Get Real (6 page)

Stan said, “Why that son of a bitch.”

“Somewhere,” Dortmunder said, “somewhere in his working hours, Doug Fairkeep has seen cash.”

Tiny said, “Where?”

“That’s what we gotta figure out.”

Kelp pulled some sheets of paper from his pocket. “I printed out the companies and what they do,” he said. “Three copies.
Tiny, here’s yours, Stan, you can share with the kid, and I’ll share with John.”

The room became quiet, as though it were study period. Everybody bent over the lists, looking for cash, failing to find it.
Finally Tiny pushed his list away and said, “There’s no cash there. Real estate, movies, aircraft engines. Forget cash.”

“It hit him,” Dortmunder insisted. “We both noticed.”

The kid said, “What was it, like he just remembered?”

“Yeah, like that.”

The kid nodded. “So it’s not cash he’s around all the time,” he said. “It’s just some cash he happened to see a couple times.
Or once.”

Tiny said, “That still doesn’t help.”

“Well, wait a minute,” the kid said. “What were you all talking about when he suddenly remembered the cash?”

Dortmunder and Kelp looked at one another. Dortmunder shrugged. “How there was no cash.”

Kelp said, “How even with Europe and Asia it was all wire transfers.”

The kid looked interested. “That’s what he was saying just before he remembered? Wire transfers to Europe and Asia?”

Dortmunder said, “No, Andy, that was after. Before, I said there were all these companies, and some of them overseas, so there
had to be some cash around somewhere.”

The kid said to Dortmunder, “So
you
talked about overseas first.”

“Yeah, I did. And then he did that stutter-stop thing—”

“And
then,
” Kelp said, “he said how, even to Europe and Asia, it’s all wire transfers.”

“So it’s something foreign,” the kid said. “It’s cash, and it has something to do with Europe and Asia.”

“But Doug Fairkeep isn’t foreign,” Dortmunder said. “He doesn’t work foreign. His work is right here.”

“So where he saw the cash,” the kid said, “was here, on its way to Europe and Asia. Europe
or
Asia.”

Stan said, “Am I following this? We now think this Fair-keep guy at least once saw a bunch of cash around where he works,
that was going to Europe or Asia. What the hell for?”

Kelp said, “They’re buying something?”

“What happened to the wire transfers?”

“Oh!” said the kid. When they all looked at him, he had a huge happy grin on his face. Lifting his glass, he toasted them
all in Campari and soda, then knocked back a good swig of it, slapped the glass down onto the felt, and said, “Now I get it!”

That was the annoying thing about the kid, who was otherwise okay. Every once in a while, he’d get it before anybody else
got it, and when he got it, he got it. So Tiny said to him, “If you got it, give it to us.”

“Bribes,” the kid said.

They looked at him. Stan said, “Bribes?”

“Every big company that does business in different countries,” the kid said, “bribes the locals when they want to come do
business. Here, buy our aircraft engines, not that other guy’s aircraft engines, and you look like you could use another set
of golf clubs. Here’s a little something for the wife. Wouldn’t you like to run our TV show on your station? I know they don’t
pay you what you deserve; here, have an envelope.”

“I’ve heard about this,” Kelp said. “There’s a word everybody uses, it’s
chai,
it means ‘tea,’ you sit down together, you have a cuppa tea, you move the envelope.”

Tiny said, “So? That’s what they call business.”

“Somewhere around thirty years ago,” the kid said, “the US Congress passed a law, it’s illegal for an American company to
bribe foreigners.”

Stan said, “
What?
No way.”

“It’s true,” the kid said. “American companies have to be very careful, it’s a federal crime, it’s a felony, they all gotta
do it, but they really don’t wanna get caught.”

Kelp said, “So we’re shooting ourself in the foot, is what you’re saying.”

“Both feet,” said the kid. “And not for the first time. Anyway, what this guy Doug saw was the courier, the guy who carries
the cash. He’s a known guy to everybody, he works for this television outfit, he travels for them all the time, they’re used
to seeing him go back and forth, he always carries all his movie equipment with him.”

Tiny said, “That’s very nice.”

“And one time,” the kid said, “maybe more, Doug saw the cash going into the DVD boxes. So the guy who carries the money works
in Doug’s outfit.”

“Him,” Dortmunder said, “we’ll find. It may take a little time, but him we’ll find.”

“What’s extra nice about this,” Tiny said, “it’s like those guys that knock over drug dealers. You heist somebody already
committing a crime, he doesn’t call the cops.”

“At last,” Kelp said. “The perfect crime.”

On his way out, Dortmunder saw that the blackboard of tomorrow’s specials was now complete, and included
LASAGNA
. “Very good,” he said, nodding at the board.

Rollo smiled, happy again. “We called the Knights of Columbus,” he said.

W
HEN THE PHONE
on the Murch kitchen wall sounded at eight-fifteen on Thursday morning, both mother and son frowned at it from their twinned
breakfast helpings of white toast, much grape jelly, black coffee, and a matched set of
Road & Track
magazine. They watched the phone through its ensuing silence, and when it sounded a second time Stan said, “That isn’t for
me. I don’t know anybody up at this hour. It’s taxi business.”

“You don’t do taxi business on the phone,” she said, but nevertheless she got to her feet, crossed to the phone, slapped it
to her ear, and snapped, “Go ahead,” giving nothing away.

Stan, striving to appear as though he wasn’t watching and listening, watched and listened, and was surprised when his mother
abruptly smiled and said, with no ill will at all, “Sure I remember. How you doing?” Then she turned, still smiling, extended
the phone toward Stan, and said, sweetly, “It’s for you.”

Oh. Getting it, Stan said, “Reality check,” got to his feet, and took the phone, while his triumphant mother went back to
her breakfast and her SUV comparison appraisals. Into the phone, Stan said, “Yeah, hello. You’re up early.”

It was Doug from yesterday, all right, “Reality,” he said, “waits for no man, Stan.”

“Where are you, a Chinese fortune cookie factory?”

“Ha ha. Listen, it’s time we got started.”

“Doing what?”

“
The Gang’s All Here.
You like it?”

Stan had the feeling he was in the wrong conversation somehow. He said, “Like what?”

“The title.
The Gang’s All Here.
You like it?”

“No.”

“Well,” Doug said, sounding just a little hurt, “it isn’t written in stone.”

“No, it wouldn’t be.”

“What we’ve got to do,” Doug said, determinedly getting down to business, “is make a start here. I don’t need the whole five
men yet, but I want to get together with you and John and Andy soonest.”

Stan still wasn’t comfortable with the idea that this civilian knew everybody’s name. He said, “Where do you want to do this,
your office?”

“No. We’ve got a rehearsal space downtown, we—”

“Wait a minute,” Stan said. “You got a rehearsal space for reality shows?”

“It isn’t like
that,
” Doug said. “It’s a big open space, like a loft, it gives us the chance, try out some ideas, smooth out some problems before
we really get moving.”

“Okay.”

“When do you think you guys could get there?”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to the other two, they probly aren’t up yet.”

“Out burgling all night? Yuk yuk.”

“No.” Stan could be patient, when he had to be; it comes with being the driver. “We don’t punch a clock, see,” he explained,
“so we like to sleep in.”

“Of course. I tell you what. I’ll give you the address, my cell number, call me back and tell me when we can meet. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“It’s down on Varick Street,” Doug said, “below Houston, the freight elevator opens onto the sidewalk, that’s where the bell
is.”

“Okay.”

“We’re the fifth floor, that’s the top floor, the name on the bell is GR Development.”

“I’ll call you back,” Stan said, and hung up.

“Taxi business,” his mother said, and snapped a page in
Road & Track.

W
HEN
K
ELP CAME
strolling down Varick Street at two that afternoon, he saw Dortmunder ahead of him, facing a building in midblock, frowning
at it while he frisked himself. Kelp approached, interested in this phenomenon, and Dortmunder withdrew from two separate
pockets a crumpled piece of paper and a ballpoint pen. Bending over the paper held in his cupped left palm, he began to write,
with quick glances at the facade in front of him.

Ah. The right third of the building, at street level, was a gray metal overhead garage door, graffiti-smeared in a language
that hadn’t been seen on Earth since the glory days of the Maya. To the immediate left of this was a vertical series of bell
buttons, each with an identifying label. These were what Dortmunder was copying onto a cash register receipt from a chain
drugstore.

Reading the labels directly, since Dortmunder’s handwriting was about as legible as the Mayan graffiti, Kelp saw:

5 GR DEVELOPMENT

4 SCENERY STARS

3 KNICKERBOCKER STORAGE

2 COMBINED TOOL

The building, broad and old, was made of large rectangular stone blocks, time-darkened to a blurry charcoal. On the street
floor, to the left of the garage, were two large windows, barred for security and opaque with dirt, and beyond them at the
farther end a gray metal door with a bell mounted in its middle at head height. The upper floors showed blank walls above
the garage entrance and three windows each, all looking a little cleaner than the ones down here.

Putting paper and pen away, Dortmunder acknowledged Kelp’s presence for the first time: “Harya doin?”

“I wanna see the inside of the place,” Kelp told him.

“We can do that,” Dortmunder said, and pushed the button for five.

They waited less than a minute, and then a mechanical voice from somewhere said, “Yeah?”

“It’s John and Andy,” Dortmunder told the door.

“And Stan,” Stan said, having just walked up from farther downtown.

“And Stan.”

“I’ll be right down.”

They waited about three minutes this time, while beside them the slow-moving traffic of southbound Varick Street oozed by,
the two nearer lanes headed for the Holland Tunnel and New Jersey, the farther happier lanes not. Then, with a lot of metallic
groaning and creaking, the garage door lifted and there was Doug Fairkeep with the grin he wore like a fashion statement,
saying, “Right on time.”

They boarded. The elevator, big enough for a delivery truck, was just a rough wooden platform, with no side walls of its own.
Ahead of them the building was broad and deep, and this level was used as a garage, for a great variety of vehicles. There
were cars and vans and small trucks, but also what looked like a TV news truck, a small fire engine, an ambulance, a hansom
cab without the horse, and a lot more. If it had wheels, it was in here.

Doug stood next to a compact control box attached to the building’s front wall, and when he pressed a button on it the door
began noisily to lower. The elevator started up before the door finished coming down, which was a surprise, though nobody
actually lost his balance.

The platform they rode rose slowly through the building, too noisily for conversation. On the second floor—Combined Tool—a
clean off-white wall stood at the side, but no front wall. Out there a hall extended to the left, also off-white, with one
closed office door in the part they could see.

Third floor: Knickerbocker Storage. On this level too there was a wall to their left, not recently painted anything. This
wall extended straight back to the rear of the building, with double doors spaced along the way. Apparently the idea was,
a truck or a van could come up the elevator to this floor, then drive along that hall and stop to unload at one or another
set of doors.

Four: Scenery Stars. No wall either left or straight ahead, and no interior walls either except in the far right corner; probably
a bathroom. In the far left corner a flight of black iron stairs rose up from rear to front, and thick black iron columns
stood at intervals to bear the weight. The large space was full of stacks of lumber, piles of paint cans, tables covered with
tools, tall canvas stage flats. A bald man in sunglasses sat at a slanted drafting table near the stairs, drawing on a large
pad with pen and ruler under a bare bulb with a broad tin shade like the one in the back room at the OJ. He didn’t look toward
them as their platform rose up past him.

Five: Another big open space with black iron support columns and corner bathroom, but this one brighter, with large windows
and skylights. The iron stairs at this level rose up to a closed trapdoor. Sofas and chairs and tables were scattered around
in no order, as though waiting to be assembled into a stage set, but still the space seemed mostly empty.

Three men rose from sofas toward the middle of the room and waited to be introduced. Doug led the way to them, then said,
“Andy, John, Stan, this is my boss, Babe Tuck.”

Babe Tuck, a tough-looking sixty-year-old with the barrel shoulders of a street fighter, nodded without smiling and said,
“Doug has high hopes for you.”

Dortmunder said, “We feel the same way about him.”

Nobody offered to shake hands. Babe Tuck put his own hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels a little, nodded again
as though agreeing with himself, and said, “I suppose you’ve all been inside sometimes.”

“Not for a while,” Dortmunder said.

Stan said, “We don’t go where that’s likely to break out.”