What's The Worst That Could Happen?

“A

“How you doing?”

“Fine.”

“You see, what it is,” she said, “it’s a package, a tour, we paid for everything ahead of time. I’ve got the room until Saturday, and I got breakfast until Saturday, and I got di

“Holding up the bar.”

“I certainly don’t want to get drunk,” she said. “I’ve been pacing myself.” She frowned at the half-empty glass in front of her. “Will this get me drunk?”

“Probably not,” Kelp said. “Unless you’re one of those rare people with the fu

She looked at him as though she might begin to doubt him soon. She said, “How long are you here for?”

“Oh, for a while,” he said, and sipped from his own half-full glass.

She thought about that. “You like this hotel?”

“I’m not staying here,” he said.

She was surprised. “Why would you come in here,” she asked, “if you’re not staying here? You couldn’t have been just passing by.”

“I’ve got an appointment in the neighborhood,” he told her, and looked at his watch, and said, “pretty soon. So I’m killing time here.”

“So we’re ships passing in the night,” she said.

“Possibly,” Kelp said. “In this hotel, do they have that little refrigerator in the room full of stuff?”

“Beer,” she said, “and champagne, and macadamia nuts and trail mix.”

“That’s the one. Does it have bourbon?”

She considered, then pointed at her empty glass. “This stuff? I’m not sure.”

“I could come around later, take a look,” Kelp suggested. “I figure, my appointment, I’m probably done by three, maybe earlier, something like that.”

“That’s some late appointment,” she said.

“Well, you know, New York,” he said. “The city that never sleeps.”

“Well, I sleep,” she said. “Though not so much, actually, since Howard left. I suppose he isn’t coming back.”

“Doesn’t sound it,” Kelp said.

“I’m in 2312,” A

20

When Dortmunder woke up, he had no idea where the hell he was. Some beige box with the lights on and faint voices talking. He lifted his head, and saw an unfamiliar room, with a TV on, all the lights on, himself sprawled on his back atop a king-size bed with its thick tan bedspread still on it, and May slumped asleep in a chair off to his left, one of her magazines on the floor beside her. On the TV, people covered with blood were being carried to ambulances. Wherever it was, it looked like a real mess. Then, as Dortmunder watched, the people and the ambulances faded away and some candy bars began to dance.

Dortmunder sat up, remembering. The N-Joy Broadway Hotel. Max Fairbanks. The lucky ring. The service elevator. Andy Kelp coming by, later; one in the morning.

There was a clock radio bolted to the table beside the bed; its red numbers said 12:46. Dortmunder moved, discovering several aches, and eventually made it to his feet. He sloped off to the shiny bathroom, where he found his own personal toothbrush and toothpaste, plus the hotel’s soap and towels. When he finally came back out of the bathroom, feeling a little more human and alive, May was stirring in her chair, looking for her magazine, coming awake just as fuzzily as he had. Seeing him, she said, “I fell asleep.”

“Everybody fell asleep.”

They’d checked in late in the afternoon, hung around the room for a while to unpack and think things over, then had a pretty good di

The layout was simple, really. The hotel was basically a thick letter U, with the base of the U on Broadway and the arms of the U on the side streets. The space in the middle was occupied, down below, by the theater and by the hotel lobby, with a glass roof at the top of that lobby on the sixteenth floor. The U started with floor seventeen and went on up that way, so all the hotel rooms could have windows.

“I don’t sleep well in chairs,” May said, getting to her feet.

“Well, you didn’t mean to,” Dortmunder said.

“Doesn’t help,” she decided, and went off to the bathroom, while Dortmunder crossed to the room’s only window and drew the heavy drapes open partway. The window wouldn’t open, so he pressed his forehead against the cool glass in order to look as straight down as possible.

They had an inside room, meaning no city vistas but also no traffic noise, and the view below, just visible with your forehead flat against the windowpane, was the glass roof of the lobby. Earlier this evening, that glass dome had been very brightly lit, but now it was dim, as though some sort of fire had been banked down there.

12:53.

Dortmunder crossed to the door to once again study the floor plan in its little frame. He leaned in close, peering, figuring it out.

The floor plan was mostly little rectangles of numbered rooms, with a central corridor. In the middle of each of the three sides was a cluster of service elements: staircase, elevators, ice machine, and unmarked rooms that would be storage for linens and cleaning supplies. Of course, Max Fairbanks’s apartment didn’t show on this simple floor plan, but Dortmunder already knew it was above the theater and below the hotel and that it faced onto Broadway. So the service cluster on the Broadway side must be the one that contained the special elevator. Dortmunder’s room was around on the south side, so when Andy got here they’d—

The door whacked Dortmunder sharply on the nose. He stepped back, eyes watering, and Andy himself came in, saying, “I hope I’m not early.”

“You’re not early,” Dortmunder said, massaging his nose.

Andy peered at him, concerned. “John? You sound like you got a cold.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Maybe the air-conditioning,” Andy suggested. “You know, these buildings, it’s all recycled air, it could be you—”

“It’s nothing!”

May came out of the bathroom, looking more awake. “Hi, Andy,” she said. “Right on time.”

“Maybe a minute early,” Dortmunder said. His nose was out of joint.

May said, “A minute early is right on time.”

“Thank you, May.”

Dortmunder, seeing no future in remaining irritated, let his nose alone and said, “We got this little floor plan here,” and showed Andy the chart on the door. He explained where they were, and where the service elevator to the apartment should be, and Andy said, “Can it be that easy?”

“Probably not,” Dortmunder said.

“Well, let’s go look at it anyway,” Andy said.

May said, “John, where’s the control?”

“The what?”

“For the TV,” she said. “The remote control. I thought I’d watch television while you’re away, but I can’t find the control.”

“Maybe it’s in the bed,” Dortmunder said.

“Maybe it’s under the bed,” Andy said.

They all looked, and didn’t find it. May said, “This is only one room and it isn’t that large a room and it doesn’t have that many things in it. So we have to be able to find the control.”

Andy said, “Are you sure you ever had a control?”

“Yes. That’s how I turned it on in the first place. And, John, you were changing cha

“So it ought to be in the bed,” Dortmunder said.

“Or under the bed,” Andy said.

They all looked again and still didn’t find it, until Andy went into the bathroom and said, “Here it is,” and came out with the control in his hand. “It was next to the sink,” he said.