Nobody's Perfect

"Fine," Dortmunder said.

"If Zane doesn't come down soon," Chauncey said, "his kippers will get cold."

"That's probably the way he likes them," Dortmunder said.

Kelp said, "Can I keep this paper?"

"Of course." Chauncey finished his last mouthful of kipper, swallowed coffee, and got to his feet, saying "I have to look at it. I have to see it again." And he went through into the living room, where the umbrella sheath had been left last night, in the closet by the front door.

Kelp said, "Did I hear right? He'll give us ten grand for that stuff?"

"That's what he says."

"So it didn't turn out so bad after all. With what we got before, that adds up to–" Kelp did some figuring on his fingers. "–twenty-three thousand apiece."

"Twenty-three thousand dollars a year is not good wages."

Dortmunder said, and from the other room came a sudden cutoff howl, as though somebody had wounded a yak. Dortmunder and Kelp stared toward the doorway, and Chauncey staggered back into the room, his face white, ghastly looking in the frame of yellow hair. From his dangling right hand hung the painting, still partly curled, dragging on the carpet.

"Not something else," Dortmunder said, and went over to take the painting out of Chauncey's lax hand. But when he looked at it, everything was fine: Folly continued to lead man to ruin.

Kelp, coming over, holding in his right hand a fork with kipper impaled on it, said, "What's up?"

"Fake," Chauncey said. His voice was hoarse, as though he'd been punched in the throat.

Dortmunder frowned at him. "This is the fake? This is the one you brought there?"

"Different," Chauncey said. "A different fake."

"What?" Dortmunder shook the canvas in irritation. "You saw this damn thing a week ago, why didn't you see then it was a fake?"

"That one was real." Chauncey was recovering now, though his face remained bloodless and his eyes u

"You mean there's two fakes?"

"Last night," Chauncey said, "I held the real painting in my hands."

"Impossible." Glowering at the painting, Dortmunder said, "You screwed up somewhere, Chauncey, you didn't–" And then he stopped, frowning in a puzzled way at the painting, holding it closer to his face.

Chauncey said, "What is it? Dortmunder?"

Turning back to the dining table, Dortmunder spread the painting on it and pointed at one of the figures behind Folly: a buxom farm girl, carrying a basket of eggs. "Look."

Chauncey and Kelp both leaned over the painting. Chauncey said, "Look? Look at what?"

It was Kelp who answered. "By golly, that's Cleo," he said.

"Cleo? Cleo?"

"Cleo Marlahy," Dortmunder told him. "Porculey's girl friend."

Kelp said, "I told you I saw him, that day outside Parkeby-South."

"Porculey?" Chauncey was struggling to catch up. "Porculey did a second fake? But why? How – How did it get here?" He stared at Dortmunder, but Dortmunder was looking at something on the far side of the table. Chauncey looked in the same direction, and saw the fourth plate of kippers, untouched, cold. Outside, the sun slid behind a cloud. Rain began to fall. "Zane," said Chauncey.

Chapter 11

Leo Zane said, "So we have the picture."

"I don't believe you," Ian Macdough said.

"Don't be silly," Zane told him. "Of course you believe us." Success was within Zane's grasp, and the sense of it was making him expansive, bright eyed, almost warm. He had conceived a complex and daring plan, and he'd succeeded under the very noses of Chauncey and his hired thieves. What would Dortmunder and company think now of their cleverness?

The idea had come to Zane in a sudden flash, back in New York, while Dortmunder had been explaining his own painting-switch scheme to Chauncey. The money, the opportunity, everything was right. Porculey had readily agreed to furnish a second fake Veenbes for a quarter of the return, the switch had been made, and now they were here in the Savoy, Zane doing the talking while Porculey ate toast from Macdough's unfinished breakfast. They had come to give the Scotsman their terms.

"Half," Macdough said bitterly. "You think I'll give you half."

Half. Two hundred thousand dollars, more or less; enough to start life all over again. This last year had convinced him; no more cold wet northern winters. He would live somewhere warm and dry, become healthy, even happy, make friends, perhaps get a dog, a television set. Life would become possible. Two hundred thousand dollars could buy a lot of warmth.

Macdough, this orange-haired red-faced bluff of a man, was wasting everybody's time and his own breath with bad temper. "You're either a pair of filthy liars," he was saying, "or you're despicable thieves."

"Half," Zane said calmly. "If you want the painting back."

"If you even have it. Show it to me, then."

"Oh, no," Zane said. "Not before you sign the agreement."

"How do I know you have it at all?"

"There's an easy way to check," Zane told him, "and you know it yourself. Go to Parkeby-South, look at the painting there, see if it's the right one."

Macdough hesitated, and Zane could see his dark little mind working. The man believed them, all right, and was trying to find some way out. But there was none. Zane had it all sewed up. "Well?" he said.

"All right," Macdough decided. "I'll go to Parkeby-South, and I'll look at my painting, and then I'll more than likely have you two arrested for confidence tricksters."

"We'll all go together," Zane said, getting to his feet.

"You'll wait outside," Macdough told him.

"Of course. Come along, Porculey."

"One minute. One minute." Porculey put the last of Macdough's uneaten bacon between the last two slices of Macdough's toast, and the three friends left the suite and took a taxi to Parkeby-South, where Macdough ran grim-faced inside while Zane and Porculey waited in the cab.

Porculey, showing nervousness now that Macdough was out of sight, said, "What if he calls the police?"

"He won't," Zane said. "Not unless he's an even bigger fool than I think. If he calls the police he loses everything, and he knows it."

Macdough was less than five minutes inside, and when he emerged he actually hurled himself like a javelin across the sidewalk and into the cab, where he faced the other two with a glower of helpless rage and said, "All right, you bastards. All right."

"Back to the Savoy, driver," Zane called, and as the cab moved away from the curb he took from his pocket the two-page contract, prepared and typed by himself, and extended it to Macdough, saying, "You'll probably want to read this before you sign it."

"I shouldn't be surprised," Macdough said, and with their concentration on the contract, none of them in the cab noticed the pale blue Vauxhall that started up from the curb half a block behind them and edged forward in their wake.

Zane smiled as he watched Macdough read the contract. In simple clear-cut language, it said Macdough was to pay Zane and Porculey "for their assistance in preparing the said painting for sale," one-half his net return "before taxes" from the painting's disposition.

"…or paid to the survivor–" Macdough read aloud, and gave them a bitter look. "Trust each other, do you?"

"Certainly," said Zane, ignoring the startled sidelong look he got from Porculey.

Macdough went on reading, then shook his head and said, "All right. You're a pair of u

"My pen," Zane suggested, extending it, and watched smiling as Macdough scrawled his name at the bottom of the second page.

"Now, give me back my painting," Macdough said, handing over the contract and the pen.

"Of course. But if you have a safe place to hide it, I think you should keep it out of Parkeby-South's hands until just before the sale."