Bad News

10

In the morning, Dortmunder walked over Nineteenth Street to Third Avenue and waited on the corner there. It was pretty full of pedestrians around that neighborhood, and about three minutes later, down Third Avenue came what appeared to be some sort of sonic wave that moved people to the edges of the sidewalk, opening up a vee behind itself like the wake behind a speedboat. Knowing this was Tiny arriving, Dortmunder turned the other way to look for a nice recent-model car with M.D. license plates.

Andy Kelp always took doctor’s cars when he needed to travel, on the theory that doctors, surrounded as they are by the intimations of mortality, are always in favor of treating themselves well while here below, including the cars they choose to drive. “I trust doctors,” Kelp often said. “When it comes to cars, that is.”

Seeing the approach of no Volvos or Lincolns with M.D. plates, Dortmunder turned back the other way, and yes, here came Tiny. He was dressed for the occasion in a bulky wool olive-drab greatcoat that made him look like an entire platoon going over the top in World War I. But what were those pink nylon straps curving over each shoulder to retreat into each armpit?

Tiny stopped in front of Dortmunder and nodded his head. “Whadaya say, Dortmunder?”

“I say,” Dortmunder told him, “the people we’re going to meet don’t know my last name.”

“Gotcha,” Tiny said. “They won’t hear it from me.”

“Thank you, Tiny. What’s with the straps?”

Tiny turned around, and he was wearing a cute pink nylon backpack big enough for two grapefruit but not one pumpkin, the kind of fashion accessory that on most people just looks dorky but which, on that expanse of olive-drab wool, looked like a really bad pimple. Most men wouldn’t dare to be seen in such a thing because they’d be afraid people would laugh at them, but, of course, Tiny never had that problem.

Having given Dortmunder a complete eyeful, Tiny turned around again to say, “Somebody left it in the lobby at J.C.’s building about a year ago, and nobody ever claimed it—”

“Well, that makes sense.”

“—so after a while, I took it upstairs and threw it in a closet because maybe someday it’d come in handy.”

“Tiny? Why today?”

“I didn’t want the grenade to stretch my pocket,” Tiny said.

“I get it,” Dortmunder said, and Tiny looked past him to say, “Here’s the doctor now.”

When Dortmunder turned, he saw approaching him up Third Avenue one of the larger suburban assault vehicles available, a Grand Cherokee Jeep Laredo, which isn’t quite enough name for such an imposing command car. This one was maraschino cherry red, with huge black waffle-tread tires, and yes, there was the M.D. plate, flanked by a number of bumper stickers recommending we all take great care with the fragile resources of our planet.

“Now that,” Tiny rumbled, “is my kinda car.”

“Yeah, it is,” Dortmunder agreed.

Kelp, at the wheel, was grinning like Christmas morning. He braked to a stop at the curb, and Dortmunder opened the front passenger door while Tiny opened the rear one.

“Watch out for that first step,” Kelp advised them.

Tiny unhooked his itty-bitty backpack and tossed it casually onto the backseat, where it bounced once and fell on the floor. Then he lifted his massive self into all of the backseat while Dortmunder climbed up to the seat next to Kelp.

Kelp looked back and down at the pink pack on the floor. “What’s with that?”

“The grenade,” Dortmunder told him.

Kelp looked at Dortmunder. “Ah,” he said, and faced front, and when the doors were closed, he drove them uptown.

Looking around at the plush interior and the dashboard like an electronic major-league scoreboard, Dortmunder said, “Andy, are you sure a doctor owns this? It’s more like a drug cartel would own it.”

“When I saw it outside New York Hospital,” Kelp told him, “I knew I had to steal it. Even if I wasn’t going anywhere. Lemme tell you, this is a doctor, he doesn’t just want comfort, he doesn’t just want convenience, he wants to be immortal.”

“I bet he’s feeling naked right now,” Dortmunder commented.

“Six to one he won’t even leave the hospital,” Kelp said, and turned toward the Midtown Tunnel.

It was a beautiful clear cold November day, and when they got out to the southern shore of Long Island, with the gray and quicksilver ocean sloping away from them down toward the distant horizon, the sky was a huge empty space, a bright but faded pale blue. There were a few distant cars on Ocean Parkway, but nothing in the day was quite as visible as the red Cherokee zipping along the pale concrete road past the ashy tans of sand and dead beach grass.

The long stretch of Jones Beach was empty, frigid waves lapping ashore, looking for something to take home. From time to time, they passed the entrances to parking areas, mostly blocked by sawhorses, the parking lots themselves screened from the road by hedges and stunted pine trees.

They’d been quiet inside the car for some time, but now Tiny leaned forward and said, “Dortmunder, you can give me a hand.”

“Sure, Tiny.”

Tiny had opened his pink pack and removed from it a standard U.S. Army hand grenade, known as a pineapple because it looks a little like a pineapple, its cast-iron body serrated to turn the body into many small pieces of shrapnel when the TNT inside goes off. Curved down one side of the grenade was its safety lever, held in place by a safety pin at the top, the pin attached to the pull ring. Pull the pin out by the ring, but keep holding the lever close against the grenade, and everything’s fine. Release the lever, and you have ten seconds to remove yourself from the grenade’s proximity.

The other item in the pink pack was a small roll of duct tape. Tiny now handed this tape to Dortmunder and said, “Twice around. But under the lever.”

“Right, I know.”

Tiny held the grenade loosely in his left hand, the lever opposite the side against his palm. Dortmunder wrapped duct tape twice around Tiny’s hand and the grenade, leaving the lever free, then said, “Feel okay?”

“Like a rolla nickels,” Tiny said. He seemed quite happy this way.

And here was Parking Area 6, as the big Parks Department sign announced, and the sawhorses had already been moved aside. The dashboard clock, when you finally found it among all the tachs and meters, read 10:54, but obviously the others were already here.

“Show time,” Tiny said, and they drove through the break in the hedge and out onto the big pale expanse of parking area. And out there in the middle of all that emptiness stood a pastel green and chrome motor home, one of the biggest made, top of the line, a forty-foot Alpine Coach from Western Recreational Vehicles.

“Well, looka that,” Kelp said.

“I guess we drive over there,” Dortmunder said as the bus door at the right front of the motor home opened and three people stepped out into the pale sunlight.

Tiny leaned forward to peer past Dortmunder’s cheek. “That’s them, huh?”

Kelp made the introductions: “The fat one in the three-piece suit is Fitzroy Guilderpost and the thin one in the wrinkled suit is Irwin somebody, or maybe somebody Irwin. We don’t know the babe.”

The babe was tall and very well proportioned, with lustrous black hair in two long braids halfway down her back, almost to her waist. She wore a long white-fringed buckskin jacket and a short white-fringed buckskin skirt and the kind of tall red leather boots that are allegedly meant for walking.

“Too bad I already know Josie,” Tiny commented. He was the only one in the world who called J. C. Taylor Josie.

“I don’t know,” Kelp said. “She looks to me like you could strike matches on her.”

And, as their red Jeep rolled closer to the trio at the motor home, it was true. The babe was a babe, all right, but she looked more like an action figure made out of stainless steel than an actual person. She stood with one hand on one hip and one leg cocked, as though ready to show her karate moves at the slightest provocation.

Kelp drove up close and stopped, with his side of the car facing the three people, so that was the side Tiny got out. Dortmunder had to walk around the big red hood of the Jeep, and by then Kelp was already introducing everybody: “Tiny, this is Fitzroy Guilderpost, and that’s Irwin, and I don’t know the lady.”

“I guess you don’t,” Irwin said.

Guilderpost said, “Forgive me, this is Tiny?”

“It’s kind of a nickname,” Tiny explained.

“I see,” Guilderpost said. “Well, may I introduce Little Feather. Little Feather, that says he’s Tiny, that’s Andy Kelp, also sometimes Andy Kelly, and that’s John. John, I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name.”

“I’m not,” Dortmunder said. “Go ahead, Tiny.”

“Right.”

Tiny stepped forward and showed all assembled the hand grenade taped to his left hand, then closed the hand to keep the lever pressed to the grenade’s side as he pulled the pin. Moving closer to Guilderpost, whose eyes had grown considerably wider, he extended the pin, saying, “Hold this for me, will you?”

Guilderpost gaped at the hand grenade. All three of them gaped at the hand grenade. Not taking the pin, Guilderpost said, “What are you doing?”

“Well, I’m goin inside there,” Tiny said, “look around, see the situation.”

“But why—Why that thing?”

“Well, if I was to faint or anything in there,” Tiny said, “I wouldn’t be holding this safety lever anymore, would I?”

Irwin said, “Is that—Is that an actual—Is that live?”

“At the moment,” Tiny said.

Guilderpost, flabbergasted, said, “But why would you do such a thing?”

Dortmunder answered, saying, “Fitzroy, we’ve got like a few reasons not to trust you a hundred percent. So Tiny sees to it, if something happens to somebody, something happens to everybody.”

Tiny turned to the babe. “Little Feather,” he said, “you hold this pin for me, okay? Don’t lose it now.”

Little Feather was the first of the three to recover. Grinning at Tiny, she accepted the pin and said, “This is awful sudden. Pinned on the first date.”

“That’s just how I am,” Tiny told her, and said to the rest, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Tiny started for the motor home, but Irwin suddenly jumped in front of him, saying, “No, well, wait, why don’t you let me go in first? You know, it might be unfamiliar to you and all.”

“We’ll go in together, then,” Tiny said, and turned to Dortmunder to say, “See? Plan B every time.”

“I see,” Dortmunder said.

Tiny and Irwin went into the motor home and Little Feather gave Guilderpost an angry grin as she said, “Temporary partners. We’ll take care of them. Fitzroy, you’re never going to outsmart these people.”

“Little Feather,” Guilderpost answered, torn between anger and embarrassment, “we can discuss this privately.”

Kelp said, “You know, Little Feather, I think you people need us, wouldn’t you say so?”

“You may be right,” Little Feather said, and the motor home door opened and Irwin stuck his head out to say, “All clear.” Then he hurtled out among them, and it became obvious he’d done that because Tiny had given him a slight shove, and now there was Tiny in the doorway, saying, “They had a couple cute things set up. The electric wire to the toilet, I liked that one.”

Kelp shook his head at Guilderpost, saying, “Fitzroy, you disappoint me.”

“That was Irwin’s idea,” Guilderpost told him. “All those booby traps were his idea.”

Little Feather said, “And guess who turned out to be the boobies.”

“All right, all right,” Irwin said. His nose appeared to be out of joint. “He’s happy now, so let’s go in.”

“Nah, let’s not,” Tiny said. “That’s a very small living room you got there.”

“Especially for you, I guess,” Little Feather said.

“Right.” Coming out to join the rest, Tiny said, “So why don’t we just stand here in the sunlight and talk this over? But first, Kelp, you and, uh, John, whyn’t you put your guns on the ground by your feet?”

“Okay,” Dortmunder said, and he and Kelp took out their pistols and put them on the concrete while Tiny said, “And you three, same thing.”

Guilderpost said, “Why do you assume we’re armed?”

Irwin was already taking two pistols out of his pockets, putting them on the ground as he said, “Oh, come on, Fitzroy, stop playing the fool.”

So Guilderpost shrugged and brought out a cannon of his own and grunted as he bent to put it on the ground. “I must say,” he commented, “I don’t much care for this meeting so far.”

“It’ll get better,” Tiny assured him.

Little Feather’s pistol turned out to be a chrome Star .22 in a thigh holster. She looked both fetching and lethal as she drew it, and then she stood holding it, giving Tiny a speculative look.

He raised part of an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”

“I’m wondering,” she said. “If I was to shoot Andy there, would you really blow yourself up?”

“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he pointed out, “so it seems to me all you’d be doing was buy yourself some trouble.”

“Very weird,” she decided, and did a nice Bunny dip to put the .22 next to her boots.

Kelp said, “Start off anytime, guys.”

Guilderpost said, “Shouldn’t you, uh, Tiny, shouldn’t you put the pin back in now?”

“Nah, I’m fine here,” Tiny told him.

Irwin said, “But what if you forget, or stumble, or whatever?”

“Tough on us all, I guess,” Tiny said. “Little Feather, you still got the pin?”

She held it up, a round copper-colored ring in the sunlight.

“Good,” Tiny said, and turned to Guilderpost to say, “Start here.”

“Very well,” Guilderpost said. “But I must say I find that hand grenade distracting.”

“I’ll think about the hand grenade,” Tiny promised, “you think about your story.”

“Before the story,” Little Feather said, “there’s one thing we got to get straight.”

“Money,” Dortmunder said.

“You read my mind,” Little Feather told him. Gesturing at Guilderpost and Irwin, she said, “I’m hooked up with these two, and it’s a third each, and each of us puts in a third, one way or another. Guilderpost thought it up, Irwin’s Mr. Science, and I’m the goods. Now you birds come along, and I can see where maybe you’re useful, but I’m not doing any more shares. I’m not into this for a sixth.” Nodding at Tiny, she said, “You’re gonna have to wear that hand grenade the rest of your life, if you think you’re gonna hold me up for a share.”

Dortmunder said, “So you have a different idea.”

“An offer,” Little Feather said. “A cash buyout, once it’s over.”

Kelp said, “But nothing in front.”

Irwin, sounding aggrieved, said, “We’re not getting anything in front!”

“Well, that’s you,” Kelp told him.

Guilderpost explained. “We’re operating, I’m sorry to say, with a rather tight budget.”

Dortmunder said, “So make your offer.”

Tiny said, “But don’t make the first offer too small, you don’t wanna startle me.”

Little Feather and Guilderpost and Irwin looked at one another, apparently none of them wanting to say the number they must have earlier agreed on, and then Little Feather shook her head and said, “We’ve got to offer more.”

Guilderpost nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

“We have to add,” Little Feather said, “a zero.”

Irwin, still aggrieved, cried, “That much?”

“So you’re going,” Dortmunder said, “from ten grand to a hundred. Ten grand would have been an insult, I’m glad you didn’t say it.”

Little Feather said, “But I won’t go above a hundred. It isn’t a negotiation. We become partners, here today, or we become enemies.” Smiling at Tiny, she said, “The old Indian lore I heard says, if there’s gonna be an explosion close by, drop to the ground and lie flat, and maybe you’ll be okay.”

Tiny nodded. “What does the lore say if you’re lying on it?”

Guilderpost said, “Now, we three have a contract between us—”

“Among,” Little Feather said.

“You’re kidding,” Kelp said to Guilderpost.

Guilderpost seemed a little pompous, a little defensive. “It just seemed a good idea to have our understanding in writing.”

Dortmunder said, “It has never seemed to me a good idea to put anything in writing.”

Guilderpost said, “So you don’t feel you need a contract.”

“If we ever got a question,” Dortmunder assured him, “we’ll send Tiny to ask it.”

“We know what we’re talking about,” Kelp said, and offered his cheerful smile to Little Feather. “When you get yours, we each get a hundred K.”

“Right,” she said.

Kelp turned his smile on Guilderpost. “And now,” he said, “the long-awaited story.”

Guilderpost nodded. “Yes. Fine. But first, you’ll have to bear with a brief history lesson.”

“I love school,” Kelp said.

“In school,” Guilderpost said, “do you remember the French and Indian War?”

“Remind me,” Kelp said.

“Essentially,” Guilderpost reminded him, “it’s how France lost Canada. French and English settlers fought one another from 1754 to 1760. It seemed a very big thing to the people here, but it was actually just a small part of the conflict called the Seven Years War, involving virtually all of the European powers, fought in Europe and America and India. In the American part of the war, both sides made alliances with Indian tribes that did much of the actual fighting. In northern New York State, there were three small tribes that had always been subjugated by the five larger and more powerful tribes of the Iroquois Nation. These three tribes, to free themselves from the Iroquois, made treaties with the English settlers and fought for them, and then renewed the alliance a few years later, fighting for the colonists against the British in the American Revolution. The three tribes were given land in New York State, near the Canadian border, to be their sovereign state forever, but of course the white men reneged on all such treaties, and soon the logging interests moved in, fought the tribes, defeated them, and took over the land.”

Irwin said, “There’s so much wickedness in this world, you know what I mean?”

“We know,” Kelp assured him.

Dortmunder said, “Little Feather’s an Indian.”

“We’re coming to that, John,” Guilderpost said. “In the last thirty years or so, the American courts have been redressing many of those wrongs done so long ago. Indians are getting their sacred tribal lands back—”

Dortmunder said, “And putting casinos on them.”

Irwin said, “Yeah, sacred tribal lands and casinos just seem to go together naturally, like apple pie and ice cream.”

“The tribes have their own sovereignty,” Guilderpost said, “their own laws, and casinos are extremely lucrative.”

Little Feather laughed, a sound like shaking a bag of walnuts. “This time,” she said, “the Indians win.”

“The three tribes I’ve been telling you about,” Guilderpost said, “the Pottaknobbees, the Oshkawa and the Kiota, won their cause back in the sixties, and have been operating a thriving casino on their land up by the Canadian border for nearly thirty years now. The tribes had almost died out, but now they’re coming back, or at least two of them are. At the time of the settlement, there were only three known full-blooded Pottaknobbees left in the world, and at this point, so far as anyone knows, there are none.”

“Wait a minute,” Dortmunder said. “I’m getting it.”

“Anastasia,” Tiny said.

Dortmunder said, “That’s it.”

Grinning, Kelp pointed at Little Feather. “You’re the last of the Pottaknobbees.”

“You bet,” she said.

Tiny said, “But you can’t do Anastasia no more. They do DNA now, they can prove you’re not it.”

Dortmunder said, “No, Tiny, that’s what the scheme is, that’s the body we dug up.” To Guilderpost, he said, “Joseph Redcorn was a Pottaknobbee, right?”

“Definitely,” Guilderpost said.

Dortmunder said, “And we took him outta there, and we put in . . .” He pointed at Little Feather.

Who said, “My grampa.”

Guilderpost said, “The arrangement is, the tribes share equally in the casino profits, and then the tribal elders distribute the money to their own people. For a long time, there’ve been only two shares to distribute.”

Dortmunder looked at Little Feather with new respect. “A third,” he said.

Little Feather smiled, like sunrise. “A third of the casino,” she said, “from day one.”