Bad News

“Socks.”

“Tiny, don’t you understand? If Irwin—”

Tiny showed the thumb and forefinger again. He said, “Sounds like you’re go

“I’m taking a trip?”

“Socks, Fitzroy.”

So off came the socks, and away under the door, and Tiny said, “T-shirt.”

Fitzroy said, “Tiny, how far are you going with this? You don’t mean to leave me here, do you? Naked?”

“Oh, naw, Fitzroy,” Tiny assured him, “we ain’t mean guys, not like some. There you go, kick that T-shirt. And now let’s do the pants and the shorts all at once. You got the rhythm here, Fitzroy, don’t falter now.”

“I could shout,” Fitzroy said.

Tiny looked interested. “You think you could? With all these little chirping kiddies out here? And for what fraction of a second, do you figure, Fitzroy? And then what happens next?”

Fitzroy, embarrassed and humiliated beyond belief, trying to assure himself that someday he’d get even for this but having great difficulty fleshing out that fantasy, finished stripping himself, saw the last of his garments kicked under the door and out of sight, and sat, miserable, cold and naked, on the toilet for a few seconds, until something else slid in under the door from outside. A garment of some kind, a deep, rich red.

“There you go,” Tiny said, looking down at this new apparel with approval. “Try that on, there, Fitzroy.”

Fitzroy stooped, grunting, to pick up the garment, which turned out to be a jumpsuit, cotton, many times laundered. On the back, in big white block letters on the deep red material, was printed C H C I. “What are the—What are these letters?”

“Central Hudson Correctional Institution. It’s your medium-tough kind of place. They’re bad guys, but they pull their punches. Like me with you, right now. Put it on, Fitzroy.”

They’re going to put me in this prison, Fitzroy thought in panic and despair. How are they going to do such a thing? Slipping on the legs of the jumpsuit, he said, “Are you going to put me there?”

“What?” Tiny chuckled, a sound from the bass drum section of the orchestra. “Naw, we don’t want you found, Fitzroy, we want you lost. And I guess you do, too. Okay, get up, boy, sleeves in, zip it up, that’s good, turn around, hands behind you, Fitzroy.”

Fitzroy felt the cool, rigid metal as the cuffs went on his wrists.

“Now,” Tiny said, “let’s do the perp walk.”

“Tiny,” Fitzroy said, “this is no way to treat a person who has never been anything—”

His head rang like a temple gong. He blinked and shut up, and Tiny reached past him to open the stall door.

They were all out there, in a cluster, facing the other way, Andy and John and Stan, obscuring the action at this one stall here for all the daddies and kiddies in the room. Tiny nudged Fitzroy in the back, and the five of them marched across the gents and out to the restaurant and out to the parking lot. Fascinated and horrified eyes followed them every step of the way.

It was so obvious what this was. Here was a criminal, a convict, probably been off to New York City or somewhere to testify in some gruesome, horrible crime, being taken back to prison, surrounded by four plainclothes deputies because he’s such a dangerous felon, and to whom, at this point, should Fitzroy call for help? That sneaking, despicable, rotten turncoat of an Irwin was on his way to Oregon in a truckload of raincoats. These tourists all around him weren’t likely to want to abet the escape of a desperate and dangerous criminal. Oh, damn.

They were walking him toward the separate truck parking area, so apparently he, too, was to take a voyage. They had left the family groups now, the observant eyes. The big trucks were parked in long, crowded rows, with very short sight lines, and nobody around anyway. They were leaving the world of witnesses. The ground was cold under Fitzroy’s bare feet; his future was all at once too horrible to contemplate, but all he could think now was, where are they sending me?

Andy walked to his right, John to his left, Tiny and Stan behind him. Fitzroy said, “Andy, is there any chance at all I could appeal to your better nature?”

“Every chance, Fitzroy,” Andy told him. “You already did. That’s why me and John told Tiny not to unplug you unless he had to. And I’m really glad he didn’t have to, you know what I mean?”

Fitzroy sighed. This was the good news. What might have happened otherwise was the bad news. He said, “Where am I going, Andy?”

“You’re go

“Yes.”

“Got a crew of two, got a bunk up in the cab, drive twenty-four hours a day. Back is loaded up with cardboard cartons, big soft cardboard cartons because they’re all full of Nerf balls. You’re go

“Go where, Andy?”

“Nerf balls,” Andy repeated. “Where else? San Francisco. You’ll be there in no time, Fitzroy.”

45

What I especially don’t like about Arnie Albright,” Dortmunder said, “is everything.”

“He must have some qualities,” Stan said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Dortmunder answered. “I think Arnie Albright is the one guy around and about with absolutely zero qualities. I think Arnie Albright is composed one hundred percent of deficits.”

They were having this conversation on the West Side Highway, having driven south in a two-car caravan after completing Fitzroy and Irwin’s travel arrangements. Stan and Dortmunder were in the Lexus, Kelp and Tiny behind them in some doctor’s dark green Bentley, and they were on their way to West Eighty-ninth Street, where a fence lived named Arnie Albright, who was the only fence Dortmunder knew who was neither in jail nor actually a cop ru

(The thing to do with those sting operations is know when to stop being a customer. The money’s always very good, and you know the cops aren’t going to rip you off. Also, they keep the neighborhood safe. So long as you aren’t present on roundup day, where’s the downside?)

The unfortunate part about selling stolen goods to Arnie Albright was, you had to be in his presence to do so. “I don’t see,” Dortmunder groused, “why Andy can’t go up and talk to him, he knows Arnie as well as I do.”

“Andy says,” Stan told him, “he barely knows Arnie at all, and only through you.”

“Everybody claims to barely know Arnie at all,” Dortmunder said, but he knew there was no way out of this. An Arnie Albright encounter was coming his way, like it or not; like one of those movies where the Earth is going along, minding its own business, and an asteroid crashes into it.

Both cars left the highway at Ninety-sixth Street, went past the argument in front of the parking building on the north side of the street just past the underpass that has been going on for three generations now, went east over to Broadway, then south to Eighty-ninth Street.

When they made the turn, they saw that the van was still where they’d left it. It was a blue Econoline van with white waves painted on its sides, plus the information:

ERSTWHILE FISH EMPORIUM

Estab. since 1947

J. Erstwhile, Founder

This van possessed commercial license plates, which meant it wouldn’t be towed away, which everything else is, sooner or later. It was not a found object, like the Lexus or the Bentley, but had been borrowed from a friend of Kelp’s, one Jerry Erstwhile, ne’er-do-well grandson of the original Jake. Since it was now full of everything the group had liberated from Thurstead, and since they hadn’t known exactly how long they’d have to leave it unattended at the curb, they’d wanted to be sure they had a vehicle that would not draw attention from anybody for any reason whatsoever, and so far, it had apparently worked.