"Oh, very well," she said.

"Do I need a pass or something with the guard on the door?"

"I'll phone down."

"Okay."

Dortmunder carried the typewriter downstairs, where the guard nodded hello and waved him through. Outside, he put the machine on the passenger seat of the Plymouth he'd stolen for this trip, then drove back to Manhattan and to a friend of his who ran a pawn shop off Third Avenue. This man had never been known to ask anybody any question other than, "How much?" Dortmunder handed him the machine, accepted forty dollars, and went out to the street.

It was a pleasant day late in the month of April, one of the few days all month without rain, so Dortmunder decided to leave the Plymouth where he'd parked it and walk home. He'd gone about half a block when he suddenly realized he was looking at Stan Murch through the windshield of a car parked next to a fire hydrant. He started to grin and wave a big hello, but Stan made a tiny negative gesture with his head and the hand on the steering wheel, so Dortmunder converted his own movement into a cough, and walked on.

May wasn't at home, since she had the afternoon shift down at the Safeway, but a note was Scotch-taped to the front of the TV set: Call Chauncey.

"Oog," said Dortmunder, and went out to the kitchen to pop open a can of beer. He stayed in the kitchen, not wanting to be reminded of that message on the TV, and was working on his second beer when the doorbell rang.

It was Stan Murch. "Yeah, I'd love one," he said, looking at the beer in Dortmunder's hand.

"Sure. Sit down."

Dortmunder brought a beer from the kitchen to the living room, where Murch was now seated, looking at the TV. "You call yet?"

"He wasn't home," Dortmunder lied. "How come you give me the office out there?"

"I was following Zane," Murch said, and swigged some beer. "Oh." Since they believed that so far Zane hadn't positively identified any of Dortmunder's partners in the robbery, the group had been taking turns occasionally trailing Leo Zane around, trying to find the right handle to use on him later.

Then Dortmunder frowned. "What was he doing down around there?"

"Following you," Murch said. "Someday you'll have to tell me how you do that typewriter bit."

"Following me?"

"Yeah." Murch drank beer and said, "I'm following him and he's following you. Pretty funny, in a way."

"Hysterical," Dortmunder said, and went to the phone to call Chauncey.

Chapter 10

Chauncey had called Zane first, upon arrival in New York:

"Chauncey here."

"You got it, did you?" Zane's rather weedy voice, empty of strength or emphasis, suggested a kind of wasting menace that Chauncey found thrilling; like a Brueghel allegory.

"Yes, I did." This time, apparently, the robbery had been so unreproachably real that the insurance investigation had been barely a formality, bringing settlement much sooner than anticipated. "And your pet?" Chauncey asked. "How has he been keeping?"

"In his cage. He doesn't even want to fly away."

"Good. I'll see him soon. You'll keep an eye out?"

"I'll follow him," Zane said, "until you're finished. You won't see me, but I'll be there."

"Exactly right."

"When do you do it?"

"As soon as possible," Chauncey said. "I'll call you back." And he phoned Dortmunder, leaving a message with the rather dry-voiced woman who answered the phone.

It was nearly three hours before the man called back, and then his voice had such a grudging surly quality that Chauncey became at once suspicious, despite Zane's assurances. "The painting's all right?"

"Sure it is," Dortmunder said. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Then you'll bring it here. I have the money."

"In cash?"

Chauncey grimaced. Nobody uses cash any more, unless buying a newspaper, so Chauncey hadn't thought at all about the actual physical transfer of funds from himself to Dortmunder. But of course he couldn't very well offer the man a check, could he? And even if he could, Dortmunder certainly couldn't accept it. Nor was Dortmunder likely to be on Diners Club or Master Charge.

"Chauncey?"

"I'm thinking," Chauncey told him. "Wait there, Dortmunder, I'll have to call you back." But when he tried, half an hour later, the line was busy, and this was why:

"I'm telling you, Dortmunder, it isn't finished."

"And I'm telling you, Porculey, the goddam man is in New York and he wants his goddam picture back."

"You can't give it to him unfinished."

"I have to turn it over, period."

"You told me I had till May."

"He's here now, and he wants his painting."

"It isn't ready."

(And so on, for several minutes, more and more of the same, while Chauncey kept dialing Dortmunder's number and getting the same infuriating busy signal, until Dortmunder finally asked the following question:)

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long to get it done?"

"To do it right. Two weeks. Two weeks minimum."

"Not to do it right. Come on, Porculey, help me on this."

There was a brief pause. The faint slobby sound in Dortmunder's ear was Porculey sucking on his lower lip, as an aid to thought. Finally Porculey sighed, another distasteful sound, arid said, "Friday. It won't be perfect, but–"

"This is Tuesday."

"I know what day it is, Dortmunder."

"Three days?"

"I have to bake it, antique it, it has to dry. Do you want it to smell of fresh paint?"

"Three days," Dortmunder insisted. "You can't make it shorter."

"Shorter? Dortmunder, d-d-d-d-do you ree-ree-ree–"

"Okay, okay. I'll take your word for it."

"I mean, after all."

"I believe you," Dortmunder said.

"Friday."

"Friday night."

"Aw, come on."

"Friday night."

"Eight o'clock."

"Ten o'clock."

"Eight-thirty."

"Avoid the rush-hour traffic, Dortmunder. Ten o'clock."

"The rush hour doesn't go that late. Nine o'clock."

"Make it nine-thirty."

"Nine," Dortmunder said, and slammed the phone down, and it rang at him.

It was of course Chauncey, dialing yet again, ready to bite the receiver in half if he got a busy signal one more time, and being so astonished when he got the ring sound instead that at first he didn't say anything at all when Dortmunder said, "Hello?" Then, when Dortmunder said it again – "Hello?" – even though Chauncey recognized the voice and knew it was the person he was trying to call, his surprise made him say, "Dortmunder?"

"Chauncey."

"You've been on the phone."

"It's a friend's birthday," Dortmunder said. Chauncey was again surprised, this time pleasantly. Sentimental comradeship in the criminal classes; how charming. "That's nice," he said.

"About the money," Dortmunder said. Apparently sentiment didn't leave much of an afterglow with the man.

"Yes." Chauncey cleared his throat and said, "It turns out cash is a difficult thing to acquire, at least without creating questions."

Dortmunder, sounding exasperated, said, "Chauncey, after all this, are you saying you don't have the money?"

Chauncey was too concerned with his own problems to wonder what after all this referred to. "Not at all," he said. "I have the money, but I don't yet have the cash."

"Money and cash are the same thing," said Dortmunder, who apparently lived in a much simpler world.

"Well, not exactly," Chauncey told him. "The thing is, it'll take me a while to get the cash together. I'm sorry, I hadn't really thought about the problem before."

"Meaning you'll have it when?"

"This isn't a stall, Dortmunder, I do have the money."

"When do I get it?"

"Not till Friday, I'm afraid."

"This is Tuesday."

"I realize that. I apologize, and I've started on it, but the fact is I can't take that much cash from any one source. I'll need several business days to do it. I've made a beginning, and by Friday I'll have it all."