Good Behavior (23 page)

Irrelevantly wondering what sort of family problem an automaton like Pickens could have, Ritter said, “Get to the point, man.”

“You have a daughter, sir, as I understand it,” Pickens said, “living on the top floor here.”

So here it was. “Yes, I do,” Ritter said, wondering just how common that knowledge might be.

“I understand she has some sort of problem,” Pickens went on. “I don't know what. It's not my business to know what. But I believe she's there.”

“She's there,” Ritter agreed. He spent a millisecond considering whether to explain the case of his daughter Elaine to this man, decided the fellow could go to Hell first, and said, “She's confined to that floor, for her own good, for personal reasons of my own.”

Pickens showed a calloused palm in a traffic-stop gesture. “Not my business, sir. But I wonder, sir, if this daughter of yours might not have come
down
these here interior stairs into Margrave last night and had some hand in the events taking place.”

“Definitely not,” Ritter said. “I already told you, she's confined there, locked in. I have private guards up there to see she doesn't leave.”

Pickens was unmoved. He said, “Mr. Ritter, I'm sorry, but that's the only direction left. Smith is no longer on this floor. He didn't go down. That leaves only one alternative.”

“It's simply not possible,” Ritter insisted. “The security between here and the top floor is of a much more sophisticated nature than in the rest of the building, it would be far easier to go down from here than up. Have you seen the spec books?”

“Which books would those be, sir?”

Ritter got to his feet, his body full of tension, pleased at the opportunity to move, to work off some of the pressure accumulating inside. “Come along,” he said.

The office containing the spec books was nearby, just down the hall, one of the small windowless rooms Pickens had looked at last night, this one lined with plain metal shelving stacked with various records, some office supplies, and shelf after shelf of ledger books filled with manufacturer's spec sheets on everything in use in this building from the heating plant to the water coolers. Among these were the two black unmarked ledger books filled with the specifications and details of usage of all the security systems in the entire Avalon State Bank Tower.

“Here they are,” Ritter said, reached out for the books on a shelf just at eye-level, grasped them both with the spread fingers of one hand, lifted and pulled, and the books were so startlingly light that his hand jumped and he almost punched himself in the face. As it was, the books spurted from his grasp and fell on the floor, opening flat, face up, lying there like accident victims, spread-eagled on their backs.

And empty.

Ritter stared at the books on the floor, black cardboard covers and gleaming metal rings. Empty!

“Sir? Something wrong?”

Ritter reached out, grabbed another ledger book at random. Full. Another; full. Another; full.

Pickens said, “Sir, were those the security spec books?”

“Yes.” Ritter's voice was suddenly hoarse; he cleared his throat.

“And all the information is gone, sir?”

Ritter stared again at the fallen books, and into his mind came an idea so forbidden that he refused to believe he'd even thought it: Maybe God is on her side.

Pickens said, “Sir, request permission to conduct a search of the top floor.”

Ritter blinked at him. “Granted,” he said.

35

Wilbur Howey came out of the men's room with
Scandinavian Marriage Secrets
under his arm and deep gray circles under his eyes. Nevertheless, his step was light as he hurried down the seventh floor corridor to room 712, rapped on the wood in a secret pattern—two, then one, then one, if you
must
know—heard the lock click, and was admitted by Stan Murch, who looked at him and said, “All full inside.”

“Say, don't I know it?” Howey answered. “I had to come out here to shrug.”

Howey squeezed past Stan, who shut and relocked the door and returned to his work, which was taking precious objects out of black plastic sacks and putting them on the receptionist's desk. Seated in the receptionist's chair was Andy Kelp, who placed the precious objects in mailers of various sizes, ranging from small padded envelopes suitable for mailing books such as the one under Howey's arm up to cardboard boxes the store would mail a shirt in. Some objects were too large even for these and were placed in a pile on the floor in the corner behind Kelp to be dealt with later, a pile that was already knee-high and steadily growing.

J.C. Taylor's office was, at this moment, a madhouse and a mess. It was a little after nine on Sunday morning, and in the two hours since they'd finished looting the stores on the twenty-sixth floor only a minimum amount of order had been brought from the prevailing chaos. Full black plastic bags were piled everywhere, the mounds reaching head-height in some precarious places, and leaving only a twisty narrow route through to the inner room, where Tiny could be heard huffing and puffing, like the Minotaur in his cave.

Kelp looked up from his packing and said, “Aren't you Wilbur Howey?”

“You just bet I am,” Howey told him. “Howlin' Howey, ever ready.”

“Then you're the guy over here working with me,” Kelp told him. “Where've you been?”

“Mother Nature called,” Howey said. He was looking around, trying to find somewhere to put the book.

“The next time she calls,” Kelp advised, “tell her to leave a message. Look how much stuff there is here.”

“Say, here I come,” Howey said, edging past Stan and through the stacks of plastic bags and around the desk. “Your troubles are over.”

“Wonderful news,” Kelp said.

A certain backlog had built up in Howey's absence. It was his job, once Kelp had put each object or group of objects in the appropriate packaging, to seal it with either staples or shipping tape and then carry armloads of completed packages to the next room. Unsealed packages now towered up like a model city on the receptionist's typing table, weaving and tottering, reaching nearly to the ceiling. Dumping the Scandinavian book in the wastebasket, as being the only place around to put it, Howey went right to work, taping and stapling, and soon had enough to tote a stack of them into the next room.

Where Tiny was a one-man team all his own, surrounded by more high mounds of plastic bags, sorting and packing like mad, tossing sealed packages into the corner between the window and the piano. The great big toilet-paper carton they'd brought in with them, which had at that time contained most of these mailers, had been emptied and placed in the corner to receive the completed packages, but they now filled and overflowed the carton and were gradually turning into a jagged brown cardboard replica of an alp, its peak just under the ceiling.

Howey added his new armload to this ever-growing slope and gathered up another stack of empty packages from atop the piano. As he was going out, Tiny looked over at him, paused, and said, “Wilbur.”

“Here I am,” Howey told him, peering over the top of the mailers.

“When we get done here,” Tiny told him, “take a look through those two books of security specs.”

Howey said, “Sure thing. You want to go up look for Dortmunder, huh?”

Tiny glowered. “There is no Dortmunder,” he said. “There's only us. And what you're gonna do is find us another floor with good stuff in it that we can hit tonight.”

Howey gaped at him. “Tonight? Say, Tiny, you want
more?
”

“Yes,” Tiny said simply.

“Well, but, say, listen,” Howey said, the stack of mailers wobbling in his arms. “When do we grab some shuteye?”

Tiny grinned. “When we get to Bermuda,” he said.

36

In his dream, Dortmunder walked a tightrope between two tall towers. Instead of a balancing pole, he carried a long heavy lance, tipping first to the left and then to the right. And the tightrope itself was made of long blonde hair. In the arched window at the top of the stone tower out in front he could see the girl whose hair this was, still attached to her head, long and braided and looped between the two towers; from the strained and painful expression on her face, she didn't much like what was going on.

But what could he do? Looking down, he saw a jousting arena laid out on the bare tan ground between the towers. Men on horseback tilted at one another down there, but instead of knight's armor they were dressed in green-shaded camouflage uniforms, and the weapons they jousted with were Valmets. Each pair started far apart, then rode madly together on their horses, whacking and whamming at each other with the rifles, never firing them.

Other green-clad men off to the side were setting up a catapult, and beyond them stood a company of archers. In bleachers farther away, a group of nuns silently applauded. As Dortmunder watched, the archers nocked an arrow into their bows, took a stance, and at a signal from their commander—the burly man who'd led Dortmunder into Margrave—a volley of arrows arched into the air and came straight at
him!
Yi! he tried to shout, but couldn't make a sound. He ducked and wiggled, his feet shuffling back and forth while the girl in the tower window grimaced and grabbed at her hair to ease the strain, and the arrows went whiff-whiff-whiff on by.

Thwack! A
great boulder came curving up from the catapult. Dortmunder dropped his lance and fell forward onto the braids, and the boulder brushed his back as it went by.

Dortmunder clung to the braided tightrope. The archers were readying a second volley. Another big boulder was being tipped into the catapult. The silent nuns jumped up and down in excitement. The jousting men all stopped lambasting one another to point their pennant-tipped Valmets at Dortmunder. And now they were shooting! Bullets ripped through the hair-rope, breaking it, Dortmunder was losing his grip and falling, and somebody pinched his nose hard. His eyes popped open, he stared at Sister Mary Grace leaning over him, and he said, “Oh, thank you! I needed that.”

Wide-eyed, she put a warning finger to her lips, then pointed a thumb toward the doorway.

Dortmunder had been sleeping in the big beige marble bathtub, the surface softened by a couple of layers of terrycloth towels and with a tan terrycloth robe thrown over him for comfort. Now he tried to sit up, bumping his elbow on bare marble and his knee on a faucet, and whispered, “Somebody's coming?”

She nodded. She pretended to open a door and look in, to raise a chest lid and study the interior, to pull a curtain aside and peer past it.

“They're
searching?
” His whisper was so loud and harsh that she made the shush-shush gesture with finger to lips again. More quietly, he whispered, “Here? Up here?”

Emphatic nod. Then she tugged at his wrist.

“Okay, okay, here I come.”

He crawled and struggled up out of the bathtub, not aided by the fact that terrycloth slides on marble, and when at last he was more or less erect and on his feet he found he was just as stiff and sore as if the surfaces he'd slept on had been of more plebeian matter. “Whoosh,” he commented, and pressed knuckles into his back.

She was over by the bedroom door, gesturing dramatically for him to come on. He looked around the bathroom, and said, “Uh. Do I have two minutes?”

Her face was agitated, but then she nodded briskly and hurried from the room, pulling the door shut, and two minutes later Dortmunder followed her.

A clean and simple bedroom. The twin bed stood high enough from the ground and was so unostentatiously covered that the well-swept floor beneath it was in plain sight. A small wooden chest of drawers, a modest bedside table and an armless wooden chair completed the furnishings. The closet door stood open, revealing an almost empty interior. “There's no place to hide,” Dortmunder pointed out.

She was over by the hall door. She nodded agreement, touched finger to lips, and cautiously opened the door, looking out. Dortmunder heard male voices, and slid over to peek past the top of Sister Mary Grace's head.

A short hall. Half a dozen tough guys in camouflage uniforms out of Dortmunder's dream were just entering a room down to the right. They weren't carrying their Valmets, but on the other hand they didn't have to.

The instant the last of the searchers disappeared into that room, Sister Mary Grace was out the bedroom door and moving away to the left, gesturing for Dortmunder to follow. He did, both of them jogging on the balls of their feet, and she led them into the kitchen.

Large, airy, very elaborate and modern, with a big double-ovened electric stove. Side-by-side refrigerator-freezer, with icewater dispenser. Butcher block island in the middle of the room, with copper pans hanging above. Blond wood cabinets, white tile floor. Twin stainless steel sinks. Dishwasher, with a small magnetic sign on the front reading,
SUCIO—DIRTY.
Lots of unopenable windows letting in the morning light here a thousand feet closer to Heaven. Dortmunder opened a narrow wooden door and found a broom closet crammed with brooms and mops and buckets. There was nowhere to hide.

Sister Mary Grace had made one brisk circuit around the room, staring and frowning at everything, then abruptly hurried to the dishwasher and turned the magnetic sign around so it read,
LIMPIO
—
CLEAN.
A hell of a time for tidying up.

But now what? Opening the dishwasher, which was less than a quarter full, she started pulling out used glasses, coffee cups, plates, forks, everything. Opening cabinets, she stowed it all away, dirty dishes with the clean. Not only that, she gestured urgently for Dortmunder to come over and help.

So Dortmunder went over and helped. “What's this for?” he asked, putting glasses with milk scum on their bottoms on a shelf with clean glasses.

She pointed at him. She pointed at the dishwasher.