16

Dortmunder had deliberately taken a subway in the wrong direction from Times Square to get away from a pair of uniformed cops who had been gazing at him with steadily increasing interest, so it was a quarter after ten, fifteen minutes late, before he walked into the O. J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue, where three of the regulars were discussing Cyprus—probably because it was in the news in connection with the Byzantine Fire. "All you gotta do is look onna map," one of the regulars was saying. "Cyprus is right there by Turkey. Greece is way to hell and gone."

"Oh, yeah?" said the second regular. "You happen to be a Turk, by any chance?"

"I happen," the first regular said, with a dangerous glint in his eye, "to be Polish and Norwegian. You got any objections?"

"Well, I happen," said the second regular, "to be one hunnerd percent Greek, and I'm here to tell you you happen to be fulla shit. Both the Polish part and the Norwegian part. Both parts, fulla shit."

"Wait a minute, fellas," said the third regular. "Let's not cast a lotta national aspersions."

"I'm not casting anything," said the second regular. "This Norwegian Polack's telling me where Greece is."

"What is this?" demanded the first regular. "You have to be Greek before you know where Greece is?"

"There's something in what he says," said the third regular, who apparently saw himself as the voice of reason in a world of extremes.

"There's horseshit in what he says," said the second regular.

Dortmunder approached the bar some distance from the nationalists, where Rollo the bartender, tall, meaty, balding, blue-jawed, wearing a dirty white shirt and a dirty white apron, stood looking up at the color TV set, on which at that moment several very clean people were pretending to look worried in a very clean hospital room. "Whadaya say," said Dortmunder.

Rollo looked down from the screen. "Now they're rerunning the made-for-TV movies," he said, "and claiming they're movies. It's Whatsisname's law."

"It's what?"

"You know," Rollo said. "That law. Where the bad shit drives out the good."

"The good shit?" It occurred to Dortmunder that Rollo was beginning to sound like one of his own customers. Maybe he'd been in this job too long.

"Just a minute," Rollo said, and walked away to where the nationalists were beginning to threaten incursions into one another's territory. "You boys wanna fight," Rollo said, "you go home and fight with your wives. You wanna drink beer, you come here."

The pro-Turk Norwegian Pole said, "Exactly. That's what I come here for. I'm disinterested. I'm not even Turkish."

"Listen," Rollo said. "The law where it says bad shit drives out the good, which law is that?"

"The unwritten law," said the Greek.

The former mediator looked at him. "What are you, crazy? The unwritten law's when you catch your wife in bed with some guy."

"There's a law says some guy goes to bed with my wife?"

"No, no. The unwritten law."

"Well," said the Greek, "it better stay unwritten."

"That's not what I mean," said Rollo. "Hold it a second." He called to Dortmunder, "You still a double bourbon on the rocks?"

"Absolutely," said Dortmunder.

Reaching for a glass, Rollo told the nationalists, "I'm talking about the law where bad drives out good. I think it starts with G."

With obvious hesitance, the non-Turk said, "The law of gravity?"

"No, no, no," said Rollo, putting ice cubes in the glass.

"Common law," said the mediator, with absolute assurance. "That's what you're looking for."

The Greek said, "Another clown. Common law is where you aren't married to your wife, but you really are."

"That's impossible," said the mediator. "Either you're married or you're not married."

"They're both impossible," said the non-Turk.

Reaching for a bottle labeled "Amsterdam Liquor Store Bourbon—Our Own Brand," Rollo said, "That's not it. It's something else."

"Murphy's law," suggested the Greek.

Rollo hesitated, about to pour bourbon into the glass. Frowning, he said, "You sure?"

"I think so," said the Greek.

Neither the mediator nor the non-Turk had any comment at all. Shaking his head in continuing doubt, Rollo brought Dortmunder his drink, gesturing at the TV screen and saying, "Murphy's law."

"Sure," said Dortmunder. "The others back there?"

"The vodka-and-red-wine," Rollo said, "and a new fella to me, a rye-and-water."

That would be Ralph Winslow. Dortmunder said, "Not the beer-and-salt?"

"Not yet."

"He's late. He must have taken a wrong route."

"Maybe so," said Rollo.

Dortmunder picked up his drink and walked toward the rear of the place, past the regulars, who were now discussing Salic's law of averages. Continuing on beyond the end of the bar, Dortmunder went by the two doors marked with dog silhouettes (POINTERS and SETTERS) and past the phone booth and through the battered green door at the end into a small room with a concrete floor. The walls all around were hidden behind beer and liquor cases stacked ceiling high, leaving barely enough space in the middle for several chairs and a round wooden table covered with green felt. From a black wire over the table hung a bare bulb with a round tin reflector. Seated at the table at the moment were two people, one of them a hearty heavyset man with a wide mouth and a big round nose like the bulb of an airhorn, the other a huge mean-looking monster who seemed to have been constructed out of old truck-engine parts. The hearty man was holding a tall glass of amber liquid, clinking the ice cubes in it and looking dubiously at the monster, who brooded at a half-full glass of what appeared to be flat cherry soda. Both men raised their heads at Dortmunder's entrance, the hearty man as though in search of an ally, the monster as though wondering if this new arrival were edible.

"Dortmunder!" said the hearty man, more heartily than necessary, emphatically tinkling his ice cubes. "Haven't seen you in a coon's age!" He had a loud but gravelly voice and the permanent air of being about to slap somebody on the back.

"Hello, Ralph," Dortmunder said. Nodding at the monster, he said, "Whadaya say, Tiny?"

"I say our host is late," Tiny said. His voice was deep and not loud, like the sound emanating from a cavern in which a dragon is alleged to sleep.

"Stan'll be along," Dortmunder said. He sat with his profile to the door, putting his glass on the felt.

"Haven't seen you since the pitcha switch," Tiny said. Incredibly, he laughed. He didn't do it well, or as though it came quite naturally, but the effort itself was praiseworthy. "I hear you had more trouble later on," he said.

"A little."

"But I got mine out of it," Tiny said. His big head nodded in slow satisfaction. "I always get mine."

"That's good," Dortmunder said.

"It's necessary." Tiny gestured with a hand like a baby bear. "I was just telling Ralph here what happened to Pete Orbin."

Ralph Winslow moodily tinkled ice. He didn't look as though he wanted to pat Tiny's back at all.

Dortmunder said, "Something happened to Pete Orbin?"

"I was in a little thing with him," Tiny said. "He tried to shortchange me on the cut. Said it was a mistake, he was counting on his fingers."

Dortmunder's brow corrugated. Reluctantly, he asked, "What happened?"

"I took off some of his fingers. Now he won't count on them any more." Wrapping his own sausage fingers around his glass, Tiny drained the red liquid from it, while Dortmunder and Ralph Winslow exchanged an enigmatic glance.

The door opened again and they all looked up, but it wasn't Stan Murch, who had called them all to come here tonight, it was Rollo the bartender, who said, "There's an ale outside, asking for a Ralph Winslow."