Why Me?

34

The back room at the O.J. looked like one of those paintings from the Russian Revolution—the storming of the Winter Palace—or, perhaps more appropriately, from the Revolution of the French: a Jacobin trial during the Terror. The place had never been so crowded, so smoky, so hot, so full of strife and contention. Tiny Bulcher and three assistant judges sat together on one side of the round card table, facing the door, with several other tough guys ranged behind them, on their feet, leaning against the stacked liquor cartons. A few more savage-looking types lurked to both sides. A couple of chairs had been left empty near the door, facing Tiny and the rest across the green felt table. Harsh illumination from the single hanging bare bulb with its tin reflector in the middle of the room washed out all subtlety of color, reducing the scene to the work of a genre painter with a poor palette, or perhaps a German silent film about Chicago gangsters. Menace and pitiless self-interest glinted on the planes of every face, the slouch of every shoulder, the bend of every knee, the sharpness of every eye, the slant of every smoldering cigarette. Everybody smoked, everybody breathed, and—because it was hot in here—everybody sweated. Also, when there was no one being interviewed everybody talked at once, except when Tiny Bulcher wanted to make a general point, at which time he would thump the table with fist and forearm, bellow, "Shadap!" and insert a sentence into the resulting silence.

It was, in short, a scene to make even the innocent pause, had there been any innocents around to glom it. Dortmunder, of the guilty the most singularly guilty, was very lucky he had to cool his heels in the outer brightness of the bar long enough to knock back two double bourbons on the rocks before it became his and Kelp's turn to enter that back room and face all those cold eyes.

The way they were called in, a fellow they knew slightly, named Gus Brock, came to the table out front where they were waiting, and said, "Hello, Dortmunder, Kelp."

"Hiya, Gus," Kelp said. Dortmunder just nodded; he was going for dignity.

"You guys are a team, right?"

"Right!" said Kelp.

"You're next," Gus Brock said. "Lemme give you the layout. This isn't the law, we're not out to screw anybody or trap anybody. What happens, you guys go in, you stand just inside the door, you'll listen to the guy ahead of you, that way you know the routine when it's your turn. Right?"

"Very fair," Kelp said. "That's really very fair, Gus."

Ignoring him, Gus glanced up as a very pale and nervous-looking guy came out from the back, tottered to the bar, and said hoarsely, "Rye. Leave the bottle."

Gus nodded. "Let's go."

So they went, and when they walked into the smoky, glary, stinking back room full of all that potential violence and destruction, Dortmunder reconsidered his life from the very beginning: could he have made it as a supermarket clerk? By now he'd be maybe an assistant manager, out in the suburbs maybe, with a black bow tie. The prospect had never pleased before, but with this alternative staring him in the face there was certainly something to be said for a life in a clean well-lighted place.

Everybody was talking, even arguing, except for a stout, sweating man with a bald spot, who was seated in one of the chairs facing the court, mopping his face and forearms and baldness with an already-drenched white handkerchief. Dortmunder, trying to remember how to keep his knees locked, faintly heard Kelp, under the din, ask, "Who's those guys over on the right?"

"Representatives from the Terrorists' Cooperative," Gus Brock said.

Dortmunder leaned back against the wall, while Kelp said, "Terrorists' Cooperative?"

"There's a lot of these foreign bunches interested," Gus Brock explained. "They're looking for the same thing as us, and they all combined together to help each other. And now they're combined with us. They're looking around among their local ethnics."

"Boy," said Kelp, with what struck Dortmunder as obscene enthusiasm. "What a manhunt!"

"You bet," Gus Brock said. "The son of a bitch doesn't have a chance."

Whomp, went Tiny Bulcher's fist and forearm: "Shadap!"

Silence.

Tiny smiled like a shark at the fat man in the witness chair. "What's your name, guy?"

"Hah—hah—kuh, kuh, uhh, Harry," said the fat man. "Harry Matlock."

"Harry Matlock," Tiny said, looking to his left, and one of the standing men poked around among a lot of folders and envelopes stuck in among the liquor cartons, finally bringing out a small used brown envelope from the phone company, which he handed to the guy to Tiny's left, who pulled several wrinkled scraps of paper out of the envelope, smoothed them on the felt, and nodded his readiness. Then Tiny said, "Tell us your story, Harry. Where were you at midnight Wednesday?"

The fat man swabbed his neck and said, "Muh-me and three other guys—"

The door opened, whacking Dortmunder on the shoulder blades. He leaned out of the way, looking back, and saw Benjy Klopzik scooting in. "Sorry," Benjy whispered.

Tiny Bulcher yelled past the fat man, "Benjy! Where you been?"

"Hi, Tiny," the little man said, shutting the door behind himself. "I hadda feed my dog."

"Whadayou doin with a dog? Stand in that corner, I'll take you for a walk later." Switching his glare to the fat man, he said, "So? Whadja stop for?"

Benjy inserted himself delicately under the elbows of the Terrorists' Cooperative. The fat man swabbed himself all over and said, "I was in Huntington, Long Island. Me and three other guys. We were taking out an antique store."

"Antiques? Old furniture?"

"Valuable stuff," the fat man said. "We had a purchaser and everything, a dealer downtown on Broadway." Shaking his damp head, he said, "It all fell through, on accounta the blitz. We couldn't make delivery Thursday, then the cops found the truck."

"This is Long Island," the man to the left of Tiny said. "Kennedy fucking Airport's on Long Island."

"We were way to hell and gone," the fat man said desperately, bouncing wetly around on his chair. "Honest. Huntington, Long Island, it's way out on the island, it's way up on the North Shore."

Tiny said, "Who were these other three guys?"

"Ralph Demrovsky, Willy Car—"

"One at a time!"

"Oh," the fat man said. "Sorry."

Tiny had looked around at one of the standing men to his right. "We got Demrovsky?"

"I'm looking."

Now Dortmunder saw that in fact a rough-and-ready sort of filing system had been created back there, with folders and envelopes stuck in among the floor-to-ceiling liquor cartons. Apparently, each guy standing back there had a separate part of the alphabet to deal with. Education, Dortmunder thought, is a wonderful thing.

"Here it is."

The file this time was in a small folded restaurant menu. This was handed to the man seated at Tiny's right, who opened it, leafed through the few ratty papers in it, and said, "Yeah, we talked to him already. Gave the same story."

Tiny looked at the fat man. "What time'd you get to this antique store?"

"Eleven-thirty."

The man with the fat man's file made a note. Tiny lifted an eyebrow at the man with Demrovsky's file, who nodded agreement. Then Tiny looked back at the fat man: "What time'd you leave?"

"Three o'clock."

"Demrovsky," said the other guy, "says two-thirty."

"It was around there," the fat man said, sounding panicky. "Who's looking at their watch? It was around two-thirty, three o'clock."

Dortmunder closed his eyes. The questioning went on, bringing out the other two names, comparing everybody's story with everybody else. The fat man was innocent, at least of stealing the Byzantine Fire, and soon everybody in the room knew it, so the last part of the questioning was merely to double-check the alibis of other people. I'm next, Dortmunder thought, and the thought was barely complete when the fat man was dismissed, patting and swabbing himself and hurrying from the room, leaving his seat for Dortmunder, who tottered to it, grateful at least to be seated, not entirely sure he was grateful to have Kelp seated beside him. The door behind him opened and closed, but Dortmunder didn't look back to see who was now on deck.

"So," Tiny Bulcher said. "You two guys were together Wednesday night."

"That's right," Kelp said, speaking right up. "We were working on my phones."

"Tell us about it," Tiny offered, and Kelp did, reeling off the story they'd cooked up together, rattling right along, putting in all the details, while Dortmunder sat beside him, silent and dignified and scared shitless.

Early on in the questioning, already existing files (Kelp's in a Valentine's Day card, Dortmunder's in a thin cardboard packet that had originally contained bunion pads) were brought out, checked, annotated. Dortmunder moodily watched the guy with his file, wondering what was already written down on those odds and ends of paper, what facts, clues, hints, suggestions, information was waiting in there to trip him up. Something, something.

Tiny and the guy with Kelp's folder asked a few questions, in a not particularly threatening manner, and it became clear that one or two of Kelp's phone pals of Wednesday night had already mentioned his calls. But then, after the deceptive calm, Tiny's ball-bearing eyes rolled infinitesimally in their sockets, and there he was looking at Dortmunder and saying, "So you were with him, right?"

"That's right," Dortmunder said.

"All night."

"Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah."

Kelp said, "John helped me with the wir—"

"Shadap."

"Okay."

Tiny nodded slowly, looking at Dortmunder. "You call anybody?"

"No," Dortmunder said.

"How come?"

"Well, uh, it was Andy's phone. And my woman was at the movies."

Continuing to gaze at Dortmunder, Tiny asked his assistants generally, "Kelp mention Dortmunder to anybody?"

"No," they all said.

"Well," Kelp said.

"Shadap."

"Okay."

The guy with Dortmunder's file said, "You went to see Arnie Albright Thursday."

Oh, no. God, let it be not so. I'll be good. I'll get a Social Security card. A real one. "Yeah, I did," Dortmunder said.

"You told him you made a score."

"Tuesday," Dortmunder said. Unfortunately, his voice squeaked on the first syllable.

"But you went to Arnie Thursday," the guy said. "And you were looking up another fence, name of Stoon, the same day."

"That's right."

"You had some stuff to sell."

"That's right."

"What stuff?"

"Um…jewelry."

General alertness animated the room. Tiny said, "You did a jewelry heist? Wednesday night?"

"No," Dortmunder said. "Tuesday night."

A terrorist said, "Where?"

"Staten (cough) Staten Island."

The guy with Dortmunder's file said, "What fences did you see Wednesday?"

"Nobody," Dortmunder said. "I was kind of sick Wednesday. It was raining Tuesday night—" (it's always good to throw a little truth into a story, like adding salt to a recipe) " — and I got like a cold. Just one of those twenty-four-hour bugs."

Another guy said, "Where in Staten Island?"

"On Drumgoole Boulevard. It didn't make the papers."

One of the terrorists said, "What did you rob?"

Dortmunder looked at him, wondering if he was one of the religious fanatics. "Just some engagement rings, watches, stuff like that. Ordinary stuff."

Tiny said, "What fence did you sell it to?"

"I didn't," Dortmunder said. "I couldn't. The blitz came along, and—"

"So you've still got the stash."

Dortmunder hadn't been ready for that one. In the millionth of a second which was the only delay he dared offer, he considered the alternatives: Say no, and they'll wonder why he got rid of a perfectly ordinary jewelry haul which could be hidden a thousand different places until the blitz was over. Say yes, and they'll want to see it. "Yes," Dortmunder said.

Tiny said, "Dortmunder, we know each other a while."

"Sure."

"There's a stink coming off you, Dortmunder. I never smelled it before."

"I'm nervous, Tiny."

"We'll look at your stash," Tiny said. "We'll send six guys with you, and—"

"Breaker! Breaker? said a loud metallic voice, everywhere in the room.

Tiny frowned around, this way and that: "What?"

"I don't care about that," said the loud metallic voice.

Seven or eight people in the room spoke at once. Then the loud metallic voice spoke over all of them, saying, " Well, I'm stuck here on West End Avenue with a busted transmission and I want to talk to my wife in Englewood, New Jersey."

"A radio," said a terrorist.

"CB," said one of Tiny's co-judges.

"Wire," Tiny said. His eyebrows were lowering practically to his upper lip. "Some dirty son of a bitch bastard in this room is wired, is bugging us, is—"

"Because" said the loud metallic voice in deep exasperation, "my wife is listening on this channel."

A terrorist said, "His equipment is picking up these CB signals. A similar terrible thing happened to a late acquaintance of mine in Basra."

"I'll report you," yelled the loud metallic voice, "to the FCC, that's what I'll do, you filthy air-hog!"

"Who," said Tiny, flexing many of his muscles. "Who."

People looked this way and that, wide-eyed, listening for the return of the loud metallic voice.

"If I could get my hands on you—"

"BENJY!"

The little man was already halfway to the door. Bouncing off a terrorist's chest, ducking under a tough guy's clutching hands, he shot from the room like a freed parakeet.

Naturally, Dortmunder and Kelp joined in the chase.