What's So Funny?

It was Tiny who'd been speaking when Dortmunder entered the room: "If that's his attitude, fine, I put him back in the meat locker."

People tended to look for a distraction when Tiny was telling his stories, so the room significantly brightened when everybody saw Dortmunder walk in. "There you are!" Kelp sang out.

"You got my glass," Dortmunder said, shut the door, and sat with his back to it, putting the envelope on the table in front of him.

"Coming up," Kelp said, and poured into the emptier glass at his disposal, then paused with the bottle hovering. "Good?"

"That's fine," Dortmunder agreed.

As the glass relayed from Kelp to Stan to the kid to Dortmunder, Kelp said, "We just been waiting for you to get here with the stuff."

"You tell them what I got?"

"No," Kelp said. "I thought you'd like that pleasure yourself."

"Thank you, Andy," Dortmunder said, took a sip of his drink, and nodded at the others. "I got it all here," he said, and patted the envelope.

Judson said, "Medical records?"

"That's just the cover story," Dortmunder told him. "Inside, it's a different story."

Kelp said, "He had an interesting night, John did."

"Andy and I," Dortmunder said, "we thought we'd check out the place where the chess set's go

Judson said, "An office?"

"Well, he's got the whole building."

Stan said, "That's some private eye."

Dortmunder shrugged. "It's only a two-story building. Anyway, what with one thing and another, I'm on this roof I gotta get off, and down into this space behind all these buildings, and I thought the only way out was through this Perly's building."

Judson said, "Perly?"

"That's the guy's name. Jacques Perly."

"Very pretty," Tiny said, not as a compliment.

"Anyway," Dortmunder said, "Andy was out ahead of me, turned out he went a different way, through an apartment building I didn't notice."

Stan said, "An apartment building you didn't notice? How do you not notice an apartment building?"

Kelp, to offer some assistance, said, "It was nighttime, Stan, and it was very dark and confusing down in there."

"If you say so," Stan said.

Ignoring that, Dortmunder said, "So I went through Perly's building, without, I might say, leaving one single trace that I went through there. And while I was there, I figured, let's see what it looks like here. So I tossed it, and I found some stuff."

Stan said, "What stuff?"

"Well, their other garage door opener," Dortmunder told him. "I didn't bring that with me, I got it at home."

Stan said, "This is a place with a garage? In Manhattan?"

Kelp said, "You see them sometimes, Stan, with the sign. No Parking, Active Driveway."

"It's an old industrial building," Dortmunder explained. "Converted for Perly."

Abruptly, Judson laughed. "You got their garage door opener! You could go there any time, bing-bing, you're in."

"It's loud," Dortmunder cautioned him. "You go in that way, you're not exactly sneaking up on anybody."

"Still," Judson said." It's nice."

Kelp said, "John, tell them what else you got."

"Well, Perly is a very organized guy," Dortmunder said, taking from Medical Records the sheets of paper covered with copies of Perly's neat small handwriting. "He put down the time the chess set's getting there, who's moving it, the security people they're go

"I hate motion sensors," Tiny said.

"We all do, Tiny," Dortmunder agreed. "Anyway, I made copies, so we can know what he knows."

Tiny said, "How many copies?"

"Just one, Tiny. I didn't wa

"Well, I don't wa

So for the next five minutes Judson read Perly's careful notes, while the others listened in a silence that moved steadily toward awe. When he finished, the silence went on for another few seconds, until Kelp said, "They really don't want us in there."

"Not up to them," Tiny said.

"Well, let's do a little recap here," Stan said. "I think I got it, but tell me if I'm right. This guy Perly gets to his office at ten tomorrow night." He looked at Judson. "Right?"

"That's what it says," Judson agreed.

Stan nodded. "He's got stuff to do, get ready for his house-guests. And they're go

"Absolutely," Judson told him. "These are the security guys and the tech guys with the equipment."

"And with them," Stan said, "they got Tiny's motion sensors."

"I don't like motion sensors," Tiny said.

"We know, Tiny," Stan told him. He looked around. "They also got — what? New phones."

"A cell phone," Kelp said. "And a special landline phone doesn't use Perly's co

"They've also got," Dortmunder said, "a metal cabinet with thirty-two lockable drawers for the chess pieces."

"And the complete security thing at the office door like at the airport with the doorway you go through," Stan said. He looked around. "Am I leaving anything out?"

"The moat," Kelp suggested.

Stan frowned at him. "The what?"

"Forget it," Kelp said.

"You can't do a moat in the city," Stan told him.

"I understand that. Just forget it. Go on with the recap. Now they're setting up all this stuff."

"And Perly goes home," Dortmunder said.

"Right," Stan said. "So it's turned over to the security guys now, and when they've got the office the way they like it they call their people at the bank."

"But the people at the bank," Judson said, "they don't move when they get the call. They wait, and they don't move until two o'clock."

"That's right," Dortmunder said. "It's all timed, so they can coordinate with the cops, because they get a cop escort coming down."

"And they figure to get to the office with the armored car," Stan said, "a little after two-thirty in the morning, drive the armored car into the building and up to the second floor and the cops go away. So now it's just the security from the armored car and the security already in the office." He looked around. "And there's some sort of idea that's where we come in."

"That's what we're working on," Dortmunder said.

"The good thing about this," Judson said, and they all looked at him. "Well, kind of good," he said. "We can go in ahead of time. We can go in before they set up."

Stan said, "And then what?"

"I du

Tiny said, "Dortmunder, does this Pearl guy live there?"

"No, it's just his office."

"Anybody there right now?"

"No, not until the chess set is go

"Then what we do," Tiny said, "we go in there now. We look it over, see what we can use. Dortmunder, go get your opener and meet us there."

"I will," Dortmunder said, rising, half-turning so he could at last see the door.

Kelp said, "John, take taxis."

"Oh, I know," Dortmunder said.