Why Me?

"And we've got to get him," Mologna went on. "Not the fuckin FBI, or any a them foreign bozos."

"Oh, absolutely."

"And not the goddam criminal element either. Though the bleedin Christ knows, they've got the best shot at it."

"Unfortunate," Leon said. "If only our man were gay, I might be able to do some undercover work myself."

Mologna squinted at him. "Leon," he said, "I'm never entirely sure when you're bein obscene."

Leon pressed graceful fingertips to his narrow chest. "Me?"

"In any case," Mologna said, "you heard the tape. Did that sound like a goddam faggot to you?"

"If he is," Leon said, "he's so far back in the closet he must poop mothballs."

"You're disgustin, Leon." Briefly, Mologna brooded. "The criminal element," he said. "What happens if they find him first?"

"They turn him over to us. With the Byzantine Fire, of course."

"Maybe. Maybe." Mologna squinted at the far wall, trying to see into the future. "Maybe the press gets onto it first? Maybe the word gets out the crooks helped us do our own job? Not good, Leon."

"Ungood all the way."

"That's right." With sudden decision, Mologna said, "Leon, call Tony Cappelletti, have him reel in that stoolie of his, Whatsisname."

"Benjamin Arthur Klopzik."

"Like I said. I want Tony to wire him, full radio pickup. I want to know every word said in that thieves' den of theirs before they know it themselves. And I want every available TPF man in the city at the ready, no more than three blocks from that saloon. If and when those boyos find our man, I want to take him away from them that second."

"Oh, very good," Leon said. "Incisive, decisive, and oh so correct."

"Give me the bullshit later," Mologna told him. "First make the phone call."

34

The back room at the O.J. looked like one of those paintings from the Russian Revolution—the storming of the Winter Palace—or, perhaps more appropriately, from the Revolution of the French: a Jacobin trial during the Terror. The place had never been so crowded, so smoky, so hot, so full of strife and contention. Tiny Bulcher and three assistant judges sat together on one side of the round card table, facing the door, with several other tough guys ranged behind them, on their feet, leaning against the stacked liquor cartons. A few more savage-looking types lurked to both sides. A couple of chairs had been left empty near the door, facing Tiny and the rest across the green felt table. Harsh illumination from the single hanging bare bulb with its tin reflector in the middle of the room washed out all subtlety of color, reducing the scene to the work of a genre painter with a poor palette, or perhaps a German silent film about Chicago gangsters. Menace and pitiless self-interest glinted on the planes of every face, the slouch of every shoulder, the bend of every knee, the sharpness of every eye, the slant of every smoldering cigarette. Everybody smoked, everybody breathed, and—because it was hot in here—everybody sweated. Also, when there was no one being interviewed everybody talked at once, except when Tiny Bulcher wanted to make a general point, at which time he would thump the table with fist and forearm, bellow, "Shadap!" and insert a sentence into the resulting silence.

It was, in short, a scene to make even the i

The way they were called in, a fellow they knew slightly, named Gus Brock, came to the table out front where they were waiting, and said, "Hello, Dortmunder, Kelp."

"Hiya, Gus," Kelp said. Dortmunder just nodded; he was going for dignity.

"You guys are a team, right?"

"Right!" said Kelp.

"You're next," Gus Brock said. "Lemme give you the layout. This isn't the law, we're not out to screw anybody or trap anybody. What happens, you guys go in, you stand just inside the door, you'll listen to the guy ahead of you, that way you know the routine when it's your turn. Right?"

"Very fair," Kelp said. "That's really very fair, Gus."

Ignoring him, Gus glanced up as a very pale and nervous-looking guy came out from the back, tottered to the bar, and said hoarsely, "Rye. Leave the bottle."

Gus nodded. "Let's go."

So they went, and when they walked into the smoky, glary, stinking back room full of all that potential violence and destruction, Dortmunder reconsidered his life from the very begi

Everybody was talking, even arguing, except for a stout, sweating man with a bald spot, who was seated in one of the chairs facing the court, mopping his face and forearms and baldness with an already-drenched white handkerchief. Dortmunder, trying to remember how to keep his knees locked, faintly heard Kelp, under the din, ask, "Who's those guys over on the right?"

"Representatives from the Terrorists' Cooperative," Gus Brock said.

Dortmunder leaned back against the wall, while Kelp said, "Terrorists' Cooperative?"

"There's a lot of these foreign bunches interested," Gus Brock explained. "They're looking for the same thing as us, and they all combined together to help each other. And now they're combined with us. They're looking around among their local ethnics."

"Boy," said Kelp, with what struck Dortmunder as obscene enthusiasm. "What a manhunt!"

"You bet," Gus Brock said. "The son of a bitch doesn't have a chance."

Whomp, went Tiny Bulcher's fist and forearm: "Shadap!"

Silence.

Tiny smiled like a shark at the fat man in the witness chair. "What's your name, guy?"

"Hah—hah—kuh, kuh, uhh, Harry," said the fat man. "Harry Matlock."

"Harry Matlock," Tiny said, looking to his left, and one of the standing men poked around among a lot of folders and envelopes stuck in among the liquor cartons, finally bringing out a small used brown envelope from the phone company, which he handed to the guy to Tiny's left, who pulled several wrinkled scraps of paper out of the envelope, smoothed them on the felt, and nodded his readiness. Then Tiny said, "Tell us your story, Harry. Where were you at midnight Wednesday?"

The fat man swabbed his neck and said, "Muh-me and three other guys—"

The door opened, whacking Dortmunder on the shoulder blades. He leaned out of the way, looking back, and saw Benjy Klopzik scooting in. "Sorry," Benjy whispered.

Tiny Bulcher yelled past the fat man, "Benjy! Where you been?"

"Hi, Tiny," the little man said, shutting the door behind himself. "I hadda feed my dog."

"Whadayou doin with a dog? Stand in that corner, I'll take you for a walk later." Switching his glare to the fat man, he said, "So? Whadja stop for?"

Benjy inserted himself delicately under the elbows of the Terrorists' Cooperative. The fat man swabbed himself all over and said, "I was in Huntington, Long Island. Me and three other guys. We were taking out an antique store."

"Antiques? Old furniture?"

"Valuable stuff," the fat man said. "We had a purchaser and everything, a dealer downtown on Broadway." Shaking his damp head, he said, "It all fell through, on accounta the blitz. We couldn't make delivery Thursday, then the cops found the truck."

"This is Long Island," the man to the left of Tiny said. "Ke