Why Me?

3

The jewelry store door said snnnarrrkkk. Dortmunder pressed his shoulder against the door, but the snnnarrrkkk hadn't done the job. Glancing over his other shoulder—Rockaway Boulevard here in South Ozone Park in the borough of Queens remained empty, the extra wire bypassing the alarm box over the front entrance remained unobtrusive, and the hour remained a quiet midweek midnight—Dortmunder returned his attention to the door, which remained shut.

It was having to be his own lookout that was causing this delay, interrupting his concentration on this blessed door. He'd hoped to have Kelp along for that purpose; too bad he hadn't been home. Since most of the people Dortmunder knew were under the impression that Dortmunder was a jinx—bad luck, rather than incompetence, clouded his days and chilled his nights—it was very tough to find anybody willing to go out with him on a little piece of work. And he didn't want to risk delaying this job another night; who knew how long the owner would be away?

It was the sign in the window—"Closed For Vacation To Serve You Better" — that had first attracted Dortmunder's attention to Skoukakis Credit Jewelers, and when he'd recognized the burglar alarm box over the front door as an old friend, a make and model whose charms he had often rifled over the years, he had felt that destiny was surely—as far too infrequently—smiling on him. Yesterday he'd seen the sign and noted the alarm box, last night he'd studied the lay of the land, and tonight here he was, simultaneously looking over his shoulder and jimmying this infuriating door. "Come on," Dortmunder muttered.

snik, responded the door, yawning open so unexpectedly that Dortmunder had to grab the frame to keep from hurtling forward into the Timex watch display.

Sirens. Police sirens. Far distant police sirens, south and east toward Kennedy Airport. Dortmunder paused in the entrance, satisfying himself that the sirens weren't coming his way, and when he saw the headlights of a car that was coming this way he stepped into the store, shut the door, and prepared to go to work.

The car stopped, out front. Dortmunder froze, looking through the mesh-covered window in the door, watching the car, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing happened.

Well? A car parks and nothing happens? A moving car comes to a stop at the curb, and then nothing happens? No one climbs out of the car? No one locks the car and walks away to his destination, permitting an honest burglar to get on with his evening's task?

The car's headlights switched off.

There, that was something. And now for something else.

Nothing else. Dortmunder couldn't see how many people were in that car out there, but none of them was in any kind of motion. And until they were, until something else took place, Dortmunder just didn't see how he could with an easy mind proceed with his original program. Not with an occupied car out front. His expression grim with impatience, Dortmunder leaned against the door and looked through the metal mesh—which would shield him from the car's occupants—and waited for those idiots to go away.

Instead of which, they were joined by more idiots. A second car arrived, driving much more hurriedly than the first, angling sharply to park near the curb just ahead of the first car. Two men at once hopped out of this car, not even pausing to switch off the headlights. There, that's the way to do it.

And now at last someone also climbed from the first car: one man, from the driver's seat. Like his two more hurried companions, he was dressed in a black coat that was maybe a trifle too heavy for this raw-but-not-cold March night. Unlike them, he seemed in no hurry at all. It was obvious to Dortmunder that this man, as he walked at no great speed around the front of his car to the sidewalk, playing with a ring full of keys, was being exhorted by the other two men to more haste. The slow one nodded, gave soothing patting motions to the air, selected a key, and moved directly toward the jewelry store door.

Holy shit! The jeweler! A stocky older man with a black moustache and black-framed eyeglasses and a black coat, he was coming this way with a key stuck out. Who would end his vacation at such an hour? Twelve-forty a.m., according to all these Timexes. Twelve-forty a.m. on a Thursday. Was this a time to reopen for business?

The key rasped in the lock, as Dortmunder faded with careful rapidity deeper into the dark interior of the store. He already knew there was no back exit. Was there a rational hiding place? Was there even a rational explanation for this owner's presence?

(Not for a second did Dortmunder consider that this might be a second set of burglars, perhaps attracted by the same sign. Burglars don't park out front and then just sit there a while. Burglars don't leave their headlights on. And burglars don't just happen to have the right key.)

Fortunately, Dortmunder's jimmying methods did not ruin a door for future use. Had it been bright daylight—had the owner, let us say, returned to his store at a sensible hour tomorrow morning—certain scratches and dents might have been noticeable as he unlocked that door, but in the darkness of twelve-forty a.m. there was nothing to suggest to Mr. Skoukakis, if indeed it was he, that his defenses had been breached. Therefore, as Dortmunder ducked behind a display counter featuring cufflinks employing Roman themes, the calm unlocking continued, the front door opened, and the three men stepped inside, all of them talking at once.

At first Dortmunder assumed the reason he couldn't understand what they were saying was because of their simultaneous transmissions, but then they sorted that out for themselves and began to speak one at a time, and Dortmunder still couldn't understand what they were talking about. So it must be some foreign language, though Dortmunder had no idea what. It was all Greek to him.

The two most recent arrivals were doing most of the talking, in quick excited staccato bursts, while the other man—a bit older, slower, more patient—made soothing calm responses. All of this in the dark, since no one had bothered to turn on any lights, for which Dortmunder was thankful. On the other hand, what were these people doing here, talking their foreign language in the dark of a closed jewelry store well after midnight?

Then Dortmunder heard the plok-chunk of a safe door being opened, and a very annoyed expression crossed his face. Were these burglars? He wished he could rise up above the counter level to see what they were doing over there, but he couldn't chance it. They were between him and the vague illumination from the street, so at best they'd be lumpy silhouettes while he might be identifiably a gray face in motion. So he stayed where he was, and listened, and waited.

Chock-whirrrrrr. That was surely the safe door being shut again, and the dial spun. Does a burglar reshut a safe when he's finished with it? Does a burglar spin the dial, to reassure himself that the safe is locked? Shaking his head, hunkering down as comfortably as possible behind the counter, Dortmunder continued to listen, and to wait.

Another flurry of foreign language followed, and then the sound of the door opening, and the voices receded. Dortmunder lifted his head slightly. The voices abruptly dropped to the faintest murmur as the door was slammed shut. A key rattled in the lock.

Dortmunder eased upward, stretching his neck, so that first to appear above the glass counter was his dry, thin hair-colored hair, like dead beach grass in January; then came his narrow forehead, creased with a million old worries; then his pale and pessimistic eyes, looking left and right and straight ahead, like some grim gag-item from a novelty shop.

They were going away. The three men were visible out there, crossing the sidewalk to their respective cars, the older man still slow and methodical, the others still brisk. Those two got into their car first, started the engine with a roar, and had raced away before the older man even got behind the wheel.

Dortmunder moved upward another inch and a half, revealing gaunt cheekbones and a narrow, long crooked nose, the bottom of which he rested on the cool glass of the countertop.

The older man got into his car. A period of time went by. "Maybe," Dortmunder muttered against the wooden sliding door on the back of the display case, "his doctor told him to slow down."

A match flared in the car. It dipped down, then flared up; dipped down, flared up; dipped down, flared up; dipped down. Went out.

A second match flared.

"A pipe smoker," Dortmunder grumbled. "I might of known. We'll be here till sun-up."

Flare-dip; flare-dip; flare-dip. Flare, out.

Pause.

The car engine started, without a roar. After another little interval, the headlights went on. Time passed, and abruptly the car whipped backward two or three feet, then jolted to a stop.

"He put it in the wrong gear," Dortmunder commented. He was beginning to hate that old fart.

The car moved forward. In no hurry at all, it angled away from the curb, joined the stream of no traffic, and disappeared from view.

Bones cracking, Dortmunder unlimbered himself and shook his head. Even a straightforward jewelry store burglary couldn't be simple: mysterious intruders, foreign languages, pipe smokers.

Oh, well, it was over now. Moving forward through the store, Dortmunder brought out his pencil flash, shone it around in brief spurts of light, and found under the cash register the small safe those people had opened and closed. And now Dortmunder smiled, because at least this part of the job was working out. It had seemed to him that any merchant who had bought that burglar alarm might very well have bought this safe—or one generally like it—and here it was. Another old friend, like the alarm system. Seating himself cross-legged tailor-fashion on the floor in front of this old friend, spreading his tools out around himself, Dortmunder went to work.

It took fifteen minutes, about par for this kind of can. Then the safe door swung open, and Dortmunder beamed his flash in on the trays and compartments. Some nice diamond bracelets, a few okay sets of earrings, an assortment of jeweled brooches, and a varied array of rings. A tray of engagement rings, with diamonds small enough to fall through a cotton sheet; Dortmunder left those behind, but much of the rest went into his various pockets.

And here in this drawer was a little box, which when open proved to be black velvet lined, and to contain only one item; a ring set with a suspiciously large red stone. Now why would any jeweler put a fake stone like this in his safe? On the other hand, could it possibly be real and yet have found its way to this small-time neighborhood shop?

Dortmunder considered leaving the thing, but then decided he might just as well take it along. The fence would tell him if it was at all valuable.

Stowing the swag and his tools into the various pockets of his jacket, Dortmunder got to his feet and spent a minute longer in the place, shopping. What would be nice for May? Here was a ladies' digital watch, with a simulated platinum band; you pressed this button here on the side, and on the TV-screen-shaped black face numbers appeared, telling you the exact time down to hundredths of a second. Very useful for May, who happened to be a supermarket cashier. And what made it a ladies' watch, the numbers were pink.

Dortmunder pocketed the watch, took one last look around, saw nothing else of interest, and left. He did not bother to close the safe.