What's the Worst That Could Happen?

by Donald E. Westlake

  Which the caller did. This was a human voice, male, the sound of a young staff aide, eager, trying to be smoothly efficient: “Mr. Fairbanks, this is Saunders, from Liaison. I’m supposed to come over there this morning to pick up the pack packs, but I’m told you’re in residence at the moment because of this morning’s hearing. I didn’t want to disturb you, so, uh . . .”

  Dead air, while Saunders tried to figure out what to do, then did: “I’ll come over around eleven, then, when you’ll be on the Hill. So I’ll pick up the pack packs then, that’ll be early enough.” Click.

  Andy said, “Pack packs?”

  Dortmunder said, “Maybe it’s something to do with Federal Express.”

  Andy raised a brow. “You’ll have to explain that,” he said.

  “When I first got the ring,” Dortmunder told him, “it came from Federal Express, and it was in what they called a pack, only they spelled it different, like P-A-K. So maybe this is a Pak pack for Federal Express.”

  “A Pak pack of what?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Maybe,” Andy said, “we should look for it.”

  Dortmunder considered that. “We do have time,” he said.

  The object they were looking for didn’t take long to find. At the back end of the living room, away from the balcony and the view, was a small office area, being a nice old-fashioned mahogany desk with an elaborate desk set on it featuring two green-globed lights. There were also a swivel chair, nicely padded, in black leather, and a square metal wastebasket, painted gold. In the bottom right drawer of this desk, which wasn’t even locked, they found a big fat manila envelope on which was handwritten in thick red ink

  PAC

  “Here it is,” Andy said.

  Dortmunder came over to look. “And another way to spell pack,” he said. “These people must have all flunked English.”

  “No, no, John,” Andy said. “Don’t you know what a Pac is?”

  “How do you spell it?”

  “This way,” Andy said, gesturing to the manila envelope. “It’s a legal bribe.”

  “It’s a what?”

  “It’s how Congress figured it out they could get bribed without anybody getting in trouble,” Andy explained. “Like, for instance, say you wanted to give a congressman a bunch of money—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Okay, but for instance. As a hypothetical. Say you got, oh, I don’t know, some lumber, and you want to cut it down and you’re not supposed to cut it down, but if you give this congressman some money they’ll cut you a loophole. But if you just give him the money, flat out, boom, here’s the money, chances are, he might go to jail and you could be embarrassed. So they invented these things, these Pacs, the letters stand for something . . .”

  “That’s more than you can say for the congressmen.”

  “Wait a minute,” Andy said. “I’m trying to remember.”

  “Well, the P,” Dortmunder said, “probably means ‘political.’”

  “Right! Political Action Committee, that’s what it is. You give the money to this committee, and they give it to the congressman, and then it’s legal.”

  “They launder it,” Dortmunder suggested.

  “Right. I think they learned it from some people in Colombia.”

  “So this is the Pac pack the guy on the phone was talking about.”

  “Must be.”

  “Andy,” Dortmunder said, “does this mean that envelope’s full of money?”

  They both looked at the envelope. They looked at each other. They looked at the envelope. Reverently, Andy took it out of the drawer and put it on top of the desk. Dortmunder closed the drawer. Andy turned the envelope over, squeezed the metal tabs together so he could lift the flap, lifted the flap, and then lifted the envelope slightly so he could look inside. “It’s full of white envelopes,” he said.

  “And what are they full of?”

  Andy looked at Dortmunder. His eyes were shining. “John,” he breathed, “nobody ever gave me a bribe before.”

  “The envelopes, please,” Dortmunder said.

  Andy shook the white envelopes out onto the desk. They were all pudgy, they were stuffed really full. They all had acronyms written on them, in the same thick red ink. There was PACAR and IMPAC and BACPAC and seven more. Ten envelopes.

  “I think,” Dortmunder said, “we have to open one.”

  So Andy did. There was a very nice leather-handled letter opener included in the desk set; Andy took it and slit open IMPAC and out came the green paper, and they were fifty hundred-dollar bills, crisp and new.

  “Five thousand dollars,” Andy said.

  Dortmunder prodded another of the envelopes, like a cook checking the bread dough. “Five grand in each? Try another one.”

  PACAR : Five thousand dollars.

  Andy said, “John, what we have here is fifty thousand dollars. In cash.”

  “God damn it,” Dortmunder said. “What a shame.”

  Andy frowned at him. “A shame? What’s a shame?”

  “I just stopped to think about it,” Dortmunder said. “Saunders is gonna come pick this stuff up at eleven o’clock. We’ve gotta leave it here.”

  “John, this is fifty big ones!”

  “If Saunders comes here and it’s gone,” Dortmunder pointed out, “Saunders calls the cops. Or at the very least he calls Fairbanks. And we can forget it when it comes to getting in here when Fairbanks comes home.”

  “John,” Andy said, “are we going to let fifty thousand dollars get away from us because of one ring?”

  “Yes,” Dortmunder said.

  “No,” Andy said.

  Dortmunder said, “Andy, don’t give me trouble on—”

  “Just a minute here,” Andy said. “Let me think.”

  “Sure. Think.”

  “We already opened these two envelopes, you know.”

  “There’s more envelopes, and right there’s the red pen they use. We can put it all back together same as it was.”

  “That would be a shame and a pity and a total waste,” Andy protested. “Go away, John, amuse yourself while I think.”

  “I don’t want to screw up getting the ring.”

  “I know, John, I never seen such a one-track mind in my life. Lemme think, willya?”

  “I’m just saying,” Dortmunder said, and at last walked away to the other end of the living room, by the slightly open door to the balcony. He stood there and looked out at the cleaning rag draped on a tooth, and beyond it at the early morning view. In the view at the moment were a number of people running, in the green landscape just this side of the river. These were running people who weren’t in any hurry to get anywhere and who in fact weren’t going anywhere in particular, and the kind of running they were doing was called jogging. So far as Dortmunder was concerned, that was the biggest misuse of time and energy anybody ever thought of. Think of all the better ways you could spend your time; sitting, to begin with.

  “Okay, John.”

  Dortmunder looked over at Andy, who was now seated at the desk with something else on the desktop in front of him. “Okay?” he said. “What’s okay?”

  “Come take a look.”

  So Dortmunder went over, and Andy had taken a sheet of TUI letterhead stationery out of the desk, and using the same red pen he’d written,

  Saunders,

  My secretary dealt with the PAC pack.

  Fairbanks

  PS: Take this note with you.

  Dortmunder said, “Take this note with you?”

  “Well, he can’t leave it here.”

  “Isn’t he gonna wonder why he’s supposed to take it with him?”

  “Wonder?” Andy seemed bewildered by the idea. He said, “Why would a guy like Saunders wonder? He’s a young white-collar employee, he’s not paid to wonder, he’s paid to fetch. Now, if I told him, burn this note, that’s going too far. But I say, ‘Take this note with you,’ that just means, carry a piece of paper. John, that’s wha
t Saunders does.”

  Dortmunder studied the note. He frowned at the big manila envelope, now again containing its ten fat smaller envelopes. He said, “It might work.”

  “Of course it’ll work, John,” Andy said. “What’s the worst that can happen? We hang around outside until after the cops come and go. Besides, we gotta take the chance, you know that. We cannot leave this money here.”

  Dortmunder thought about it, and at last he shrugged and said, “You’re right. Every once in a while, you gotta take a chance.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Andy said, and when he stood up the manila envelope was under his arm.

  The women were both in May’s room, so that’s where Dortmunder and Andy went. When they walked in, May and Anne Marie were up and dressed, watching the Today show on television. The faces they turned toward Dortmunder and Andy were both expectant and relieved. But then May looked at Dortmunder’s hand and said, “You didn’t get it.”

  “He never showed up,” Dortmunder said.

  Andy said, “But we got a plan.” Dropping the manila envelope on the bed, he said, “We also made out a little. There’s fifty big in there.”

  Anne Marie said, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “It was Pac money,” Andy told her.

  Anne Marie apparently knew what that meant, because she went off into peals of laughter. “At last,” she said, when she could say anything again, “the trickle-down theory begins to work.”

  May said, “John? Tell us everything.”

  So Dortmunder did, with interpolations from Andy and questions from Anne Marie, and when he was finished he said, “So we stay over one more night, and tonight I finally meet up with Max Fairbanks and get my ring back. But just to be on the safe side, I think I ought to call Wally.”

  Andy said, “Who, Wally Knurr?” To Anne Marie he explained. “He’s our computer guy, with the access to everything.” To Dortmunder, he said, “How come?”

  “Fairbanks was supposed to be in that apartment last night and he wasn’t,” Dortmunder said. “I guess he’ll do his talking to Congress this morning, but what else is he doing I’m not sure any more I know. And he did that news blackout over the weekend. So what’s he up to? What’s going on? I feel like I could use an update from Wally.” He looked over at the bedside clock and said, “Is seven minutes after eight too early to call him?”

  “They’re early risers up there in Dudson Center,” Andy assured him.

  So Dortmunder made the call, and first he had to have a pleasant civilian conversation with Myrtle Street, Wally’s lady friend, which he did reasonably well, and then Wally came on and said, “John! I’ve been trying to call you!” He sounded out of breath, or even more out of breath than usual.

  “Hell,” Dortmunder decided. “I knew it. What’s gone wrong, Wally?”

  “I don’t know,” Wally said, “but something sure has. Fairbanks has sent the word out that there will be no information given out as to his whereabouts from now on. If people want to reach him, they should make contact through his corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, a place he’s never been to, not even when they laid the cornerstone for the new building.”

  “Well, goddamit,” Dortmunder said. “Why’s he doing all that?”

  “I don’t know, John,” Wally said. “I’m sorry. I do know he still plans to have his two business meetings in Chicago, but I can’t find out where he’ll be staying or when he’ll get there or when he’ll leave. Then he’ll definitely be somewhere in Australia on the days he’s supposed to be there—”

  “Which doesn’t help a lot.”

  “Oh, I know, John. And the next time he’s willing to have his whereabouts known is next Monday, a week from now, when he gets to Las Vegas.”

  “Vegas doesn’t change?”

  “I guess because everything was all set there already, so it’s too late to keep it secret. But after Las Vegas, there isn’t a word on what he’s gonna do or where he’s gonna be. Not a word.”

  “But Vegas is still what it was.”

  “So far, anyway,” Wally said. “He’ll be at the Gaiety Hotel, Battle-Lake and Casino two nights next week, Monday and Tuesday, after he gets back from Australia.”

  “Unless he changes his mind again.”

  “I’m sorry, John,” Wally said. “I know I said I could track him for you. But this is very unusual for Max Fairbanks. Maybe the IRS is after him or something.”

  “Somebody’s after him, don’t worry about that,” Dortmunder said. “Thanks, Wally. If there’s any change—”

  “Oh, I’ll let you know, you or Andy, right away. Or probably Andy, he’s got an answering machine.”

  “Right.”

  “Tell him, there’s about four messages from me on his machine.”

  “About this conversation we’re just having right here.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Dortmunder said, and immediately forgot. “So long, Wally.”

  When he hung up, everybody wanted to know what the other, more interesting, half of the conversation had been, so Dortmunder repeated Wally’s bad news, and Andy said, “So we don’t get the ring. I’m sorry, John. Not this trip.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Dortmunder said. He was really angry. “We come all this way, and what do we get? A lousy fifty thousand dollars!”

  36

  F or some reason, this time, when Max told the story, it seemed less funny. Maybe it was the fault of this particular audience.

  Which was certainly a possibility. For this go-round of the retailing of the story of his theft of the burglar’s ring, Max had an audience of just one: Earl Radburn, chief of security of TUI, the man whose job it was to see to it that nobody stole anything anywhere within the sovereign domain of TUI, within the Max Fairbanks fiefdom. Telling his anecdote once more, this time under the ice-blue gaze of Earl Radburn, Max couldn’t help but feel that somehow the man disapproved of him.

  Well, so be it. Who was boss here, anyway? If Earl Radburn can’t see the humor, that’s Earl Radburn’s loss.

  Anyway, Earl was not a man noted for much sense of humor. A compact, hard-muscled ex-marine probably in his fifties, he had a pouter pigeon’s chest and walk—or strut—a sand-colored nailbrush mustache, and stiff orangey hair cropped so close to his tan scalp he looked like a drought. His clothing was usually tan and always clean, creased, starched, and worn like a layer of aluminum siding. If he had a home life nobody knew it, and if he had a sorrow in his existence it was probably that this job didn’t come with a license to kill.

  Max, having left DC immediately after a quite successful congressional hearing—what a nerve the government has, taxing decent citizens—had had himself driven over highways put down some time ago by the government up to his corporate headquarters here in Wilmington, Delaware, choosing this place because everybody knew he never came here, had never been here before, and was in fact pleasantly surprised when he first laid eyes on the industrial park encircling TUI’s glass-sheathed, modern-architected, low, broad-based main building. While driving up, he’d phoned Earl Radburn in Earl’s security office in New York, and Earl had driven down to meet him.

  Now they were alone together in a bright and airy conference room, with greensward as neat as a golf course outside the large windows, their sofas comfy, their soda water bubbly, and Earl as much fun to tell an anecdote to as an Easter Island head. Nevertheless, this is the fellow to whom he must once again recount the lark of stealing a burglar’s ring.

  “In any event,” he said, when he had finished and Earl had made absolutely no response at all, “there you have it. That’s what happened.”

  Earl said, “Sir,” which was his way of saying he’d stored the information he’d been given so far and was ready to receive more. Get on with it, in other words.

  So Max got on with it. “Before the local police managed to bring the man to their station, he escaped.”

  Earl’s lip curled slightly.


  “He went back to the house,” Max said. “Fortunately, we’d, I’d, left by then. He ransacked the place.”

  “I’ve read that report,” Earl said.

  “I thought that was the end of it.”

  “But now,” Earl suggested, “you think he’s the one broke into your place in New York.”

  “I know it,” Max said.

  Earl’s expression didn’t change, but his skepticism was palpable. “Sir,” he said, “you can’t know it. You can suspect it, but—”

  Max held up his right hand, palm toward himself, displaying the ring. “He wants this ring. He wants it back. He’s going to come after me again, I know he is.”

  Earl looked at the hand. “You wear the ring, sir?”

  “Absolutely! It’s mine. I stole it fair and square, and I’m going to keep it. Don’t you see my corporate symbol on it, right there?”

  “A coincidence,” Earl assured him.

  “Of course it’s a coincidence! A wonderful coincidence! That’s why I’m going to keep this ring.”

  “There could be more than one coincidence in the world, sir,” Earl pointed out. “The robbery in New York could have been done by anybody.”

  “It was him, I tell you,” Max insisted, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to acknowledge to Earl that the reason he knew with such assurance was that the I Ching had told him, through the hexagram for the Marrying Maiden. He said, “I can feel him out there, I know he’s there. That’s why I’ve insisted on a complete blackout of my movements from now on.”

  “Which complicates all our jobs, sir,” Earl said.

  “It’s temporary, and it’s necessary. I have a plan, Earl.”

  Earl waited, a rough-hewn statue awaiting a pedestal.

  Max said, “The only place I’m going that I haven’t made a secret, the only place in this country, is Las Vegas, because that was set up and the news distributed some time ago. I’ll be there a week from now, next Monday and Tuesday, and I’m sticking to it. So that’s the only place he can try for me again. With your help, Earl, we’ll set a little trap for this burglar.”