Don't Ask

by Donald E. Westlake

  Conversely, Guy Claverack was also the man to see if the tables at Monte Carlo had been good to one--well, Lord, it does happen from time to time--and one was prepared to purchase a fourteen-footbyfortythree-foot arras of somebody else's ancestors in noble battle for that drafty blank spot on one's own castle wall.

  In short, to have Guy Claverack answer one's phone call was as important in the world of pretenders to long-gone thrones, as emblematic of acceptance, as, in a crasser world, it would be to have your phone call returned by your senator, your banker, your agent.

  It also didn't hurt Guy Claverack that he was, in addition to being rich and powerful and important, also handsome and mysterious. Handsome in a large and bearish way, six feet six inches in height, with a high, broad forehead, clear brown eyes, thick, wavy brown hair, and a full, rich brown beard neatly topiaried into an oval cupping his well-fed face. And mysterious in a rather thrilling way; known to have associates in the louche world of thieves and forgers and confidence men, confidantes among the police, connections with smugglers, to be in fact a sort of Raffles, for those who've never read Raffles, which by now is almost everybody. Stolen artworks could very often be reacquisitioned, at of course a fee, through the efforts and contacts of Guy Claverack. He was known, to put it another way, to be a fence, though only in the nicest and most acceptable way, and no one would ever have associated his name with such a beggarly word.

  Guy was also known to be an arbiter of social acceptance in his narrow world. Whenever those who thought of themselves as insiders--big-ticket art world insiders, or bearers of the blood when 'tis blue--found themselves in New York, they invariably phoned Guy, and if he invited them to lunch their bona fides were accepted, they could believe they were believed to be, in the outer world, who they believed themselves to be at home. (If--shocking thought--they were not invited to lunch, they skulked from the city at the earliest opportunity, hoping no one would ever learn they'd been there.) In addition to its status-side meaning, the Guy Claverack lunch was also a culinary experience not to be missed. It took place in the small dining room at the rear of his office suite on East Sixty eighth Street near Madison, and it was catered by the four-star French restaurant down the block (in which Guy held a small interest). The food was invariably delicious, the gossip frequently so, and the experience generally as satisfying and ego-fulfilling as a good facial.

  Today's guests, three in number, were something of a mixed bag. Commercially, the most interesting was Mavis, Princess Orfizzi, fresh from her divorce from the repellent Prince Elector Otto of Tuscan-Bavaria, flush with marriage loot to dispose of. Most useful in the long haul was no doubt young Alex Leamery of the London home office of Parkeby-South, the world's most prestigious auction house.

  Parkeby-South maintained offices and auction galleries in New York and Paris and Zurich, but the twits of its London office were the only ones who actually mattered, and of them the willowy Leamery was perhaps the most promising.

  The third guest, Leopold Grindle, came closest to that mysterious other side of Guy's life. An expert art appraiser, a bent, chunky man with unruly gray hair and thick eyeglasses, Grindle was on retainer to any number of museums, sheikhdoms, banks, and private purchasers the world around, to authenticate or dismiss their purchases. Very rarely were his attributions reversed. And yet, if the circumstances or the money was right, as Guy well knew, Leopold could rise above accuracy. A fine quality, at times.

  Lunch was delivered by deft, dwarfish Hispanics--there are fewer and fewer fine French waiters in New York every day, alas--whose chief quality, apart from the silent skill of their serving, was that they spoke no known language other than, among themselves, some mongoloid cousin of Spanish, which meant that gossip at Guy's table--and what other reason was there to get together?--would stay at his table, and not find its way either to the burning ears of the subjects or the open maw of the public prints.

  Gossip at table today centered mostly on the goatish, mulish, and piggish qualities of Prince Elector Otto, Mavis's recent ex, the pretender to a throne so obscure that not even Otto himself claimed to know precisely where it was or who his subjects would be were they ever unwise enough to accept his credentials. Beyond his amusement at the missing Otto, Guy had yet another reason to indulge Mavis's evident desire to dish her obnoxious former spouse. Among the art treasures she had made off with from the wrecked sloop of their marriage were two pieces in which he had a particular interest, both having kicked around the art world from buyer to buyer the last few years, both the work of major figures, and both with pedigrees just clouded enough to make negotiations interesting. One was a Veenbes, that early Flemish master, a contemporary of Brueghel, if somewhat darker in his view and in his work; his Folly Leads Man to Ruin was now in Mavis's possession. As was also a Rodin bronze, four feet tall, a young ballerina seated on a tree stump. Neither item would be so much as mentioned during lunch, of course, but a discreet form of preliminary negotiation was nevertheless under way.

  Today's simple sole had just been completed, and the Hispanics were wafting around a heavenly salad of seven kinds of immature lettuce leaf when the small phone on the delicate Chippendale candlestick table behind Guy made its merry little tinkle. Reaching back for the receiver, placing it to his head, Guy said, "Guy," and listened to his secretary say, "The carpenters are here."

  "Oh, good, have them go down to delivery." Hanging up, "Duty calls, it's the carpenters," he told his guests, dabbed his lips with white linen, took just a sip of the Sancerre, and left the room.

  Guy Claverack Co. occupied a town house on the north side of the street, with well-tended flower boxes at the streetward windows and only the discreet gold-lettered name on the leaded glass of the front door to suggest this house was a center of trade. One reached that door by climbing a broad but steep flight of scenically crumbling brownstone steps, flanked by intricate wrought-iron railings. Guy's offices and dining room were at this level, display rooms one flight up, his private quarters on the top two floors above.

  There was, however, another street entrance to the building, marked by a white-enamel-lettered iron sign affixed to the right hand staircase railing. deliveries, it read, with an arrow angling steeply down. On this side, next to the main broad brownstone steps climbing up, more plebeian slate steps clomped down, made a sharp turn, and finished beneath the main steps at a windowless gray metal door. Beyond this door lay a beehive basement of stone and concrete, composing many small cells filled with unsold arts and crafts, all bisected by a front-to-back central low-ceilinged corridor.

  Along this corridor Guy now made his way, his black shadow in the fluorescent overhead lights sweeping around him like a cape. He undid the several locks that would release the gray metal door--gray metal within, as well, niceties of decoration being unknown at this level--and opened it, to reveal two men waiting out there who, if in fact they had really been carpenters, Guy wouldn't have let work on a bird cage.

  But they weren't carpenters, were they? Sloping, suspicious, dubious, ramshackle people, dressed as though for a long bus ride somewhere in the Third World, they were about as far from the general idea of Raffles, the gentleman thief, as one could get without actually entering prison. "Come in, gentlemen," Guy said, which was his idea of a joke. He stepped back, with a sweeping gesture, like Errol Flynn taking off Robin Hood's hat. "Come in."

  One was taller and gloomier, the other sharper-featured and brighter-eyed. It was the bright-eyed one who said, as he crossed the threshold, "We were sent by--"

  "I know who sent you," Guy cut in, smoothly but firmly slicing off the naming of any names. "The construction work is back this way," he went on, and shut the door, and retraced his steps down the bare, bright corridor, trusting them to follow (but not trusting them much farther than that).

  Midway along the corridor, Guy paused to unlock a door on the left, pulled it open, reached in to switch on the overhead fluorescent, and gestured his guests to go on in. They did, Guy followed, and
all found themselves in a square concrete box, harshly lighted by long white tubes from above, and overly full of Victorian sofas with disintegrating velvet upholstery in many once-rich jeweled colors, rubies and emeralds and sapphires all now sun-bleached and time-stained, with dark wood crest rails and scrolled arms and feet all dinged and dented and deeply scratched, as though they'd been used at one time in a Gay Nineties dodgem car concession.

  Many sofas in here. Sofas sat on sofas, with sofas atop. Some sofas tilted upside down, stubby feet in the air, as though hurling themselves into oblivion. Two sofas, however, nearest the door, stood unencumbered, and it was to one of these, after closing the door, that Guy next gestured, then, while they sat obediently side by side, settled himself on the other.

  "Now," he said. "I understand you might have use of my services." He did his best to keep a faint note of incredulity out of his voice but didn't entirely succeed.

  The bright-eyed one spoke again. "We're gonna have some stuff to sell.

  Morry said you--"

  "Yes, yes," Guy said, preferring to put the case in his own words. "As I understand the situation from our mutual friend," he said delicately,

  "someone has suffered a loss, and you are in a position to believe I may be instrumental in helping the owner reclaim his property."

  "Something like that."

  "Except," the gloomy one added, in a gloomy voice, "this particular loss hasn't happened yet."

  Guy didn't like that, not a bit. "Oh, dear," he said. "If you two are going to invite me to participate in anything illegal, I'm afraid I must--"

  The gloomy one held up a hand for Guy to stop, and Guy surprised himself by stopping. Using the same hand, the gloomy one took something from his interior jacket pocket and extended it.

  Paper, some sort of papers. Curious, cautious, Guy took the papers and saw they were color photographs cut without their captions from a magazine, showing the interior of some sort of museum or private collection. Hard to tell exactly what or where, but some of those pieces, well, if they were really what they appeared to be, he could already see they were extremely valuable.

  Where was this place? What or whose was it? Well, whatever was on the back of these clippings should give him some hint as to what magazine they'd been cut from, and then he'd easily track down the right issue.

  So he turned them over, and what was on their backs was masking tape.

  Guy looked up and saw the gloomy one watching him with gloomy satisfaction, having guessed ahead of time what his reactions would be.

  So, do not underestimate these people. Reaching forward, extending the bits of paper, he said, "You'll want these back."

  "Right," the gloomy one said, and took them, and made them disappear.

  The bright-eyed one said, "So? You're interested?"

  "I'm not sure," Guy told him. "It's very unusual to be approached before the unhappy event. The ethics of the situation leave me at a bit of a loss."

  "What we'll do," the gloomy one said, ignoring Guy's ethical quandary,

  "on Monday we'll bring you some more pictures. Better ones than these.

  Close-ups, so you'll know it's the real stuff. Pictures where they are now, and pictures where they get moved to. You give those pictures to the insurance company--"

  Guy said, "Not the owner? Sometimes, an owner can--"

  "Not this time. This time, it's the insurance company, nobody else."

  "Very well," Guy said. "If we go forward."

  The bright-eyed one said, "Oh, sure. If we go forward."

  The gloomy one nodded that away. He said, "You give them all the pictures we give you, all of them, and you dicker like you do, and you keep half of what you get, and we give the stuff back."

  Guy felt increasingly alert. Was this entrapment, somehow? Half was more than he would normally expect in a circumstance like this; his commission--that's the word he used--was usually between a quarter and a third of whatever the owner or his representative paid for the return of the stolen objects. Were these people ignorant, or baiting him, or what?

  "I see," he said carefully.

  The gloomy one watched him with an unnervingly bleak eye. "Half okay?" he asked.

  Say something, or not? "If we go forward," Guy said, temporizing. Then, remembering his recent decision not to underestimate these people, he said, "It's higher than usual."

  Was that a smile on the gloomy one's face? If so, it did nothing to relieve the gloom, as the fellow said, "We know if s high. If s so you should do what we ask, and don't do anything else."

  Not entrapment. These two were offering Guy no details, asking him to offer them no encouragement. Most likely, they were working for the owner himself, and this was a false robbery for the insurance money; not the first time that ploy's been pulled in this old world. Feeling on surer ground, and wanting to test this theory, he said, "Not do anything else, like for instance warn the victim, should I happen to know who it is."

  The gloomy one gave him nothing. "Like anything," he said, deadpan.

  "Just take the pictures on Monday and give them to the insurance company, and dicker, and then we'll contact you, and, when the price is right, you collect, we'll tell you where the stuff is, and we'll come get our half of the money."

  Half. Half of what? Judging from Guy's previous experience, the insurance company couldn't be expected to come up with better than 20 percent of the established value of the pieces, particularly if they were valuable enough or well known enough to make resale difficult.

  Guy's portion, then, if he chose to go forward, would be in the vicinity of 10 percent. Of what?

  Elaborately casual, Guy sat back on the sofa. "Do you have an estimate of the value of the items in that lot?"

  "Six mil," said the gloomy one.

  Guy was a trader; he knew how to keep a poker face. Ten percent of 6 mil is $600,000. "What time Monday," he asked, "can I expect the new pictures?"

  Talking westward again through Central Park, back toward more familiar territory, Dortmunder and Kelp shared a companionable silence until Kelp said, "So. Whadaya think?"

  "I'm thinking," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp said, "I'll tell you what/ think. I think that place is a pipe.

  Full a valuable stuff; we could break in there with a spoon handle, back up your borrowed truck--"

  "You don't heist a guy you're dealing with," Dortmunder said, not without reproach in his tone.

  "Not now,'" Kelp explained. "After, I meant."

  Dortmunder nodded, accepting that revision, and they continued to walk through the sunshine and the greenery here in the lungs of the city until Kelp said, "Does that mean yes?"

  "Does what mean yes?"

  "We're dealing with him. Are we dealing with him?"

  "Who, Claverack?" Dortmunder was surprised. "Why, you got a better idea?"

  "I thought," Kelp said, "you were thinking about it."

  "What's to think about? He's the right fence for the job. I knew you'd know the guy, and you know the guy." 'Thank you," Kelp said modestly, but then went back to the point.

  "John," he said, "if whether or not we deal with that guy, Guy--you know what I mean, that guy. If that isn't what you're thinking about, what are you thinking about?"

  "The string," Dortmunder said. "This time, we gotta build a long string."

  "We can do that, you and me," Kelp said. "With all the people we know?

  Easy."

  "Except," Dortmunder said, "I gotta do something else. And this is already Thursday, and we got to pull the job Saturday night. So you and me and Tiny have to get together, right now, and then I have to work out stuff with Grijk, and then--"

  "You know," Kelp said, "I think that is the way he says his name. Very good."

  "Thank you. Anyway, I'll go get him, or however it works, and then we're off, and you and Tiny are gonna have to collect the people we need, for a meet tomorrow night at the OJ. I'll be back by then."

  "Back? You and Grijk? Where you going?"
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  "Skiing," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp looked around at grass and sun and people in shirt sleeves. "I think," he said carefully, "it's the wrong time of year."

  "Not the way I ski," Dortmunder said.

  Well," May said, "it's really kind of nice, isn't it?"

  "It's like a motel," Dortmunder said.

  "That's what's nice about it," May told him, looking around at the rose-pink wall-to-wall carpet, the beige fabric-covered walls, the Mediterranean-style wood-veneer furniture with the drawers that slid very easily in and out, the two giant beds with their pale cream covers stretched flat across their surfaces, the wall sconces and the swag light with the dull gold chain, the big TV in the top part of a tall cabinet that you could hide behind cabinet doors that looked as though they'd come from a cathedral somewhere. A very shiny cathedral. "It's not at all like home, that5s what I meant," May explained.

  Dortmunder stood over by the sliding glass door, looking through the glass and out over the balcony--their very own balcony, with a Lucite-topped table and two white lawn chairs--at the green hills of Vermont, with the long vertical meadows that he now recognized as off-season ski trails. "Grijk oughta be here by now," he said.

  "Relax, John," May suggested. "You don't want him to get in touch with you when he gets here, and you can't do anything about anything until tonight, anyway."

  Dortmunder nodded. Looking out at the view, he said, "There's just so much about this I don't like, you know?"

  Under the swag light was a round dark wood-veneer table, flanked by two chairs with cushioned seats. Settling into one of these and finding it less comfortable than it looked, May said, "Do you want to talk about it, John?"

  Did he? There was a little silence while he contemplated that question, and then he sighed and shook his head. "The first thing," he said, now looking at his own dim green reflection in the glass, "is the rush to do it, the pressure, the deadline."