What's So Funny?

Well, would there be anyone present whom one (Mrs. W, that is) might know? Not a chance.

Fiona answered the phone in the big room, wondering what the problem would be this time around. "Hello?"

"Do forgive the intrusion, dear—"

"Not at all, Mrs. W. Whatever I can do to help. Do you have another idea for a costume?"

"Well, yes, I do, in fact," Mrs. W said, "but this time I don't need advice. From what you have said of tonight's festivities, I have now decided on the absolutely perfect masquerade."

"Really?" Tense, worried, wondering if she could talk Mrs. W out of whatever lunge into the past she'd made this time, Fiona said, "Who, Mrs. W?"

"No, my dear, that would be telling. You will be quite impressed when you see me. Now, my car shall pick you up at ten-twenty, is that right?"

"You don't want to tell me." Dread clutched at Fiona's bosom.

"Let it be a surprise, dear."

"I'm sure it will be."

"What I was ringing up about, in fact," Mrs. W went on, "was your friend Brian."

Fiona could see Brian, in fact, in the bedroom, just pulling on the Reverend Twisted trousers, shiny black wool with so much extra material and pleating that he now looked, from the waist down, like a half-blown-up Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon. "Yes, Brian," she said. "What about him?"

"I should have asked this before," Mrs. W said, and she did sound a bit uneasy when she said it. "Will your Brian object to, in effect, escorting two ladies to the event?"

Out of sequence, Brian had put on the flat-brimmed Reverend Twisted hat and was viewing himself in the closet mirror, leering so hard he looked like a Cadillac grille. "He won't mind a bit," Fiona promised Mrs. W "Trust me."

49

WHEN DORTMUNDER WALKED into the O.J. at three minutes past ten that night, Rollo appeared to be deeply involved in taking an inventory, or a census, or something, of the bottles lined up on the backbar, doubling themselves in the mirror that ran along the wall back there. Tongue between teeth and left eye scrinched up like Popeye, he pointed the business end of a pencil at each bottle, sorting like with like and subtracting for mirror image before writing down the results on a piece of stationery from Opryland Hotel. Feeling Rollo shouldn't be disturbed at such a delicate moment, Dortmunder rested a forearm on the bar and watched.

Meanwhile, down at the left end of the bar, the regulars were discussing poker, one of them now saying, "Yeah, but why a flush?"

A second regular cocked his head in response. "And your question?" he asked.

"Just that," the first one said. "Okay, I mean, a pair, trips, I get that. Even a straight, you can see the concept, your numbers are in a straight line. But why a flush?"

A third regular, who maybe hadn't caught all the nuances of the original question, explained, "That means they're all in the same suit."

The first regular lowered a gaze on him. "And?"

"They just are," the third regular said. "All the same color."

"And?"

A fourth regular, sounding a bit tentative for a regular, said, "Well, if they're red…"

"Yeah, fine," the first regular allowed. "That could be. But what about when it's black? What about when it's clubs?"

The second regular, who hadn't been heard from for a while, said, "Well, you wa

It was the third regular who said, "That's because they look like clubs,"

"No, they don't," the second regular told him. "They look like clovers. Three-leaf clovers."

The fourth regular, still tentative, said, "So what about spades?"

"They're black," the third regular said.

The fourth regular, suddenly no longer tentative, said, "We know that, dummy, but whado they look like?"

The third regular looked into space. "Dummy?" he asked, as though uncertain of his hearing.

"Well, them," the first regular said. "Them, they look like spades."

"No they don't," the fourth regular said, all tentativeness forgot. "You wa

"No," the first regular told him, "I don't wa

"Dummy?"

"I go back to my original question," the first regular said. "Why a flush?"

"When you lose," the second regular suggested, "your money goes down the toilet."

"What's with this dummy?" the third regular insisted.

"They don't have dummies in poker," the first regular told him. "They have dummies in bridge."

"I can see," the second regular said, "you don't play poker."

"Oh, yeah?" The first regular turned away to call, "Rollo, you got a decka cards?"

Rollo turned half away from his bottle count to say, "No, I'd rather have a license." Then, catching a glimpse of the patient Dortmunder out of the corner of his eye he turned full around and said, "There you are."

"There I am," Dortmunder agreed.

"You got an envelope under your arm."

"That's true."

Having his research materials from Perly's office to bring to the meeting, Dortmunder had commandeered from the trash a manila envelope that had once contained color photos of flat scrubland in Florida that some misguided sales agent had been certain "J. A. Dortmunder or Resident" would eagerly look upon as the site of a "dream vacation or retirement residence." Feeling a little exposed to be walking around with an envelope too big to conceal on his person, he'd written on it Medical Records, in the belief that was something nobody would want to look too closely at. "It's just some stuff," he explained to Rollo, "to show the guys."

"Well, you got some guys back there," Rollo told him. "The other bourbon's got your glass."

"Good. I didn't want to disturb you," he said, gesturing at the bottles along the backbar.

"You don't disturb me," Rollo said. "It's a place of business."

"Right."

Leaving Rollo and that conversation, Dortmunder walked down to the end of the bar and past the regulars, as the fourth one was saying, "You know what's a very good card game? Frisk."

"Frisk?"

Suddenly tentative again, the fourth regular said, "Isn't that it? Frisk? Like bridge."

Rounding the end of the bar, Dortmunder walked down the hall, past the doors labeled POINTERS and SETTERS with black dog silhouettes, and past the former phone booth, now an unoccupied sentry box containing nothing but notes to and from the lovelorn plus a few frayed wire ends, and into a small square room with a concrete floor. Beer and liquor cases were stacked against all the walls, floor to ceiling, leaving just space enough for a beat-up old round wooden table with a once-green felt top, this surrounded by half a dozen armless wooden chairs. The only light source was a single bare bulb under a round tin reflector hanging from a long black wire over the center of the table.

This was where they would meet, and it turned out, this time Dortmunder was the last to arrive, and as usual, the prize awarded to the last arrival was that he got to sit at the table with his back to the door. Andy Kelp had apparently been the first to show up, since he now sat in the place of utmost security on the opposite side of the table, facing the door. In front of him on the felt stood the bottle of alleged bourbon, plus two short fat glasses, one half full and one containing only ice cubes.

To Kelp's left sat Stan Murch, and to Stan's left Judson Blint, the kid. In front of each of them was a glass of draft beer and between them the saltshaker they shared, it being a tenet of Stan's creed that a little salt sprinkled into a glass of beer would restore a faltering head, a belief the kid had lately signed onto.

Across from those two, more or less taking up that opposite quadrant, was Tiny Bulcher, his fist closed around a glass that looked as though it might have cherry soda in it but which actually contained a mixture of vodka and less expensive Chianti, a drink Tiny claimed was not only robust but also good for the digestion. His digestion, anyway.