“Thanks, Rollo.”
Dortmunder took the tray and followed Kelp past the regulars, who were now all demonstrating various kinds of cough, and on back beyond the bar and down the hall past the two doors marked with dog silhouettes labeled POINTERS and SETTERS and past the phone booth, where the string dangling from the quarter slot was now so grimy you could barely see it, and on through the green door at the very back, which led into a small square room with a concrete floor. All the walls were completely hidden floor to ceiling by beer and liquor cases, leaving a minimal space in the middle for a battered old round table with a stained felt top that had once been pool-table green, plus half a dozen chairs. The room had been dark, but when Kelp hit the switch beside the door the scene was illuminated by a bare bulb under a round tin reflector hanging low over the table on a long black wire.
Kelp held the door while Dortmunder carried in the tray and brought it around to the far side of the table and put it down. The chairs facing the door were always the most popular ones, and tended to be taken by the earliest arrivals.
Dortmunder sat in the chair facing the door head-on, while Kelp, to his right, stood a moment to pick up the bottle, study its top, and with admiration say, “Boy, they do a good job. Looks just like a government seal, and you could swear the cap was never opened.”
“My ice cubes are melting,” Dortmunder commented.
Kelp looked in both glasses, then said, “Well, John, you know, they would anyway.”
“But not alone. My ice cubes don’t like to melt alone.”
“Gotcha.” Kelp opened the bottle, poured murky liquid over the ice cubes in both glasses, placed the glasses on preexisting circular stain marks on the felt, and put tray and bottle on the floor between their chairs. Then he sat down, as the door opened again, and a stocky open-faced fellow with carroty hair came in, carrying a glass of beer in one hand and wearing a salt shaker in his shirt pocket. He looked at Dortmunder and Kelp, seemed dissatisfied, and said, “You got here ahead of me.”
“Well, we said ten o’clock,” Dortmunder said. “It’s ten o’clock.”
“Hi, Stan,” said Kelp.
“Yeah, hi, Andy,” said the newcomer, who still seemed dissatisfied. His name was Stan Murch, and when things had to be driven, he was the driver. Taking the seat next to Kelp, so he’d have no worse than his profile to the door, he said, “They’re tearin’ up Sixth Avenue again. Would you believe it?”
“Yes,” Dortmunder said.
Stan lived in the depths of Brooklyn, in Canarsie, with his cabdriver mother, so plotting the ramifications and combinations of travel between his place and anywhere in Manhattan was his ongoing problem and passion. Now, sipping in an agitated way at his beer, taking the salt shaker from his pocket and putting it on the table, he said, “So I took the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, right? This time of night, what else would you do?”
“Exactly,” Kelp said.
“From there it’s a straight shot,” Stan explained. “Up Sixth Avenue, into the park, out at Seventy-second, over to Amsterdam, wham, bam, I’m here.”
“That’s right,” Dortmunder agreed. “You’re here.”
“But not this time,” Stan said darkly.
Dortmunder looked again, but he’d been right; Stan was definitely here. He decided to let that go.
Stan said, “This time, I get up into the Twenties, there it is again, those big lumber pieces painted white and red, half of Sixth Avenue all torn up, backhoes and bulldozers and who knows what all inside there, we’re down to no lanes. And you know something else?”
“No,” Dortmunder said.
“It’s always the left side! They go along, a year, two years, the left side of Sixth Avenue all tore up, and then finally they repave it, they take all the barriers away, you figure, now they’re gonna do the right side. But no. Nothing happens. Four months, six months, and then bam, they’re tearin up the left side again. If they can’t do it right, why don’t they just quit?”
“Maybe it’s a political statement,” Kelp suggested, and the door opened, and in came a hearty heavyset fellow in a tan check sports jacket and open-collar shirt. He had a wide pleasant mouth and a big round pleasant nose, and he carried a glass full of ice cubes that clinked pleasantly as he moved. This was Ralph Winslow, the lockman, who was taking Wally Whistler’s place this time because Wally, since their work together at the N-Joy, had fallen upon a mischance. He’d been waiting for a crosstown bus and hardly even noticing the armored car parked there, in the bus stop because it was also in front of the bank, and when the armored car’s alarm went off he hadn’t at first realized it had anything to do with him, so he was still standing there when the guards came running out of the bank, all of which he was still explaining to various officials deep in the bowels of authority, which meant Ralph Winslow had been phoned and was free.
“Whadaya say, Ralph?” Kelp said, and Ralph stood a moment, glass in hand, ice cubes tinkling, as though he were at a cocktail party. Then, “I say, evening, gents,” he decided, and closed the door.
“Now,” Dortmunder said, “all we need is Tiny.”
“Oh, he’s outside,” Ralph said, coming around to sit to Dortmunder’s left, where he too could watch the door.
“What, is he getting a drink?”
“Tiny? He’s got his drink,” Ralph said. “When I came back, he was explaining to some fellas there how you could cure a cold right away by squeezing all the air out of a person.”
“Uh oh,” Dortmunder said.
“Bad air out, good air in, that’s what he was saying,” Ralph explained.
Standing, Kelp said, “I’ll go get him.”
“Good,” Dortmunder said.
Kelp left the room, and Ralph said, “I understand this one’s out of town.”
“Vegas,” Dortmunder told him.
Nodding, Ralph said, “Not a bad place, Vegas. Not as good as the old days, when they were going for the high rollers. Back then, you could put on a sheet and be an oil billionaire and unlock your way through half the safes in town. These days, they’ve gone family, family oriented, mom and pop and the kids and the recreational vehicle. Your best bet now, out there, is be a midget and dress like a schoolkid off the bus.”
“I don’t think,” Dortmunder said, “it’s gone entirely Disneyland.”
“No no,” Ralph agreed, “they still got all the old stuff, only it’s adapted. The ladies on the stroll are all cartoon characters now. Polly Pross, Howdy Hooker.”
“And the twins,” Stan said, “Bim and Bo.”
“Them, too,” Ralph agreed, and the door opened, and Kelp came in, looking a little dazed. “They’re layin around on the floor out there,” he said, “like a neutron bomb.”
“Uh huh,” Dortmunder said.
Kelp continued to hold the door open, and in came a medium range intercontinental ballistic missile with legs. Also arms, about the shape of fire hydrants but longer, and a head, about the shape of a fire hydrant. This creature, in a voice that sounded as though it had started from the center of the earth several centuries ago and just now got here, said, “Hello, Dortmunder.”
“Hello, Tiny,” Dortmunder said. “What did you do to Rollo’s customers?”
“They’ll be all right,” Tiny said, coming around the table to take Kelp’s place. “Soon as they catch their breath.”
“Where did you toss it?” Dortmunder asked.
Tiny, whose full name was Tiny Bulcher and whose strength was as the strength of ten even though his heart in fact was anything but pure, settled himself in Kelp’s former chair and laughed and whomped Dortmunder on the shoulder. Having expected it, Dortmunder had already braced himself against the table, so it wasn’t too bad. “Dortmunder,” Tiny said, “you make me laugh.”