What's the Worst That Could Happen?

by Donald E. Westlake

  Not a lawyer, certainly not a doctor, even more certainly not an accountant or banker. An airline pilot? Unlikely. Not a businessman, they’re the sweatiest of them all. Maybe an inventor; was that possible?

  She was afraid, the more she thought about it, that what Andy Kelly was most like was a cabdriver who’d learned not to get aggravated by bad traffic. But would a cabdriver be this cool, in this situation? Intrigued, more so than she’d expected to be, she awaited his return tonight from another “appointment.”

  Appointments after midnight, two nights in a row. Was that a clue? To what? They weren’t appointments with some other woman, she was pretty sure of that, based on his behavior with her afterward. But what appointment could you have that late at night, lasting an hour or two?

  Maybe he’s a spy, she thought. But who is there to spy on any more? All the spies are retired now, writing books, reading each other’s books, and beginning to wonder what the point had been, all those years, chasing each other around in their slot-car racers while the real world went on without them. More of the desperate men, those were, hustling to keep up, falling a little farther behind every day. Nope, not Andy Kelly.

  So here it was Thursday night, becoming Friday morning, and on Saturday she was supposed to fly back to KC and then drive across the state on home to Lancaster, and of course that’s what she was going to do, it was part of the package, but Andy Kelly was suddenly the wild card in the deck, and she couldn’t help asking herself the question: What if he says don’t go?

  Well, most likely he wouldn’t say any such thing, why should he? And whoever or whatever he might turn out to be, she did already know for certain he was definitely a New Yorker and never a Lancastrian, so he wouldn’t be coming home with her, so either he asked the question or he didn’t. And however unlikely it was that he’d ask, she felt she ought to be ready with the answer just in case, so what was the answer?

  She didn’t know. She was still thinking about it, and she still didn’t know, at ten minutes to three in the morning when the phone rang.

  She was seated on the bed at the time, back against the headboard, watching an old movie on television with the sound turned off, as an aid to thought, so now she reached out to the phone on the bedside table, kept looking at the people on horseback on the television screen, and said, “Hello.”

  “Hi, Anne Marie, it’s Andy.”

  “It better be,” she said, “or I don’t answer the phone at this hour.”

  “I’m a little late. My appointment took longer than I thought.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But that was okay, because it was very successful.”

  “Good,” she said, wondering, what are we talking about?

  “But here’s the thing,” he said. “There’s a friend of mine.”

  Uh oh, she thought. “Uh huh,” she said. Group gropes, is this where we’re headed?

  “He’s got a problem,” Andy said, “and I think you’re the perfect person to talk to him.”

  Her voice very cold, Anne Marie said, “And you want to bring him over now.”

  “That’s right, a few minutes talk and—Whoa. Wait a minute. Back up here.”

  “That’s right,” she said. She was more disappointed in him than she would have thought possible. “Back way up.”

  “Anne Marie,” he said, “get that thought out of your head this second. There are some things in life that are team efforts, and there are some things in life that are solos, you see what I mean?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “My friend,” Andy said, “needs to have a conversation about Washington, DC, and then—”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll explain. He’d like to come talk, maybe five minutes at the max, and then he goes away, and if there’s more to it he’ll give you a phone call sometime, but at least now you know who he is.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A friend of mine. I’d like to bring him over. Okay?”

  She looked around the room. Do I trust Andy? Do I trust my own instincts? The bed was a mess, clothes were strewn around, the TV was on, though silent. “How soon would you get here?” she asked.

  “Two minutes.”

  Surprised, she said, “Where are you? In the bar?”

  “Closer. Be there in two minutes,” he said, and hung up.

  Two minutes later, the bed was made, the clothes were put away, the TV was off, and there was a knocking at the door. Anne Marie still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on here, but Howard was gone, her New York week was winding down, the future was completely unknowable, and her new slogan might as well be Caution To The Winds. So she opened the door, and there was Andy, smiling, and his friend, not smiling.

  Well. This new guy wasn’t somebody to be afraid of, though at first glance he didn’t look right to be Andy’s friend. He was not chipper, not at all chipper. He was closer to the kind of men she already knew, except he was down at the end of the struggle, after all the hustling has failed, all the energy has been spent on futile struggle, and the exhaustion of despair has set in. He looked to be in his midforties, and what a lot of rough years those must have been. He was the picture of gloom from his lifeless thinning hair through his slumped shoulders to his scuffed shoes, and he looked at her as though he already knew she wasn’t going to be any help.

  “Hello,” she said, thinking how complicated life could get if you merely kept saying hello to people. She stepped aside, and they came in, and she shut the door.

  “Anne Marie,” Andy said, “this is John. John, my friend Anne Marie.”

  “Harya,” said John, in a muted way, and stuck his hand out.

  She took the hand, and found he was in any event capable of a firm handshake. “I’m fine,” she said. “Should we . . . sit down on something?” One bed and one chair; that was the furniture, except for stuff with drawers.

  “I’m not staying,” John said. “Andy says you grew up in Washington.”

  “There and Kansas,” she acknowledged. “We had homes both places. Usually I went to school in Kansas, but college in Maryland, and then lived mostly in Washington for a few years. With my father and his second wife, and then his third wife.”

  “The thing is,” John said, apparently not that fascinated by her family, “I gotta go to Washington next week, I got a little something to do there, but I don’t know the place at all. Andy figured, maybe you could fill me in, answer some questions about the place.”

  “If I can,” she said, doubtful, not knowing what he had in mind.

  “Not now,” he said. “I know you’re busy. But I could like make up a list, my questions, give you a call tomorrow. Now you know who I am.”

  No, I don’t, she thought. She said, “What is it you have to do in DC?”

  “Oh, just a little job,” he said.

  This was not a good answer. She was starting to wonder if she should be worried. What had she got mixed up with here? Terrorists? Fanatics? She said, “It wouldn’t involve anything blowing up, would it?”

  He gave her a blank look: “Huh?”

  Andy said, “Anne Marie, it isn’t anything like—” But then he saw the expression on her face, and he shook his head and turned to his friend, saying, “John, the best thing, I think, is level with her.”

  John obviously didn’t think that was the best thing at all. He stared at Andy as though Andy had asked him to change his religion or something. He said, “Level? You mean, level level? On the level?”

  Andy said, “Anne Marie, just as a hypothetical, what would you say if I told you we weren’t entirely honest?”

  “I’d say nobody’s entirely honest,” she said. “What kind of not honest are you?”

  “Well, mostly we pick up things,” he said.

  John said, “Right. That’s it. Pick up things.”

  She shook her head, not getting it, and Andy said, “You know, like, we see things lying around and we pick them up.”

  Anne Marie felt her way through the
maze of this locution. She didn’t quite know how to phrase her next question, but went ahead anyway: “You mean . . . you mean you’re thieves?”

  Beaming, happy she’d got it, Andy said, “Personally I prefer the word crook. I think it’s jauntier.”

  “You’re crooks.”

  “See? It is jauntier.”

  “These appointments, late at night . . .”

  “We’re out picking up things,” he said. “Or planning it. Or whatever.”

  “Picking up things.” Anne Marie struggled to find firm ground. First tonight she’d thought Andy was slightly enigmatic but fun, then she’d thought he was sexually kinky and maybe dangerously kinky, and then she’d thought he was a homicidal terrorist, and now it turned out he was a thief. Crook. Thief. Too many lightning transformations. Having no idea what she thought of this most recent one, she said, “What did you pick up tonight?”

  John, grumbling, said, “Not what I was looking for.”

  “But a lot of nice things,” Andy said. “I would say tonight was one of our more profitable nights, John. In a long time.”

  “Still,” John said. He seemed very dissatisfied.

  So she turned her attention to John, saying, “What was it you wanted that you didn’t find?”

  He merely shrugged, as though the memory were too painful, but Andy said, “Tell her, John. She’ll understand. I don’t know Anne Marie that long, but already I can tell you, she’s got a good heart. Go ahead and tell her.”

  “I hate telling that story, over and over,” John said. “It’s got the same ending every time.”

  “Do you mind, I tell it?”

  “It’ll still come out the same,” John said, “but go ahead.”

  John ostentatiously looked at the blank TV screen, as though waiting for a bulletin, while Andy said, “What happened, about a week ago John and another fella went to a place that was supposed to be empty—”

  “To pick up some things,” Anne Marie suggested.

  “That’s it. Only it wasn’t empty, after all, the householder was there, with a gun.”

  “Ouch,” Anne Marie said.

  “John’s feelings exactly,” Andy said. “But that’s what we call your occupational hazard, it’s all in the game. You know. But what happened next wasn’t fair.”

  John, watching the nothing on TV, growled.

  Andy said, “The householder called the cops, naturally, no problem with that. But when the cops got there the householder claimed John stole a ring and was wearing it. Only it was John’s ring, that his best close personal friend, her name is May, you’d like her, she gave him. And the cops made him give it to the householder.”

  “That’s mean,” Anne Marie said, and she meant it. She also thought it was kind of funny, she could see the humor in it, but from the slope of John’s shoulders she suspected she would be wiser not to mention that side.

  “Very mean,” Andy agreed. “So John, after he got away from the police—”

  Surprised, she said, “You escaped?”

  “Yeah.” Even that memory didn’t seem to give him much pleasure.

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were out on bail or something.”

  “No,” Andy said, “he got away clean. But he’s been looking for the householder ever since, because he wants his ring back. It’s got sentimental value, you know.”

  “Because his friend gave it to him,” Anne Marie said, and nodded.

  “Because,” John said, “he made a fool outta me. I’m gonna feel itchy and uncomfortable until I get that ring back.”

  “This householder is a very rich householder,” Andy said. “I mean, he didn’t need the ring. Also, he’s got a lot of houses, including one in this very building.”

  “So last night . . .” she said.

  “You know the phrase,” he told her. “Last night, we cased the joint.”

  “Of course.”

  “And tonight we went there,” Andy said, “and we just missed the guy, he was just going out the door. So John did not get his ring.”

  “Again,” John said.

  “But we did get a lot of other stuff,” Andy said. “Nice stuff. As long as we were there.”

  Anne Marie said, “And this man is going to Washington?”

  “Next week. He’s got a house there, too. John figures to pay him a visit.”

  “And this time,” John said, “he’ll be there.”

  Anne Marie said, “Where’s this house exactly?”

  “Well, it’s an apartment, is what it is,” Andy said. “In the Watergate.”

  This time she felt she could show her amusement, and did. “John? You want to pull a burglary at the Watergate? A little third-rate burglary at the Watergate?”

  Andy said, “I already tried that on him, and it didn’t work. John isn’t much of a history buff.”

  Anne Marie said, “So that’s why you’ll have some questions about DC. You want to get in there, and get your ring, and get out again, and not get into trouble along the way.”

  “That’s it,” Andy said.

  John, the recital of his tale of woe at last finished, turned away from the TV screen and said, “So if it’s okay with you, I’ll give you a call here tomorrow, sometime, whenever you say. I’ll have some questions figured out.”

  “Sure,” Anne Marie said. “Or . . .” And she allowed a pause to grow, while she lifted an eyebrow at Andy, who gave her a bright look but no other response. So she said to John, “Did Andy tell you my own situation at the moment?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything,” John said, “except you knew Washington.”

  “Well, my marriage seems to have hit an underwater stump and sunk,” she said. “Theoretically, I’m supposed to go home on Saturday, but I’m not sure I think of it as home any more. I’m not sure what to think, to tell you the truth. I’m at kind of loose ends here.”

  “Anne Marie,” Andy said, “I wouldn’t have hoped to even ask this, but I’m wondering. Do you mean that you think you could stick around some, give us advice along the way?”

  “It’s been awhile since I’ve been in DC,” she said.

  John’s head lifted. He damn near smiled. He almost looked normal. He said, “Yeah?”

  Andy, with all evidence of delight, said, “Anne Marie! You’d come along?”

  “If I wasn’t in the way.”

  “In the way? How could you be in the way?” Andy looked at John, and they grinned at each other, and Andy said, “John? Is Anne Marie in the way?”

  “Not in my way,” John said.

  Andy looked back at Anne Marie, and grew more serious. He said, “Is it gonna bother you? You know, us picking up things, here and there, along the way? I mean, that’s what we do. Is that gonna be a problem?”

  Anne Marie smiled, and shook her head. She had no idea what she was doing, or why, or what was going to happen next, but there was no other door in her life right now she could think of opening that had even the prospect of fun behind it. “I’m a politician’s daughter, Andy,” she said. “Nothing shocks me.”

  28

  F ortunately, just before they’d left the apartment in the N-Joy, Max had managed to sneak a cellular phone into the bathroom and call Miss September to tell her do not, repeat not, come out to Carrport tonight, we’ll get together soon, my little fur muffin, I’ll call the next time I’m in the northeast, do not come to Carrport. And off he went, willy-nilly, with Lutetia.

  But then it wasn’t so bad. The old love in a new setting, an invigorating change of pace. And the memory of Miss September so recently on this black silk sheet—laundered since; ah, well—could only add to the spirit of the occasion.

  Max was feeling so pleased with himself, and with life, and with the success of his maneuvering, and with his recent decision that TUI should replace the Carrport house with a corporate yacht, that next morning, over bran muffins and coffee, he showed Lutetia his new ring, his pride and joy, and explained its history.

  She was amused and
appalled, exactly the response he’d been hoping for. “Max, what a terrible person you are!” she cried, laughing at him across the breakfast table. “To treat that poor fellow that way.”

  “You should have seen the expression on his face,” Max said. “It was priceless. He looked like a basset hound.”

  “You’d better hope,” she told him, “he never gets to see your face again.”

  “Somehow I don’t think,” Max said, comfortably twirling the ring on his finger, “we travel in the same circles.”

  After breakfast, Max went through the house one final time, finding very little in it he cared about. All this safe bland decorating, good for the corporate image but not exactly hearty, nothing that stuck in the mind or created a yearning for possession. Leave it, leave it all, sell the stuff. The damn burglar got everything of value, anyway.

  Lutetia found a squat brown vase she liked. “It reminds me of you,” she said, “when you’ve been bad and you’re afraid you’ll be caught.”

  “Oh, my sweetness,” Max said, pursing his mouth and trying to look like Sydney Greenstreet in a pet, “how you talk to me.”

  “I’ll put dried flowers in it,” she decided, holding the vase up to see it better in the light. “It will fit in wonderfully at the apartment. The place is almost perfect as it is, so carefully put together—you wouldn’t notice a thing like that—but occasionally one still finds something to add to the effect.”

  “Take it,” Max said, magnanimous to a fault. “If it shows up on some inventory somewhere, we’ll say the burglar got it.”

  “Of course he did,” Lutetia said. “He has a very good eye, your burglar.”

  “Especially for rings,” Max said, with a malicious little leer.