Bad News

“Dortmunder,” Tiny growled through his blanket, “when this is all over, we’re go

Fortunately, given the wind and all, Dortmunder didn’t hear that.

“The light’s moving,” said Murch, who had also spotted it by now.

“That is spooky,” his Mom said.

They could almost make out the house now, as they neared it, though mostly they were remembering what they’d seen on the Thurstead Web page. Up there on the second floor of the house, that one spot of light had started to move, shifting past windows, some of which had panes of glass of all different colors, as though the light were semaphoring to some ship long since lost at sea. During a storm like this.

“They saw us is what it is,” Murch said. “They’re coming down.”

“Good.”

Their study of the Thurstead Web page had showed them that a door at the right side of the building, toward the rear, led to a kind of foyer and then the stairs going up to the family’s living quarters. Farther forward in that wall was an entrance to the lower floor; not the main entrance, but a secondary one, to the old original kitchen. Now Murch drove and plowed and steered his way up to the house and along the right side, losing sight of that illumination up above, and stopped with the cab near the family’s entrance and the rear of the vehicle near that other entrance.

No sooner had Murch shifted the big floor-mounted gear lever into Park than the family’s door over there opened, and out came a guy in a big dark wool hat and a bulky dark pea jacket, pointing a flashlight ahead of himself in the general direction of the truck. Somebody behind him, still in the house, had a lantern of some kind, in which the guy could be more or less seen, and to Murch, he looked like a cop. Ex-cop. Retired cop.

His Mom said, “They got a cop.”

“I see that,” Murch said. “Well, here goes nothing,” he said, and opened his door.

Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny came out from inside their blankets, slowly, cautiously, something like butterflies emerging from their cocoons, but not a lot like that. They shook themselves, and kept the blankets around their shoulders, and duck-walked back to the rear of the truck, where the hinges on the doors had been recently drenched in the lubricant called WD-40.

Dortmunder cautiously opened the left-hand door, which would open away from the house and would not be seen by anybody standing over by the family entrance. Stiff, aching all over, he let himself down onto the blacktop, which was already covered with snow, even though Murch had just this minute plowed it. Then he waited to hear conversation.

Murch climbed down out of the cab and waved at the ex-cop.

“Harya,” he yelled.

“Come on in here,” the ex-cop yelled back, more order than invitation, and led Murch through the doorway into the warm foyer, where the other people stood. As he crossed the threshold, Murch took a quick look to his left, where he saw the dark figure of Dortmunder hobble stiffly, like Frankenstein’s monster, toward that other door, whose lock he would now pick.

There was a mother in the foyer, carrying a Coleman lantern, and there were three girl children. There was supposed to be a father, too, which couldn’t possibly be the ex-cop, who was obviously the guy from the security company. Maybe the father was stuck in town or something. “Evening,” Murch said to everybody.

The mother looked bewildered, maybe even anxious. She said, “I don’t understand. You highway people never plow this road.”

“And I go along with us,” Murch assured her. “But I got this lady in the truck,” he explained, “and I saw your light.”

The truck cab’s windows were opaque at the moment, but everybody stared in that direction anyway as the ex-cop said, “You got a lady in the cab?”

“Her car went off the road,” Murch explained, “and I come across her, and she’s go

The ex-cop said, “You want to leave her with us?”

“Yeah, just for an hour, then I’ll come back up and get her and drive her to Port Jervis. But I can’t do that now, I got my route I gotta do. And everything else is dark, it’s cold, there’s nothing around here but you people.”

The mother said, “Of course she can stay here. That was wonderful of you, to rescue her.”

“Well, she wasn’t go

Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny made their way through the downstairs to the living room, where windows showed them the many lights of the sand spreader. Here they sat down in nice antique chairs and caught their breath a little. There was nothing to do now until the sand spreader went away.

The downstairs heat was on, but not very high, since nobody lived down here. The family kept the temperature in this part of the house at fifty, warm enough so the pipes wouldn’t burst. Normally, Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny might have found that a little chilly. After their ride up the mountain in the back of the open truck, this dark living room was toasty. Toasty.

“I really wa

“All in a day’s work, ma’am,” Murch assured her. “Well, I gotta get back on the job.” He waved to everybody and went out to drive the truck back down the mountain, park it just off the road down there, and nap for an hour. Then the alarm on his wristwatch would wake him, for the return trip.

Dortmunder awoke, to see the lights of the sand spreader recede down the mountain. He nodded at it, closed his eyes, then jolted upright. Asleep!

Man, that had been close. He’d no sooner sat down here on this comfortable chair in this comfortable living room in the dark than he’d fallen asleep. What if he’d slept the whole time until Murch came back, and even went on sleeping then? Huh? What if that had happened?

Well, Kelp or Tiny would have woken him. Everything would have been okay.

Tiny snored. It was a low sound, but powerful, a sound you might hear from deep inside the cave where the virgins are sacrificed.

The truck was gone now and the room was very dark. Dortmunder stood and peered around at his companions, as best he could in all this darkness, and they were both asleep, Kelp just a little more quietly.

Dortmunder went to Kelp first, shook his shoulder, and whispered, “Andy! Wake up!”

“Oh, sure,” Kelp said.

Tiny snored.

“No,” Dortmunder said, “I mean really awake.”

“You got it,” Kelp said.

“I mean awake with your eyes open and maybe even standing up,” Dortmunder said.

Tiny snored.

“Absolutely,” Kelp said.

So Dortmunder gave up and went to Tiny and said, “Tiny, we gotta wake up now and steal a lot of stuff.”

Tiny opened his eyes. He looked around and said, “It’s nighttime.”

“In Thurstead,” Dortmunder reminded him. “We’re here to burgle the place.”

“Or rob,” Tiny suggested, and heaved himself to his feet. “When is it, do you happen to know, Dortmunder? When is it you burgle, and when is it you rob?”

“When I get the chance,” Dortmunder said.

Tiny looked around. “I can’t see in here,” he complained. “Hold on.”

A second later, light appeared. They had all brought flashlights along, which they’d adapted for the night’s work by covering most of the lens with black electric tape, so that only a narrow band of light could emerge. Tiny had switched his on, and now he waved it around at all the treasures in the room. He said, “Where’s Kelp?”