“And I still say it’s mean,” May said. Beside her, Dortmunder took a deep breath, but he didn’t say any. thing. He was watching Kelp, listening to everybody and thinking.
Kelp said to May, “How could it be mean? With you and Murch’s Mom to take care of the kid, who’s gonna treat him mean? We follow what the book says, he’ll never be in any danger, and he won’t even get scared. He’ll probably be glad he doesn’t have to go to school for a couple days.”
Dortmunder rose slowly to his feet. “Kelp,” he said.
Kelp looked at him, alert, bright-eyed, eager to be of assistance.
“You and me,” Dortmunder said, “we’ve worked together a few times over the years, am I right?”
Kelp said, “Now, you’re not gonna start dredging up the past, blaming me for-”
“I’m not talking about blame,” Dortmunder said. “I’m just saying we worked together.”
“Well, sure,” Kelp said. “That’s right, sure, we’re longtime partners.”
“Now, Stan, here,” Dortmunder said, “he’s worked with us, too. What his job is, he drives, am I right?”
“I’m the best,” Murch said.
“That’s right,” Kelp said. He seemed a little confused, but still bright-eyed and eager to please. “Stan drives, and he’s the best.”
“And what do I do?” Dortmunder asked him.
“You?” Kelp moved his hands vaguely. “You know what you do,” he said. “You run it.”
“I run it. I make the plan, isn’t that right?”
“Well, sure,” Kelp said.
“Now,” Dortmunder said, and his voice was beginning to rise just a little, “are you saying all those things that went wrong in the past are my fault?”
“What? No no, I never-”
“You’re going to bring in a plan?”
“But-”
“You don’t like the way I do plans, is that it? You think there’s something wrong with the plans I work out?”
“No, I-”
“You think some book writer’s gonna do you a better plan than I am, is that what you come here to say?”
“Dortmun-”
“You can get right out of here,” Dortmunder said, and pointed a big-knuckled finger at the door.
“Just let me-”
“You and that Richard Smart or whatever the hell his name is,” Dortmunder raged, “the two of you can get the hell out of here, and don’t come back!”
5
M A Y had put together a special dinner, all of Dortmunder’s favorites: Salisbury steak, steamed green beans, whipped potatoes from a mix, enriched white bread, beer in the can, and boysenberry Jell-O for dessert. On the table were lined up the ketchup, the A-1 sauce, the Worcestershire sauce, the salt and pepper and sugar, the margarine, and the can of evaporated milk. She had the entr�e done by midnight, and put it in the oven to keep warm till Dortmunder got home at quarter to four.
From the slope of his shoulders when he walked in she knew things hadn’t gone well. Maybe she should wait, and broach the subject some other time? No; if she waited for John Dortmunder to be in a good mood they’d both of them be very, very old before she ever said anything.
He dropped his bag of tools on the gray armchair, where they clanked. He unzipped his black jacket, peeled off his black gloves, shook his head, and said, “I don’t know, May. I just don’t know.”
“Something go wrong?”
“Twenty-five minutes going through that door,” Dortmunder said. “I did everything right, everything smooth and perfect. Not a sound, not a peep. I go in through the door, I flash the light around, you know what the place is?”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine,” she said.
“Empty.”
“Empty?”
“Since last Tuesday and today,” he said, waving one hand around, “they went out of business. Can you figure that? Just last Tuesday I walked by the front of the place, they’re still open. All right, they’re having an up-to-fifty-percent-off sale, but they’re open. Who expects them to go out of business?”
“I guess times are bad all over,” May said.
“I’d like to take the guy had that store,” Dortmunder said, “and punch him right in the head.”
“Well, it isn’t his fault either,” May said. “He probably feels just as bad about closing up as you do.”
With a cynical look, Dortmunder shook his head and said, “Not damn likely. He made out on that sale he had there, don’t you think he didn’t. And what do I get? I get zip.”
“There’ll be other times,” May said. She wished she knew how to console him. “Anyway, wash up and I’ve got a nice dinner for you.”
Dortmunder nodded, heavy and fatalistic. Walking away toward the bathroom, shrugging out of his jacket, he muttered, “Living off the proceeds of a woman.” He shook his head again.
May scrinched her face up. He was always using that phrase, whenever things went wrong, and it was perfectly true that when he didn’t make any money they had to live on her salary and fringe benefits from Bohack’s, but she didn’t mind. She’d told him a hundred times that she didn’t mind. All she minded, actually, was that phrase:
“Living off the proceeds of a woman.” Somehow, the impression the phrase gave her didn’t seem to have anything to do with being a cashier at Bohack’s. Oh, well. He didn’t mean anything bad by it. May padded on back to the kitchen to see to dinner, and also to change cigarettes. The one burning away in the corner of her mouth had become no bigger than an ember by now, causing a sensation of heat against her lips. She reached up, plucked the burning coal from her mouth with thumb and two fingers, and flipped it into the sink, where it sizzled in complaint and then died. Meanwhile, May had already taken the crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes from her sweater pocket and was finagling one cigarette out of it. It was a process like removing an accident victim from his crushed automobile. Freeing the cigarette, she straightened and smoothed it, and went looking for matches. Unlike most chain smokers, she couldn’t light the new cigarette from the old, there never being enough of the old one left to hold onto, so she had a continuing supply problem with matches.
Like now, for instance. There were no matches at all in the kitchen. Rather than carry the hunt through the rest of the apartment she turned on a front burner of the gas stove, crouched down in front of it, and crept up on the flame like a peeping tom creeping up on an open window. The smell of cigarette smoke mingled in the air with the smell of singed eyebrow. Squinting her eyes shut, she ducked back, puffed, shook her head, wiped her eyes, turned off the burner, and saw to dinner.
Dortmunder was sitting at the table in the dinette end of the living room when she carried the two hot plates in, using potholders with cartoons on them. Dortmunder looked at the food as she put it before him, and he almost smiled. “Looks real nice,” he said.
“I thought you’d like it.” She sat down opposite him, and for a while they just ate together in companionable silence. She didn’t want to rush into this conversation, and in fact she wasn’t even sure how she would start it. All she knew was that she wasn’t looking forward to it.
She waited till they were having their coffee and Jell-0, and then said, “I had a call today from Murch’s Mom.”
“Oh, yeah?” He sounded neither interested nor suspicious. What a simple, honest, trusting man, May thought, looking at him, feeling for him again the same tenderness as when they’d first met, the time she caught him shoplifting in Bohack’s. That time, he hadn’t run or lied or complained or caused any trouble at all; he’d just stood there, looking so defeated she hadn’t had the heart to turn him in. She’d even helped him stuff the sliced cheese and the packaged baloney back into his armpits, and had said, “Look, why not hit the Grand Union from now on?” And he’d said, “I always liked the Bohack coffee.” It was the first thing he’d ever said to her.
She cleared her throat; she was feeling misty and emotional, and that would never do. Much as she hated the role, what she had to do now was start manipulating her man; it was, after all, for his own good. So she said, “She told me, Murch’s Mom told me, that Andy Kelp is still trying to organize that kidnapping idea.”
Dortmunder paused with a spoonful of Jell-O, gave a disgusted look, and went back to his eating.
“He wanted Stan to drive,” May said, “but Stan wouldn’t go into it without you.”
“Good,” Dortmunder said.
“I’m worried about Kelp,” May said. “You know what he’s like, John.”
“He’s a jinx,” Dortmunder said. “He’s also an ingrate, and besides that he’s a bigmouth. Let’s not spoil a nice dinner with talk about Kelp.”