The Hot Rock (13 page)

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Dortmunder said.

“It’s never too late to learn,” Steen agreed. “But let me give you one little piece of friendly advice. In my experience, in the experience of this office and generally, the thing you’ve got to look out for most of all is bad companions.”

Dortmunder nodded.

“Now,” Steen said, “that may seem like a strange thing to say to a man your age, but the fact of the matter is, more recidivism is caused by bad companions than just about any other factor. You want to remember that, in case any of your old chums ever come to you with that just–one–more job that’s supposed to put you on Easy Street.”

“I already turned ‘em down,” Dortmunder said heavily. “Don’t you worry.”

Steen looked blank. “You what?”

“I said no.”

Steen shook his head. “No what?”

“No, I wouldn’t do it,” Dortmunder told him. He looked at Steen and saw that Steen remained unenlightened, so he told him, “The just–one–more–job guys. I told them no dice.”

Steen gaped at him. “You were approached? For a robbery?”

“Sure.”

“And you turned it down?”

“Damn right,” Dortmunder said. “There comes a point when you got to give anything up as a bad job.”

“And,” said Steen, so stunned his voice was cracking, “you’re reporting it to me?”

“Well, you brought it up,” Dortmunder reminded him.

“That’s right,” Steen said, in a vague sort of way. “I did, didn’t I?” He gazed around the bleak battered office with its grimy furniture and the faded inspirational posters on the walls, and his eyes were shining with an unaccustomed glow. He could be seen to think, It does work! The whole probation system, the paperwork, the irritation, the crummy offices, the surly parolees, by God it works! A parolee has actually been approached to take part in a crime, and has actually turned it down, and has even reported it to his probation officer! Life does have meaning after all!

Gradually Dortmunder began to grow impatient. He cleared his throat. He tapped his knuckles on the desk. He developed a coughing fit. Finally he said, “If you don’t need me any more —”

Steen’s eyes slowly refocused on him. “Dortmunder,” he said, “I want you to know something. I want you to know you have made me a very happy man.”

Dortmunder had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “Any time I can help out.”

Steen cocked his head to one side, like that dog the other day. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “you’d want to tell me the names of the people who contacted you?”

Dortmunder shrugged. “It was just some people,” he said. He was a little sorry now he’d brought it up. Usually he wouldn’t have, but this emerald business had gotten him rattled over the last few months, and the habits of a lifetime were gradually going to hell. “Just some people I used to know,” he amplified, to make it clear he wasn’t saying any more than that.

Steen nodded. “I understand,” he said. “You still have to draw the line somewhere. Still, this has been a red–letter day for crime prevention, I want you to know that. And for me.”

“That’s good,” Dortmunder said. He wasn’t following, but it didn’t matter.

Steen looked down at the paperwork on his desk. “Well, let’s see. Just the usual questions left, I guess. You’re still going to that machinists’ school?”

“Oh, sure,” Dortmunder said. There was no machinists’ school, naturally.

“And you’re still being supported by your cousin–in–law, is that right? Mr. Kelp.”

“Sure,” Dortmunder said.

“You’re lucky to have such relatives,” Steen said. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mr. Kelp had something to do with what you told me here today.”

Dortmunder frowned at him. “Oh, yeah?”

Steen, smiling happily at his paperwork again, didn’t catch the expression on Dortmunder’s face, which was just as well. “Well, that’s about it for this time,” he said and looked up, and Dortmunder’s face had no expression at all.

Dortmunder got to his feet. “Be seeing you.”

“Keep up the good work,” Steen said. “Keep away from those bad companions.”

“I’ll do that,” Dortmunder said and went home, and they were all sitting around his living room, drinking his booze. He shut the door and said, “Who let you birds in?”

“I did,” said Chefwick. “I hope you don’t mind.” He was drinking ginger ale.

“Why should I mind?” Dortmunder said. “It isn’t like it’s a private apartment or anything.”

“We wanted to talk to you,” Kelp said. He was drinking Dortmunder’s bourbon, and he held out a glass of the stuff, saying, “I brought out a glass for you.”

Dortmunder took it and said, “I’m not breaking into any insane asylum. You people want to, you probably ought to be there anyway, so go right ahead.” He turned toward his favorite chair, but Greenwood was sprawled all over it, so he sat in the uncomfortable chair with the wooden arms instead.

Kelp said, “All the rest of us are in it, Dortmunder. Everybody’s willing to give it one more try except you.”

Greenwood said, “We wish you’d come in with us.”

“What do you need me for? Do it without me, you’ve got four men.”

Kelp said, “You’re the planner, Dortmunder, you’re the organizer. We need you to run things.”

Dortmunder said, “You could do it yourself. Or Greenwood. Chefwick could do it. I don’t know, maybe even Murch could do it.”

Murch said, “Not as good as you.”

“You don’t need me,” Dortmunder said. “Besides, I been warned away from bad companions, and that means you bunch.”

Kelp waved his hands in negation. “That horoscope stuff doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “I got hooked on that stuff once, my second wife was a nut for all that. The only fall I ever took, I did what the horoscope told me.”

Dortmunder frowned at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Horoscope,” Kelp explained. He moved his hands like a man shuffling jigsaw puzzle pieces. “Bad companions,” he said. “Tall dark trips. Afternoon is good for business marriages. All that stuff.”

Dortmunder squinted, trying to see Kelp clearly enough to understand him. Finally he said, in some doubt, “You mean horoscope?”

“Sure,” Kelp said. “Naturally.”

Dortmunder shook his head, still trying to understand. “You believe in horoscope?”

“No,” Kelp said. “You do.”

Dortmunder thought about that for a few seconds, then nodded heavily and said to the room at large, “I hope you guys’ll be very happy here. I’ll let you know where to send my stuff.” He turned and headed for the door.

Kelp said, “Hey! Wait a second!”

Chefwick came up off his chair and ran around in front of Dortmunder. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “Honestly I do. At first, when Kelp and Greenwood came out to see me, I had the same attitude as you. But I listened, I let them explain it to me, and when they did —”

“That was where you made your mistake,” Dortmunder told him. “Never listen to those two, they’ve turned all of life into a quick game of smack.”

“Dortmunder,” Chefwick said, “we need you. It’s as simple as that. With you running things we can get this job done once and for all.”

Dortmunder looked at him. “Job? Jobs, you mean. Do you realize we’ve already pulled three heists for that stinking emerald, and we still don’t have it? And no matter how many heists we pull, our take is still the same.”

Greenwood had come over now to the door, where Chefwick and Dortmunder were standing, and he said, “No, it isn’t. At first it was thirty a man, and then for the police station it went up to thirty–five.”

Kelp came over too, saying, “And the Major will go up again, Dortmunder, I already talked to him. Another five thousand a man. That’s forty gee for walking into an insane asylum and walking back out with crazy–like–a–fox Prosker.”

Dortmunder turned to him. “No, it isn’t,” he said. “That would be the fourth heist, and that one’s a kidnaping, which is a Federal offense and they can give you the chair for it. Even just talking economics, that’s the fourth heist, and four heists for forty grand is ten thousand dollars a caper, and I haven’t worked a job for ten grand since I was fourteen years old.”

Kelp said, “You gotta think about the living expenses too. That’s another couple grand, by the time we’re done. Twelve thousand dollars isn’t all that bad for a heist.”

“It’s a jinx,” Dortmunder said. “Don’t give me any more horoscope stuff, all I’m saying is I’m not superstitious and I don’t believe in jinxes, but there’s one jinx in the world and that emerald is it.”

Greenwood said, “Just look at it, Dortmunder. Just go out on the train and look at it, that’s all we ask. If it doesn’t look good to you, we’ll forget it.”

“It doesn’t look good to me,” Dortmunder said.

Greenwood said, “How do you know? You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“I don’t have to,” Dortmunder said. “I already know I hate it.” He spread his hands. “Why don’t you people just go do it yourselves? Or you need five men, get somebody else. You can even use my phone.”

Chefwick said, “I think we should put our cards on the table.”

Greenwood shrugged. “I suppose so,” he said.

Murch, the only one still seated and still sipping away at his beer, called, “I told you that in the first place.”

Kelp said, “I just didn’t want to put pressure on him like that, that’s all.”

Dortmunder, looking around at everybody with grim suspicion, said, “What now?”

Chefwick told him, “Iko won’t finance us without you.”

Greenwood said, “He’s sold on you, Dortmunder, he knows you’re the best man around.”

“God damn it,” said Dortmunder.

Kelp said, “All we want you to do is look at it. After that, if you say no go, we won’t bother you any more.”

“We could take the train up there tomorrow,” Greenwood said.

“If you’re willing,” Chefwick said.

They all stood there and watched Dortmunder and waited for him to say something. He glowered at the floor and chewed his knuckle and after a while walked through them and back over to the table where he’d put down his bourbon. He picked it up, and took a healthy swallow, and turned around to look at them all.

Greenwood said, “You’ll go take a look at the place?”

“I suppose so,” Dortmunder said. He didn’t sound happy.

Everybody else was happy. “That’s great!” Kelp said.

“It’ll give me a chance to get my head examined,” Dortmunder said and finished his bourbon.

“Air,” said Dortmunder.

The conductor stood in the aisle with his punch poised. He said, “What?”

“There’s no air in this car,” Dortmunder told him. “The windows won’t open and there isn’t any air.”

“You’re right,” the conductor said. “Could I have your tickets?”

“Could we have some air?”

“Don’t ask me,” said the conductor. “The railroad guarantees transportation, pick you up here, put you down there. The railroad isn’t in the air business. I need your tickets.”

“I need air,” Dortmunder said.

“You could get off the train at the next stop,” the conductor said. “Lots of air on the platforms.”

Kelp, sitting next to Dortmunder, tugged his sleeve and said, “Forget it. You’re not gonna get anywhere.”

Dortmunder looked at the conductor’s face and saw that Kelp was right. He shrugged and handed over his ticket, and Kelp did the same, and the conductor made holes in them before giving them back. Then he did the same for Murch, across the aisle, and for Greenwood and Chefwick in the next seat back. Since the five were the only occupants of this car, the conductor then strolled slowly down the aisle and out the far end, leaving them once again alone.

Kelp said, “You never get any satisfaction from those union types.”

“Sure,” said Dortmunder. He looked around and said, “Anybody carrying?”

Kelp looked startled, saying, “Dortmunder! You don’t bump off a guy for no air!”

“Who said anything about bump off? Isn’t anybody heavy?”

“Me,” said Greenwood, and from inside his Norfolk jacket — he was the spiffiest dresser in the group — he produced a Smith and Wesson Terrier, a five–shot .32 caliber revolver with a two–inch barrel. He handed it over to Dortmunder, butt first, and Dortmunder said, “Thanks.” He took the gun, reversed it to hold it by the barrel and chamber, and said to Kelp, “Excuse me.” Then he leaned across Kelp and punched a hole in the window.

“Hey!”said Kelp.

“Air,” said Dortmunder. He turned and handed the gun back to Greenwood, saying, “Thanks again.”

Greenwood looked a little dazed. “Any time,” he said and looked at the butt, studying it for scratches. There weren’t any, and he put it away again.

This was Sunday, the tenth of September, and they were on just about the only passenger train running in this direction on Sunday. The occasional platform they stopped beside was empty except for those three old men in baggy work pants who lean against the wall of every small–town railroad station platform in the United States. The sun was shining outside, and the fresh air blowing in through the hole Dortmunder had made was pleasantly scented with the odors of late summer. The train clackety–clacked along at a contemplative seventeen miles an hour, giving the passengers an opportunity to really study the landscape, and all in all it was the pleasant sort of leisurely excursion you just can’t find too often in the twentieth century.

“How much longer?” Dortmunder said.

Kelp looked at his watch. “Another ten or fifteen minutes,” he said. “You’ll be able to see the place from the train. On this side.”

Dortmunder nodded.

“It’s a big old brick place,” Kelp said. “It used to be a factory, they used to make prefabricated fallout shelters there.”

Dortmunder looked at him. “Every time you start to talk to me,” he said, “you tell me more facts than I want to know. Prefabricated fallout shelters. I don’t want to know why the factory went bust.”

“It’s a pretty interesting story,” Kelp said.

“I figured it probably was.”

The train stopped just then and Dortmunder and Kelp looked out at the three old men, who looked back. The train started up again, and Kelp said, “We’re the next stop.”

“What’s the name of the town?”

“New Mycenae. It’s named after an old Greek city.”

“I don’t want to know why,” Dortmunder said.

Kelp turned to look at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” said Dortmunder, and the conductor came back into the car and walked down the aisle and stopped beside them. He frowned at the hole in the window. He said, “Who did that?”

“An old man back at that last station,” Dortmunder said.

The conductor glared at him. “You did it,” he said.

Kelp said, “No, he didn’t. An old man did, back at that last station.”

Greenwood, in the next seat back, said, “That’s right. I saw it happen. An old man did it, back at the last station.”

The conductor glowered around at everybody. “You expect me to believe that?” Nobody answered him.

He frowned some more at the hole in the window, then turned around to Murch, sitting across the aisle. “Did you see it?”

“Sure,” Murch said.

“What happened?”

“An old man did it,” Murch said. “Back at that last station.”

The conductor lowered an eyebrow at him. “You with these people?”

“Never saw them before in my life,” Murch said.

The conductor gave everybody suspicious looks, then mumbled something nobody could make out and turned away and walked down to the end of the car. He went out the door, and popped back in a second later to call, “Next stop
New McKinney,
” as though daring somebody to make something of it. He glared, waited, then disappeared again and slammed the door.

Dortmunder said to Kelp, “I thought you said the next stop was us.”

“It’s supposed to be,” said Kelp. He looked out the window and said, “Sure it is. There’s the place.”

Dortmunder looked where Kelp was pointing and saw a large sprawling red brick building off to the right a ways. A tall chain–link fence enclosed the grounds, with metal signs attached to it at intervals. Dortmunder squinted, but couldn’t make out what the signs said. He said to Kelp, “What do the signs say?”

“Danger,” Kelp told him. “High voltage.”

Dortmunder looked at him, but Kelp was gazing out the window, refusing to meet his eye. Dortmunder shook his head and looked out at the asylum again, seeing a set of tracks that curved away from the tracks the train was on and angled around to go under the electrified fence and across the asylum grounds. The tracks were orange with rust, and within the grounds they’d been incorporated in the design of a formal flower bed. A couple of dozen people in white pajamas and white bathrobes were strolling around the grass in there, being watched by what looked like armed guards in blue uniforms.

“So far,” Dortmunder said, “I wouldn’t say it looks easy.”

“Give it a chance,” Kelp said.

The train had started to slow, as the asylum moved into the background, and now the door at the far end of the car opened again and the conductor stuck his head in to call, “
New McKinney! Newwww McKinney!
”

Kelp and Dortmunder frowned at each other. They looked out the window, and the platform was just edging into sight. The sign on it said, NEW MYCENAE.

“
New McKinney!
” yelled the conductor.

“I think I hate him,” Dortmunder said. He got to his feet, and the other four got up after him. They went down the aisle as the train creaked to a stop, and the conductor glowered at them as they disembarked. He said to Murch, “I thought you said you weren’t with these guys.”

“With who?” Murch asked him and went on down to the platform.

The train started up and stumbled slowly away from the station, the conductor leaning out for a long while to look after his five passengers. The three old men on the platform studied them too, one of them spitting tobacco juice to mark the occasion.

Dortmunder and the others walked through the station and out the other side, where they turned down a mustached fat man who claimed his 1949 Eraser was a cab.

“We can walk it,” Kelp told Dortmunder. “It isn’t far.”

It wasn’t. They walked about seven blocks and then they came to the main entrance, with a sign to one side reading,
Clair de Lune Sanitarium.
The electrified fence was set back from the road here, with another chain–link fence about five feet in front of it. Two armed guards sat on folding chairs inside the main gate, chatting together.

Dortmunder stopped and looked at it all. “Who’ve they got in there?” he said. “Rudolf Hess?”

“It’s what they call a maximum security bughouse,” Kelp told him. “For rich nuts only. Most of them in there are what they call criminally insane, but their family has enough money to keep them out of some state asylum.”

“I’ve wasted a whole day,” Dortmunder said. “I could of sold half a dozen encyclopedias today. Sunday’s a good day for encyclopedias, you got the husband at home, you tell the husband you’ll throw in a bookcase that comes unassembled and he can put it together himself, and he’ll hand you his wallet.”

Chefwick said, “You mean it can’t be done?”

“Armed guards,” Dortmunder said. “Electrified fences. Not to speak of the inmates. You want to mix with them?”

Greenwood said, “I was hoping you’d see some way. There oughta be a way to get in there.”

“Sure there’s a way to get in there,” Dortmunder said. “You drop in with a parachute. Now let’s see you get out.”

Murch said, “Why don’t we walk around the place? Maybe we’ll see something.”

“Like anti–aircraft guns,” Dortmunder said. “That is not an easy nuthouse to crack.”

Kelp said, “We got an hour to kill before our train back. We might as well walk around.”

Dortmunder shrugged. “All right, we’ll walk around.”

They walked around, and they didn’t see anything encouraging. When they got to the rear of the building, they had to leave blacktopped road and walk across scrubby field. They stepped over the rusty orange tracks, and Chefwick said primly, “I keep my tracks in better condition than this.”

“Well, they don’t use these any more,” Kelp said.

Murch said, “Look, one of the loonies is waving at us.”

They looked, and it was true. One of the figures in white stood by the flowerbed and waved at them. He was shielding his eyes from the sun with his other hand, and he was smiling to beat the band.

They started to wave back to him, and then Greenwood said, “Hey! That’s Prosker!”

Everybody stood there with his hand up in the air. Chefwick said, “So it is.” He pulled his hand down, and everybody else followed suit. In there by the flowerbed Prosker waved and waved, and then began to laugh. He bent over and slapped his knee and went into a fit of laughter. He tried to wave and laugh at the same time and almost fell over.

Dortmunder said, “Greenwood, let me borrow it again.”

“No, Dortmunder,” said Kelp. “We need him to give us the emerald.”

“Except we can’t get at him,” Murch said. “So it doesn’t make any difference.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Dortmunder, and shook his fist at Prosker, who as a result laughed so hard he sat down on the ground. A guard came over and looked at him, but didn’t do anything.

Kelp said, “I hate it that we’re beaten by a louse like that.”

“We aren’t,” Dortmunder said grimly.

They all looked at him. Kelp said, “You mean —”

“He can’t laugh at me,” Dortmunder said. “I’ve had enough, that’s all.”

“You mean we’re going in after him?”

“I mean I’ve had enough,” Dortmunder said. He looked at Kelp. “You go tell Iko to put us back on the payroll,” he said and looked back at Prosker, who was now rolling around on the ground, clutching his ribcage and beating his heels into the turf. “If he thinks he can stay in that place,” Dortmunder said, “he’s crazy.”