Bad News

As they drove past the fish van, Stan said, “I’m done with this car, unless you want it for something.”

“Not me,” Dortmunder said.

“No prints around?”

“Not me,” Dortmunder said, showing his gloves.

“Fine, then,” Stan said, and parked next to a fire hydrant, since there were, as usual, no legal places to park within several miles of this location.

Apparently, Kelp had had enough of the Bentley as well, because he took the next hydrant along, and the four gathered on the sidewalk, where Kelp said, “John, we’ll just loiter and make ourselves nondescript and unremarkable while you go have a word with Arnie.”

Dortmunder had too much dignity to try to get out of it with everybody watching, so he said, “I’ll be back,” much as General MacArthur once did, and marched down the block past Erstwhile to Arnie’s place, an apartment over a ta

As he walked, Dortmunder remembered various moments with Arnie Albright over the years, like the time Arnie had said, “It’s my personality. Don’t tell me different, Dortmunder, I happen to know. I rub people the wrong way. Don’t argue with me.” Or when he’d explained, “I know what a scumbag I am. People in this town, they call a restaurant, before they make the reservation, they say, ‘Is Arnie Albright go

And the weird thing, as Dortmunder well knew, was that Arnie considered Dortmunder himself the closest thing he had to a friend. As he’d once said, “At least you lie to me. Most people, I’m so detestable, they can’t wait to tell me what a turd I am.” Which was probably true.

All Dortmunder hoped was that Arnie was healthy at the moment. Arnie got little diseases from time to time, each one more disgusting than the last. Recently, when Dortmunder had been forced by circumstance to have business dealings with Arnie, the fence had just broken out in something so horrible (salsa oozing from every pore on his body) that, he’d explained, “My doctor says, ‘Would you mind staying in the waiting room and just shout to me your symptoms?’” May Arnie today, Dortmunder prayed, to Whoever might be Listening, at least be healthy.

Dortmunder entered the tiny vestibule of Arnie’s building, rang the button, and waited for Arnie’s snarl of greeting over the intercom. Instead of which, without a word being said, the buzzer sounded, unlocking the door.

Dortmunder simultaneously pushed on the door and recoiled. No challenge? No “Who the hell goes there?”

Cops. Had to be. Like most fences, Arnie was occasionally visited by marauding bands of cops, who have a proprietary view of fencing, not liking civilians to horn in on their sting operations. So was this the middle of a cop visit? And had the cops said, “Just let them in, Arnie, let’s see who’s coming to visit”? Was this, in short, a trap?

“Hal-loo-ooo.”

That was somebody calling down the stairs. Could that possibly have been Arnie? Curious despite himself, Dortmunder pushed the door farther open and looked up the staircase, and there at the top, smiling, stood Arnie Albright himself, a grizzled, gnarly guy with a tree-root nose.

Dortmunder, not trusting the evidence of his senses, said, “Arnie?”

“Why, it’s John Dortmunder!” Arnie cried with evident delight. “Come on up, John Dortmunder, it’s been too long since I seen you!”

Dortmunder stepped all the way into the hall, letting the door snick shut behind himself. He peered hard, but there didn’t seem to be anybody behind Arnie holding a gun to his head. He said, “Arnie? Is that you?”

“The new me, John Dortmunder!” Arnie a

“Well,” Dortmunder said, “we got some stuff in a van out here.”

“In a minute, in a minute, I’ll get my coat. But come up first, let’s visit.”

Visit? With Arnie Albright? Wondering if he had somehow fallen into a parallel universe, Dortmunder went on up the stairs, the smiling Arnie receding before him like a friendly vampire. “Come in, come in for a minute, John Dortmunder,” this new Arnie said, backing into his apartment. “You wa

“Well, Arnie,” Dortmunder said, following him across the threshold, “I got these guys downstairs, you know, by the van, they just wa

“Oh, sure,” Arnie said, “we don’t wa

Arnie’s apartment, small underfurnished rooms with big dirty windows showing no views, was decorated mostly with his calendar collection, walls festooned in Januarys from all over the twentieth century, under pictures of girls in short skirts in high winds, kittens in wicker baskets with balls of yarn, paddle-wheel steamers, and much, much more. Much more.

While Arnie went on into his bedroom to get his coat, Dortmunder waited in the living room among the Januarys, and some Mays and Novembers, too (incompletes), and called after him, “Arnie? How come you’re the new you?”

Arnie came back, shrugging into a drab and raggedy black coat you wouldn’t let a barn cat sleep on, and said, “You remember, last time you was here, I’d come down with something.”

Salsa. “You were ill,” Dortmunder understated.

“I looked like a torture victim,” Arnie said, more accurately. “Finally, my doctor wouldn’t see me no more, wouldn’t even hear me no more, he said I was the reason the Board of Health shut down his waiting room, so he passed me on to this like referral doctor, you know, the doctor all the other doctors refer you to whenever they’re away.”

“Which is whenever,” Dortmunder said.

“You got it. Well, this guy, this referral doctor, turns out, he’s okay, he’s like making a comeback from parole, and after he cured me of the ooze thing he said, ‘Lemme give you a second opinion, you’re also obnoxious,’ and I said, ‘I know it, doctor, you don’t have to tell me, I’m so hard to be around I sometimes shave with my back to the mirror,’ and he said take these pills, so I’m taking them.”

Dortmunder said, “Pills. You mean like Prozac?”

“This stuff is to Prozac,” Arnie said, “like sour mash is to sassafras. How in hell it’s legal I will never know, and if this is legal how in hell anything else is illegal I’ll also never know.”

“But it did the job, huh?” Dortmunder said. “You aren’t obnoxious anymore.”

“Oh, no, John Dortmunder, not like that,” Arnie said. “I’m as obnoxious as I ever was, believe me, when the shock wears off, you’ll begin to notice for yourself, but I’m not angry about it anymore. I have come to accept my i

“Well, that’s great, Arnie,” Dortmunder said, though not as enthusiastically as he’d hoped. Apparently, he was going to lie to the new Arnie as much as he used to lie to the old one.

Arnie once again showed Dortmunder his new smile. His teeth were not of the best. “So, John Dortmunder,” he said, “you’re doin so good these days, you’re bringin me the stuff in vanloads, is that it?”

“Pretty much,” Dortmunder agreed. “We got a variety of stuff down here.”

“Do I want my loupe?”

“Maybe so.”

“And my Polaroid camera?”

“Could be.”

“And my gold-weighing scale?”

“I’m begi

“Nah, never mind, John Dortmunder. We’ll go down and see what you got.”

So they went down to see what they got, and what they got was three guys loitering very obviously around the Erstwhile van. Fortunately, no law-enforcement elements had yet noticed them, so it was okay.

“Well, hey, Andy Kelp,” Arnie said, coming down the stoop with his very best new smile, “John Dortmunder didn’t say we was all go