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Kelp looked up at the balconies of Watergate East, North and said, “Hey.”
Dortmunder looked up. “What?”
“She’s gone now.”
“Who?”
“There was a woman up there, leaning over the balcony, gotta be right near where we’re going tonight, she looked like A
“Couldn’t be,” Dortmunder said. “The hotel’s over there.”
“I know. She just looked like. Well . . . from this distance.”
“And you probably don’t really know her looks yet,” Dortmunder pointed out, and added, “She’s a good sport, isn’t she.”
“I sure hope so,” Kelp said. “Let’s look at that garage some more.”
A little after three, they got back to Dortmunder’s room, and May wasn’t there. “Maybe they’re both in my room,” Kelp said, and phoned, but there was no answer. So they sat down at the round table near the balcony and the view—from here, up close, the teeth looked like a highway divider—and went over the notes they’d taken, the kinds of locks they’d seen, the internal TV monitors they’d noted, the posts and routes of the security perso
About fifteen minutes after they’d arrived, May and A
“Pretty good,” A
Kelp picked up one of the pictures and looked at it. A curving hall with round nearly flush ceiling lights. Gray patterned wallpaper, shiny brown wood doors, a kind of mauve carpet with a big complex medallion on it every ten feet or so. A red-lettered exit sign some distance away around the curve. Kelp said, “What’s this?”
“The hall outside the apartment where you’re going,” May told him, and pointed. “That’s the door to it right there.”
A
Dortmunder and Kelp went through the pictures. Interiors, exteriors, balcony shots, elevator shots. Kelp said, “What is all this?”
“We thought it might help,” May said.
A
Kelp said, “So that was you, up on the balcony.”
“Oh, did you see me?” A
Stu
“Turns out,” May said, “there’s only certain special real estate agents are permitted to list the apartments here, because it’s all co-ops. So every Sunday afternoon, between noon and three, there’s open house.”
“It’s over now,” A
“The way it works,” May explained, “you go to the desk downstairs and check in—”
“I used my real name and ID,” A
“There didn’t seem to be any harm in it,” May said. “Anyway, after a couple minutes a real estate agent comes and gets you and rides up in the elevator with you and tells you what’s available, and asks what you’re interested in.”
“There’s a lot of people at this open house,” A
“So after you’ve looked at a couple places,” May went on, “you just tell the real estate agent thank you, I can find the elevator on my own, and you leave. And it’s okay because she’s got half a dozen other people she’s showing around.”
“So then you take the stairs,” A
Dortmunder and Kelp looked at each other, their mouths open. “If I’d known,” Dortmunder said, “I could have gone in there, done what they said, got into the apartment, and just wait for that son of a bitch to show up.”
“That would have been very nice,” Kelp agreed.
“It’s over now,” May said. “It’s after three.”
A
“Next Sunday,” Dortmunder said, “Fairbanks isn’t go
“When?” Kelp asked him.
“Early,” Dortmunder said. “If he isn’t there yet, we’ll wait for him. We’ll have an early di
34
Sunday, 9:00 P.M. Max should have left hours ago for DC, but he was restless, troubled in his mind. So many things had gone so badly lately. Two burglaries. The loss of the Carrport house. The added complications of the bankruptcy, difficulties he had never anticipated. The insane detective in New York who so clearly believed that Max had arranged to burglarize his own homes, and who seemed perfectly capable of rooting around in Max’s affairs until he did find something illegal that Max might have done. It was all as though some black cloud were hovering above his head, confusing him, keeping him off-balance.
Nine P.M. The Hilton Head condo was dark and empty, except for himself in the spacious living room, seated on the broad canvas sofa, the table lamps on both end tables the only illumination. The secretary who had been here to help him with his statement before the congressional committee tomorrow, among other things, had come and gone, leaving him alone in the house. In a guest cottage half a mile away, a nameless chauffeur awaited his call, already well overdue. Here in the condo air-conditioning hummed, and beyond the broad uncurtained front windows stretched the wide porch, the regular narrow pickets of the porch rail, and then the Atlantic, extending far out eastward under a pale moon and a black sky, the sea’s black surface glinting here and there and over here, as though tiny men in black armor were creeping ever closer.
Open on the glass coffee table in front of him was The Book, the I Ching. He’d been reading it, dipping in here and there, hoping for general guidance, somehow reluctant to open the door to his own particular situation. But why? He’d never been afraid to know his destiny before. That destiny, whatever by way of destiny he might still have out ahead of himself, was all lagniappe anyway, a treat from the master of the house, an extra serving of dessert, a long and delicious overtime following the brief harsh course he was supposed to have led. So why be afraid now?
I’m not, he decided, and reached for the three shiny pe
Following? Max had never seen himself as following, as being a follower. Could it mean those who followed Max? And if so, was it for good or for ill? Could the follower be the New York detective, Klematsky? Could it be that hapless burglar? Could it be the damn bankruptcy judge, dogging his tracks?
Max bent over The Book, studying its words. Following, the Judgment: “Following has supreme success. Perseverance furthers. No blame.”
Yes, yes, he knew The Book well enough by now to furnish the words it would customarily elide. What the judgment meant was, no blame would accrue to Max if he persevered, but in this situation (whatever this situation was) perseverance was linked with the concept of following, and it was only in understanding the link between the two that he could succeed.