Nobody's Perfect

Macdough looked startled, and worried. "Chauncey might try to get it back?"

"Of course he will, and so will the men with him."

"The bastards."

"Do you have a safe place," Zane asked him, "or should we hold it for you?"

"You bastards!" Macdough snorted. "I'll hold my own property for my own self, if you don't mind."

"Not a bit," Zane said, unruffled. "But if you don't mind, Mr. Porculey and I will stay with you while you hide it."

"It's a long way from here," Macdough said doubtfully, "and my car isn't the world's biggest."

"We won't mind at all," Zane said. "Will we, Mr. Porculey?" Porculey, who looked like a man rampant with second thoughts, vaguely shook his head, saying, "Not at all, no. Don't mind at all."

"So we'll all go for a drive together," Zane said. Putting one cold hand on Macdough's knee and the other cold hand on Porculey's knee, he smiled at both unhappy men in turn. "One for all," he said. "And all, of course, for one."

Chapter 12

It's difficult to wait unobtrusively in a car on the Strand in the middle of London's horrible traffic jam, but that's what Chauncey was doing, clinging grimly to his bit of curb despite the honking of taxis, the yelling of lorry drivers or the dirty looks of pedestrians. Dortmunder had crossed the street and disappeared into the Savoy, following Zane and Porculey and Macdough, leaving Chauncey and Kelp to wait here in this clogged artery for whatever would happen next.

It was Dortmunder who'd figured it out that Zane would have to go to Macdough, as his only logical customer for the painting, and that Macdough would be bound to check the authenticity of the painting currently held by Parkeby-South. Which was why they'd rented this Vauxhall and taken up a position across the street from the auction gallery. ("By God," Dortmunder had said, with something like awe in his voice, "I'm returning to the scene of the crime.") But even Dortmunder hadn't been able to explain why that despicable trio in the taxi had led them back to the Savoy rather than on to wherever the painting was stashed. Which was why Dortmunder was in there now, trying to find out what was going on without being seen.

Kelp, who had been quietly thinking his own thoughts in the back seat, now leaned forward and said, "You know? I'm getting so I kind of like this town."

"Glad to hear it," Chauncey said. His eye was on the lane leading to the Savoy's entrance.

"It's a lot like New York," Kelp said, "only goofier. You know what I mean?"

"Here comes Dortmunder."

Here came Dortmunder. He trotted across the street, slid in next to Chauncey, and said, "He's checking out, and he ordered his car. A white Mini, license W-A-X three six one A. You owe me five pounds, for bribes."

"Where are they going?" It made no sense to Chauncey that Macdough should suddenly check out of his hotel.

Apparently, it didn't make sense to Dortmunder either. "I suppose they'll go pick up the painting," he said. "After that, I don't know. We'll just stick with them."

"Mini coming," Kelp said.

Out of Savoy Court came an absolutely jam packed white Mini. Macdough was driving, hunched over the steering wheel like a bear riding a tricycle, with Zane a stiff rigor-mortis figure in the passenger seat beside him and Porculey expanding like bread dough all over the back. The Mini's springs were nowhere near able to deal with such a load; burr-rong, it bottomed out, as Macdough turned into the viscosity of traffic on the Strand.

"Keep well back," Dortmunder advised.

"I will. I will."

The Strand, Fleet Street, around Ludgate Circus and up Farringdon Street and Farringdon Road and a right turn onto Rosebery Avenue, in the drab disrepair of Finsbury. Just short of St. John Street the Mini stopped and Zane got out to permit Porculey to emerge, panting and wheezing, like a champagne cork out of a bottle that's gone fiat. Zane waited on the sidewalk, glancing warily about, while Porculey trotted into a nearby Bed & Breakfast establishment. Chauncey and Dortmunder and Kelp ducked their heads and waited, half a block away.

"There it is!" Chauncey was peeking through his fingers, and his whole body vibrated when he saw Porculey crossing the street toward the Mini, carrying a long tubular object wrapped in brown paper. "Let's get it now! We'll go there right now! What could they do on a public street?"

"Kill us," Dortmunder told him. "I'm sure Zane has a gun, and I know I don't."

Porculey handed the package to Zane while he reinserted himself into the Mini's back seat – exactly like putting a champagne cork back into the bottle – then Zane handed the package in to Porculey, settled again in the front passenger seat, pulled the Mini's door shut, and the car moved off, the Vauxhall once again half a block behind.

St. John Street, Upper Street, Holloway Road, Archway Road – "Where are they going?" cried Chauncey. Their helplessness was infuriating.

"Beats me," Dortmunder said. "I don't know this town."

"But they're heading out of town! They're heading for the M1!"

"Just stay with them."

Lyttleton Road, the Great North Way, the on-ramp for the M1. Up on the highway went the Mini, struggling up to sixty miles per hour, bottoming out at every dip, with the Vauxhall nearly a quarter of a mile back.

Dortmunder said, "Where's this road go?"

"Everywhere," Chauncey told him. "Manchester, Liverpool, it's the main road north out of London, it goes up–" He stopped, struck by a sudden realization.

Dortmunder said, "You mean – ?"

In a whisper, Chauncey finished his sentence: "–to Scotland," he said.

Chapter 13

The trip north: The Mini and the Vauxhall both gassed up at a service area near Northampton, then switched from the M1 to the M6, and stopped for lunch at another service area above Birmingham. (Macdough and Zane and Porculey ate hot meals at a table in the cafeteria, while Chauncey and Dortmunder and Kelp chewed sandwiches and drank coffee out of plastic cups in the car. Porculey carried the painting with him into the restaurant, to the chagrin of Macdough, Chauncey, Dortmunder and Kelp.) Another stop for gasoline north of Manchester was made by both cars, and yet another just south of Carlisle. (These motorway service areas were large and busy places, where the Vauxhall could keep an unobtrusive distance from the Mini.)

Above Carlisle the motorway ended, and the two cars switched to the A 74 and then the A 73, stopping for gas in Carluke. The Mini chose a small Shell station and the Vauxhall had to go on by, but just ahead there was a Fina station.

East of Glasgow the two cars picked up the M 8 toward Edinburgh, taking the bypass around the city to the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth, then the M 90 and the A 90 north to Perth, where the Mini drove around in circles for a while. (Chauncey became convinced Zane had realized he was being followed and was trying to lose them, but in fact Macdough was looking for a particular restaurant of which he had fond memories. He failed to find it.) The occupants of the Mini ate in an Italian restaurant, while the occupants of the Vauxhall filled their gas tank again and ate takeout food from a Wimpy's.

After di