Bad News

40

The storm reached Port Jervis at eight, but Kelp and Murch did not. Dortmunder and Tiny and Murch’s Mom had taken rooms at a motel south of town, which, the clerk had assured them, would be full of skiers once this weekend’s storm passed through. “We’ll be outta here by then,” Dortmunder said.

They’d eaten an early dinner in a nearby diner, partly to be ready when Kelp and Murch arrived, but mostly because Murch’s Mom “got peckish” if she didn’t have an early dinner, and nobody wanted Murch’s Mom peckish. Then, a little before eight, just ahead of the storm, they all gathered in Dortmunder’s room, which he had paid for with a credit card named Livingston Van Peek, and waited for the other two and the truck to arrive.

And waited. The motel had cable, so at least they didn’t have to watch network television, but, on the other hand, there wasn’t very much out there on the airwaves that this particular trio could all agree on. So they sat around and watched things none of them particularly cared about, and from time to time whoever hated the current program the worst would get up and go over to look out the window and say, “Sure is snowing,” or “Still snowing,” or “Looka that snow.”

There was no deadline problem here; it was merely that the wait was boring. Just so Kelp and Murch showed up before dawn, at least an hour before dawn, the plan could still work the same as ever.

They were definitely going to cut Thurstead’s electricity and phone. They had no doubt a place like that would have a backup generator, but backup generators can’t carry the entire normal load of even an ordinary house, so what would they use their limited supply of electricity for? The refrigerator, the water pump in the well, the furnace igniter, a few lights. The exterior motion sensors in the trees might or might not be included, probably not, but even if they were, it didn’t matter. The plan included the idea that they’d be eyeballed from the house. But the electricity and phone being off would mean that the security office would certainly be shut down, and all the people present at Thurstead would be compressed into a smaller than usual space. That was all Dortmunder and the others needed, or at least that was the idea.

At eleven, they gave up on the wonders of worldwide broadcasting to watch the local news instead, which was all about the storm that continued to rage outside. There were dramatic pictures of trees lying on automobiles, intrepid reporters standing in wind-whipped snow to report to you, snowplows chugging along, ambulances with many flashing red lights, and some cheerful clown with a ski report.

Eleven-forty-two, according to the clock screwed to the table beside the bed, when the phone rang. Dortmunder answered, and Kelp’s voice said, “I gotta admit, it was kind of fun.”

“Slowed you down a little.”

“You should see the other guys.”

“You all set now?”

“Sure. When you go out, go way down to the end, away from the office here. I’ll head back down there now.”

“Right.”

The idea was, Kelp and Murch couldn’t exactly check in at this motel because they didn’t have a vehicle they could mention on the register card, and if they didn’t have a vehicle, how did they get here? So Kelp had merely walked into the lobby to use the house phone, and now they’d all meet outside. And later, when they were done, Kelp would illegally share Dortmunder’s room and Murch would illegally share Tiny’s room.

Kelp said, “Bring along the WD-40, we got a squeaky door in the back.”

“Right.”

“And don’t forget the tin snips.”

For cutting the electric and phone wires, of course. Dortmunder said, “Don’t need them.”

“But we gotta cut off the, you know.”

“It was on the news half an hour ago,” Dortmunder told him. “That part of the country down there, they’re already out, electric and phone both. The storm did the job for us.”