Nobody's Perfect

The sorting out had taken four days, but on Monday afternoon this fellow Leamery had called to say that Chauncey could most certainly view the painting, though "Mr. Macdoo does insist on being present. He's rather a diamond in the rough, you know, our Mr. Macdoo."

"Mac who?"

"Macdoo. The owner of the Veenbes."

"Oh, Macdow, you mean."

"Are you certain?" Leamery sighed, an aspish sound over the phone. "I never seem to get it right."

In any event, the showing was to take place the following afternoon, Tuesday. "I hope you don't mind," Leamery went on, "but we'd much prefer you saw it in situ, as it were. That is to say, in our value room."

"That's perfectly all right," Chauncey told him, and here it was Tuesday, and here was Chauncey in the value room, surrounded by the most precious items currently in Parkeby-South's care, memorizing everything in sight, trying his damnedest to be distracted neither by his craving for the Veenbes nor by his loathing for Macdough, a smug sloppy otter of a man smirking like a shop steward. Walls, doors, locks, exterior walls, staircases … "I've seen enough," he said at last, reluctantly, and turned away with one last backward glance at Folly and his followers. I shall return, he quoted General MacArthur telepathically at the oil, and left the room, pausing to watch with narrowed eyes as the guard locked the locks.

Down the stairs they went, Chauncey ahead of both Leamery and Macdough, his eyes flicking left and right, and on the ground floor Leamery smiled his wet-toothed pale smile and said, "Would you care for tea? We're just serving, in the office."

"Thank you, no."

"Or a peg," Macdough offered, with that offensive smile. "You look as though you could stand a bracer."

"I suspect, Mr. Macdow," Chauncey permitted himself to say, "that you should save–"

"Macduff," said Macdough.

"–all the bracers you have in stock. You'll be needing them yourself soon."

"The name is Macduff," Macdough repeated, "and I don't believe I will."

Chapter 7

"Let's talk about that window again, the one on the staircase."

"Again? Dortmunder, I've told you everything I know about that window. I've told you everything I know about everything. I've drawn you maps, I've drawn you sketches, I've gone over and over and over–"

"Let's talk about the window."

"Dortmunder, why?"

"I want to know about it. Describe it."

"Very well, yet again. It was a window, on the landing half a flight below the value room. That would put it three and a half levels above the street. It was double hung, with one large pane of glass on top and six small panes in the bottom. The wood was painted a grayish-cream color, and it looked out over Sackville Street."

"What could you see when you looked out through it?"

"I told you. Sackville Street."

"Exactly what could you see?"

"Dortmunder, I passed that window twice, once on the way up and once coming down. I didn't stop and stare out."

"What did you see on the way by?"

"The buildings across Sackville Street."

"Describe them."

"Describe – ? Gray stone upper stories, windows, just – No! By God, now I remember. There was a streetlight!"

"A streetlight."

"I saw it on the way down. It was below window level, of course. But what possible difference does that make?"

"For one thing, it means that staircase won't be dark. Tell me more about the window."

"More? There isn't any–"

"It didn't have a lock."

"Of course it did. All windows have locks."

"Well, it didn't have that – You know, that catch thing in the middle. I can remember distinctly, there was – Ah, wait!"

"You're remembering something else."

"Dortmunder, when you're finished with me I'll be fit for nothing but a sanitarium."

"Tell me."

"It had two locks. Sliding bolts on the inside top corners of the lower half I suppose the top half must be permanently fixed in place."

"Sliding bolts? They slide into the frame on both sides?"

"So that's two new things you remembered about the window."

"No more about the window. Please, Dortmunder."

"Fine. Let's talk about the floor in the hall outside the value room."

"Dortmunder, you're driving me crazy."

"Was it wood? Rug? Linoleum?"

"The floor. God help us. Let me think…"

Chapter 8

"What a country," Kelp said. Trying to shift gears with the stick jutting out on the right side of the steering column, he signaled for a right turn instead, and said, "Damn! Crap! Bastard!" Still signaling for a right turn, he found the other stick, jutting out on the left side of the steering column, and shifted into second.

"Drive on the left," Dortmunder told him.

"I am on the left," Kelp snarled, yanking the wheel hard to the left and thus not hitting that oncoming taxi.

"You weren't before."

"I was."

"You're signaling for a right turn."

"Maybe I'll turn right."

Kelp was in a foul mood, and his first experience driving in London wasn't helping much. Tottering down Sloane Street toward Sloane Square in a maroon Opel, surrounded by coughing black taxis, two-story-high red buses and darting scruffy Minis the size of washing machines and the color of week-old snow, Kelp struggled to deny all his deepest driving instincts. Sitting on the right, driving on the left, shifting with his left hand – and just to compound the confusion, the foot pedals weren't reversed.

Not that Kelp had been his usual cheery self even before entering this Opel. Five nights sleeping on the floor in Chauncey's apartment had already left him stiff, cranky and worn out. His initial alignment, with feet under bed and head under dresser, had quickly proved unacceptable, since both Zane and Dortmunder invariably stepped on his exposed center section if they got up in the middle of the night, and both the bastards were constantly getting up in the middle of the night. Having Zane's gnarled foot, naked, pressing on one's stomach in the dark, was one of life's least pleasant experiences. The result was, Kelp was sleeping – or trying to sleep – curled up under the dresser, and it was having a very bad effect on both his posture and his personality.

And now Dortmunder wanted to go for a drive. "Where to?" Kelp had asked him. "Around," Dortmunder had said. "What are we looking for?" Kelp had asked him. "I'll know it when I see it," Dortmunder had said. He'll know it when he sees it. Driving around all afternoon in city traffic, on the wrong side of the street, on the wrong side of the car – Kelp signaled for a left turn, swore loudly, shifted into third gear, shifted into fourth gear, and almost ran down two women in tan wool cloaks and high leather boots who stepped out right in front of the car.

"Christ, Andy," Dortmunder said, peeling himself off the windshield.

"Those two – those two–" Kelp pointed at the women, more in outright astonishment than rage, while the women in their turn stood in front of the car, giving him reproving looks and pointing to something on the sidewalk. Peering in that direction, Kelp saw a blinking orange globe light over there, atop a pole. "Well, what the hell do you suppose that is?" he said.

"Beats me," Dortmunder said.

The women, having shaken their fingers at Kelp, walked on. Kelp sat blinking at the orange globe, which blinked back. "What am I supposed to do now?" he asked. "Wait for it to stay off, or to stay on?"

Peep, said the Mini behind them, and Dortmunder said, "I think you just go now." So Kelp signaled for a right.

"SHIT!"

First gear; tromp the accelerator; second gear; tromp the accelerator; third goddam gear and there was another one of those orange globes. Tromping the brake, Kelp now saw a similar orange globe directly across the way, and white lines on the street between the two, and as he was himself working out what it meant Dortmunder said, "It's a pedestrian crossing, that's all. Pedestrians got the right of way."