“Probably,” Dortmunder said, “they get migraine. But the point is, Max Fairbanks and my ring are gone.”

Aggravated, disconsolate, he turned away and went down to the end of the hall and turned right, and there was the door to the other elevator, over there across the reception room.

Two minutes. Two minutes earlier, and he’d have had Max Fairbanks in his grip, he’d have gotten his ring back, no question. No question.

No, not even two minutes. Step out of the elevator when the son of a bitch is going by, grab him right then, yank the goddam ring off his finger, and then let the scene play out however it wants. But, no. Cautious, that was his problem. Too goddam cautious, hide in the elevator until it’s too late.

“John.”

Dortmunder turned, glowering, and there was Gus, who didn’t even notice the expression on Dortmunder’s face. The expression on Gus’s face was one huge beaming smile. In his right hand he held a gold bracelet, and in his left a small but exquisite Impressionist drawing. “John,” he said, “about that Carrport deal. I just want you to know. We’re square.”

“I’m happy for you,” Dortmunder said.

26

The maid’s cart. Its original cargo of linen and cleaning supplies having been left in a heap on the apartment hallway floor, it was loaded with paintings, jewelry, and other nice tchotchkas, then rolled back into the elevator, and ridden up to the hotel.

Floor seventeen. Gus and Andy went off to snag a regular public elevator, while Dortmunder and Wally waited with the loot. Andy then held that elevator while Gus went back to the turning in the hall to signal that the coast was clear. Then Dortmunder and Wally pushed the very heavy cart down the hall, around the corner and to Andy in the elevator. Then they all went up to twenty-six, where once again Gus stood chickee while the others trundled the cart down to Dortmunder’s room. He unlocked them in, Gus joined them, and they emptied the cart onto the bed. Then they reversed the route, took the cart back down to the apartment and loaded it up a second time.

If anybody in the public halls had noticed them on any of their several journeys, things might have gotten somewhat sticky, since none of them actually looked very much like a hotel maid, despite the cart they were pushing, nor were they even in hotel maid uniform, but the N-Joy Broadway Hotel was not a lively place at two and three in the morning, so they remained undisturbed.

Once everything was transferred to Dortmunder’s room, they were all quite pleased by their harvest; except Dortmunder, of course. But the other three had stars in their eyes as they looked around at all this treasure, or possibly dollar signs in their eyes. Sparkly, anyway.

The plan now was, Andy and Gus and Wally would leave, one at a time, each carrying a single small bag plus as much extra little stuff as their pockets would hold. Dortmunder had already put in a wake-up call for 6:00 A . M ., at which time he would rise and check out, with these four large suitcases here. “Kennedy Airport,” he would loudly tell the cabdriver who took him away from the N-Joy, but a few blocks later he would change the destination to the address of Stoon the fence, about twenty blocks north of the N-Joy on the West Side, where the other three would meet up with him, and where the night’s takings would be swapped for cash.

They did their packing, made their preparations, and then Wally left first, fumbling with the room’s doorknob as he grinned around at them, saying, “Call me any time, fellas.”

“Leave the door alone,” Dortmunder said.

“Sorry,” Wally said, and left.

Gus was next. “It’s true what they say,” he announced. “You do good for somebody, it comes right back atcha.”

“Mm,” said Dortmunder.

“See you around,” Gus said, and left, jingling.

Then Andy. Hefting his little bag, he said, “John, don’t be so downhearted. Look at all the stuff we got.”

“Not the ring,” Dortmunder said. “The point was to get the ring back. As far as I’m concerned, the son of a bitch can have all this other stuff right now, as long as I get my ring.”

“The rest of us don’t feel that way, John.”

“The rest of you didn’t get your ring stolen.”

“That’s true.”

“So you know what this means,” Dortmunder said.

“No,” Andy admitted. “What does it mean?”

“Washington,” Dortmunder said, as gloomy as a man can be in a room full of treasure. “I gotta go to Washington, DC. What do I know about Washington, DC?”

Andy considered, then nodded. “Use your phone?”

Dortmunder shrugged, but couldn’t help saying, “Local call?”

“Very local. In the hotel.” Andy nodded again and said, “It’s time you met Anne Marie.”

27

Anne Marie Carpinaw, née Anne Marie Hurst, didn’t know what to make of the fellow she knew as Andy Kelly. In fact, she wasn’t sure he was somebody you could make into a thing at all. Maybe he was already made and set, and unalterable.

Different, anyway. In Anne Marie’s experience, men were sweaty creatures, harried and hurried, hustling all the time, tiptoeing over quicksand ever, never comfortable in their own minds, in their own skins, in their own circumstances. Her recently decamped husband, Howard Carpinaw, the computer salesman, was definitely of that breed, scrambling from sale to sale, always talking big, always producing little. Her father, the fourteen-term congressman from Kansas, had been the same, had spent twenty-seven years running for reelection, had never devoted a minute of his life to actually calmly occupying the position he kept running for, and finally ended his career with a heart attack at yet another rubber chicken Kiwanis luncheon down on the hustings.

Somehow, Andy Kelly wasn’t like that. Not that he was disinterested or turned off or bored, he just didn’t try too hard. For instance, he’d made it plain in their first meeting that he’d like to go to bed with her, but it had also been plain he wouldn’t kill himself if she turned him down, whereas most men, in her experience, claimed they would kill themselves if she turned them down, and then reneged.

It was sensing something of that difference that had first attracted her attention in the cocktail lounge. She’d already rebuffed three husbands—obvious husbands, their wives asleep upstairs reflected in their guilty eyes—and when this other fellow had come in she’d been prepared to rebuff him, too. But then he didn’t sit too close to her, didn’t smile at her, didn’t say harya, didn’t acknowledge her existence in any way. And then he got into some amusing conversation—amusing for them, apparently—with the bartender, so it was somewhat in the manner of a person shaking a birthday present to try to guess what’s inside the giftwrap that she’d poked out that first word: “Hello.” And the rest was becoming history.

So, despite the laconic manner, she knew he was definitely interested in her, but it was plain she wasn’t the end of the world. So far, he acted as though nothing was the end of the world. To be around a man for whom life was not perpetually at third down and long yardage; what a relief.

On the other hand, she couldn’t figure out what he did for a living, and it’s still important to know what a man does for a living, because economic and social class are both determined by occupation, and Anne Marie, free spirit though she might be, was not free spirit enough to want to spend time with a man from the wrong economic and social class. Andy seemed to have all the money he needed, and not to worry about it (but then, he didn’t worry about anything up till now, that was the charm of the guy). Still, his clothing and manner didn’t suggest inherited wealth; this was not some main stem pillar slumming in the N-Joy. She’d hinted around, hoping some occupation would emerge, some category, but nothing yet.