Nobody's Perfect

"Now what?" Dortmunder said.

Ahead in the Vauxhall's lights the road climbed steeply up a rocky broken slope, angling to the right. The Mini could not already have crested the hill. Nevertheless, Chauncey dropped from second gear to first and accelerated at full throttle upward, the back end bouncing and jiggling on the uneven road, the rear tires rattling volleys of stones in their wake.

And at the crest, the view was of a winding descent through hedgerows and stone walls, with three segments of macadam roadway dimly visible, and no vehicle lights at all on any of them.

"They turned off," Dortmunder said.

"But there's no place to turn off."

"Lights over there," Kelp said, and when they both turned to look at him (because they had no idea where "over there" was) he was pointing off to the left. Out that way, apparently at some distance in the mountainous dark, what looked to be headlights were flickering. They disappeared, appeared again, disappeared.

"We missed the turnoff," Dortmunder said.

"Damn." Chauncey twisted sideways to look past Kelp's ear at the downslope, easing his foot cautiously on the brake. He was a shaky driver in reverse, oversteering madly, swinging back and forth in abrupt Vs across the road, but he did make it all the way to the bottom before plowing into the front end of a silver Jensen Interceptor III with stereo t/d, AM/FM, a/c, brown int., calfskin uph., electric windows, all power, immaculate cond., private owner, which was just growling at speed around the corner of the stone barn.

"Damn it to hell, I've hit him!"

"The painting," Dortmunder said, and pointed at the faint trail leading upward, next to the barn.

"The painting." Chauncey looked at Dortmunder, at the rear-view mirror, and made his decision. Into first gear, spin the wheel hard left, and accelerate.

The initial impact had broken the Vauxhall's left-rear tail light and slightly dented a bit of its rear metalwork, while putting out one of the Jensen's headlights, crumpling its radiator and severely denting both its front fenders. The sudden leap forward by the Vauxhall, just as the Jensen's driver was stepping in horror and astonishment out onto the pavement, jolted the Jensen forward, dumped its driver into the mud and gravel at the verge, and then wrenched the Jensen's front bumper loose. Its gonglike clatter when it hit the pavement served as a kind of a

In the Vauxhall, bucketing up the unpaved side road, Chauncey clung grimly to the steering wheel and Dortmunder hung desperately to everything he could find on the dashboard, while Kelp jounced backwards in the rear seat, gazing down the hill toward the road and saying, "He just got it again. Some truck hit him."

Neither Chauncey nor Dortmunder cared what was going on back there. A half moon and several million stars in a cloudless sky showed even more clearly than their headlights a scrub-filled up-and-down landscape virtually as wild as when Hadrian built his wall. The Picts and Celts might no longer be about (except on football weekends), but the countryside which had formed their rough bad-tempered natures was still as it had been, scarred more by nature than by man. Driving through this scrag, not once did anyone in the Vauxhall see a light, nor any other indication of the Mini, till all at once, as they crawled up over rocks and roots between two gnarled and stumpy pines, Porculey appeared in their headlights, blinking nervously and gesturing for them to turn right.

Chauncey lifted his foot from the accelerator in surprise, and the car, barely moving anyway, promptly stalled.

And now Chauncey's door opened, and Leo Zane's voice said, "Out you come. Dortmunder? Kelp? You weren't silly enough to bring guns, were you?"

No; they were silly enough not to bring guns. All three emerged from the Vauxhall, Chauncey looking tense but not frightened, Dortmunder grimly a

The three prisoners, followed by Zane, and then by Porculey driving their car, went up the hill, their black shadows long dark charcoal lines lengthening ahead of them. Turning right again at Zane's direction, they found themselves in the battered moss-grown remnant of what had once apparently been a good-sized castle. A few boulderish bits of stone wall, like an early draft for Stonehenge, was all they could see at first, but then Porculey cut the Vauxhall's lights, and in the softer illumination of moon and starlight they could make out still-standing segments of the building clustered across the way.

Zane now used a flashlight to guide them over a gorse-grown former courtyard to a gray stone wall shielding a flight of worn steps leading down. At the bottom, a heavy door shaped like an inverted shield stood open, and they entered upon a clammy empty stone corridor, its distant end obscured by shadow. Zane's flashlight told them to walk down this corridor and then to enter a doorway on the left, while behind them they could hear the heavy groaning of hinges as Porculey closed the stairway door.

They were now in a large cluttered stone room. Barred windows were spaced along one wall, up near the ceiling. To the left and straight ahead the room was filled with decaying old furniture, piles of wooden boxes and cardboard cartons, stacks of newspapers, bits and pieces of armor and old weaponry, clusters of mugs and jugs and bottles, massed decaying flags, mantel clocks, candlesticks, and in every chink some further bric-a-brac. To the right, an area had been cleared, a kind of half circle before a huge deep fireplace. Here the stone floor was covered with a faded old carpet, on which stood a few massive uncomfortable-looking chairs and tables. Three candles burned on the high mantelpiece, and before the unlit fireplace stood Ian Macdough, looking worried. "So it's true," he said, as they all walked in.

"As I told you," Zane said, limping to one side while Porculey closed the door.

"Nice place you got here," Kelp said, with his chipper smile. "Must be tough on the cleaning lady, though."

Dortmunder had turned an accusatory eye on Porculey, saying, "I'm disappointed in you. I knew these other two were no good, but I thought you were an honest man."

"It's that ten thousand you gave me," Porculey said, avoiding Dortmunder's eye. "Money's a strange thing," he added, sounding a bit surprised at himself. "As soon as you have some, it wants you to get more. I never knew I wanted a hundred thousand dollars until I got the ten thousand."

Meanwhile, Macdough was still looking worried, saying to Zane, "Now we've got them, what do we do with them?"

"Nothing," Chauncey said. "There's a public controversy over that painting Macdough, between you and me and the insurance company. What happens to your sale if I disappear before it's straightened out?"

Macdough rubbed a knuckle over his lips and cleared his throat. "You shouldn't have followed us," he said.

"It's my painting," Chauncey said, "and you're going to have to deal with me."

"Split the take six ways? Man, man, that doesn't pay my hotel bill!"

"These two were already paid," Chauncey said, with a gesture toward Dortmunder and Kelp so casual, so dismissing, that Dortmunder understood at once the teams had regrouped, leaving himself and Kelp out in the cold.

So, speaking just as casually, Dortmunder said, "That's right. We just came along to help Chauncey, so now we'll leave you people to dicker without a lot of outside rs–"

"No, no, Dortmunder," Zane interrupted, smiling behind his gun. "Don't you hurry away."