"Sure," Dortmunder said. "That's how I got off."
"Then how come you were facing the police car?"
"It was a different kind of door," Dortmunder explained. "It didn't have a spring closer. I just opened it and picked up the TV sets and walked out."
May's frown deepened. "That's all there was to it?"
"They didn't ask about the door," Dortmunder said. "They might have, if we just talked about it straight out, but the way Stonewiler worked things, he had everybody thinking about that cop's ass."
May nodded, thoughtfully. "You better watch your step with those people," she said.
"I figure to," Dortmunder told her.
Chapter 3
The third time Dortmunder walked past the house, in the raw November afternoon, its front door opened and a guy with long yellow hair leaned out, calling, "Mr. Dortmunder?"
Dortmunder broke stride, but didn't quite stop walking. He quick looked across the street, as though he hadn't seen the man or heard what he'd said, but almost immediately gave all that up and stopped and looked back.
The house was one of a row of four-story brownstones on this tree-lined quiet street off Park Avenue; an expensive house, in an expensive neighborhood. The building was fairly wide, with a dozen broad concrete steps leading up to the front door, at the second level. Flowers and ivy and a couple of small evergreen shrubs were in concrete pots in the space to the right of the steps.
It had taken Dortmunder twenty minutes to get here by subway, and he'd spent the last quarter hour casing the joint and thinking things over. The house was anonymous, beyond the obvious indication that its inhabitants must have money, and no matter how long Dortmunder stared at it he still couldn't figure out why anybody who lived in there would strain himself to get John Dortmunder off the hook on a felony charge, and then invite him over for a chat. He'd walked around the block the first time to get the lay of the land, and the second time hoping to find a way to see the rear of the place – there wasn't any – and the third time he'd simply walked as an aid to thought.
And now some tall slender yellow-haired guy in a dark blue pinstripe suit, white shirt and dark blue patterned tie had come out of the house, called him by name, and was standing up there grinning at him.
Dortmunder took his time. Staying where he was on the sidewalk, he studied the guy the way he'd been studying the house, and what he saw wasn't reassuring. The fellow was about forty, deeply tanned and very fit, and everything about him suggested dignified secure wealth; his banker's clothing, his self-confident smile, the house in which he lived. Everything, that is, except the shoulder-length yellow hair, hanging in long waves around his head, neither sloppy nor pretty, but somehow totally masculine. Like a knight in the Crusades. No; better yet, like one of those Viking raiders who used to play such hell along the English coast. Some Viking barbarian, that's what he was, plus all the civilization money could buy.
He was also clearly willing to let Dortmunder look him over forever. He stood there grinning, studying Dortmunder in return, and it was finally Dortmunder who ended it, calling up to him, "You're Chauncey?"
"Arnold Chauncey," the other one agreed. Stepping to one side, he gestured at his open doorway. "Come on up, why don't you?"
So Dortmunder shrugged and nodded and went on up, climbing the steps and preceding Chauncey into the house.
A wide carpeted hallway stretched to an open doorway at the far end, through which could be seen delicate wooden-armed chairs in a bare-floored gleaming room with tall windows. On the left side of the hallway, a staircase with a red runner and dark-wood banister extended upward. White light filtering down suggested a skylight at the top of the stairs. To the right of the hallway were two sets of dark-wood sliding doors, one near and one far, both shut. A few large paintings in heavy frames were on the pale walls, with a number of spindly occasional tables beneath. A hushed, padded quiet pervaded the house.
Chauncey followed Dortmunder inside, shutting the door behind himself and gestured at the staircase, saying, "We'll go up to the sitting room." He had one of those Midlantic accents that Americans think of as English and Englishmen think American. Dortmunder thought he sounded like a phony.
They went up to the sitting room, which turned out to be a living room without a television set, where Chauncey urged Dortmunder into a comfortable velvet-covered wing chair and asked him what he'd like to drink. "Bourbon," Dortmunder told him. "With ice."
"Good," Chauncey said. "I'll join you."
The bar – complete with small refrigerator – was in the cabinetry in the far wall, beneath an expanse of a well filled bookcase. While Chauncey poured, Dortmunder looked at the rest of the room, the Persian rug and the antique-looking tables and chairs, the large ornate lamps, and the paintings on the walls. There were several of these, mostly small, except for one big one – about three feet wide, maybe not quite so high – which showed a medieval scene; a skinny fellow with a round belly, wearing varicolored jester's clothes and a cap and bells, was dancing along a road, playing a small flute. The road led down in darkness to the right. Following the jester along the road were a whole bunch of people, all of them with tense staring faces. They were apparently supposed to represent a great variety of human types: a fat monk, a tall knight in armor, a short fat woman with a market basket, and so on.
Chauncey brought Dortmunder's drink, saying, "You like that picture?"
Dortmunder neither liked nor disliked pictures. "Sure," he said.
"It's a Veenbes," Chauncey said, and he stood beside Dortmunder's chair, smiling thoughtfully at the painting, as though reconsidering its position on the wall, or his attitude toward it, or even the fact of his ownership of the thing. "You've heard of Veenbes?"
"No." The bourbon was delicious, a very smooth brand. Dortmunder hadn't recognized the shape of the bottle when Chauncey was pouring.
"An early Flemish master," Chauncey said. "A contemporary of Brueghel, possibly an influence, nobody's quite sure. This is Folly Leads Man to Ruin." Chauncey sipped bourbon, and chuckled, nodding at the painting. "Woman, too, of course."
"Sure," Dortmunder said.
"The painting has been valued at four hundred thousand dollars," Chauncey said, the way a man might say the weather was good, or that he'd just bought a pair of snow tires.
Dortmunder looked up at Chauncey's profile – tanned face, sharp nose, long yellow hair – and then he frowned again at the painting. Four hundred thousand dollars? For a picture to cover a water stain on the wall? There were parts of life, Dortmunder knew, that he would never understand, and most of those parts of life had something to do with people being cuckoo.
"I want you to steal it," Chauncey said.
Dortmunder looked up again. "Oh, yeah?"
Chauncey laughed, and moved off to seat himself in another chair, putting his glass on the drum table at his right hand. "I don't suppose," he said, "Stonewiler told you my instructions to him."
"No, he didn't."
"Good; he wasn't supposed to." Chauncey glanced at the picture of Folly again, then said, "Three months ago, I told him I wanted a crook." His bright eyes flickered toward Dortmunder's face. "I hope you don't object to that term."
Dortmunder shrugged. "It covers a lot of people."
Chauncey smiled. "Of course. But there was a very specific kind of crook I wanted. A professional thief, not too young, successful at his profession but not wealthy, who had served at least one term in prison, but had never been convicted or even charged with anything other than larceny. No mugging, murder, arson, kidnapping. Only theft. It took three months to find the man I wanted, and he turned out to be you." Chauncey stopped – for dramatic effect, probably – and sipped more bourbon, watching Dortmunder over the rim of his glass.