Good Behavior (7 page)

“Like
my
mother?” she demanded. “Is
that
supposed to be my life?”

“Be careful,” Ritter told her, raising a finger. “Never say a word against your mother.”

“You destroyed her!”

“She is not destroyed. She is an active and productive member of society, which is better than we can say for you. If you took any interest in
this
world, you would have seen a photo of your mother in the
New York Times
just last Monday, in connection with one of her innumerable charity functions, functions which I may say are a much more
realistic
use of finer instincts than this self-centered egotistic withdrawal and cowering away from the world which you claim—”

“My mother's a
drunk!
”

Ritter raised that finger again, but his manner was calm and his voice almost remorseful: “And
that
was a sin against the fourth commandment, as well as against the ideal of charity. Your mother's ailments are not to be bandied about as though she didn't deserve our understanding.”

The fact is, Elaine's mother Gwen
was
a drunk. Ritter's second wife, she was like the first, tall and slender and ash blonde, the both of them having been chosen from that same northeastern mating pool which has furnished hostesses and helpmeets for so many of our better politicians and captains of industry. If there was one flaw with the type—it might have something to do, Ritter thought, with too close inbreeding—it was a tendency toward alcoholism. Generally, they remained for twenty or more years decorative and useful before this tendency made it necessary to replace them, and even afterward most of them remained tractable. One mustn't blame the poor creatures, as Elaine seemed to be doing. It was just something in the blood; alcohol, usually.

Now, having successfully accused Elaine of sin—the girl's stricken look told him his statement had struck home—Ritter pressed his advantage, or his luck, saying sadly, “The sharpest thorns are in your own roses.”

She gave him a look of scorn. “The rose grows from a dungheap,” she said.

If there was one thing this troubling child had inherited from her father it was a knack for aphorism, and yet somehow she had never yet come up with one he felt worthy of memorialization in his commonplace book. “Elaine,” he said.

“SISTER MARY GRACE!”

“ELAINE!
When are you going to give up this nonsense?
”

“
Never!
”

“Then you'll never leave this apartment,” he said, calmer.

She was calmer, too. “Oh, yes, I will,” she said.

Her assurance was so total that he had to smile at her, and say, “Do you expect God Himself to come down from Heaven and
escort
you back to that miserable primitive convent down there?”

“In a way,” she said.

“He's taking His own sweet time at it, isn't He?”

She folded her arms. Her look was defiant, smug, infuriating; not at all what Frank Ritter would call holy. “We'll see,” she said.

11

“You didn't tell me they kept birds,” May said.

Dortmunder listened to the twittering from within the low stone convent building. “I didn't see them last time.”

“Well, that must be nice for them,” May said. “Birds make a nice pet.”

Dortmunder pulled the thick old rope hanging beside the heavy wooden door and from far inside came a deep
bong-bong
. At once, the twittering stopped, then started again, redoubled. A moment went by, and then the door was drawn open by a buxom smiling older nun in full fig; not one of the ones Dortmunder had met his earlier time here. “Uh,” he said, “I'm—”

“Oh!” the nun said, delighted, and clapped her hands together. “You're John! Yes, of course, I remember you in the chapel, you might remember I helped to hold the ladder, I'm Sister Mary Amity, I was almost the second person to see you, just after Sister Mary Serene, we were both in the chapel in contemplation, and she looked up, and then
I
looked up, and oh, I suppose this is your wife, do come in both of you, we're just delighted to have visitors, it doesn't happen very often, isn't it lucky it's just when we're permitted to speak, be careful of the stone floor, it
is
uneven, I'll go get Mother Mary Forcible, what
was
it I wanted to say? Never mind, it will come to me. Don't go ‘way now.”

“We won't,” Dortmunder promised, and Sister Mary Amity bustled away down the long colonnade.

“Well!” May said.

“It's their talk time,” Dortmunder said.

“I guess so.”

The twittering, now that they were inside the wall, wasn't birds after all but conversation, lots and lots of conversation, much of it taking place in the open courtyard just to their left. The building itself was L-shaped, built away from the street corner, with the open section partly slate-floored and partly turned into flower beds, at the moment bursting with spring blooms. High stone walls separated this yard from the two street sides, while arched walkways or colonnades (or cloisters, actually) ran along the two building facades. Dortmunder and May stood under this walkway, just inside the main front door, and looked out through the stone arch at the chattering nuns, many of whom peeked back while maintaining their conversations with one another, pretending they weren't dying of curiosity.

“Here she comes,” Dortmunder said, as Mother Mary Forcible came pattering down the walkway, elbows working as she hustled along. Sister Mary Amity, who'd let them in, jogged in her wake until, just before reaching Dortmunder and May, Mother Mary Forcible turned and said, “Thank you, Sister. I'll take over now.”

“Oh,” said the sister. “Yes, of course, Mother.” She waved as she reluctantly receded, calling, “Nice to see you. Chat again sometime.”

“Sure,” Dortmunder said. Then he introduced May and Mother Mary Forcible, and extended the cane, saying, “I brought this back. Thanks for the loan.”

“Oh, Sister Mary Chaste will be very happy,” Mother Mary Forcible said, taking the cane. “She's been using a hoe, not really satisfactory.”

“And I wanted to say …” Dortmunder said, hesitating.

“Yes, of course. Come along to the office, we'll be comfortable there.” She chugged off, and as they followed her down the walkway she said, “Would you care for coffee? Tea?”

“Not for me, thanks,” May said.

“I'm just fine, Sister,” Dortmunder said.

“We make good coffee, as you know.”

“Oh, yeah, I know that, Sister,” Dortmunder said. What he didn't say was, he didn't feel right taking their coffee when he was just here to tell them the deal was off.

The whitewashed walls and scrubbed wooden floors and heavy-beamed ceilings led them to Mother Mary Forcible's tiny crammed office, where she ushered them in, shut the door, put the cane in a corner, and said, “Now.”

“See, the problem is,” Dortmunder said, while Mother Mary Forcible walked briskly around him to her desk, picked up two thick looseleaf books with black covers, and turned with them.

“John
has
been trying,” May said.

“Before we go any further,” Mother Mary Forcible said, “I want to give you these.” And she extended the two looseleaf books.

Having no choice, Dortmunder took them and stood cradling them in his hands. They were large and bulky and fairly heavy. He said, “What's this?”

“I think I told you,” Mother Mary Forcible said, “that Sister Mary Grace is enabled to send us notes from time to time, and we mail messages to her by the same route. We told her you would be coming to rescue her—”

“Oh, well, that was—”

“John did do his best,” May said.

“And so,” Mother Mary Forcible went on, “she arranged to have these two volumes smuggled out.”

Dortmunder looked at the looseleaf books in his hands. “Smuggled out? From
there?
”

May took one of the books from his hands and opened it. “John,” she said. “This is a list of all the tenants, and which security measures they've leased. And here's wiring diagrams. John? Here's the access code for the computer that runs the security!”

Dortmunder was turning the pages of the other book. Floor plans. Staff assignments. Names of vendors and scheduled days of delivery. It went on and on.

“Sister Mary Grace is such an unworldly little thing,” Mother Mary Forcible was saying. “She wasn't sure if you'd want any of this, or if it would help at all, but she sent it along just in case, which I thought was very enterprising of her.
Are
they useful?”

Dortmunder looked up. His eyes were shining. “Let us prey,” he said.

NUMBERS

12

Tiny Bulcher picked up the Honda Civic and put it on the back of the flatbed truck. He had to climb up, and push and tug the car a bit, to nestle it in next to the Mustang, but when he was done there was just about enough room left for one more small car; a VW Beetle, maybe, or a Mazda. Tiny got down onto the sidewalk and slogged up to the cab, where he opened the door and said to the stocky red-haired driver, “Okay, Stan.”

“Hey!” said somebody.

Tiny started to heave his bulk up onto the passenger seat of the cab.

“Hey! Hey,
you!
”

Stan Murch said, “I think that guy's calling you, Tiny.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tiny put both feet back on the curb and turned to see what the guy wanted. “You yellin at me, fella?”

“That's my car!” the guy said, sounding very upset, pointing at the Honda Civic. He was tall and slender and had thinning brown hair and a polo shirt that was a little too loose.

Tiny didn't bother to look at the car; he'd seen it already. “Yeah?” he said.

“Well—Well—That's my
car!
” The guy seemed stuck at that point, unable to follow his own thought anywhere. Or maybe he was just distracted by now having this clear view of Tiny Bulcher, who was a kind of mastodon in clothes, a sort of lowland Abominable Snowman, a creature made from the parts rejected by Dr. Frankenstein when he was sewing together his monster. When people found themselves being looked at by this gigantic bad-tempered drill press, generally speaking they did tend to forget what it was they'd been going to say.

After a sufficient silence had gone by, “Okay,” Tiny said, with a voice like two boulders being rubbed together, and he turned back to climb into the cab.

“But—” said the Honda owner. “But, wait a minute.”

Impatience exuded from Tiny like a heavy fog, probably toxic. “What now?” he asked.

“Well—” The Honda owner gestured helplessly, and looked up and down this quiet sunlit cross-street in the seventies on Manhattan's West Side. “It's,” he said, “it's
legal
.”

“Good,” Tiny said, and turned away again.

“I mean, it's legal where I'm
parked!
”

“So?” Tiny said. When his brow furrowed, it looked like a set of shelves in the basement.

“So I'm legal! Am I by a hydrant? What hydrant am I by?”

Tiny considered, then lifted a hand like a beachball with fingers and pointed at a fire hydrant way down at the other end of the block.

“What?” The Honda owner was as outraged as anybody ever gets with Tiny Bulcher. “I'm more than twelve feet from that! You want me to call the Traffic Department?”

“Sure,” Tiny said, and this time he did climb up into the truck cab, while the guy spluttered behind him. Shutting the cab door, he looked down through the open window and said, “What else?”

“I'm geting a tape measure,” the guy announced. Seeing less of Tiny had made him more aggressive.

“Go ahead,” Tiny said.

“You'll see,” the guy said, pointing at Tiny. “And you'll owe me an apology, too.” And he went trotting off.

“You done?” Stan Murch asked.

“Pests,” Tiny said. “I hate dealing with the public.”

Stan put the truck in gear, and they drove away from there. They turned right at the corner and went up three and over one and stopped next to a Renault Le Car. Tiny got out and picked it up by the front wheelwells and was putting it in place on the truckbed when a horn sounded. “More aggravation,” he said. The horn sounded again. “Maybe somebody's gonna eat their horn,” Tiny grumbled, and put the Renault down any which way and went around to see a cab stopped next to the truck on the driver's side. He went up to discuss the situation, flexing his fingers, but when he got there the cabby was Murch's Mom, a feisty little woman in a cloth cap, this being her cab and that being what she did for a living, insisting on her independence and not wanting to be a burden on her son, Stanley, who made his living by, among other occupations, collecting things with Tiny Bulcher.

Murch's Mom was calling out her other-side window and up to her son, saying, “I'm glad I caught you. See? I told you, it's always a good thing to tell me where you'll be.”

There was a passenger in the back of the cab, a stout man in a dark suit and loud tie. And loud voice: “Say, there, driver,” he said loudly, “I have an appointment.”

“Hi, Mom,” Stan was saying. “What's up?”

“Driver, what is this delay?”

Tiny opened the rear door and showed his unsmiling countenance to the passenger. “Shut up,” he suggested.

The passenger blinked a lot. He clutched his attaché case with both hands. Tiny shut the door.

Murch's Mom said, “John Dortmunder called, just after you left. He says he's got something.”

“Good,” said Stan.

“For Tiny, too,” Murch's Mom said.

“Naturally,” Tiny said. (A disbelieving voice from the back-seat of the cab said, “Tiny?” but then shut up when Tiny rolled an eye in that direction.)

“He says,” Murch's Mom went on, “would you meet tonight at ten at the OJ.”