Watch Your Back

by Donald Westlake

  Everybody looked at Dortmunder, and then everybody looked at Judson, who was blushing and stammering and fidgeting on that kitchen chair with his arms jerking around — a definite butterfly, pinned in place. Everybody continued to look at him, and finally he produced words, of a sort: “Why would you — What would I — How could — Mr. Dortmunder, why would you —?”

  “Judson,” Tiny said. He said it softly, gently, but Judson clammed up like a locked safe, and his face went from beet red to shroud white, just like that.

  Dortmunder said, “Had to be. He went there, wanted to hang out with us, we were already gone, he went in and up, looked around, decided to take a little something.”

  Kelp said, “Judson, what made you take that?”

  Judson looked around at them all, tongue–tied.

  Arnie, in an informational way, said, “Kid, you’re one of the most incompetent liars I’ve ever seen.”

  Judson sighed. He could be seen to accept the idea at last that denial was going to be of no use. “I identified with it,” he said.

  Everybody reacted to that one. Stan said, “You identified with it?”

  Dortmunder said, “What’s it a picture of, Judson?”

  “Two young guys stealing a pig.”

  Tiny said, “That’s what goes for just under a mil? Two guys stealing a pig?”

  “It’s nice,” Judson said. “You can see they’re having fun.”

  “More than we are,” Tiny said.

  Dortmunder said, “Judson, where is this picture now?”

  “In my desk in J.C.’s office.”

  Tiny said, “I tell you what, kid. You were gonna get a piece of what we got, but we no longer got what we got, so now we are gonna get a piece of what you got.”

  “That seems fair,” Kelp said.

  Again Judson sighed. Then he said, “Maybe I can take a picture of it.”

  “Good idea,” Dortmunder agreed.

  Tiny said to Arnie, “Your guy paid a million for it. You’ll deal with the insurance company, you’ll get ten per cent, that means around fifteen grand for each of us, which isn’t what I had in mind, but these things happen, and, Dortmunder, I forgive you, and I think we all agree it was a good decision to let the kid stick around.”

  “Thank you,” Judson said.

  “Still and all,” Tiny said, “all that stuff in there, and we wind up with one picture.”

  Dortmunder thought of, but decided not to mention, the trinkets still burning holes in his own pockets. Some people know how to keep a secret.

  Chapter 54

  * * *

  The interview with Preston Fareweather had been taped forty minutes before it ran, and at the end of it, as the sound man and cameraman were packing and assembling all their plentifulness of gear, Preston said to the fair Gwen, “That was quite enjoyable. You make the thing just about painless.”

  “Well, that’s the job,” she said.

  “When you finish your assigned tasks at your station,” he said, “why not pop back here, we could have a lovely dinner a due.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said.

  “I would rather take you to one of the better restaurants in the neighborhood,” he said, smiling upon her, “but I’m afraid little legal problems, process servers and all that, are keeping me housebound at least until I can get a new car. But those restaurants know me, I think I’m probably considered a good tipper, they’ll be happy to send over a little something from the menu.” Chuckling, he said, “Not exactly your Chinese takeout. What do you say? A little penthouse adventure.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  Gesturing, he said, “That view is even more magnificent at night.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  He gazed on her with a sad smile. “Would you really leave me here, Gwen, all alone, in my pillaged penthouse?”

  “Mr. Fareweather,” she said, “I researched you before I came up here, and I know all about your little legal problems and the process servers. You have a surprising number of ex–wives.”

  “Oh, ex–wives,” he said, dismissing them with an airy sweep of the hand. “Spiteful little creatures, it’s best just to ignore them. You know what they’re like.”

  “I do,” she said. “I’m one myself.”

  He couldn’t believe it. “You’ll take their side?”

  “I won’t take any side at all,” she said. “Ready, boys?”

  The boys, with cameras and cases and boxes and bags hanging from black straps off their shoulders, agreed they were ready, and rang for the elevator.

  The snippy, self–sufficient Gwen directed a cool smile toward Preston. “Thank you, Mr. Fareweather, you gave a very good interview. My editor will be pleased.”

  “I’m so happy,” Preston said as the elevator door opened.

  “Sir,” the sound man said.

  “Yes?”

  The sound man handed him a thick white envelope. “This is a service of court documents,” he said, “in accordance with New York State law.” And he U–turned and entered the elevator.

  “RRRAAAGGHHHH!” Preston cried, and threw the envelope, but it bounced off the closing elevator door, leaving him the image of Gwen’s surprised laugh as she turned to the sound man and said, “What did you —?”

  Gone. Preston stood there, panting as though he’d run a mile, and stared at the hateful envelope on his lovely oriental carpet. At last he turned away. “Alan!” he screamed. “Alan!”

  And Alan appeared, as festooned with luggage as the sound man. “Oh, I missed the elevator,” he said, and went over to ring for it.

  Preston gaped at him. “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t need me any more, Preston,” Alan said. “Our jolly days as island castaways are over. I’ve been on the phone, I’ve a couple of leads on a new position.”

  The elevator reappeared, and the operator, an uppity black woman, said, “Lotta traffic up here all of a sudden.”

  “Good–bye, Preston,” Alan said, boarding. “It was all really very amusing. Thank you.”

  Chapter 55

  * * *

  When Dortmunder walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill at ten that night in mid–September, the regulars were all clustered at the left end of the bar, heads bent, gazing at money, as though they were playing liar’s poker. Midway across the bar to the right, Rollo was pouring a drink, and a little farther on was the guy Dortmunder was here to see, one Ralph Winslow.

  As Dortmunder approached the bar, it became clear the regulars weren’t playing liar’s poker after all; they were looking at the colors on the bills, because one of them, sounding aggrieved, said, “What are all these colors? Money is supposed to be green. People say, ‘The long green. Pay me in green.’ What is this, a paint–by–number?”

  “There’s still a lotta green in there,” a second regular assured him.

  “Yeah?” The first regular was not assured. Stabbing a finger at the bill, to the left of Jackson’s head, he said, “What’s this here?”

  The second regular studied his own copy. “That’s charters,” he decided.

  The first regular shot him a look of revulsion. “It’s what?”

  “Charters. That’s a green with a lotta yellow in it.”

  Dortmunder and Ralph Winslow’s drink, a rye and water in a squat thick glass, arrived at the same moment. “Whadaya say, Ralph?”

  Ralph, a hearty, heavyset guy with a wide mouth and a big, round nose, was the fellow they were supposed to meet here way back in July, when it turned out he’d had to leave town for a while instead. Now he was back, and belatedly the meeting could take place, once everybody got here. In the meantime, he lifted his glass to Dortmunder, and the ice in it tinkled like far–off temple bells. “I’m glad to be back, is what I say,” he said. “Cheers.”

  “Be right with you.” Dortmunder said to Rollo, “We’re gonna be six. I could take the bottle and Andy’s glass.”

  “Sorry,” Rollo said. “You can’t use
the room right now.”

  Dortmunder stared at him. “What, again? I thought those guys were too busy with the felony cases and the mob war.”

  “No, it’s not them,” Rollo said. “That’s okay now, knock on wood,” and he knocked on the copper top of the bar. “What it is, there’s a support group uses the place sometimes, they’re running a little late, one of them had a relapse.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I’ll get you your drink.”

  “Thank you.”

  Over to the left, a third regular said, “This Hamilton’s still green. He’s still got the frame around his head, too.”

  “Really?” The second regular was very interested. “That’s an older one, then,” he said. “Whadaya suppose that’s worth now?”

  The third regular said, “What? It’s a ten–dollar bill!”

  The first regular said, “Who was Hamilton anyway? All the rest of them are presidents. He wasn’t a president.”

  They were all silent. They all kind of knew the answer, but not precisely. Then the second regular lit up. “He got shot!”

  “Big deal,” the first regular said. “My cousin got shot, they didn’t put him on any money.”

  The second regular, interested in everything, said, “Your cousin got shot? Who shot him?”

  “Two husbands.”

  “Two husbands?”

  The first regular shrugged. “He was unemployed at the time.”

  Rollo had just poured Dortmunder’s bourbon over ice, with Ralph Winslow tinkling beside him, when Rollo looked up and said, “Here’s two more of you.”

  Dortmunder looked around, and it was Tiny and the kid. “We aren’t in the back room,” Tiny said.

  Dortmunder explained about the support group and the relapse, and Rollo came back with two identical–looking tall glasses of bright red liquid with ice, which he placed in front of Tiny and Judson.

  Dortmunder, not sure he believed it, said, “Tiny? The kid’s drinking vodka and red wine?”

  “No,” Tiny said. “Rollo won’t let him.”

  “It’s strawberry soda.” Judson sipped, made a face, and said, “Yep, strawberry soda. That’s all Mr. Rollo will let me have.”

  “Ever since the trouble with the Jersey guys,” Rollo half–apologized, “the precinct has been keeping an eye on the place. I serve an underage drinker, you know what that means?”

  Dortmunder said, “They close the place?”

  “It means I get Otto back up here again,” Rollo said, and Ralph said, “Whadaya say, Andy?”

  “You’re looking good,” Andy Kelp told him, arriving, reaching for his glass and the bourbon bottle Rollo had left on the bar. “Your vacation agreed with you.”

  “More than home did, right then. But what can you say about mountains? They’re tall.” And he tinkled as he sipped his rye.

  “What’s this?” Kelp asked, gazing off to his left.

  It was the support group: seven people, some men, some women, a little blended together. They were all extremely thin and all dressed entirely in black. They seemed to be embarrassed about something and wouldn’t meet anybody’s eye. They moved through the room like an approaching low on the Weather Channel, and one of them peeled off to come to the bar and press an envelope into Rollo’s hand without looking him in the face. “Thank you,” he whispered, and rejoined his pod, and they faded into the night.

  “The back room is open, gents,” Rollo said.

  They all thanked him, not whispering, picked up their drinks, and headed for the back room, Ralph gently tinkling along the way. As they rounded the end of the bar toward the hall, the regulars decided spontaneously to laud Rollo in song:

  For he’s a jolly good fell–oh,

  For he’s a jolly good fell–oh,

  For he’s a jolly good fell–OH!

  For he’s a golly good fell.

  “I don’t think that’s right,” the second regular said. “I think the last line goes, ‘For he’s a jolly good elf.’ ”

  So they tried it that way.