Why Me?

Dortmunder, who'd had no intention of arguing with him, found Arnie rubbing him the wrong way. "If you say so," he said.

"I do say so," Arnie said. "Sit down. Sit down at the table there, we'll look at your stuff."

The table was in front of the parking-garage-view windows. It was an old library table on which Arnie had laid out several of his less valuable incompletes, fixing them in place with a thick layer of clear plastic laminate. Dortmunder sat down and rested his forearms on a September 1938. (A shy-but-proud boy carried a shy-but-proud girl's schoolbooks down a country lane.) Feeling vaguely pressed to demonstrate some sort of comradeliness, Dortmunder said, "You're lookin pretty good, Arnie."

"Then my face lies," Arnie said, sitting across the table. "I feel like shit. I been farting a lot. That's why I keep this window open, otherwise you'd faint when you walked in here."

"Ah," said Dortmunder.

"Not that a whole hell of a lot of people do walk in here," Arnie said. "People don't want to know me, I'm such a pain in the ass. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."

"Uh," said Dortmunder.

"I read things sometimes in the Sunday News—Do Your Friends Think You're A Turd? shit like that—I follow the advice three four days, maybe a week, but my own rotten self always comes through in the end. I could see you in a bar today, I could buy you a beer, talk about your problems, ask questions about your livelihood, express an interest in your personality, and tomorrow you'd go to a different bar."

That was undoubtedly true. "Uh," repeated Dortmunder, that being the most noncommittal sound he knew how to make.

"Well, you already know all this," Arnie said. "The only reason you'll put up with me, I give good dollar. And I gotta give good dollar or I'd never see anybody. There's people right now in this city go to Stoon even though he gives a worse dollar—they'll take smaller cash just so they don't have to sit and talk with Arnie."

Dortmunder said, "Stoon? Which Stoon is this?"

"Even you," Arnie said. "Now you want Stoon's address."

Dortmunder did. "No, I don't, Arnie," he said. "We got a good relationship." Trying to change the subject, he took the plastic bag out of his pocket and emptied the goods onto the schoolchildren. "This is the stuff," he said.

Reaching for it, Arnie said, "Good relationship? I don't have a good relationship with any—"

There was a sudden loud knocking at the door. In relief, Dortmunder said, "See? There's somebody come to visit."

Arnie frowned. He yelled over at the door, "Who is it?"

A loud, firm voice yelled back, "Police, Arnie! Open up!"

Arnie gave Dortmunder a look. "My friends," he said. Getting to his feet, slowly strolling toward the door, he yelled, "Whadajou people want?"

"Open it up, Arnie! Don't keep us waiting!"

Methodically, Dortmunder scooped the jewelry back into the plastic bag. Standing, he put the plastic bag in his jacket pocket and, as Arnie opened the door to the cops, Dortmunder stepped into the bedroom (girlie calendars, from gas stations and coal companies). Behind him, Arnie was saying, "What now?"

"Just a little chat, Arnie. You alone?"

"I'm always alone. Do I know you? You're Fly

"This is Officer Rashab, Arnie. You happen to have any stolen goods in your possession?"

"No. You happen to have a search warrant in yours?"

"Would we need one, Arnie?"

There was no fire escape outside this room. Dortmunder pressed his forehead against the window, looked down, and saw it was no good.

"You guys'll do what you wa

"Maybe we'll be luckier this time."

"Depends how you feel about dirty socks."

Dortmunder stepped into the bathroom. (Horse-print and hunting-scene calendars.) No window, only a small exhaust grid. Dortmunder sighed and stepped back into the bedroom.

"I got enough dirty socks of my own, Arnie. Get into your coat."

"I'm going somewhere?"

"We're having a party."

Dortmunder stepped into the closet. (Aubrey Beardsley calendars.) It smelled very badly of dirty socks. He pushed through the coats and pants and sweaters and pressed his back against the wall. The voices came closer.

"I went to a party once. They made me go home after twenty minutes."

"Maybe that'll happen this time, too."

The closet door opened. Arnie, disgusted, looked past coat shoulders at Dortmunder's eyes. "My friends," he said.

Behind him, the talking cop said, "What's that?"

"You're my friends," Arnie said, taking a coat out of the closet. "You're my only friends in the world." He shut the closet door.

"We take an interest in you," said the talking cop.

The voices receded. The front door slammed. Dortmunder sighed, which he immediately regretted, because it involved taking a deep breath full of dirty socks. He opened the closet door, leaned out, breathed, and listened. Not a sound. He left the closet, shaking his head, and went back into the living room.

All alone. And the fu

There was a phone on the end table beside the sofa. Dortmunder sat down there, said, "Stoon," and dialed Andy Kelp's number. "If I get that machine…"

The phone rang twice and a girl answered: "Hello?" She sounded young and pretty. All girls who sound young sound pretty, which has led to some unfortunate later discoveries in this life.

Dortmunder said, "Uhhh—Is Andy there?"

"Who?"

"Did I dial wrong? I'm looking for Andy Kelp."

"No, I'm sorry, I—Oh!"

"Oh?"

"You mean Andy!"

So it wasn't a wrong number, it was a dummy. Here was this girl in Kelp's apartment, answering Kelp's phone, and it was taking her a long long time to realize the call was for Kelp. "That's right," Dortmunder said. "I mean Andy."

"Oh, I guess he didn't turn it off," she said.

Then Dortmunder knew. He didn't know what, exactly, not yet, but in a general sort of way he knew. And it wasn't this girl's fault, it was Kelp's fault. Naturally. Apologizing to the girl in his head for his previous bad thoughts about her, he said, "Didn't turn what off?"

"See, I just met Andy last night," she said. "In a bar. My name's Sherri?"

"Aren't you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Anyway, Andy told me about all these wonderful telephone gadgets he had, and we went to his place and he showed them to me, and then he said he'd show me the phone-ahead gadget. So he put this little box on his phone, all set up with my home phone number, and then we came over here to my place to wait for somebody to call him, because then it would ring here instead of there, and he wouldn't miss any calls."

"Uh-huh."

"But nobody ever called."

"That's a shame," said Dortmunder.

"Yeah, isn't it? So then he left this morning, but I guess he forgot to take the box off his phone when he got home."

"He called me this morning."

"I guess he can call out, but if you call in it gets transferred here."

"You live near him?"

"Oh, no, I'm way over here on the East Side. Near the Queensboro Bridge."

"Ah," said Dortmunder. "And any time I happen to dial Andy Kelp's phone number, his phone won't ring, but yours will, way over there by the Queensboro Bridge."

"Gee, I guess that's right."

"He probably won't hear that phone of yours when it rings, will he? Not even if you open your windows."

"Oh, no, he couldn't possibly."

"That's what I figured," Dortmunder said. Very very gently, he hung up.