The Hot Rock

7

"Is this deep enough?" Dortmunder came over and looked at the hole. Prosker was standing in it in his white pajamas, his bathrobe over beside a tree. The hole was knee-deep now, and Prosker was sweating even though the morning air was cool. It was another sunny day, with the crisp clean air of the woods in autumn, but Prosker looked like August and no air conditioner.

"That's shallow," Dortmunder told him. "You want a shallow grave? That's for mugs and college girls. Don't you have any self-respect?"

"You wouldn't really kill me," Prosker said, panting. "Not for mere money. A human life is more important than money, you have to have more humanity than-"

Greenwood came over and said, "Prosker, I'd kill you just out of general irritation. You conned me, Prosker, you conned me. You gave everybody a lot of trouble, and I'm to blame, and in a way I hope you keep pulling the lost memory bit right up till it's time to leave."

Prosker looked pained and glanced along the trail the truck had come on. Dortmunder saw that and said, "Forget it, Prosker. If you're stalling, waiting for a lot of motorcycle cops to come racing through the trees, just give it up. It isn't gonna happen. We picked this place because it's safe."

Prosker studied Dortmunder's face, and his own face had finally lost its pained-innocence expression, replaced by a look of calculation. He thought things over for a while and then flung the shovel down and briskly said, "All right. You people wouldn't kill me, you aren't murderers, but I can see you aren't going to give up. And it looks like I won't get rescued. Help me up out of here, and we'll talk." His whole manner had abruptly changed, his voice deeper and more assured, his body straighter, his gestures quick and firm.

Dortmunder and Greenwood gave him a hand out of the hole, and Greenwood said, "Don't be so sure about me, Prosker."

Prosker looked at him. "You're a ladykiller, my boy," he said. "Not exactly the same thing."

"Well, you're no lady," Greenwood told him.

Dortmunder said, "The emerald."

Prosker turned to him. "Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Would you let me out of your sight before I handed over the emerald?"

"That isn't even funny," Dortmunder said.

"That's what I thought," Prosker said, and spread his hands, saying, "In that case, I'm sorry, but you'll never get it."

"I am gonna kill him!" Greenwood shouted, and Murch and Chefwick and Kelp strolled over to listen to the conversation.

"Explain," Dortmunder said.

Prosker said, "The emerald is in my safe deposit box in a bank on Fifth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. It takes two keys to open the box, mine and the bank's. The bank regulations require that I go down into the vault accompanied only by an officer of the bank. The two of us have to be alone, and in the vault I have to sign their book, and they compare the signature with the specimen they keep on file. In other words, it has to be me and I have to be alone. If I gave you my word I wouldn't tell the bank officer to call the police while we were down there you wouldn't trust me, and I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't believe it myself. You can mount a perpetual watch on the bank if you wish, and kidnap and search me every time I go into it and come out, but that only means the emerald will stay where it is, useless to me and useless to you."

"God damn it," said Dortmunder.

"I'm sorry," Prosker said. "I'm truly sorry. If I'd left the stone anywhere else, I'm sure we could have worked out some arrangement where I would be reimbursed for my time and expenses-"

"I ought to rap you in the mouth!" Greenwood shouted.

"Be quiet," Dortmunder told him. To Prosker he said, "Go on."

Prosker shrugged. "The problem is insoluble," he said. "I put the stone where neither of us can get it."

Dortmunder said, "Where's your key?"

"To the box? In my office in town. Hidden. If you're thinking of sending someone in my place to forge my signature, let me be a good sport and warn you that two of the bank's officers know me fairly well. It's possible your forger wouldn't meet either of those two, but I don't think you should count on it."

Greenwood said, "Dortmunder, what if this louse was to die? His wife would inherit, right? Then we'd get the stone from her."

Prosker said, "No, that wouldn't work either. In the event of my death, the box would be opened in the presence of my wife, two bank officers, my wife's attorney and no doubt someone from Probate Court. I'm afraid my wife would never get to take the emerald home with her."

"God damn it to hell," said Dortmunder.

Kelp said, "You know what this means, Dortmunder."

"I don't want to hear about it," Dortmunder said.

"We get to rob a bank," Kelp said.

"Just don't talk to me," Dortmunder said.

"I am sorry," Prosker said briskly. "But there's nothing to be done," he said, and Greenwood hit him in the eye, and he fell backwards into the hole.

"Where's the shovel?" Greenwood said, but Dortmunder said, "Forget that. Get him up out of there, and back in the truck."

Murch said, "Where we going?"

"Back to the city," Dortmunder said. "To make the Major's day."