22

Dortmunder poured beer on a bowl of Wheaties and ate, all with his right hand, since his left rested in a pot of Palmolive Liquid.

May said, "Are you absolutely certain I'm not asleep and dreaming?" She sat across the kitchen table from him and simply stared and stared.

"Maybe we both are," Dortmunder said, through a mouthful of Wheaties and beer. He looked at his left hand. The red ruby in the green detergent looked like a toad Cardinal in a swamp.

"Let's try it again," May said.

Dortmunder lifted his green-oozing hand out of the pot, and while he chewed beer-soggy Wheaties, May twisted and struggled with the ring. Simple soap hadn't done it, hot soapy water hadn't done it—maybe Palmolive Liquid would do it.

"If I can't get that off," Dortmunder said, "I'll never be able to leave the house again. I'll be a prisoner in here."

"Don't talk about prison," May said. Shaking her head, she said, "Let it soak some more."

Dortmunder looked with loathing at the toad Cardinal in its swamp. "My greatest triumph," he said, in disgust.

"Well, in a way it is," May said. "If you stop and think about it. This has got to be just about anybody's biggest heist ever. Particularly for one man working alone."

"I can see me boasting," Dortmunder said. "To all those guys getting rousted by the law."

"Some day you'll be able to," she assured him. "This too will blow over."

Dortmunder understood that May was trying to make him feel better. What May didn't understand was that Dortmunder didn't want to feel better. Given the circumstances, any attitude in Dortmunder's mind at this moment other than frustration, helpless rage, and blank despair would be both inappropriate and a sign of mental incompetence. Dortmunder might be doomed, but he wasn't crazy.

"The day will come," May went on, "when you'll look back on all this—"

"— and get drunk," Dortmunder finished. Lifting the offending hand out of the Palmolive Liquid, he said, "Try again."

She tried again. The beveled edge of the ring grated against his knuckle. "Sorry," she said. "Maybe after—"

"Enough," Dortmunder said, put his hand in his mouth, and chomped down.

May stared, horrified. "Dortmunder!"

Palmolive Liquid tastes like used tires. Dortmunder chewed and tugged, chewed and tugged, flesh scraped raw, red blood mixed with the green detergent, and May sat there in shock, eyes as round as manhole covers. The goddamned thing fought back, but Dortmunder struggled grimly on, and at last determination won the day; removing his ringless hand from his mouth, he spat the Byzantine Fire into the pot of detergent. He would have stood up, except that May grabbed his hand in both of hers and out loud, in a shaky whispery voice, counted his fingers: "One, two, three, four, five. Thank God!"

Dortmunder stared at her. "Whadja think?"

"I thought— Never mind, it doesn't matter what I thought."

"Get that thing out of my sight," Dortmunder said, in re the ring, and went away to the kitchen to wash out his mouth. He was getting bubbles in his nose.

23

"Excellent prints," Zachary said, "on the envelope containing the, uh."

Mologna glinted in cold triumph across his desk at the FBI man. "Containin the bribe" he said. He wasn't going to let Zachary forget last night's phone call and his incredible gaffe—not for a long long time. And this was a lovely way to start a new morning: ethically and morally unimpeachable, at peace with the world, at ease in his own sunny office, toying with a couple of assholes from the FBI. "The attempted bribe," he went on, turning the knife.

Zachary nodded, in that manly, official, not-quite-real manner of his. "They certainly chose the wrong man, didn't they?" (Freedly gave a confirming nod.)

"They certainly did," Mologna said. "For a bribe. Who were they?"

"No idea, unfortunately," Zachary said.

Mologna frowned at him. "What about these excellent prints? On the envelope containin the attempted bribe?"

"Excellent prints," Zachary reconfirmed. "Unhopefully, they don't match any prints in FBI files.

"So maybe he was a child," Mologna said. "A very tall ten-year-old, never been printed."

"We assume he was a foreign agent," Zachary said, rather stiffly. "We have turned the prints over to Interpol and to the national police forces of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and Lebanon."

Mologna nodded. "A timewaster, but it'll look good on the official record." Leon pranced in, winked at Freedly, and slid a note onto Mologna's desk.

Zachary, with an annoyed little chuckle, said, "A time-waster, Chief Inspector? Do you really think these people are also local citizens, like your happenstantial burglar?"

"No, I don't," Mologna said, exchanging a glance with the departing Leon. "Nobody in America wears black corduroy trousers. These were some sort of Ayrabs, all right. I say what you done is a timewaster because I figure these were probably employees of the national police force of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, or Lebanon."

"Mm," said Zachary.

Surprisingly, Freedly said, "You're probably right, Chief Inspector, but it isn't a waste of time."

Mologna transferred his attention to Freedly. Having known that Zachary was an asshole, he'd naturally been assuming the assistant was another one—was that an overly hasty judgment? Yes, it was. Getting Freedly's point, Mologna nodded at him and said, "You're right."

Zachary said, "What?"

"What your partner means," Mologna told Zachary, "is now the bribers will know the bribe didn't take. Wasn't taken."

"Oh," said Zachary.

Mologna looked down at the note Leon had left: "Get rid of them," it said. Looking at Freedly again, he said, "Don't put a tail on me."

Zachary said, "What?"

Grinning at Mologna, Freedly said, "Do you want me to promise?"

"Better be ready with bail money," Mologna said.

Freedly laughed.

Zachary was becoming very red in the face. "What is all this?" he demanded. "Just speak it out in clear and simple terminology."

Freedly explained: "Mologna sees we've set him up as a decoy."

"We have? He has?"

"And he's threatened," Freedly went on, "to have our men arrested if we put them on surveillance behind him."

"Arrested!" Zachary was shocked. "FBI men? For what?"

"Loiterin," Mologna suggested. "Public indecency. Not usin a pooper scooper. Possession for sale of a controlled substance. Traffic ticket scofflaw. Litterin the public highway."

"Well" Zachary said. "That isn't what I call interagency cooperation!"

Looking at Freedly, Mologna said, "He didn't think it through, but you did, and you should of talked it over with me first. I got children. I got a St. Bernard dog. I got a wife."

Zachary said, "What?"

Freedly said, "That's why we'll want to keep you under surveillance."

"At this stage of my life," Mologna told him, "I will not be shadowed and tailed by FBI men. You think you'll keep the newsies out? That wop Costello on the TV, he's been gunnin at me for years. Chief Inspector Mologna's under surveillance by the FBI."

"But only for your own protection," said Zachary, who'd caught up again.

"That's worse than suspicion of malfeasance in office," Mologna told him. "The top cop in the city of New York, and he has to be protected by FBI men."

Freedly said, "Sorry, Chief Inspector. You're right, of course."

"I'll watch my own back," Mologna said. "Now go away and talk to your Turks and your Greeks and your Lebanese."

"And our Armenians," added Freedly, getting to his feet.

Mologna gave Freedly a grudging nod and smile; Freedly was also an asshole, but less so than Zachary, who now also stood and said, "Chief Inspector, I assure you the FBI would never knowingly—"