Bad News

“Around four this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon.”

“You bought two pairs of glasses, you fell asleep, and you want me to believe the staff left without seeing you and locked you in. And it was just coincidence that somebody else broke into this building tonight.”

“Somebody broke in?”

Nobody answered; they all just kept looking at him, looming outside these glasses, so finally Dortmunder said, “How often does that happen, somebody breaks in here?”

The captain didn’t deign to answer. Dortmunder looked around, and another, younger cop said, “Not a lot.” But he sounded defensive.

“So it happens,” Dortmunder said.

“Sometimes,” the younger cop admitted, while the captain glowered at this underling, not pleased.

Dortmunder spread his hands. “So what kind of a coincidence is that?”

The captain leaned closer; now the glasses made him look like a tank with eyes. “How did you pay for these glasses? Cash?”

“Of course not.” Now the damn glasses slipped down his nose, and he finger-pushed them back, a little too hard. Oow. Blinking, eyes watering, which didn’t help, “I used my credit card,” he said.

“So the receipt should still be here, shouldn’t it?”

“I du

“Let’s just see,” the captain said, and turned to one of his flunky cops to say, “Look for it. The credit card slip.”

“Yes, sir.”

Which took about a minute and a half. “Here it is!” said the cop, pulling it out of the stack he’d placed on the counter.

In stu

“Yes, sir.”

Dortmunder, trying to be helpful, said, “I’ve got my copy in my pocket, if you want to see it.”

The captain studied Dortmunder. “You mean, you really did come in here this afternoon and fall asleep?”

“Yes, sir,” Dortmunder said.

The captain looked angry and bewildered. “It can’t be,” he insisted. “In that case, where’s the burglar? He has to be in the building.”

One of the rent-a-cops, an older guy with his own special uniform with stripes and epaulets and stars and awards and things on it to show he was an important rent-a-cop, a senior rent-a-cop, cleared his throat very loudly and said, “Uh, Captain.”

The captain lowered an eyebrow at him. “Yeah?”

“The word went out,” the senior rent-a-cop said, “that the burglar was caught.”

The captain got that message right away. “You’re telling me,” he said, “no one’s watching the exits.”

“Well, the word was,” the senior rent-a-cop said, “he was, you know, caught.”

Dortmunder, honest but humble, said, “Captain, would you mind? My wife’s go

The captain, furious at everybody now, snapped, “What? What do you want?”

“Sir,” Dortmunder said, “could you give me a note for my wife?”

“A note!” The captain looked ready to punch a whole lot of people, starting with Dortmunder. “Gedaddahere!”

“Well, okay,” Dortmunder said.

2

May didn’t like to be critical, but she just had the feeling sometimes that John didn’t really want a nest egg, or a financial cushion, or freedom from money worries, or even next month’s rent. She felt somehow that John needed that prod of urgency, that sense of desperation, that sick knowledge that he was once again dead flat, stony, beanless broke, to get him out of bed at night, to get him to go out there and bring home the bacon. And the pork chops, and the ham steak, and maybe the butcher’s van as well.

Oh, he made money sometimes, though not often. But it never got a chance to burn a hole in his pocket, because it burned through his fingers first. He’d go with a couple of his cronies out to the track, where obviously the horses were smarter than he was, because they weren’t betting on him, were they? John could still remember, as he sometimes told her, that one exciting day when he’d almost broke even; just the memory of it, years later, could bring a hint of color to his cheeks.

And then there were the friends he’d loan money to. If he had it, they could have it, and the kind of people they were, they’d take his two hundred dollars and go directly to jail.

So it was no surprise to May, this morning, that John’s great triumph last night, over in New Jersey, was that he’d escaped. Not with the loot he’d gone over there for, of course; just with himself.

“Hundreds of them,” he told her. “More uniforms than a convention of marching bands, and I walked right outta there. I almost got them to give me a note to tell you how come I missed di

“But you missed the swag,” she pointed out.

“Oh, the cameras,” he said. They were having breakfast—black coffee and half a grapefruit for her, cornflakes and milk and sugar in a ratio of 1:1:1 for him—so there were pauses in the conversation while he chewed and she swallowed. After the next pause, he said, “See, the thing is, May, by then I was a guy buying eyeglasses. If I try to walk out with fourteen cameras, it doesn’t go with the image.”

“Of course not,” she said. She didn’t say that was the reason she held on to her cashier job at Safeway supermarket, a job she was going to have to leave here for in a few minutes, because what was the point? He’d only feel bad, and it was so rare that John felt good, she couldn’t bring herself to spoil it. He’d gone out last night to raise some ready and he’d come back empty-handed, but the triumph was, he’d come back. Fine. She said, “Andy called last night.”

Andy Kelp was a not unmixed blessing in their lives, reflected in the way John immediately lowered his head closer to his bowl, shoveled in a whole lot of cornflakes and milk and sugar, and only then said, “Nrrr?”

“He said he had a little project,” she told him, “simple and easy.”

“Ne-er,” John said.

“Well, you never know, John, be fair.”

“I know.”

“He’s coming over this morning,” she said, “to tell you all about it.”

“What time?” he asked, as though considering two escapes in twenty-four hours, and a third voice said, “Morning. Hi, May, is there extra coffee?”

“I made enough, because you were coming over,” May said, and Andy Kelp, a sharp-featured, bright-eyed fellow in a black windbreaker—because it was October outside—crossed over to the stove, where the coffeepot simmered. May told his moving form, “I just told John you called.”

“Thanks, May.”

John said, “Andy, you still don’t use the doorbell.”

“I’ve heard your doorbell, John,” Andy told him, bringing his coffee over to join them at the kitchen table. “It’s an awful sound, it’s a nasty buzz. It’s like one of those sounds they describe on Car Talk, why would you want to start your day listening to a nasty noise like that?”

Complaining to May, John said, “He uses our apartment door to practice his housebreaking on. And the building door.”

“You gotta keep those muscles exercised,” Andy said.

May said, “I don’t know, John, I don’t mind it anymore, especially if he calls ahead, like today, so there won’t be any, you know, embarrassment. It’s almost like having a pet.”

John looked Andy over, as though considering him as a pet: Keep him, or have him put to sleep?

After a minute, Andy decided to hide behind his coffee cup awhile, and then to clear his throat a lot, and then to say, “Did May tell you I had us a little job?”

“Breaking and entering?” John asked. “Like you do here?”

“Now, John,” May said.

“No, nothing like that,” Andy told him. “It’s just a little digging. It’s hardly even illegal.”

“Digging?” John swallowed some of his own coffee, to have his mouth absolutely clear as he said, “You want me to dig ditches, is that what this is?”