Why Me?

18

May was looking worried when Dortmunder got home, which he didn't at first notice because he was feeling irritable. "Cops stopped me twice," he said, shrugging out of his coat. "Show ID, where you going, where you been. And Stan didn't show, he was arrested. Complete mess everywhere." Then he saw her expression, through the spiraling ribbons of cigarette smoke, and said, "What's up?"

"Did you watch the news?" The question seemed heavy with unexpressed meaning.

"What news?"

"On television."

"How could I?" He was still irritable. "I been spending all my time with cops and subways."

"What was the name of that jewelry store you went to last night?"

"You can't take the watch back," he said.

"John, what was the name?"

Dortmunder tried to remember. "Something Greek. Something khaki."

"Sit down, John," she said. "I'll get you a drink."

But he didn't sit down. Her strange manner had finally broken through his annoyance, and he followed her through the apartment to the kitchen, frowning, saying, "What's going on?"

"Drink first."

Dortmunder stood in the kitchen doorway and watched her make a stiff bourbon on the rocks. He said, "You could tell me while you're doing that."

"All right. The store was Skoukakis Credit Jewelers."

"That's right." He was surprised. "That's just exactly what it was."

"And do you remember the people who came in and fussed around and then left?"

"Clear as a bell."

"They were the ones," May told him, coming over to hand him his drink, "who'd just stolen the Byzantine Fire."

Dortmunder frowned at her. "The what?"

"Don't you read the papers or anything?" Irritation made her puff out redoubled clouds of cigarette smoke. "That famous ruby that was stolen out at the airport," she said, "the one the fuss is all about."

"Oh, yeah, the ruby." Dortmunder still didn't make the connection. He sipped at his drink. "What about it?"

"You've got it."

Dortmunder stood there, the glass up by his mouth, and looked over it at May. He said, "Say what?"

"Those men stole the Byzantine Fire," May told him. "They put it in the safe in that jewelry store. You took it."

"I took the—I've got the Byzantine Fire?"

"Yes," said May.

"No," said Dortmunder. "I don't want it."

"You've got it."

Dortmunder filled his mouth with bourbon—too much bourbon, as it developed, to swallow. May pounded his back for a while, as bourbon dribbled out of his nose and eyes and ears, and then he handed her the glass, said hoarsely, "More" and went away to the bedroom.

When May left the kitchen with the fresh drink, Dortmunder was just leaving the bedroom with the plastic bag of loot. Silently, solemnly, they walked to the living room and sat next to one another on the sofa. May handed Dortmunder his drink, and he took a normal-sized sip. Then he emptied the plastic bag onto the coffee table, bracelets and watches all a-tumble. "I don't even know what it looks like," he said.

"I do. There was a picture on—" She picked up a ring out of the scrumble of jewelry. "That's it."

Dortmunder took it, held it between thumb and forefinger, turned it this way and that. "I remember this," he said. "I almost left it behind."

"You should have."

"At first I figured it was too big to be real. Then I figured, why put glass in the safe? So I brought it along." Dortmunder turned it over and over, peering at it, seeing the light glint and shimmer in the depths of the stone. "The Byzantine Fire," he said.

"That's right."

Dortmunder turned to her, his eyes filled with wonder. "The biggest haul of my career," he said, "and I didn't even know it."

"Congratulations." There was irony in her voice.

Dortmunder didn't notice; he was caught up in this astonishing success. Again he studied the ring. "I wonder what I could get for this," he said.

"Twenty years," May suggested. "Killed. Hunted down like a deer."

"Um," said Dortmunder. "I was forgetting."

"There's a police blitz on," May reminded him. "Also, according to the TV, a lot of foreign guerrillas and terrorists want that ring." She pointed at it.

"And people on the street," Dortmunder said thoughtfully, "they're pretty teed off right now at whoever has this thing."

"You."

"I can't believe it." Dortmunder slipped the ring onto the third finger of his left hand, stretched the hand out at arm's length, and squinted at it. "Jeez, it's gaudy," he said.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Do with it." That question hadn't occurred to him. He tugged the ring, to remove it from his finger. "I don't know," he said.

"You can't fence it."

"You can't fence anything, everybody's shook up by all this cop business." He kept tugging at the ring.

"You can't keep it, John."

"I don't want to keep it." He twisted the ring this way and that.

"What's the matter?"

"It won't—"

"You can't get it off?"

"My knuckle, it won't—"

"I'll get soap." She stood as the doorbell rang. "Maybe that's Andy Kelp," she said.

"Why would it be Andy Kelp?"

"He called, asked you to call back, said he might drop by."

"Asked me to call back, huh?" Dortmunder muttered something under his breath, and the doorbell rang again.

May went out to the vestibule to answer the door while Dortmunder, just to be on the safe side, scooped the rest of the swag back into the plastic bag. From the vestibule came May's loud voice: "Yes, officers? What can I do for you?"

Dortmunder tuuuuggggggged at the ring. No good.

"Ms. May Bellamy?"

"Maybe," said May.

Dortmunder got to his feet, opened the window, dropped the plastic bag into the anonymous darkness.

"We're looking for a Mr. John Dortmunder."

"Oh. Well, um…"

Dortmunder turned the ring around so the ruby was on the inside, next to his palm. Only the gold band showed on the back of his hand.

May and two large policemen walked into the room. Looking very worried, May said, "John, these officers—"

"John Dortmunder?"

"Yes," said Dortmunder.

"Come along with us, John."

Dortmunder closed his left hand into a loose fist. The Byzantine Fire was cold against his fingers. "See you later," he told May, and kissed her on the cheek away from the cigarette, and picked up his coat, and went away with the policemen.