"Don't yell at him," she said.

He hesitated, then made the concession. "Okay."

And late this morning, after May'd headed back to the Safeway, he called Eppick's number and got his answering machine. "So this is better, is it?" he demanded. "We're in closer communication now, are we? I'm talking to a machine." And hung up.

Eppick phoned just after two that afternoon. "I'll give you a place you can walk to," he said. "Meet me at Union Square in half an hour. I'll be on a bench wherever the dealers aren't.

"The dealers won't be wherever you are."

"You think I'm that obvious?" Eppick asked him, but he sounded pleased at the idea.

"See you in half an hour," Dortmunder said, and did, walking through the park all bundled up against the raw March air, and Eppick was seated at his ease on a bench amid only civilians, and not many of them at that, because the weather was still a little below par for park bench-sitting. However, Dortmunder joined him and Eppick said, "The granddaughter has come through like a champ."

"You shouldn't talk to May," Dortmunder told him. "It upsets her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Eppick said, though he didn't sound sorry. "She didn't look upset. Maybe we could get carrier pigeons, you and me."

They'd already veered too far from Dortmunder's practice conversations, so he said, "Tell me about the champ."

"Huh? Oh, the granddaughter." Eppick grinned, pleased at the very thought of the granddaughter. "She's our spy in the enemy camp," he said, "and she's worth her weight in chess sets."

"That's nice."

"They don't know exactly when they're gonna move the set," Eppick said, "because they're still working on the security, but as soon as they know it she knows it, and as soon as she knows it we know it. Or I know it, and you find out when the carrier pigeon gets there."

"Yeah, right."

"But what we do know now," Eppick said, "is the safe place they're gonna move it to. So this is a very nice edge," he pointed out, "because you can case it before the chess set even gets there."

"That's good."

"It's down on Gansevoort Street," Eppick told him. "It's the office of a private detective down there by the name of Jacques Perly." With an arch look, he said," You wouldn't have any trouble getting into a private detective's office, would you?

Not rising to the bait, Dortmunder said, "There's gotta be more to it than that. Some office on Gansevoort Street?"

"Well, if there's more to it," Eppick pointed out, "you've got time to find out what it is."

"I'll take a look," Dortmunder said, and glanced around at the snow-flecked park. You could see everybody's breath. "You know, it's kinda cold out here."

"It is," Eppick agreed, "but we've got privacy. But we could leave now."

"Good."

They stood, Eppick not offering to shake hands this time, and Dortmunder said, "Well, anything's gotta be better than that vault."

"Let's hope." Eppick shrugged his coat and scarf up closer to his chin. "You see your friend Kelp a lot, don't you?"

"From time to time."

"I'll leave messages with him."

"That's good," Dortmunder said. "I don't think May would like carrier pigeons."

43

AT JUST ABOUT the same time that Dortmunder and Eppick were consulting about the Chicago chess set en plein air, another meeting was coming to order on the exact same topic, but with a very different membership and in a very different setting. The setting, in fact, was the largest conference room in the offices of Feinberg et al, and still it felt crowded. It was a hush-hush top secret meeting attended only by those who absolutely had to be a party to it, and still that meant seventeen people.

Representing both Feinberg and Livia Northwood Wheeler, and therefore more or less conducting the meeting, was Jay Tumbril, accompanied by a stenographer named Stella, who would take notes of the meeting and record it as well, on cassette. Representing the other principal law firms connected with the Northwood matter were nine senior lawyers, the men in navy-blue pinstripe, the women in navy blue pinstripe plus white ruffles. Representing the NYPD, who would monitor the chess set's movements through the city streets, were two senior inspectors from Centre Street, both in uniforms heavy on the brass. Representing Securivan, the company whose armored car would actually transport the set from the sub-basement in this building to the second-floor office of Jacques Perly, were two sternly fit men with identical crew cuts and square jaws, and with brass Marine Corps insignia pins on the lapels of their pastel sport jackets. And finally, representing the intended destination of the set was Jacques Perly, who'd brought along his secretary Delia, who would also take notes and make a recording, and who was blinking a lot at the moment, not being used to life outside the office.

Once the necessary introductions had been made and business cards distributed, Jay, at the head of the conference table, stood and looked around at those assembled either at the table or in chairs along the wall, and decided to begin with a quip: "I'm happy that at last, after years of litigation, everyone connected with the matter of the Northwood estate has finally found one area of agreement. Everybody wants a look at that chess set."

Apparently no one else in the room realized that was a quip, so Jay cleared his throat into the silence and said, "We all understand there's a certain degree of peril in this move, particularly if word seeps out that it's about to happen, so I hope everyone here realizes the need for total secrecy on this matter until the move is done."

More silence, which this time Jay took for consent. "When a task is difficult and fraught with peril," he went on, "the wise man turns to the experts. I hope we're all at least that wise, and so I want to turn to the experts in our midst today, from Securivan and from the NYPD. Harry or Larry, would you share your thoughts with us?"

Harry and Larry were the Securivan men. Jay sat down and Larry remained seated as he said, "Keeping a secret that seventeen people in this room already know about, plus the judge and other people at the court, plus one or more people at the bank, plus at least one of the principals in the lawsuit means, not to offend anybody present, but it isn't a secret you're gonna keep secret for very long."

The more senior of the NYPD men present, whose name was Chief Inspector Mologna (pronounced Maloney), now said, "Speakin for myself, and speakin for the great city of New York, I can tell you right now you already got your secret blowed. This city does not raise up a criminal class that don't have its eyes open and its ears open and its hands open every blessed moment of the night and day. They're out there already and they're waitin for you. You put together a mob scene like we got in this room, of course, you're just engravin an invitation."

"Unfortunately, Chief Inspector," Jay said, "this is the minimum number possible to obtain agreement."

"Oh, I understand," the chief inspector said. "You got your protocols and you got your noses that might get out of joint, so you gotta have this social before you get down to business. But when you do get down to business, take it from me, the crooks will be right with you, every step of the way."

Larry of Securivan said, "Harry and I think the chief inspector's right, so, because there are those sharp-eared crooks out there, and, because we don't want to give them too much time to make their own plans, the sooner you make this move the better."

"That's right," the chief inspector said. "Don't shilly-shally."

Jay said, "No, we certainly don't want to do that."

"Harry and I," Larry said, "think the best time to do this is Sunday night."