TWENTY

“Car following us,” Kelp said.

Dortmunder, in the backseat with Wally, twisted around to look out the rear window. They’d just put yet another little town behind them, and three vehicles were visible back there, strung out along this country road flanked by forest and small clearings containing tiny aluminum-sided houses with dead automobiles in their front yards. “Which one?” Dortmunder asked. “The black Fairlane. The one right behind us.”

The Fairlane was about three car lengths back; pretty close for a tail. Frowning at it, Dortmunder tried to make out the people inside through the sky-reflecting windshield. “You sure?” he said. “Looks to me like a couple women in there.”

“Been right on our ass for miles,” Kelp said.

“They don’t act like pros,” Dortmunder said.

Wally, excitement making his eyes and mouth wetter than usual, said, “Do you think they really are, Andy? Following us?”

Tom, up front next to Kelp, said, “One way to be sure. We’ll circle once. If they’re still with us, we’ll take them out. Anybody carrying?”

“No,” Dortmunder said.

Wally, very eager, said, “Carrying what?”

“You aren’t,” Dortmunder told him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But what is it?” Wally asked. “Carrying what, John? What aren’t I carrying?”

“A gun,” Dortmunder explained, to shut him up, and Wally’s eyes grew huge and even wetter with this new thrill.

Meanwhile, up front, Tom was saying, “There’s a left just up ahead. You’ll take it, then the next left, and it’ll swing us back to this road just this side of that town we went through. If your Fairlane’s still with us then, we’ll have to get rid of them.” Twisting around, he frowned at Dortmunder and said, “This peaceful impulse of yours, Al, you’re letting it take over your life. You don’t want to go around all the time without heat.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Dortmunder told him.

Tom grimaced and shook his head and faced front. They made the left, onto a smaller and narrower and curvier road. “The Fairlane made the turn,” Kelp said, looking at the rearview mirror.

They drove along quietly then, the four of them in the purring Cadillac. Kelp had, as Dortmunder had known he would, come up with excellent transportation. And an extra passenger, too, since Kelp on his own had decided it would be a good idea to tell Wally the actual story here (which Tom hadn’t liked one bit, but it was already done, so there you are) and bring the little butterball along so he could have a look at the actual terrain, to help him and his computer think about the problem better. So here they all were, the Unlikely Quartet, driving around the countryside.

Around and around. A few miles farther along this secondary road, just after a steep downgrade and a one-lane stonewalled bridge, they came to the second left, as Tom pointed out. Kelp took it, and looked in the mirror. “Still with us,” he said.

“Heat would solve this problem,” Tom commented.

“Heat brings heat,” Dortmunder told the back of his head. Tom didn’t bother to answer.

“I’ll go around again,” Kelp suggested, “and when we get to that one-lane bridge from before, I can squeeze them.”

“A Caddy can beat a Fairlane,” Tom pointed out. “Why not just floor this sucker?”

“I don’t break speed limit laws in a borrowed car,” Kelp told him.

Tom snorted but made no comments about the superior qualities of rented cars.

Dortmunder looked back, and the Fairlane was still on their tail, far too close for anybody who knew anything about surveillance. Unless somebody wanted them to know they were being followed. But why? And who were those two women? He said, “Tom, why would anybody follow you?”

“Me?” Tom said, looking over his shoulder. “Whadaya mean, me? How come it isn’t one of you guys? Maybe they’re computer salesmen, want to talk to Wally.”

“The rest of us aren’t known around here,” Dortmunder said.

“Neither am I,” Tom said. “Not after twenty-six years.”

“I don’t like it,” Dortmunder said. “Right here in the neighborhood where we’re supposed to do the main job, and we’ve got new players in the game.”

“Here’s the turn,” Kelp said, and took it. Then he looked in the rearview mirror and said, “They kept going!”

Dortmunder looked back, and now there was no one behind them at all. “I don’t get it,” he said.

Wally, tentative about making suggestions among this crowd, said, “Maybe they were lost.”

“No,” Dortmunder said.

“Well, wait a second,” Kelp said. “That’s not entirely crazy, John.”

“No?” Dortmunder studied Kelp’s right ear. “How much crazy is it?” he asked.

“People get lost,” Kelp said, “particularly in the country. Particularly in places like this, where everything’s got the same name.”

“Dudson,” commented Tom.

“That’s the name, all right,” Kelp agreed. “How many Dudsons are there, anyway?”

“Let’s see,” Tom said, taking the question seriously. “North, East, Center, and Falls. Four.”

“That’s a lot of Dudsons,” Kelp said.

“There used to be three more,” Tom told him. “Dudson Park, Dudson City, and Dudson. They’re all under the reservoir.”

“Good,” Kelp said. “Anyway, John, how about that? You go out for a nice ride in the country, all of a sudden everywhere you look another Dudson, you’re lost, you don’t know how to get back, you’re driving in circles.”

“We were the one driving in circles,” Dortmunder said.

“I’m coming to that,” Kelp promised. “So there you are, driving in circles, and you decide you’ll pick another car and follow it until it gets somewhere. Only they picked us. So when we start going in circles, too, they figure we’re also lost on account of all the Dudsons, so off they go.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tom said.

Timidly, Wally said, “It does make sense, John.”

“I never seen that to matter much,” Dortmunder commented. “But, okay, maybe you’re all right. Nobody around here knows any of us, those two women didn’t act like they knew how to tail anybody, and now they’re gone.”

“So there you are,” Kelp said.

“There I am,” Dortmunder agreed, frowning.

Tom said, “So now can we go pick up my stash?”

“Yes,” Kelp said.

“Just the same,” Dortmunder said, mostly to himself, “something tells me we got that Ford in our future.”

TWENTY-ONE

“Mother,” Myrtle said, keeping her attention straight out the windshield as they drove together through the twilight back toward Dudson Center, “you just have to tell me the truth.”

“I don’t see that at all,” Edna said. “Keep your eyes on the road.”

“My eyes are on the road. Mother, please! I have the right to know about my own father.”

“The right!” Even for Edna, that word was flung out with startling fury. “Did I have the right to know him? I thought I did, but I was wrong. He knew me, God knows, and here you are.”

“You’ve never said a word about him.” Myrtle found herself awed by it, by Edna’s years of silence, by her own blithe acceptance of the status quo, never questioning, never wondering. “Can he be that bad?” she asked, believing the answer would simply have to be no.

But the answer was, “He’s worse. Take my word for it.”

“But how can I?” Myrtle pleaded. “How can I take your word, when you don’t give me any words? Mother, I’ve always tried to be a good daughter, I’ve always—”

“You have,” Edna said, suddenly quieter, less agitated. Myrtle risked a quick sidelong glance, and Edna was now brooding at the dashboard, as though the words mene mene tekel upharsin had suddenly appeared there. Myrtle was surprised and touched to see this softening of her mother’s features. Imperfectly seen though her face might be in the light of dusk, some harsh level of reserve or defense was abruptly gone.