Watch Your Back!

"I don't think I have an appetite," Dortmunder said, pushing the omelet away.

"We're doomed," Arnie a

"Cops don't phone, Arnie," Dortmunder pointed out.

"Cops make house calls."

Still, Arnie didn't want to answer it, so finally Dortmunder did, and it was Kelp, saying, "John? I thought I dialed Arnie."

"Andy? I thought they arrested you."

"Not us, wait'll you hear. Where are you?"

"I'm at Arnie's, you called Arnie's. I answered because he's having a little nervous breakdown over here. You wa

"Next to me on the sidewalk. We'll come over."

"Further developments in the late-breaking story of the daring daylight robbery at the Fifth Avenue penthouse of financier Preston Fareweather, fifty-seven. It now appears there may be some Mafia involvement."

Dortmunder and Arnie stared at each other. Dortmunder said, "Mafia?"

"Julie Hapwood has this late-breaking story."

"The six men arrested in the daring daylight robbery on Fifth Avenue's posh Gold Coast in Manhattan today all, according to police, have ties to organized crime. Several of the men have convictions in New Jersey for extortion, gambling, arson, and assault. Police are looking for any link between financier Preston Fareweather and known mob leaders in New Jersey. Mayoral assistant Zozo Von Cleve, thirty-six, a

"The O.J.," Dortmunder said, and the doorbell rang.

"It's the cops!"

"Arnie, it's Andy and Stan. Let them in."

But Arnie had to call down to them through the intercom, and insist they both identify themselves and swear they weren't accompanied by any other person of any kind, before he'd let them in. Then they came upstairs, and Kelp said, "You won't believe this."

"We just heard it on the radio," Dortmunder told him. "It was the mob guys from New Jersey."

"Dammit," Kelp said, "you spoiled my story."

"But that was it," Dortmunder said. "Somehow they got onto us, they followed us around—"

"I never knew a thing," Kelp said.

"None of us did. This was their idea of payback for the O.J., only it didn't work out like they wanted."

Stan said, "Half a block later, it would have been me getting pulled over. I'd be washing ink off my fingertips along about now. I don't need anything closer."

Kelp said, "Is it too early for a beer?"

"No," everybody said, and made Arnie go out and buy some.

It was while drinking beer they decided Tiny should be brought into the loop. Arnie was still afraid the telephone wanted to bite him, so Dortmunder made the call, and it was the kid, Judson, who answered. "Oh, hi, Mr. Dortmunder," he said. "They aren't back from lunch yet. I'm back quicker than I thought, so I'm just taking care of things here, taking care of the mail, watching things here."

He sounds guilty, Dortmunder thought. What's he got to be guilty about? "Tell Tiny," he said, "we got developments, and we're all at this number," and he read it off the phone.

"I will," Judson promised. "I wrote it down, I've got it, I'll tell Mr. Tiny the second he comes in, don't you worry about that."

"I'm not worried," Dortmunder said, and hung up, and said, "That kid's a little strange."

"We got something," Kelp said, and pointed at the radio.

"— co

"Michael Anthony Carbine, twenty-six, son of reputed New Jersey mob boss Ottavian Siciliano Carbine, fifty-one, has been taken in for questioning by officers of Manhattan's nineteenth precinct, on the posh East Side. Carbine was discovered in Central Park, just opposite the Imperiatum, the deluxe high-rise apartment building where this morning's daring daylight robbery of over fifteen million dollars in artworks took place. The six men arrested earlier this afternoon in Manhattan in possession of the looted artworks are said to be known associates of Mr. Carbine and his father. Detective Inspector Sean O'Fly

When Tiny called, Dortmunder had to answer the phone again, and Tiny said, "We don't have the stuff."

"No, we don't," Dortmunder agreed, "but there keep being developments. We're all over here catching this late-breaking story on the radio."

"I remember radio," Tiny said. "I'll be right over."

So when the doorbell rang again a quarter hour later, Dortmunder got to his feet and said, "Stay there, Arnie, I'll let him in. I don't wa

"Probably," Arnie said, though with some doubt in his voice, "the cops reeled in enough for today."

While Dortmunder buzzed Tiny in, Kelp said, "Seven known mob guys from New Jersey, and all the swag? If they want more than that, they're very greedy."

"I think they are," Stan said.

Dortmunder opened the apartment door, and Tiny had brought the kid Judson with him. "I brought the kid with me," he pointed out as they entered.

"So I see," Dortmunder said.

"Hello," Judson said, and smiled at everybody.

"He was go

"Just so the other team was driving the truck when the game was called," Stan said. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm ahead."

"That's you," Tiny said, and said to Dortmunder, "This is because you wanted to be a hero and save the O.J."

"I'm afraid it is," Dortmunder admitted.

"Do we know yet how much you owe me?"

Dortmunder offered a sickly smile, and Kelp said, "Julie Hapwood says they're doing an inventory now at the Fifty-seventh Street police garage, and Fareweather's at his place making a list of what he thinks is missing."

Tiny frowned at him. "Who the hell is Julie Hapwood?"

"The woman on the radio's been telling us all this stuff."

Tiny looked at the radio, which was in the process of giving them twenty-two minutes of sports. "So let's see what else she has to say," he said.

But that was it for Julie Hapwood. All at once, without even a wave good-bye, the late-breaking story seemed to have broken. The news now broke in from other fronts, of less neighborhood interest.

So at five they switched to television, to see what the local news broadcasts might have to say. At first, almost nothing, but Arnie kept switching back and forth among the stations, and all at once he stopped, pointed the remote at the set, and said, "That's him!"

A rich guy, you could tell. He wasn't fat, he was portly, and only rich guys are portly. He was being interviewed by a blonde television reporter in the living room Dortmunder and the others knew so well, with some very obvious blank spaces on the walls behind him as he said, "One does feel assaulted, Gwen. One had not expected Cro-Magnons from New Jersey to beleaguer one in the supposed safety of one's home."

"That's a lotta 'ones, " Tiny said.

The reporter asked, "Do you have a sense yet, Mr. Fareweather, of what they took?"

"The cream of the crop, Gwen. I must confess, one would not have expected that degree of taste and sophistication from fellows best known for breaking their enemies' knees. At least one of that cohort had an excellent eye."

"There you go," Arnie said. He was gri