Why Me?

Turning onto Marcum Lane, Georgios Skoukakis was a bit surprised to notice light in the living room windows of his house, but then he smiled to himself, realizing that Irene too was probably feeling tense tonight, unable to sleep, and was waiting up for his return. Which was fine; it would be pleasant to talk with her, tell her about the excitable young men.

He didn't bother to put the car in the garage, leaving it in the driveway for the morning. Crossing the lawn, he paused to light his pipe—puff, puff, puff. His hands were absolutely steady.

Irene must have seen him through the window, for as he crossed the porch she opened the front door. Her tense and strained expression told him he'd been right; she was quite upset, much more nervous about this adventure than she'd earlier let on.

"Everything's fine, Irene," he assured her, as he stepped into the house, turned, paused, blinked, and the bottom fell out of his throat. He stared through the archway into the living room at two tall slender men in topcoats and dark suits who were getting to their feet from the flower-pattern armchairs and walking this way. The younger one had a moustache. The older one was holding out his wallet, showing identification, saying, "FBI, Mr. Skoukakis. Agent Zachary."

"I confess," Georgios Skoukakis cried. "I did it!"

5

May was sitting in the living room, squinting through cigarette smoke and doing the quiz in the latest Cosmopolitan. Dortmunder shut the door and she squinted across the room at him, saying, "How'd it go?"

"Okay. Nothing special. How was the movie?"

"Nice. It was about a hardware store in Missouri in 1890. Beautiful shots. Terrific period feeling."

Dortmunder didn't share May's enthusiasm for movies; his question had been merely polite. He said, "The owner came in while I was in the store."

"No! What happened?"

"I guess he was the owner. Him and two other guys. Came in for a minute, fooled around, left. Didn't even turn the lights on."

"That's weird." She watched him empty bracelets and rings out of his pockets onto the coffee table. "Some nice stuff."

"I got you something." He handed her the watch. "You press the button on the side."

She did so: "Nice. Very nice. Thank you, John."

"Sure."

She pressed the button again. "It says ten after six."

"Yeah?"

"How do I set the time?"

"I don't know," Dortmunder said. "I didn't see any instructions. It was the display model."

"I'll figure it out," she said. She twiddled the button, then pressed it again. Clouds of cigarette smoke enveloped her head from the eighth-of-an-inch butt in the corner of her mouth. She put the watch down, took another crumpled cigarette from the pocket of her gray cardigan, and lit it from the ember she removed from her lower lip.

Dortmunder said, "You want anything?"

"No, thanks, I'm set."

Dortmunder went away to the kitchen and came back with a bourbon and water and a small white plastic bag. "Figure out the watch?"

"I'll look at it later." She had been frowning at the quiz again, and now she said, "Would you say I am very dependent, somewhat dependent, slightly dependent, or not at all dependent?"

"That depends." On one knee, he scooped the loot from the coffee table into the plastic bag. "I'll take this stuff over to Arnie in the morning."

"Andy Kelp called."

"He's got some kind of machine on his phone."

"He says please call him in the morning."

"I don't know if I want to keep talking to a machine forever." He tied shut the top of the plastic bag, put it on the coffee table, picked up the watch and pressed the button. Pink LED digits said 6:10:42:08. He twiddled the button, pressed it again: 6:10:42:08. "Hm," he said.

May said, "I'll put slightly dependent."

Dortmunder yawned. Putting the watch down, he said, "I'll look at it in the morning."

"I mean," May said, "nobody's not at all dependent."

6

Malcolm Zachary loved being an FBI man. It gave a certain meaningful tension to everything he did. When he got out of a car and slammed the door, he didn't do it like just anybody, he did it like an FBI man: step, swing, slam, a fluid motion, flex of muscle, solid and determined, graceful in a manly sort of way. Malcolm Zachary got out of cars like an FBI man, drank coffee like an FBI man, sat quietly listening like an FBI man. It was terrific; it gave him a heightened self-awareness of the most delicious sort, like suddenly seeing yourself on closed-circuit television in a store window. It went with him through life, everywhere, in everything he did. He brushed his teeth like an FBI man—shoulders squared, elbow up high and sawing left and right, chick-chick, chick-chick. He made love like an FBI man—ankles together, elbows bearing the weight, hum-pah, hum-pah.

He also, Malcolm Zachary, questioned a suspect like an FBI man, which in the present circumstance was perhaps unfortunate. While Zachary couldn't remember any suspect ever collapsing quite so rapidly as Georgios Skoukakis, it was unfortunately true that he could also not remember any suspect ever clamming up again quite so fast. One statement—"FBI, Mr. Skoukakis. Agent Zachary" — and the suspect had opened up like a landing craft: "I confess! I did it!" But then came the first question—"We'll want the names of your associates" — and the landing craft immediately snapped reshut and rusted into place.

Having an awareness of other people that was less heightened than his awareness of himself, Zachary had no idea what had gone wrong. He didn't know how fragile and false had been that self-deception in Georgios Skoukakis' brain which he, Zachary, had destroyed by his mere presence. On the other hand he had no clue to the roiled tumble of emotions coursing through the poor man immediately after his blurted confession: the humiliation, the self-contempt, regret, horror, despair, the knowledge that he had now destroyed everything forever, with no hope of ever ever ever repairing the damage he had done.

"We'll want the names of your associates."

Bang! Instant redemption. Georgios Skoukakis had destroyed himself forever, but valor was still possible. He would not betray his associates. Zachary could have put bamboo shards under Skoukakis' fingernails, burning coals between his toes—he wouldn't, of course, that not being the FBI way, but just as a hypothetical—and Georgios Skoukakis would not betray his associates. Very seldom is it given to a man, having failed, to atone for his failure quite so rapidly as in the case of Georgios Skoukakis.

Of none of which was Zachary aware. He knew only that Skoukakis had cracked at the first tap of the shell. So now Zachary was standing here, ballpoint pen in right hand, notebook in left hand (exactly like an FBI man), waiting for the answer to his first question and not yet aware that the answer was not going to come. He prodded a bit: "Well?"

"Never," said Georgios Skoukakis.

Zachary frowned at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Never."

Zachary's partner, a younger man with a moustache named Freedly—Well, no. The man was named Freedly.

Zachary's partner, a younger man named Freedly with a moustache—

Zachary's partner, a moustached younger man named Freedly—

Freedly said, "Have you got the ring on you?"

"Just a minute, Bob," Zachary said. "Let's get the answer to this other question first."

"He won't answer that question, Mac," Freedly said. "Well, Mr. Skoukakis? Is it on you?"

"No," said Skoukakis.

Zachary said, "What do you mean, he won't answer it?"

The suspect's wife, Irene Skoukakis, said something short, fast, and probably vicious in a foreign language, no doubt Greek.