What's So Funny?

Dortmunder, whose grasp on history was usually dislodged by the needs of the passing moment, had nothing to say to that, so he merely did his best to look alert.

Which was apparently enough, because Mr. Hemlow almost immediately went on, "Fiona, my granddaughter, is an attorney, mostly in estate pla

"Believes," Dortmunder said.

"Well, she hasn't seen it personally, of course," Mr. Hemlow said. "None of us will, until you retrieve it."

Eppick said, "The granddaughter was just happy to figure she solved the mystery, there it is, case closed. It was Mr. Hemlow explained to her the lost dreams and alla that."

"She agreed, at last," Mr. Hemlow said, "to a retrieval of the chess set, for the future good of the family, to make up for the ills of the past."

"Got it," Dortmunder said.

"But she has conditions," Mr. Hemlow warned.

What have I gotten into here, Dortmunder asked himself, and was afraid he was going to find out the answer. "Conditions," he said.

"No violence," Mr. Hemlow said.

"I'm in favor of that," Dortmunder assured him. "No violence, that's how I like it every day."

"One of the reasons I picked you, John," Eppick told him, "is how you don't go in much for strong-arming against persons."

"Or property," Mr. Hemlow said.

Dortmunder said, "Property? Come on, you know, sometimes you gotta break a window, that's not violence."

Conceding the point, Mr. Hemlow said, "I'm sure Fiona would accept that level of mayhem. You can discuss it with her if you wish."

"Or not bother her about it," Eppick advised.

"So I'm go

Eppick said, "Mr. Hemlow wanted to vet you, wanted to reassure himself that I'd made the right choice, before sending you on to the granddaughter."

"Oh, yeah?" To Mr. Hemlow Dortmunder said, "So how am I? How do I vet?"

"That I have mentioned my granddaughter's name," Mr. Hemlow said, "means I have agreed with Joh

"Well, that's nice."

Mr. Hemlow said, "Joh

"Sure." Eppick stood, then paused to say to Dortmunder, "You free this afternoon, if she can make it?"

"Sure. I'm between engagements."

"Maybe not any more," Eppick said, and gri

"I do," Dortmunder told him, "but I don't have anything to write with or on."

"Oh. Never mind, I'll do it."

Eppick went over to the desk by the front door, sat at it, played with a Rolodex a minute, then dialed a number. While he waited, he started to write on the back of another of his cards, then paused to punch out four more numbers, then finished writing, then said, "Fiona Hemlow, please. Joh

"For this afternoon?"

Eppick held up a finger, and listened to the phone, then said, "Yeah, that should be long enough. Hold on, lemme see if he's clear." Cupping the phone again, he said to Dortmunder, "This afternoon, four-fifteen to four-forty-five, she can fit you in."

"Then that's good," Dortmunder said. "I happen to have that slot open." In truth, he himself did not live that precise a life, but he understood there were people who did.

Into the phone, Eppick said, "That's fine. He's— Hold on." Another cupping, and he looked at Dortmunder to say, "Do you really still wa

"No, do the name," Dortmunder said. "The only one I didn't wa

"Fine. Fiona, his name is John Dortmunder, and he will see you at four-fifteen. Give me a call after you talk to him, okay? Thanks, Fiona."

He hung up, stood up, and brought to Dortmunder the card he'd written on the back of, where it now read:

Fiona Hemlow

C&I International Bank Building

613 5th Ave

Feinberg, Kleinberg, Rhineberg, Steinberg, Weinberg & Klatsch

27

Dortmunder said, "Twenty-seven?"

"They got the whole floor," Eppick explained. "Hundreds of lawyers there."

"We're all very proud of Fiona," Mr. Hemlow said. "Landing at such a prestigious law firm."

Dortmunder had had dealings with lawyers once or twice in his life, but they mostly hadn't come with the word «prestigious» attached. "I'm looking forward," he said.

6

IN CONVERSATION OVER breakfast with his Mom, before she went off for a day of driving her taxi for the benefit of an ungrateful public, Stan Murch gradually came to the conclusion that he wasn't just irritated by what had happened last night, or what in fact had not happened, but he was really very pissed off about it and getting more so by the minute, and who he blamed for the whole thing was John Dortmunder.

At first his Mom didn't get it: "He wasn't even there."

"That's the point."

He had to explain it all about seven times before she saw what he was aiming at, but at last she did see it, and it was really very simple and, straightforward. At the O.J. last night, they had been a little group of people who would come together like that from time to time for what they hoped would turn out to be profitable expeditions and employments, and there was always at least that one preliminary conversation to kick it off, to see if this new project sounded like it might work, to see if everybody wanted to come on board. Each of them in the group had his own specialty — Tiny Bulcher, for instance, specialized in lifting large and heavy objects, while he himself, Stan Murch, was the driver — and John Dortmunder's specialty was in laying out the plan.

Now, it wasn't often that Stan brought the original idea to the group, but this time he had one, and it was a good one, and if Dortmunder had been there he would definitely have understood the concept and started working out how to make it a reality, and all of that, and by now they'd be on their way. Instead of which, Dortmunder isn't even at the meeting, he's out in the bar with some cop.

But everybody else wants to know what the idea is. So Stan tells them, and they hate it. Because Dortmunder isn't there to tell everybody how it could work, the idea gets shot down like a duck. So it's all Dortmunder's fault.

After his Mom took off in her cab, Stan continued to brood a while longer, and then he decided the thing to do was call John and see if he's ready to take a meeting now, just the two of them, and after that they could get everybody else to come around. So he called John, but got May, who said, "Oh, you just missed him, and I'm halfway out the door myself, I got to get to work."

"Do you know where John went?"

"He had a meeting at ten this morning—"

"With the cop?"

"Oh, did he tell you?"

"Not yet. Where's the meeting, do you know?"

"Lower East Side, some fu

"You got the address?"

"He wrote it down a couple places, so he wouldn't forget. I'll look, Stan, but I don't have much time. I don't wa

So he held on, and about three minutes later she came back and said, "It's 598 East Third, and the cop is named Eppick. He says he's retired."