Of course, there was something a little strange about the fact that, when success finally did arrive, it came in the form of a fake robbery of a fake Old Master, but just so long as the money was real – and it was, they’d looked it over very carefully – what the hell. Right?
And here was Kelp – good old Andy Kelp – back with more bourbon and more ice cubes. Dortmunder was astounded to realize his glass was practically empty; nothing in it but one naked ice cube. He added a second, Kelp filled the glass to the top, and the party went on.
Dortmunder was never exactly sure afterward when the party did come to an end. After a while May and Thelma brought out the food, and then a while later the money was divvied up – May took her share and Dortmunder’s share away to the bedroom, where she’d already worked out this apartment’s hiding place – and then a while later Wally Whistler’s absentminded fiddling with the catch on the spring-leaf table resulted in a lot of dishes and glasses and peanuts clattering to the floor with a hell of a racket when the table collapsed to Wally’s utter embarrassment, and a while after that people started going home, all of them stopping to thank Dortmunder for a nice party and to say a word or two about tonight’s success. Dortmunder just smiled at them all, and nodded happily whenever his glass was refilled, and somewhere in through there he must have fallen asleep, because you can’t wake up unless you’ve been asleep, and just like THAT Dortmunder woke up. He stared around an empty room gray with daylight, and he said out loud, “What’s going wrong?”
Then he heard the echo of his own voice, and sat back in his chair. He had the fuzzy mouth and the muzzy headache that come from sleeping sitting up in a chair with your clothes on after you’ve had just a bit too much to drink. Moving his tongue around inside his head as though it were a sock he was trying to put away somewhere, he silently answered his own question: Nothing’s going wrong. Chauncey was cooled out. Zane was certainly not cooled out, but his credibility was destroyed in Chauncey’s eyes because Chauncey didn’t know Dortmunder knew what Zane looked like, and in any event Dortmunder was going to make himself very hard to find for the next few months. Besides moving their apartment, he and May intended to take some of that money and have a real vacation, a real spree for themselves, and by the time they came back this whole business would have blown over. Why would a professional like Zane spend the rest of his life, with no employer, on a manhunt that had no profit in it? Zane would eventually stop being upset, he’d get back to his own life, and that would be the end of that.
So what could go wrong? Nothing. This job was done, and it had been a complete success.
Dortmunder closed his eyes. Ten seconds later, the left eye opened halfway, and watched the empty room.
THE BRIDGE
Chapter 1
Andy Kelp met them at the airport, grinning from ear to ear. “What a great tan,” he said.
“Yeah,” Dortmunder said. “Hello.”
May said, “I made him go out on the beach. All he wanted was to sit in the hotel and look at television.”
“I went to the casino,” Dortmunder said, defending himself.
Kelp said, “Yeah? You win?”
Dortmunder looked around, frowning. “Where do we pick up our stuff?”
Pointing at signs, Kelp said, “Baggage, that way.” The three of them set out, along with several million other travelers, following the lit BAGGAGE signs and arrows suspended from the ceiling. This was a Sunday evening in early June, and the terminal was full of people who had not at all terminated; they were insistent, every one of them, on pushing toward some farther destination. Sunday is when most people finish their vacations, and when the disorganized finally get started. Pale faces and vinyl luggage going out, peeling faces and wicker baskets coming back. Walking along through this mob, May told Kelp, “We had beautiful weather. The whole thing was just perfect.”
Kelp was delighted. “You had a good time, huh?”
Dortmunder nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, as though it had taken much soul-searching to come to this conclusion. “Yeah,” he said. “It was okay.”
The trip had been strictly May’s doing, from beginning to end. She’d gone to the travel agency, she’d brought back the brochures full of white sand beaches and blue swimming pools, she’d talked it over with Dortmunder, and then she herself had chosen the package tour to Puerto Rico: fourteen days and thirteen nights in a first-class hotel in beautiful San Juan, air fare included, complimentary cocktail with dinner the first night in the hotel. May had done the packing, completed the arrangements with the travel agency, and made a lightning swoop on Korvette’s to stock up on dark glasses, suntan oil, floppy hats and clogs.
Dortmunder had helped by expressing doubts. “If the Puerto Ricans all come here,” he’d said, for instance, “how come it’s such a hot idea for us to go there?” Another time, he’d expressed the opinion that airplanes were too heavy to fly, and a little later he’d pointed out he didn’t have a passport. “You don’t need a passport,” May told him. “Puerto Rico’s part of the US.” He stared at her. “The hell it is.” But it turned out she was right about that; Puerto Rico wasn’t exactly a state, but it was something in the United States of America – maybe it was “of.” Anyway, May’s accuracy about that one detail had encouraged Dortmunder to trust her with the rest.
And, as he had gracefully admitted, it had worked out okay. Nice beach, nice casino – they closed it too early, though – nice driving around in a rain forest, nice boat trips to a lot of nice little islands; all in all, nice. Except for an ashtray from the El Conquistador restaurant and a couple towels from the hotel, Dortmunder hadn’t boosted a thing the whole trip. A real first class vacation.
Dortmunder said, “How are things around town?”
“About the same,” Kelp said. “No nice scores, not even a hotel hit. We’re still the champs.”
Dortmunder grinned. Over a month after the event, the Chauncey caper could still bring a warm glow to his heart, a sense of a good job well done. “Yeah, that’s okay,” he said.
“Chefwick retired,” Kelp said.
Dortmunder showed his surprise. “Retired? How come?”
“Some guy in California bought a Chinese railroad, and Chefwick’s gonna run it. He took his piece from the job, and him and Maude went on out there.”
Dortmunder gave Kelp a wary look. “Is this one of your stories?”
“It’s true.”
“They’re always true. A Chinese railroad?”
“Yeah,” Kelp said. “It used to go from someplace to someplace else in China, but now they use planes and buses and–”
Dortmunder said, “A real railroad? Not a model?”
“That’s right. Apparently, this was a very famous early railroad. It was built with Irish labor, and they–”
“All right,” Dortmunder said.
“I’m just telling you what Roger told me. This guy in California bought it, that’s all. A couple locomotives, some railroad cars, some of the old switches, even one little railroad station like a pagoda. Same as that guy in Arizona bought the London Bridge and set it up in Arizona. Exactly the same.”
“Fine,” Dortmunder said.
“They’re putting down some track,” Kelp said, “and building an amusement park around it, like a Disneyland, and Chefwick’s gonna run the railroad. Him and Maude, they’ll live in the railroad station.”
Smiling, May said, “That’s nice.”
Dortmunder also smiled, and nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s okay,” he said. “Chefwick’s got himself a real railroad. That’s okay.”
“Of course, he’ll still set up his model,” Kelp said.
“Don’t tell me,” Dortmunder said. “In the railroad station.”
“Where else?”
“Sure,” Dortmunder said.
Kelp nodded, and said, “Oh, and Tiny Bulcher’s back in jail.”
“What for?”
“He beat up a gorilla.”
Dortmunder said, “Stop.”
May said, “Did you say he beat–”
“Don’t ask him, May,” Dortmunder told her. “He’ll only answer.”
“It was in the Daily News and everything,” Kelp said, as though that were an adequate defense. “It seems he was–”
“I said stop,” Dortmunder told him.
“You don’t even want to hear about it?”
“I do,” May said.
“Tell her later,” Dortmunder ordered, and they reached the place where they were supposed to pick up their baggage.
It was a madhouse. Several circular constructions skirted by moving conveyor belts offered an array of luggage from several different airplanes to travelers packed three and four deep in all directions. Dortmunder and May and Kelp at last found the right conveyor belt, struggled their way to the front rank, and spent the next ten minutes watching other people’s luggage go by.