What's The Worst That Could Happen?

“That’s right,” Dortmunder said. “You use some other gases around here, too.”

“If it hisses out of a big torpedo-shaped canister,” Vogel said, “we got it. I take it this is the area where you got an interest.”

“It is,” Dortmunder said.

“Well, come along, Dortmunder, and you come along, too, Kelp,” Vogel said, starting off, not seeming to care that his shiny shoes were already getting dusty out here, “let me show you fellas what we got here, and you can tell me what you want, and then you can tell me what’s in it for me.”

45

A

Once she was alone, A

Twelve stories down. They had given her a room on what they called the fourteenth floor, because there are no thirteenth floors almost anywhere in America, and certainly none in Las Vegas. But they could call it fourteen all they wanted; it was the thirteenth floor, and Fate knew it.

And so, from here, thirteen stories up, A

Also from up here, the many many security people in their tan uniforms stood out like peanuts in a bowl of M&M’s. Looking down at them, watching their steady progress through the dawdling crowd, A

The trip to Washington, on the other hand, had been a lark. It had seemed as though it would be a lark beforehand, and it had turned out to be a lark while it was going on, and John’s friend May had been just the perfect companion for those times when Andy and John were off doing their thing. But when Andy had told her about this! When Andy had explained to her that they were all off this time to rob a casino in Las Vegas as a diversion from their attempt to get John’s ring back, A

I’m getting out of this, A

The fact was, she did enjoy being with Andy, no matter how crazy he was. So, at least until everybody was in Las Vegas, and the diversion failed, and the whole crowd of them except her was carted off to jail, she would continue to pal around with Andy, and just watch the scene unfold. And at the same time she would do what was necessary to protect herself.

The reason was, she’d changed her mind about Court TV. It wasn’t so much that she minded making an appearance on Court TV—that might also be fun, in a way—it was the eight-and-a-third to twenty-five years that would follow her appearance that she didn’t care for. If there was one destiny open to her that was likely to be worse than marriage to Howard Carpinaw, it was a woman’s prison for approximately a quarter of her life. No; not worth it.

So she’d taken steps. She had seen to it that, when the time came to cut loose from Andy Kelp and his lunatic friends, she could go ahead and cut, and be safe as houses.

First of all, she was traveling alone. Second, absolutely nobody on earth except Andy’s friends had the slightest idea she even knew Andy Kelp. And third, before leaving New York she had written letters to two friends back in Lancaster, in both of them breaking the news that Howard had left her, and that she had stayed on in New York City a while to try to figure out what to do next with her life, and that she had now decided to come home but would spend a week in Las Vegas on the way. (Not that Las Vegas was exactly on the way from New York, New York, to Lancaster, Kansas. She was overshooting Lancaster by about eleven hundred miles. But who’s counting?)

So that’s what would happen. She had come to Las Vegas, as a

She unpacked, briskly and efficiently. Life had been one hotel room after another recently—this motel-box in the sky couldn’t hold a candle to that terrific room at the Watergate—and she’d become very adept at the transitions. Then, looking out the window once more at the near view of the hotel grounds and the far view of out-of-focus tan flatness and the distant view of low gray ridges at the horizon line, she wondered what she would do with herself in the quiet time until Andy reappeared.

The pool down there did look as though it might be fun. Normally, she’d be doubtful about the pool, because she felt she was about fifteen pounds overweight to be acceptable in a bathing suit, but from what she’d seen of the Gaiety’s customers so far she believed her nickname around here would be Slim, so the pool it was.

She changed into her suit and packed a small purse, and was about to leave the room when the phone rang. It was—who else would it be?—Andy: “Hey, A

“Andy!” she said, being surprised on cue. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, a little convention, the usual. I’m here with John.”

“You want to come over?” she asked him. “Say hello?” And look out my window, of course, while you’re here.

“Maybe later,” he said, surprisingly. She’d expected them to want to case the joint right away. “Maybe tomorrow morning,” he said. “We gotta get John dressed, a couple other things. Midmorning, okay?”

“I’ll probably be somewhere around the pool,” she said, with furrowed brow.

“See you then.”

A

46

“I don’t know about this,” Dortmunder said. “I don’t know about those knees, to begin with.”

“You brought those knees in with you, John,” Kelp reminded him. “Look at the clothes.”

It was very hard to look at the clothes, with those knees glowering back at him from the discount-store mirror like sullen twin hobos pulled in on a bum rap. On the other hand, with these clothes, it was very hard to look at the clothes anyway.

This was the end result of Dortmunder’s having told Kelp, in the car on the way to Henderson, how everybody in this town seemed to gaze upon him with immediate suspicion. If he’d known that admission was going to lead to this he’d have kept the problem to himself, just resigned himself to being a suspicious character, which is in fact what he was.

But, no. Despite the absolute success of the meeting with Lester Vogel—that scheme was going to work out perfectly, he almost believed it himself—here he was, humiliated, in this discount mall on the fringes of the city, in front of a mirror, his knees frowning at him in reproof, wearing these clothes.