being he was in that boat that one time. So he just wants to go over and get his glasses back, so he can read the Racing Form again, and that's the end of it."

  "Okay," said Bernard.

  "The problem is," Kelp explained as a smell of peanut butter wafted over him, "he doesn't know where the DEA keeps impounded boats." And the waiter put down a lot of plates in front of them, all covered with mysterious foods. Delicious aromas came from the plates in front of Kelp. So much peanut butter smell drifted over from Bernard's side of the table that you automatically looked around for the jelly.

  "Let's eat for a while," Bernard said, "then we can talk."

  "Sure, Bernard."

  So they ate for a while. Kelp recognized chicken and shrimp and some vegetables and a couple other things, but he didn't recognize anything that had been done to them. It was good stuff, and it was absolutely free of peanut butter.

  "Ah," Bernard said, smacking his stomach again, which now made a padded whum kind of sound. "A little brandy on top, and it's good to be alive."

  And he waggled his hand over his head, looking past Kelp's shoulder.

  Which is
why he hadn't minded sitting with his back to the window; it put his front to the waiter.

  Who was here again, at Kelp's elbow, looking as content as Bernard,

  "After-dinner drink?"

  "Some of that nice Hennessy you have back there," Bernard suggested, and raised an eyebrow at Kelp, "Andy?"

  "No, thanks," Kelp said. "I'm watching my weight."

  "More clean living," Bernard said, and grinned as the waiter went away, carrying their emptied plates. Bernard then rested his forearms on the glass tabletop where his food used to be, nodded thoughtfully at Kelp, and said, "Your cousin--let's say your cousin--your cousin left something in a boat the DEA impounded."

  "His reading glasses."

  "Let's not worry about details," Bernard said. "It's something, and it's in a boat, and the DEA impounded the boat, which means the boat was involved in the drug trade, but your cousin is not involved in the drug trade. Oh, don't worry, I believe that part. We're just doing the parts I believe."

  "You're a hard man, Bernard," Kelp said.

  "Oh, not really," Bernard said, comfortable in his persona. "Anyway, this something in the boat is not something that would let your cousin just go over to the DEA and say, 'Excuse me, I left my reading glasses in that boat over there, can I have them back, please.' So--"

  "Because my cousin," Kelp said patiently, "doesn't want the DEA to think he's connected with that boat."

  "Sure. Fine. So your cousin wants to know where the DEA's got the boat right now. This happened--what? Yesterday sometime, that's when you first called."

  "Uh-huh."

  "So your cousin," Bernard said, "plans to go over a fence or through a locked door or under a wall or whatever it takes to get those special reading glasses of his. In other words, Andy, you are asking me to point my finger at where the burglary should take place.

  Is that nice?"

  "Oh, no," Kelp said, blinking hard enough to blow out candles, "nobody's gonna commit any burglary."

  "You've been known to do some of that sort of thing yourself," Bernard pointed out.

  "That's before I got on to clean living," Kelp said. "What my cousin figures, there'll be like some sort of property clerk or something, he could maybe slip him a bribe, I don't know, maybe give him dinner, a bottle of wine--"