The Hot Rock

3

"Tickets," said the conductor.

"Air," said Dortmunder.

The conductor stood in the aisle with his punch poised. He said, "What?"

"There's no air in this car," Dortmunder told him. "The windows won't open and there isn't any air."

"You're right," the conductor said. "Could I have your tickets?"

"Could we have some air?"

"Don't ask me," said the conductor. "The railroad guarantees transportation, pick you up here, put you down there. The railroad isn't in the air business. I need your tickets."

"I need air," Dortmunder said.

"You could get off the train at the next stop," the conductor said. "Lots of air on the platform."

Kelp, sitting next to Dortmunder, tugged his sleeve and said, "Forget it. You're not gonna get anywhere."

Dortmunder looked at the conductor's face and saw that Kelp was right. He shrugged and handed over his ticket, and Kelp did the same, and the conductor made holes in them before giving them back. Then he did the same for Murch, across the aisle, and for Greenwood and Chefwick in the next seat back. Since the five were the only occupants of this car, the conductor then strolled slowly down the aisle and out the far end, leaving them once again alone.

Kelp said, "You never get any satisfaction from those union types."

"Sure," said Dortmunder. He looked around and said, "Anybody carrying?"

Kelp looked startled, saying, "Dortmunder! You don't bump off a guy for no air!"

"Who said anything about bump off? Isn't anybody heavy?"

"Me," said Greenwood, and from inside his Norfolk jacket - he was the spiffiest dresser in the group - he produced a Smith and Wesson Terrier, a five-shot.32 caliber revolver with a two-inch barrel. He handed it over to Dortmunder, butt first, and Dortmunder said, "Thanks." He took the gun, reversed it to hold it by the barrel and chamber, and said to Kelp, "Excuse me." Then he leaned across Kelp and punched a hole in the window.

"Hey!" said Kelp.

"Air," said Dortmunder. He turned and handed the gun back to Greenwood, saying, "Thanks again."

Greenwood looked a little dazed. "Any time," he said and looked at the butt, studying it for scratches. There weren't any, and he put it away again.

This was Sunday, the tenth of September, and they were on just about the only passenger train running in this direction on Sunday. The occasional platform they stopped beside was empty except for those three old men in baggy work pants who lean against the wall of every small-town railroad station platform in the United States. The sun was shining outside, and the fresh air blowing in through the hole Dortmunder had made was pleasantly scented with the odors of late summer. The train clackety-clacked along at a contemplative seventeen miles an hour, giving the passengers an opportunity to really study the landscape, and all in all it was the pleasant sort of leisurely excursion you just can't find too often in the twentieth century.

"How much longer?" Dortmunder said.

Kelp looked at his watch. "Another ten or fifteen minutes," he said. "You'll be able to see the place from the train. On this side."

Dortmunder nodded.

"It's a big old brick place," Kelp said. "It used to be a factory, they used to make prefabricated fallout shelters there."

Dortmunder looked at him. "Every time you start to talk to me," he said, "you tell me more facts than I want to know. Prefabricated fallout shelters. I don't want to know why the factory went bust."

"It's a pretty interesting story," Kelp said.

"I figured it probably was."

The train stopped just then and Dortmunder and Kelp looked out at the three old men, who looked back. The train started up again, and Kelp said, "We're the next stop."

"What's the name of the town?"

"New Mycenae. It's named after an old Greek city."

"I don't want to know why," Dortmunder said.

Kelp turned to look at him. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," said Dortmunder, and the conductor came back into the car and walked down the aisle and stopped beside them. He frowned at the hole in the window. He said, "Who did that?"

"An old man back at that last station," Dortmunder said.

The conductor glared at him. "You did it," he said.

Kelp said, "No, he didn't. An old man did, back at that last station."

Greenwood, in the next seat back, said, "That's right. I saw it happen. An old man did it, back at the last station."

The conductor glowered around at everybody. "You expect me to believe that?"

Nobody answered him.

He frowned some more at the hole in the window, then turned around to Murch, sitting across the aisle. "Did you see it?"

"Sure," Murch said.

"What happened?"

"An old man did it," Murch said. "Back at that last station."

The conductor lowered an eyebrow at him. "You with these people?"

"Never saw them before in my life," Murch said.

The conductor gave everybody suspicious looks, then mumbled something nobody could make out and turned away and walked down to the end of the car. He went out the door, and popped back in a second later to call, "Next stop New McKinney," as though daring somebody to make something of it. He glared, waited, then disappeared again and slammed the door.

Dortmunder said to Kelp, "I thought you said the next stop was us."

"It's supposed to be," said Kelp. He looked out the window and said, "Sure it is. There's the place."

Dortmunder looked where Kelp was pointing and saw a large sprawling red brick building off to the right a ways. A tall chain-link fence enclosed the grounds, with metal signs attached to it at intervals. Dortmunder squinted, but couldn't make out what the signs said. He said to Kelp, "What do the signs say?"

"Danger," Kelp told him. "High voltage."

Dortmunder looked at him, but Kelp was gazing out the window, refusing to meet his eye. Dortmunder shook his head and looked out at the asylum again, seeing a set of tracks that curved away from the tracks the train was on and angled around to go under the electrified fence and across the asylum grounds. The tracks were orange with rust, and within the grounds they'd been incorporated in the design of a formal flower bed. A couple of dozen people in white pajamas and white bathrobes were strolling around the grass in there, being watched by what looked like armed guards in blue uniforms.

"So far," Dortmunder said, "I wouldn't say it looks easy."

"Give it a chance," Kelp said.

The train had started to slow, as the asylum moved into the background, and now the door at the far end of the car opened again and the conductor stuck his head in to call, "New McKinney! Newwww McKinney!"

Kelp and Dortmunder frowned at each other. They looked out the window, and the platform was just edging into sight. The sign on it said, NEW MYCENAE.

"New McKinney!" yelled the conductor.

"I think I hate him," Dortmunder said. He got to his feet, and the other four got up after him. They went down the aisle as the train creaked to a stop, and the conductor glowered at them as they disembarked. He said to Murch, "I thought you said you weren't with these guys."

"With who?" Murch asked him and went on down to the platform.

The train started up and stumbled slowly away from the station, the conductor leaning out for a long while to look after his five passengers. The three old men on the platform studied them too, one of them spitting tobacco juice to mark the occasion.

Dortmunder and the others walked through the station and out the other side, where they turned down a mustached fat man who claimed his 1949 Fraser was a cab.

"We can walk it," Kelp told Dortmunder. "It isn't far."

It wasn't. They walked about seven blocks and then they came to the main entrance, with a sign to one side reading, "Clair de Lune Sanitarium." The electrified fence was set back from the road here, with another chain-link fence about five feet in front of it. Two armed guards sat on folding chairs inside the main gate, chatting together.

Dortmunder stopped and looked at it all. "Who've they got in there?" he said. "Rudolf Hess?"

"It's what they call a maximum security bughouse," Kelp told him. "For rich nuts only. Most of them in there are what they call criminally insane, but their family has enough money to keep them out of some state asylum."

"I've wasted a whole day," Dortmunder said. "I could of sold half a dozen encyclopedias today. Sunday's a good day for encyclopedias, you got the husband at home, you tell the husband you'll throw in a bookcase that comes unassembled and he can put it together himself, and he'll hand you his wallet."

Chefwick said, "You mean it can't be done?"

"Armed guards," Dortmunder said. "Electrified fences. Not to speak of the inmates. You want to mix with them?"

Greenwood said, "I was hoping you'd see some way. There oughta be a way to get in there."

"Sure there's a way to get in there," Dortmunder said. "You drop in with a parachute. Now let's see you get out."

Murch said, "Why don't we walk around the place? Maybe we'll see something."

"Like anti-aircraft guns," Dortmunder said. "That is not an easy nuthouse to crack."

Kelp said, "We got an hour to kill before our train back. We might as well walk around."

Dortmunder shrugged. "All right, we'll walk around."

They walked around, and they didn't see anything encouraging. When they got to the rear of the building, they had to leave blacktopped road and walk across scrubby field. They stepped over the rusty orange tracks, and Chefwick said primly, "I keep my tracks in better condition than this."

"Well, they don't use these any more," Kelp said.

Murch said, "Look, one of the loonies is waving at us."

They looked, and it was true. One of the figures in white stood by the flower bed and waved at them. He was shielding his eyes from the sun with his other hand, and he was smiling to beat the band.

They started to wave back to him, and then Greenwood said, "Hey! That's Prosker!"

Everybody stood there with his hand up in the air. Chefwick said, "So it is." He pulled his hand down, and everybody else followed suit. In there by the flower bed Prosker waved and waved, and then began to laugh. He bent over and slapped his knee and went into a fit of laughter. He tried to wave and laugh at the same time and almost fell over.

Dortmunder said, "Greenwood, let me borrow it again."

"No, Dortmunder," said Kelp. "We need him to give us the emerald."

"Except we can't get at him," Murch said. "So it doesn't make any difference."

"We'll see about that," said Dortmunder, and shook his fist at Prosker, who as a result laughed so hard he sat down on the ground. A guard came over and looked at him, but didn't do anything.

Kelp said, "I hate it that we're beaten by a louse like that."

"We aren't," Dortmunder said grimly.

They all looked at him. Kelp said, "You mean-?"

"He can't laugh at me," Dortmunder said. "I've had enough, that's all."

"You mean we're going in after him?"

"I mean I've had enough," Dortmunder said. He looked at Kelp. "You go tell Iko to put us back on the payroll," he said and looked back at Prosker, who was now rolling around on the ground, clutching his ribcage and beating his heels into the turf. "If he thinks he can stay in that place," Dortmunder said, "he's crazy."