"One suggestion," the FBI man—Zachary—was saying, "has been that a second Greek Cypriot group was responsible for the second purloinment."

Purloinment?

"The advantage of this theory is that it explains how the second group had so thoroughly infiltrated the first group as to be aware of their intended disposition of the ruby. There are contending factions, of course, within the umbrella groupage of Greek Cypriot nationalism."

Groupage?

"A second theory proposed has been that agents of the Soviet Union, pursuant to the claims earlier put forward by the Russian Orthodox Church in re annexment of the Byzantine Fire, were responsible for the second theft."

Annexment?

"In support of this theory is the fact that the USSR Mission to the United Nations has already denied Russian complicacy in the events of last evening. However, a third potentialism would be a transactage by a dissident factor within the Turkish populace."

Complicacy?

Potentialism?

Transactage?

"Colonel Bubble of Turkish Intelligence—"

Mologna raised an eyebrow at Leon, who wrote on his yellow pad Bubul.

"— has assured us of the unlikelihood of this eventuation, but he will keep it under some advisement."

Oh, well.

"Fourthly, there is always the possibility of coincidentalistic activity. A mere burglar may have stumbled upon the Byzantine Fire whilst engaged in his own depredatory activities. If there are any further suggestions anyone here might care to make, additional theories as to the perpetrators, their motivations, their future intentionisms, we'll all be happy to hear them."

Oh, will we? Mologna and Leon did the eye thing again.

"In the meantime," Zachary was saying, pointing this way and that randomly with his pointer, "as both felonies were perpetrated within the parameters of the city of New York, they come within the primary jurisdiction of the New York City police force, which will coordinate interagency activities and assume transcendent responsibility for the investigation. Therefore, I am happy at this time to turn the meeting over to Chief Inspector Mo-log-na of the New York City police."

Grunting, Mologna heaved himself to his feet and rested his beer belly on the table. "It's pronounced Maloney," he said. "You people can have your theories, and you can run down a lot of Greeks and Turks and Russian Orthodoxes, but I'll tell you right now what happened. That damn fool jeweler put a sign in his window that he was leavin town. Perfect invitation to a burglar. There was a nice little piece of wire put on the alarm to bypass it. The door was jimmied open as gentle as a weddin night. The safe was cracked by a professional cracksman. He took this damn ruby ring we're all so excited about, but he didn't know what it was because he also took a lot of penny-ante rings and bracelets and watches. Your terrorists and dissidents and all them types don't know how to quiet a burglar alarm or ease open a safe. All they know is machine guns and Molotov cocktails and a lot of noise and fuss and blood. It's a nice New York hometown burglar is what we're lookin for, and I tell you right now I'll find him. My boys'll toss this entire goddam city, we'll pick up every grifter and drifter and peterman and second-story man in town, we'll shake em all by the heels, and when you hear a plink, that'll be the ring fallin out of somebody's pocket. In the meantime, anybody got any questions, you deal with Sergeant Windrift here, my secretary. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a whole lot of arrestin to do."

And Chief Inspector Mologna followed his beer belly out of the conference room.

9

There was a Daily News on the seat on the subway, but Dortmunder didn't read about the big jewel robbery out to Kennedy. Other people's successes didn't interest him that much. Instead he leafed through to page seven, where he read about three guys in Staten Island who went into a bar last night to hold it up and the customers jumped all over them and threw their guns into the Kill Van Kull and let the air out of the tires of their getaway car, but then when the cops showed up (called by some busybody neighbor bugged by the noise) none of the customers would say which three guys in their midst were the holdup men, so the cops arrested everybody and it still hadn't been sorted out. The bartender, claiming it was too dim in the bar to see which of his customers was holding him up, was quoted as saying, "Anyway, it was just youthful exuberance."

Dortmunder was on the BMT. At 28th Street four cops came aboard and the doors stayed open until the cops found the two guys they wanted. Dortmunder sat there behind his News, reading about a pantyhose sale at Alexander's, and the cops grabbed these two guys from just across the aisle and frisked them and marched them out of the train. Just two ordinary guys, like you see around. Then the doors closed and the train moved on, and Dortmunder came out from behind his paper to watch the cops walking the two guys away across the receding platform.

At Times Square he changed for the Broadway IRT, and there seemed to be cops sort of strolling around all over the station—a lot more than the usual sprinkle. The plastic bag of jewelry in Dortmunder's pocket was getting heavier and heavier. It was making, he thought, a very obvious bulge. He walked with his right arm close against his side, but that might draw attention too, so then he walked with his right arm elaborately moving, but that could also draw attention, so finally he just slunk along, not giving a damn if he drew attention or not.

At 86th Street, when he came up out of the subway, right there by the bank building on the corner at Broadway two cops had a guy leaning against the wall and were giving him a toss. It all was beginning to seem like a bad omen or something. "Probably everything I grabbed was paste," Dortmunder muttered to himself, and walked up to 89th Street between Broadway and West End, where Arnie had an apartment up over a bookstore. Dortmunder rang the bell, and Arnie's voice came out of the metal grid, saying, "Who is it?"

Dortmunder leaned close to the grid: "It's me."

"Who the hell is me?"

Dortmunder looked around the tiny vestibule. He looked out at the street. He leaned as close to the grid as he could get and mumbled, "Dortmunder."

Very very loud, the voice of Arnie yelled from the grid, "Dortmunder?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Okay? Yeah."

The door went click-click-click, and Dortmunder pushed on it and went into the hallway, which always smelled of old newspapers. "Next time I'll just pick the lock," he muttered, and went upstairs, where Arnie was waiting in his open doorway.

"So," Arnie said. "You scored?"

"Sure."

"Sure," Arnie said. "Nobody comes to see Arnie just to say hello."

"Well, I live way downtown," Dortmunder said, and went on into the apartment, which had small rooms with big windows looking out past a black metal fire escape at the brown-brick back of a parking garage maybe four feet away. Part of Arnie's calendar collection hung around on all the walls: Januaries that started on Monday, Januaries that started on Thursday, Januaries that started on Saturday. Here and there, just to confuse things, were calendars that started with August or March; "incompletes," Arnie called them. Above the Januaries (and the Augusts and the Marches) sunlit icy brooks ran through snowy woods, suggestively smirking girls inefficiently struggled with blowing skirts, pairs of kittens looked out of wicker baskets full of balls of wool, and various Washington monuments (the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument) glittered like teeth in the happy sunshine.

Closing the door, following Dortmunder, Arnie said, "It's my personality. Don't tell me different, Dortmunder, I happen to know. I rub people the wrong way. Don't argue with me."