Part 31 (1/2)

”That's right. There's more than one woman in this world, Al, but there's only one you.”

A bad mistake. ”Tom,” Dortmunder said, ”I really want to make one more try. Just bear with me once more, don't blow the dam-”

”On accounta May.” Tom's voice was always icy cold, but somehow right now it sounded even colder.

”On account of,” Dortmunder told him, ”my professional, uh, pride is at stake here. I don't want to be defeated by the problem. Also, you said yourself, you'd be happier without the ma.s.sive manhunt.”

”That's true, Al,” Tom said, still with that absolute-zero voice. ”But let us say, just for argument, Al, just let us say I'm gonna go ahead and get this over with. And let us say you can't, no matter what you do, you just can't yank that woman of yours out from in front of the dam. Now, Al, just for the sake of argument here, would you find yourself tempted to make a little anonymous phone call to the law?”

Dortmunder's hand, slippery with sweat, trembled on the phone. ”I'd hate to have to face that problem, Tom,” he said. ”And I just think there's still a way we can do the job without the, uh, fuss.”

”Uh-huh. Hold it, Al.”

Dortmunder waited, listening. Thunk of phone onto a hard surface. Voices off, raised in anger. Sudden cras.h.i.+ng of furniture, heavy objects-bodies? - thudding and b.u.mping. Silence, just as sudden.

”Al? You there?”

”I'm here, Tom.”

”I think I must be slowing down,” Tom said. ”Okay, I see your problem, Al.”

”That's why I want to-”

”And I see my problem.”

Dortmunder waited, breathing through his mouth. I'm his problem, he thought. In the background, at Tom's end of the line, whining voices complained.

His own voice now like thin sharp wires, Tom said, ”Maybe we ought to have a talk, Al, you and me. Maybe you ought to come here.”

I have to talk him out of it, Dortmunder thought. Somehow. Knowing exactly what Tom had in mind, he said, ”Sure, Tom, that's a good idea.”

”I'm on Thirteenth Street,” Tom said.

Well, that was appropriate. ”Uh-huh,” Dortmunder said.

”Off Avenue C.”

”Rough neighborhood, that,” Dortmunder suggested.

”Oh, yeah?” Tom said, as though he hadn't noticed. ”Anyway, between C and D. Four-ninety-nine East Thirteenth Street.”

”Which bell do I ring?”

Tom chuckled, like ice cubes rattling. ”There's no locks around here anymore, Al,” he said. ”You just come in, come up to the top floor. We'll have a good long talk, just you and me.”

”Right, Tom,” Dortmunder said, through dry lips. ”See you-koff, kah-see you soon.”

FORTY-NINE.

Dortmunder plodded up black slate stairs, his left hand on the rough iron railing, right hand clutching a two-foot-long chunk of two-by-three he'd picked up from a dumpster on the street a couple blocks from here. Not for Tom, but for whomever he might meet along the way.

Which was, so far, n.o.body. Scurrying sounds preceded him up the stairwell, scuffling noises followed, but no one actually appeared as Dortmunder slogged steadily upward through a building that any World-War-II-in-Europe movie could have been shot in, if n.o.body stole the camera. Great bites had been taken out of the plaster walls, leaving dirty crumbly white wounds in the gray-green skin. At every level the corridor windows, fore and aft, were mostly broken out, some leaving jagged gla.s.s teeth, others patched with six-pack cardboard and masking tape. The white hexagonal tile floors had apparently been systematically beaten with sledge hammers over a period of many months, then smeared with body fluids and sprinkled with medical waste. That the bare light bulbs dangling from the corridor ceilings had once been enclosed in white gla.s.s globes was indicated by the amount of white ground gla.s.s mixed with the rest of the trash on the floors.

The apartment doors were dented metal, some painted brown, some gray, many without k.n.o.bs or locks. From the cooking smells emerging through these sprung doorways, most of the tenants planned to have rat for lunch. Rounding the turn at the third floor, Dortmunder heard a baby wailing from some apartment nearby and nodded, muttering, ”You're right about that, kid.” Then he thumped on up.

The building was six stories high, the maximum height when it was thrown up for a building without an elevator. The stairwell, a square shaft cored from its gangrenous center, consisted of two half-flights per story; up to a landing, double back to the next floor. Dortmunder was just rounding the turn at floor five and a half when a sudden fusillade of gunfire roared out above him. ”Yi!” he cried, and dropped to the filthy steps, s.h.i.+elding his head with the two-by-three. Wasn't Tom even going to give him a minute to talk?

The gunfire went on for a few more seconds, then faltered; then there was a scream; then a sudden new rattle of shots. Dortmunder peeked up past the two-by-three but could see nothing except steps and the stairwell wall.

The silence stretched, covering the entire neighborhood; n.o.body's home when the guns start banging. Then there was the clear sound of a metal door slammed open against a plaster wall, and an irritated voice that was recognizably Tom's said, ”a.s.sholes. Now see what you made me do.”

Footsteps clattered down the stairs. Dortmunder got his feet under himself, rose quickly upward, and blinked at Tom as the older man reached the landing, right in front of him, concentrating on the fresh clip he was sliding into the b.u.t.t of the blue-steel.45 automatic held loosely in his right hand.

Dortmunder stared at the automatic, and Tom looked up, saw him, and stopped, his eyes alight with the adrenaline of battle. They stood facing each other on the landing, Dortmunder squeezing the two-by-three in his hand, Tom lifting one eyebrow, silence all around them.

Then Tom relaxed and moved, tension gone as he tucked the automatic away inside his clothing. Casually, he said, ”Whadaya say, Al? Glad you could make it.”

”I come right over,” Dortmunder said. His hands and throat were still clenched.

Tom glanced down at the two-by-three. Conversationally, he said, ”What's that for, Al?”

Dortmunder gestured vaguely with it, indicating the building. ”People.”

”Hm.” Tom nodded. ”You better hope n.o.body needs a piece a wood,” he said. ”Come on, let's get outta here.”

Dortmunder couldn't resist looking up the stairs. ”Your new partners?”

”I had to let them go. Come on, Al.” Tom started down the stairs and Dortmunder followed, not looking back anymore.

As they descended, Tom said, ”The quality of help these days, Al, it's a real scandal.”

”I guess it is,” Dortmunder agreed.

”You and your pals,” Tom went on, ”seem to have a little trouble closing with the problem, but at least you're steady and reliable.”

”That's right,” Dortmunder said.

”You don't put anything in your nose except your finger.”

”Uh-huh,” Dortmunder said.

”And nothing at all in your veins.”

”My blood and me,” Dortmunder said as they reached the ground floor and headed toward the smashed defense of the front door, ”have an agreement. It does its job, and I don't pester it.”