Get Real (25 page)

Once in Manhattan, Stan paused at various street corners to pick up some friends. By the time he turned westward onto Fourteenth
Street from Park Avenue, he had Dortmunder to his right and Kelp beyond that, with the kid in the usually roomy backseat making
do with whatever was left over after Tiny came aboard.

“Even late at night,” Stan explained, as they drove toward Varick Street, “I can’t just park forever in front of that building.
There’s still some tunnel traffic at any hour, so the cops come by a lot to keep it clear, and if a cop decides to tell me
to move along he just might also decide to have a look at my paperwork first.”

“We know how it works,” Dortmunder said.

“Good.” Stan braked for a red light, and never even glanced at the patrol car parked in the bus stop. “What I’ll do,” he said,
“I’ll let everybody off and then just go around the block until I see you all.”

“Fine,” Dortmunder said.

“If it turns out,” Stan said, “you have a little problem and I shouldn’t wait around but just go home, try to open that garage
door. Like a signal.”

Kelp said, “What if we wanna give you a signal you should come in and help out with something?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna need that signal,” Stan said.

There was no more discussion along those lines, and then they reached the building, hulking dark in the middle of the block
next to the well-illuminated bank building stretching to the corner. Stan drove past the GR Development building to the darker
big structure at the next corner, where he stopped. His passengers all got out to the sidewalk there and, as Stan drove off
to begin his orbits, the kid did a whole lot of quick stretches and bends to counteract the effects of spending the last half
hour squeezed between Tiny and the ungiving flank of the Mastodon.

Meanwhile, the others followed Kelp around the corner. They were going in the same way Dortmunder and Kelp had slipped in
two weeks ago. At the small side door, Kelp bent briefly over the lock meant to protect from pilferage the deep fryers, menu
holders, and microwave ovens of the restaurant supply wholesaler who called this place a living. The kid had caught up by
the time Kelp was pushing open the door to lead the way inside.

The stairwell, as they now knew, was on the far side of this building, across all these unemployed furnishings. Trooping through,
guided by the pink light from the wall clock at the rear of the showroom and then the dim lights at every level of the stairwell,
up they went to the sixth floor and into the offices of the olive oil importer who would provide the window through which
they could step onto the GR Development roof.

That door, down into Get Real, had still not been restored to service, so they simply went in and down the stairs. At the
second floor, Combined Tool, Dortmunder and Tiny stopped, while Kelp and the kid continued on down to the massed vehicles
on one.

With one flashlight, held by the kid, they threaded through the cars to the rear door and out, where they now had to work
with only the light that New York City’s sky continued to reflect down onto the crowded jumble below. Over there in the corner
was the ladder, which they quickly moved into place, slanted up to beside the pantry window. Kelp climbed the ladder as the
kid held it, and when he was in position he took the handled suction cup from one of the pouches in the rear of his jacket,
fixed it into place against the middle of the pane of the lower half of the window, and took out the glass cutter he’d purchased
new, with his own money, at a hardware store on Bleecker Street yesterday afternoon.

This was the tricky part, to cut and not break. He started at the top, which was the hardest to get at, running the cutter
horizontally in as straight a line as possible along the glass, as near to the top rail as he could get, the cut angled just
a bit toward the wood.

Because he didn’t want to have to do finicky after-work with the window almost completely free, he went back and cut the same
line a second time, then did the same kind of cut down both stiles, first on the left, then on the right. He was aware of
the kid watching him from below, but kept his concentration on the work at hand.

The slice across the bottom was the hardest. Having cut just a few inches along that line, he felt he had to hold on to the
suction cup handle, just in case the pane decided to fall out before he was ready. Left hand holding the handle, left elbow
braced against the jamb, he slid the cutter across once, then twice, then pocketed the cutter and leaned a little forward
pressure onto the glass.

At first he thought he hadn’t done enough, but then, with unexpected speed, the pane angled backward into the room. Kelp needed
both hands on the handle and both elbows down against the stool in order to keep control of the glass, which was pretty heavy,
particularly from this angle. Holding tight, he lifted the pane up and away from himself, then lowered it into the room. Partway,
he switched his left hand to grip the glass at the top, keeping away from the fresh-cut edge.

Tink,
the glass said, when it touched the floor, but landed with no harm. Kelp used both hands to reach in and down and move the
pane to the left, leaning forward against the handle. Then he rattled the ladder to get the kid’s attention, looked down,
and waved that he was going in.

It wasn’t easy to get through the glassless window. There were metal shelves to both sides of it in there, but they were a
little too far away to give him much help. Mostly, he had to try to slither on his belly, using first elbows and then knees
to keep himself clear of the strip of sliced glass below him. From time to time he’d stop to shift position, then inch a little
farther along the way, until at last he could firmly grasp a metal shelf on the right and use it to bring his legs the rest
of the way into the room.

Down below, the kid would have gone by now, leaving the ladder in place. He would go back up with Dortmunder and Tiny to wait
for Kelp to disarm the door and let them in.

Kelp studied himself and found a new roughened area on the front of his jacket, but no other signs of his recent close embrace
of cut glass. He stepped through from the pantry into the kitchen, which was moderately illuminated by all its appliance lights,
and crossed it to the dark doorway leading into whatever room was next.

When he felt around this doorway in the dark, he found it came with a door, now open against the wall. He closed the door,
so he’d be able to switch lights on in here without being seen from outside, then found the light switch, which worked a ceiling
fixture.

With light and privacy, he turned to see where he was, and the man sitting up on the sofa bed pointed a Glock at him and said,
“Halt.”

K
ELP HALTED
. “Whoa,” he said. “You scared me. I didn’t know anybody was here.”

“No, you did not. You will put your hands on top of your head.” The man was Asian of some kind, not the slender delicate Asian
of the coastal countries, but a larger, meatier, mountain country Asian, a guy who looked as though he came from a long line
of professional wrestlers. This must be one of the Asians Doug had told them about just today—or yesterday—and now, immediately,
here he was, as big and dangerous as promised, plus a Glock pistol, an efficient-looking blue-gray watchdog with its one unwavering
eye fixed on Kelp.

Doug had never met these people, and was glad of it. Even Babe, he’d told them, kept out of their way. And here was Kelp,
in the guy’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

So how many of them were here? And what could Kelp do about it? Raising his hands to rest palms down atop his head, “I’m sorry,”
he said, “I thought I could sleep here tonight.”

The man in the bed wore a white T-shirt and was partly covered by sheet and blanket. His right knee was lifted, beneath the
blanket, with the butt of the Glock resting on the knee, the hand holding the Glock as still as a statue.

At the moment, he was in an investigatory phase, before deciding what to do about Kelp’s existence in his bedroom. He said,
“Why would you sleep here tonight?”

“I missed the last train to Westin,” Kelp told him. “That’s happened a couple times before, and I crash here for the night.”

“Here,” echoed the man. “And who are you?”

“Doug Fairkeep. I work for Get Real.”

The man shook his head; the Glock didn’t move. “What,” he said, “is Get Real?”

“We produce reality television,” Kelp told him. “This is our building, GR Development. GR; Get Real.”

“That is not the company.”

“Oh, you mean Monopole,” Kelp said.

Now the man nodded, but the Glock still didn’t move. “Yes, I mean Monopole.”

“They own Get Real. But that’s who I work for.”

“Not many persons are permitted to enter this apartment.”

“At Get Real,” Kelp said, “it’s only Babe Tuck and me.”

“I have heard the name Babe Tuck,” the man said.

“I’m glad of that anyway,” Kelp said. “Listen, okay if I put my hands down?”

“Andy!” came a half-whispered cry, muffled by distance and the closed bedroom door but audible just the same.

Kelp decided to react big. Jumping a big sideways step farther from the door, though keeping his hands atop his head, he said,
“What was
that
?”

“I heard that,” the man said. “You have someone with you?”

“No! Do you?”

“I do not.” Frowning with deep suspicion, he said, “You will open the door.”

“Open the door?”

“Andy!”

“I don’t know,” Kelp said. “There’s somebody out there.”

The man climbed out of the bed, the Glock never stopping its surveillance of the space between Kelp’s eyes. He wore tan boxer
shorts. His legs were strong and mostly hairless. He said, “Open.”

“I’ll stand behind it, all right?”

Now Kelp lowered his hands, put both of them on the doorknob, and pulled the door slowly open.

This time, the “Andy, what’s happening?” was a little louder, and identifiable as the kid. The goddam kid.

The man with the Glock said, “You go first.”

“Oh, boy,” Kelp said.

It seemed to him a reasonable amount of fear would be the most plausible reaction to show at this point, so slowly he went
through the doorway, peering in obvious fright to left and right. The man followed, switching on the kitchen lights, poking
the Glock into the small of Kelp’s back to move him along, and Kelp said, “Listen, I need a weapon.”

“A weapon?”

Kelp turned to look at the man, who was even larger and more intimidating when standing up and standing close. “I don’t know
what’s out there,” Kelp told him, “and neither do you. Maybe it’s more than you can deal with all by yourself.” He pointed
to the row of frying pans hung from hooks above the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Okay if I carry one of those?”

The man gave a very small headshake. “What good would it do?”

“Make me feel better,” Kelp said. “Safer. Let me take that one there.”

Impatient, the man said, “All right, take it. But then you go first. Through that door.” Meaning the pantry.

“Absolutely,” Kelp said. He took down the frying pan, a nine-inch cast-iron model, satisfyingly heavy. “This seems good,”
he said, hefting it in both hands, then swung it sidearm with all his might into the side of that head, just above the left
ear.

The man dropped like a sudden avalanche. The Glock chittered across the tile floor to smack into the dishwasher. Kelp slapped
the frying pan down onto the island, grabbed the Glock, turned it around so he wasn’t aiming it at himself, and paused to
look at the man, who had returned to dreamland, lying on the floor on his right side, right arm extended as though showing
the way.

There had been no more Andy’s since the kitchen lights had been switched on. Now, carrying the Glock, Kelp raced to the pantry,
and there was the kid, on the ladder, just outside the breached window. He waved the Glock. “Get outa there!”

The kid stared wide-eyed at the pistol. “What’d you—Where’d you—”

“Go, dammit! I’ll tell you at the door.”

And Kelp raced away, to be sure his patient was still sleeping—and still breathing—and then to hurry on to the apartment door.

D
ORTMUNDER AND
T
INY
had grown tired of each other’s company, seated here on the hard stairs outside Combined Tool. Dortmunder himself was fairly
slow to impatience, but it wasn’t comfortable to be around Tiny when that gentleman was beginning to feel fed up, so what
Dortmunder wished, he wished they could get on with it.

They had waited what already seemed a long time before the kid came back up the stairs to report that Kelp had cut through
the window with no problems and was on his way now to open this door here. And then they waited some more. And then they waited
some more.

And then Tiny said, “Kid, go see what’s up.”

“Okay, Tiny.”

And now they were waiting some more.

“If we could get that motorcycle up here,” Tiny said, “maybe we could drive it through the door. Or maybe the wall beside
the door. Sometimes walls are easier.”

“That might work,” Dortmunder said. “We’ll get the kid to drive it. I think there’s a helmet with it.”

“No matter.” Tiny looked down the stairwell. “I don’t think he could drive it up the stairs,” he said. “We’d have to push
it.”

And the apartment door opened and Kelp stood there, waving a Glock. “Come in, come in,” he said, as though
they’d
been the ones dawdling. “Prop the door open for the kid.”

So they entered the living room and, as Dortmunder put a table lamp on the floor to block the door from closing, Tiny said
to Kelp, “You have a gun. In your hand.”

“The Asians Doug told us about,” Kelp said. “One of them’s here.”

“Where?”

“Right now, asleep on the kitchen floor.”

“An odd place to sleep,” Tiny suggested.

“That’s where we were,” Kelp said, “when I hit him with the frying pan.”