What's The Worst That Could Happen?

“Good,” Dortmunder said. “Then he can tell me. Wally, where is he?”

There was a manila envelope on the floor beside Wally’s chair. Stooping now, with many grunts and false starts, Wally picked up this envelope and took from it two sheets of paper, as he said, “You just want for the rest of May, I guess.”

“Sure,” Dortmunder said.

“Okay.” Wally studied the papers. “Well, today,” he said, “he’s in London.”

“That’s fast,” Dortmunder said. “He was on Long Island last Thursday.”

“Wait for it,” Andy said.

Wally said, “He got to London this morning.”

“How long is he go

“Day after tomorrow,” Wally said, “he’s going to Nairobi.”

“Nairobi.” Dortmunder didn’t like the sound of that. “That’s in Africa someplace, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

“Is he ever coming back to the States?”

“Saturday,” Wally said, “because he’s going to testify at a congressional hearing next Monday, a week from today.”

Andy said, “What you’ve got there, John, you’ve got your basic moving target.”

Dortmunder said, “London, Nairobi, Washington, all this week. He’s going to Washington on Saturday?”

“On Monday. He’s going to spend the weekend at Hilton Head, in South Carolina.”

“Nice for him,” Dortmunder said. “How long’s he go

“Until Wednesday. Then he goes to Chicago for two days, and then Sydney for the next—”

“Sydney? That’s a person.”

“Sydney, Australia, John, it’s a city. And then the Monday after that he flies back and goes to Las Vegas, and then he—”

Dortmunder said, “Are we still in May?”

“Oh, sure, John,” Wally said. “The schedule says he’ll be in Las Vegas two weeks from today.”

“I’m almost feeling sorry for this guy,” Dortmunder said.

“I think he likes it,” Andy said.

“Well, I’m not go

“An apartment,” Wally said, “in the Watergate.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Dortmunder said. “It’s some kinda place.”

Wally and Andy looked at one another. “He’s heard of it,” Andy said.

Wally said to Dortmunder, “It’s a great big building over by the Potomac River. It’s partly offices and partly hotel and partly apartments.”

“Apartments are harder,” Dortmunder said. “Doormen, probably. Neighbors. Could be live-in help there, a guy like that.”

Gri

“I’m pla

Andy still had that little crooked grin. “No big deal,” he suggested. “Just a little third-rate burglary at the Watergate.”

Dortmunder shrugged. “Yeah? So? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Well,” Andy said, “you could lose the presidency.”

Dortmunder, who had no sense of history because he had no interest in history because he was usually more than adequately engaged by the problems of the present moment, didn’t get that at all. Ignoring it as just one of those things Andy would say, he turned to Wally. “So he’s go

“That’s the schedule,” Wally agreed.

“Thank you, Wally. Then so am I.”

14

Already it had become a habit, a ritual, a pleasant little meaningless gesture. While he was in conversation or in thought, the fingers of Max’s left hand twiddled and turned the burglar’s ring on the third finger of his right hand. The cool touch to his fingertips, the feel of that flat shield-shape with the Tui symbol on it, the memory of that spur-of-the-moment mal geste, served to strengthen him, encourage him. How unfortunate that it was too good a joke to tell.

All day Monday, as he was chauffeured in a British-division TUI Rolls from meeting to meeting, he twirled the ring. Monday evening, as he attended Cameron Mackenzie’s latest, Nana: The Musical, with another aspiring entertainment journalist (this one, English, was named Daf), he twirled the ring. (He’d already seen the New York production of Nana, of course, but enjoyed the original London version even more, if only for how reflexively the British despise the French.) And Tuesday morning, in his suite at the Savoy, he fondled the ring as the managers of his British newspaper chain presented their latest rosy predictions—no matter what they did, he knew, no matter how many contests they launched, no matter how many football hooligans they espoused, no matter how many breasts or royals they exposed, they would still be read only by the same four hundred thousand mouthbreathers—when Miss Hartwright, his London secretary, deferentially entered to say, “B’pardon, Mr. Fairbanks, it’s Mr. Greenbaum.”

Greenbaum. Walter Greenbaum was Max’s personal attorney in New York City. He would not be phoning for a frivolous reason. “I’ll take it,” Max decided, and while the newspaper managers withdrew into their shells of politeness within their baggy suits he picked up the phone, pressed the green-lit button, and said, “Walter. Isn’t it early for you?” Because New York was, after all, five hours behind London; it would be barely six in the morning there.

“Very,” Walter Greenbaum’s voice said, surprisingly close.

“But it’s also very late. When can we talk?”

That sounded ominous. Max said, “Walter, I’m not sure. I’m due at the Ivory Exchange Bank in Nairobi tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll be back in the States till—”

“I’m here.”

Max blinked. “Here? You mean in London?”

“I Concorded last night. When are you free?”

If Walter Greenbaum were troubled enough by something to fly personally to London rather than phone, fax, or wait, Max should take it seriously. “Now,” he said, and hung up, and said to the managers, “Good-bye.”

Walter Greenbaum was a stocky man in his fifties, with deep bags under his eyes that made him look as though he spent all his time contemplating the world’s sorrows. Once, when a friend pointed out to him that the removal of such bags was the easiest trick in the plastic surgeon’s playbook, he had said, “Never. Without these bags I’m no longer a lawyer, I’m just a complainer.” And he was right. The bags gave his every utterance the gravity of one who has seen it all and just barely survived. And yet, he was merely doing lawyer-talk, like anybody else.

“Good morning, Walter.”

“Morning, Max.”

“Coffee? Have you had breakfast?”

“There was a break-in at the Carrport facility on Long Island last weekend.”

I am hearing this for the first time, Max reminded himself. Sounding mildly concerned, he said, “A break-in? That’s what comes from leaving the place empty. Did they get much?”

“Perhaps a quarter million in silver and other valuables, plus a car.”

Max’s mouth dropped open. His mind stalled. He couldn’t think of a single response to pretend to have.

Walter smiled thinly into the silence he’d created, and said, “Yes, Max. He went back. He escaped from the police, and he went back to the house.”

“Back? Back?” What does Walter know?

They were standing in the white-and-gold living room of the suite, with views of the Thames outside the windows, where black birds tumbled in a strong wind beneath plump hurrying clouds. Neither of them gave a thought to the view, as Walter gestured at a nearby white sofa, saying, “Why don’t you sit down, Max? Before you fall down.”

Max sat. Walter pulled a white-and-gold Empire chair over near him, leaving tracks in the white carpet. Seating himself in front of Max like a sorrowing headmaster, he said, “I’m your attorney, Max. Try to tell me the truth.”