“We are,” John said, with dignity, “illegal citizens.”

“And we can’t hire you,” Babe said. “It’s as simple as that. The feds require that we vet every hire and make them prove they have the right to work in this country.”

Doug said, “John, when they took me on, I showed them my passport.”

Babe said, “All right, I apologize. When Quigg first gave me the news, I got really pissed off, I don’t know if you noticed—”

“Kinda,” Andy said.

“Well, now I see,” Babe said, “you just didn’t understand the situation. You thought all you had to do was spread a little fantasy and then get on with the job. But I’m sorry, guys, it’s more serious than that.”

“I can see it is,” John said, and started to brood.

Doug found that fascinating, the way the man’s eyes seemed to go out of focus, as though he were actually looking at something on a hillside in western Pennsylvania or somewhere, while his head from time to time nodded, and the other three at the table sipped their beers and watched. Until, some time later, his eyes refocused, and focused on Doug, and he said, “Passport.”

“That’s right,” Doug said. “I had to show them my—”

“We talked, one time,” John said, “you said wire transfers.”

“Wire transfers?”

“Money going to Europe, on account there’s nothing in cash any more.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that.”

Babe said, “You talked about wire transfers?”

“When they were looking for things that might be robbery targets,” Doug explained.

“Well, how about that, then?” John asked.

Doug didn’t get it. “How about what?”

“Wire transfers,” John said. “We don’t work for you any more, we work for some European part of that big company up above you. They hire us, they send us here to do this show, all the pay comes from Europe, we don’t have to be anybody’s citizens.”

Andy, sounding excited, said, “Why wouldn’t that work? Let’s say in England you own a show called, I dunno, You Better Believe It, and—”

“I think we do, in fact,” Doug said.

“So there you are.” Andy lifted his beer can in a toast. “We work for those people. You don’t have to tell the Americans about us at all.”

“This,” Babe said, “would not be as simple as you think.”

“But possible,” John said.

Babe shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. Do any of you have a passport?”

“I can always get a passport,” Andy said. “I wouldn’t wanna get on a plane with it. I might drive a car into Canada and back with it.”

“That’s been done,” John said.

Doug suddenly thought of a way that might be even better and simpler, though even less legal, but when he turned his wide eyes in Babe’s direction he saw that Babe had just thought of it, too.

Combined Tool.

Years of foreign correspondence had taught Babe how to keep his cool. “Let me work on this,” he said. “I don’t know if we can make anything happen or not, but we’ve come this far with it, we might as well go on, at least a few more days. Then, if we can make it work, we haven’t lost any time.”

“We’re thinking of a September launch,” Doug confided.

“If there’s a launch,” Babe said. He knocked back the rest of his beer and heaved out of his seat. “You all keep going here. Doug, when you come back uptown, come see me.”

“I will, Babe,” Doug said, and just managed not to give a conspiratorial wink.

29

WHEN THEY FIRST started to do the camera thing, Dortmunder found himself, to his surprise, itching all over. That was completely unexpected, the idea that all of a sudden he’d be feeling this great need to scratch, all different parts of his body. He didn’t want to scratch, he just felt compelled to scratch, but he fought it off, because he was damned if he was going to stand there and look like an idiot, scratching himself like a dog with fleas in front of a bunch of cameras.

And the cameras themselves were intrusive in ways he hadn’t guessed. They were like those barely seen creatures in horror movies, the ones just leaving the doorway or disappearing up the stairs. Except that the cameras weren’t disappearing. They were there, just incessantly there, at the edge of your peripheral vision, their heads turning slightly, polite, silent, very curious, and big. Big.

Between the nudging presence of the cameras and the maddening need to scratch all these itches, Dortmunder found himself tightening into knots, his movements as stiff as the Tin Woodman’s before he gets the oil. I’m supposed to act natural, he told himself, but this isn’t natural. I’m lumbering around like Frankenstein’s monster. I feel like I’ve been filled up with itchy cement.

Roy Ombelen had them go through the scene, and Dortmunder thought it went along pretty good, except for the stiffness and the need to scratch, but then Roy said, “Cut,” and then he said, “Guys, let me make one other thing clear here. We know we don’t want the cameras to look at your faces, but the other part of that, we don’t want you to look at the cameras. You’re in a conversation, so be in the conversation. Look at the people you’re talking to. There are no cameras here, okay?”

Okay, they said, and Roy started the scene again, and they all caught on to that part pretty quick, all of them. In fact, Dortmunder noticed, once he wasn’t thinking about the cameras, the itches started to fade. Another plus.

But then Roy cut them again and said, “Doug, I think we need the girlfriend in on this. Give the cameras something else to look at.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Doug said.

So Darlene came over from the sofa where she’d been reading a People magazine, and Marcy told her who she was and what was motivating her and gave her a couple of things she might want to say. The idea was, she came to the bar with her boyfriend Ray, but then she would wait in the bar while the others went to the back room to talk business. Also, because she wasn’t part of the robbery story, the cameras wouldn’t mind looking at her, which everybody thought was okay.

They rehearsed it the new way, with Darlene, and people were getting more relaxed, more into the flow of things. Gradually, Dortmunder grew less stiff and itchy, and it was even becoming kind of fun, sitting around, pretending to be tough guys in a tough bar talking tough to each other. It was very different, this new OJ, not having the regulars around to sing a cappella.

They did it three times, all the way through, with the cameras on, and it all seemed to go very smoothly. Between takes Marcy would suggest small changes in what people would say, and after a while it all got to be so easy and natural that Dortmunder found he was actually enjoying himself, as though he were really in a real bar having a real conversation with a real bartender.

It was a short scene, which was probably a good thing for those members of the cast not used to this sort of activity. It opened with Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny and the kid sitting at the bar, talking with Rodney, ordering drinks—somehow they all seemed to be drinking Budweiser beer—and then Ray Harbach came in with Darlene. Marcy gave Kelp a couple of flirty things to say to Darlene, which he did mostly as though he was trying to lift her spirits rather than put the moves on her, which was just as well, because Marcy hadn’t given Darlene any reaction instructions, so Darlene just stood there with a vacant smile on her face while Kelp’s witticisms wandered off away from the set.

On the one hand, Darlene didn’t add much to the occasion, basically having not been given anybody to be or any reason to exist, but on the other hand her presence did completely change the dynamic and everybody felt it. The gang became more confident, somehow, and more united. The same things said by the same people in the same way became more interesting.