Why Me?

7

Dortmunder's breakfast was: sweetened grapefruit juice (at which he made a face), two fried eggs over hard, white bread toasted with apricot preserves, instant coffee with a lot of milk and sugar. He had finished everything but the second piece of toast and the third cup of coffee when May came into the kitchen, wearing her coat. "Don't forget to call Andy Kelp," she said.

Dortmunder was fiddling with the digital watch. "Mm," he said, and pressed the button on the side; the pink numbers said 6:10:42:08. "Mm," he said.

"You'll be home for dinner?"

"Yeah. I'll take that stuff over to Arnie this morning. Maybe we'll eat out."

"That'd be nice," she said, and left the kitchen.

Dortmunder drank some coffee, turned the watch around and around in his hands, poked it a bit, and pressed the button on the side. 6:10:42:08.

The front door closed.

Dortmunder chewed toast and considered the watch. When you weren't pressing the button on the side, the rectangular black face was blank; it looked like Dick Tracy's wrist TV. Dortmunder held the watch near his mouth. "Hello, less?" he said. "This is Tracy."

The phone rang.

Dortmunder removed the remaining toast from his mouth by drinking the remaining coffee, patted his lips with a paper napkin, and walked into the living room. He picked up the phone on the fifth ring. "Yeah," he said.

"What took so long?"

"Hello, Andy."

"You were in the kitchen, I bet." The real Andy Kelp sounded just as cheery as the machine Andy Kelp.

"You got a machine on your phone," Dortmunder accused him.

"You want an extension for your kitchen?"

"What do you want with a machine on your phone?"

"It'd save you steps. I could install it myself, you wouldn't pay any monthly fee."

"I don't need an extension," Dortmunder said firmly, "and you don't need a machine."

"It's very useful," Kelp said. "If there's people I don't want to talk to, I don't talk to them."

"I already do that," Dortmunder said, and the phone went guk-ick, guk-ick, guk-ick. "Now what?" Dortmunder said.

"Hold on," Kelp told him. "Somebody's calling me."

"Somebody's calling you? You're calling me." But Dortmunder was speaking into a dead phone. "Hello?" he said. "Andy?" Then he shook his head in disgust, hung up, and went back to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee. The water was just boiling when the phone rang. He turned off the flame, walked back to the living room, and answered on the fourth ring. "Yeah," he said.

"Wha'd you hang up for?"

"I didn't hang up. You hung up."

"I told you hold on. That was just my call-waiting signal."

"Don't tell me about these things."

"It's terrific," Kelp said. "Say we're talking like this—"

"Yeah."

"And somebody else wants to call me. Instead of a busy signal, the phone rings. That's the click-click you heard."

"It wasn't click-click, it was guk-ick."

"Well, whatever. The point is, I've got this button on the phone here, and I press it to put you on hold and answer this other call. Then I tell them I'll call them back, or whatever I do, and I press the button again, and we go on with our conversation, same as ever."

"We could go on with our conversation same as ever without all that stuff."

"But I'd miss that other call."

"Andy," Dortmunder said, "if you want to call me, and the line's busy, what do you do?"

"I hang up."

"Then what do you do?"

"I call back."

"So I didn't miss the call, did I?"

"But this is more efficient."

"Fine," said Dortmunder. Another argument saved.

"See what it is," Kelp said, "I got access—You know what I mean?"

"Access. You can get into."

"Right. It's a wholesaler for telephone equipment. Not the phone company; you know, one of those private companies."

"Yeah."

"Their warehouse fronts on the street behind me."

"Ah," said Dortmunder.

"I got lots of stuff."

"Terrific."

"I got—You know how I just dialed your number?"

"With your nose?"

"Heh, heh. That's pretty good. Listen, lemme tell you. I got these cards. I got this card with holes punched in it for your telephone number, and I put the card in a slot in this phone here, and the card dials the number."

"More efficient," Dortmunder said.

"You got it. I got phones now all—You know where I'm calling you from?"

"The closet?"

"The bathroom."

Dortmunder closed his eyes. "Let's talk about something else," he said.

"You know, I was home here when you called yesterday." Kelp sounded a bit aggrieved.

"Not according to the machine."

"I kept trying to tell you it was me."

"You said you were the machine."

"No, afterward. Did you do the thing?"

"Yeah."

"Who with?"

"Single-o."

Kelp chuckled, and said, "You didn't do the big jewel thing out to Kennedy, did you?"

Skoukakis Credit Jewelers was near Kennedy Airport. Dortmunder said, "How'd you know? Was it in the papers?"

"In the—John, are you—" Guk-ick, guk-ick, guk-ick. "Oop! Hold on."

"No," said Dortmunder, and hung up, and went back to the kitchen and turned the heat on under the kettle. He rinsed his breakfast dishes, and the water was just boiling when the phone rang. He went ahead and made coffee, added lots of milk and sugar, stirred, put the spoon in the sink, walked back to the living room, and picked up the phone on the fourteenth ring. "Yeah."

"What's the matter with you?"

"I was making coffee."

"You need an extension in the kitchen."

"No, I don't. Who was your other call?"

"A wrong number."

"Good thing you didn't miss it."

"Well, anyway. Where were you last night?"

"Where you said. Out by Kennedy."

"Come on, John," Kelp said. "Don't milk the joke."

"Milk what joke?"

Sounding exasperated, Kelp said, "You did not steal some twenty-million-dollar ruby from Kennedy Airport last night."

"That's right," Dortmunder said. "Who said I did?"

"You did. I make a joke about the big heist at Kennedy last night, and you—"

"I was out near Kennedy. Right."

"Not near Kennedy. At Kennedy."

"Oh. It was a misunderstanding."

"So what you hit was a—"

"Andy."

"What?"

"You maybe aren't the only one who puts little extras on their phones."

"There's something you want?"

"You ever hear of wiretap?"

"Who do you want tapped?"

"Nobody. But let's just pretend, just for fun, let's just make believe the police or somebody have tapped your phone or my phone or whatever."

"For what?"

"Oh, to find out if either one of us happened to commit a crime recently."

"Oh. I see what you mean."

"Also," Dortmunder said, "there is no such thing as a twenty-million-dollar ruby."

"Valuable," Kelp said. "Priceless. It's in the papers and on television and everything."

"I wasn't thinking that big last night," Dortmunder said, and the phone went guk-ick, guk-ick, guk-ick. "That's it," Dortmunder said. "Good-bye."

"John! Just hold on a second!"

Dortmunder hung up and carried his coffee back to the kitchen and sat at the table and studied the watch some more. 6:10:42:08.

The phone rang.

Dortmunder turned the watch around and around in his hands. He sipped coffee.

The phone went on ringing.

Dortmunder hit the watch against the tabletop, then pressed the button on its side: 6:10:42:09. "Ah-hah," Dortmunder said. He looked at the clock on the kitchen wall—eleven-fifteen, more or less—and waited while the sweep second hand went halfway round the face. (The phone still rang.) Then he pressed the button on the side of the watch. 6:10:42:09.

"Mm," said Dortmunder. He hit the watch against the tabletop, pressed the button. 6:10:42:10. Hit; press. 6:10:42:11.

Fine. If you started at ten minutes after six, and if you hit this watch against the tabletop six thousand times a minute, it'd keep perfect time. Leaving the watch on the table, Dortmunder went to the living room, walked past the ringing phone, put on his other jacket—the one with no tools in it-put the plastic bag with last night's proceeds in his pocket, and left the apartment.