What's The Worst That Could Happen (3 page)

“Mine don’t,” Gus said.

The house was as Gus had described it; large and rich and dark, except for that usual upstairs hall light people leave on to tell burglars there’s nobody home. Gus looked at the front door and then went around to consider a couple of windows, and then went back to the front door and on into the house, pausing only briefly to give the alarm a little attention on the way by.

Inside, the place had the anonymous good looks of any corporate milieu; a lot of beige, a lot of good but uninteresting furniture, nothing quirky or individual. Nobody had actually lived in this house for many years, and it looked it.

But that was okay; Dortmunder and Gus didn’t plan to move in either. And corporate types do tend to throw the money around when they’re spending company cash on their own perks, so there should be more than one item of interest in this place.

Beginning with the large dining room, an imposing space with a table that could seat sixteen, four pairs of French doors leading out to the wraparound porch and the view of Carr’s Cove, and a long heavy mahogany sideboard containing a whole lot of first–rate silver. “Nice,” Gus said, lifting a cake server. A winter scene with horse and sleigh was engraved on its wide flat blade.

Dortmunder looked into the drawer Gus had opened, and yes, indeed, that was all silver in there. Not silverplate; silver. Antique, probably. “I’ll get some pillowcases,” he said, and while Gus explored the sideboard further, Dortmunder went back to the front hall, found the broad staircase, and was halfway up the stairs when the lights came on.

A whole lot of lights. Dortmunder stopped. He looked up, and at the head of the stairs was a bulky older man in a white terry–cloth robe. The telephone in the man’s left hand didn’t bother Dortmunder nearly as much as the gun in his right.

“Um,” Dortmunder said, as he tried to think of an explanation for his presence on this staircase at this moment that didn’t involve him having broken, or intending to break, any laws. Hmmmm.

“Freeze,” the man said.

Freeze. Why does everybody say freeze anymore? Whatever happened to “hands up”? With “hands up,” you had a simple particular movement you could perform that would demonstrate to one and all that you weren’t making any trouble, you were going along with the armed person, no problem. What are you supposed to do with “freeze”? Teeter on one foot? Maintain a stupid expression on your face? “Freeze” is for television actors; in real life, it’s demeaning to all concerned.

Dortmunder ignored it. The gun was taking most of his attention, while the telephone the man was dialing one–handed took the rest. (Except for his faint awareness of a soft and sibilant swooshing sound from the dining room, as a French door was gently opened, and as gently closed. Gus Brock, bless his heart, was outta here.) So, rather than freeze, Dortmunder put a hand on the banister, rested his weight there in gloomy patience, and tried to think.

Well. When the going gets hopeless, the hopeless keep going. “Mister,” Dortmunder said,
knowing
this was a waste of breath, “I’m prepared to just go home, you know? Forget the whole thing. Nothing’s hurt, nothing’s taken.”

“If you move,” the man said, as he lifted the phone to his ear, “I will shoot you in the kneecap and you will walk with a limp for the rest of your life. I am a very good shot.”

“You would be,” Dortmunder said.

The CMPD’s equipment was also up to snuff, modern and well maintained, though of course not what the police forces of Los Angeles or Miami would consider the state of the art. When money had to be spent, the town fathers preferred to spend it on the personnel rather than on cute toys that would never be needed. (Besides, if the demand for a cute police toy ever did arise, they could always call on the Suffolk County cops, who were also well paid, but who in addition were equipped grandly enough to enable them to invade Syria, if the overtime could be worked out.)

The call that evening to Suffolk County 911 was logged in by the emergency service staff in HQ at Riverhead, at eleven minutes past nine, then rerouted to the CMPD, where the duty sergeant took down the information, understanding at once everything implied by that address, Twenty–Seven Vista Drive, numbers that even in a police report would always be spelled out. He immediately called one of the two cars on patrol duty this evening, manned (and womanned) by Officers Kebble and Overkraut. Kebble was driving this shift, so Overkraut took the squeal: “Overkraut.”

“Prowler captured at Twenty–Seven Vista Drive. Householder is armed and has the suspect in custody. Householder is a Mr. Fairbanks.”

The name was known to Kebble and Overkraut, of course, but neither commented. In the old days, there would have been some badinage on the radio at this point, while Kebble sped them toward Vista Drive, but not any more. These days, recordings are made, and kept, of every damn thing. Creativity has been throttled in its crib. “On our way,” Overkraut told the sergeant and the tape and God knows who else, adding no remark about the richness or famousness of the householder called Fairbanks, and no disparagement voiced about householders packing heat. “Over and out,” Overkraut said, put the mike away, and made his comments unsupervised to Officer Kebble, who commented back.

There was no need for either the rooflights or the siren, not in Carrport on a quiet spring Thursday evening at quarter past nine. And not if the householder were already holding a gun on the intruder. So Officer Kebble drove swiftly but unobtrusively across town and stopped in the driveway at Twenty–Seven Vista, where the house was lit up like a NASA launch. The officers donned their hats and stepped out of their vehicle. Officer Kebble paused to adjust her equipment belt around her waist — it always rode up when she was in the car — and then they proceeded to the front door, which opened just as they reached it, and an astonishingly beautiful young woman with tousled hair, wearing a white terry–cloth robe, greeted them, saying in a husky whisper, “Oh, good, here you are. Max is in the parlor with
him.
”

Why, Officer Overkraut asked himself, as they thanked the young woman and moved into the house in the direction she’d indicated, just why can’t Officer Kebble look more like
that?

The parlor. Beige furniture. Gray–green wall–to–wall carpet. Large stone fireplace, with no ashes and irritatingly shiny brass andirons. Prints of paintings of Mediterranean village streets. Lamps with
large
round pale shades. And Max Fairbanks standing in the middle of the room in another white terry–cloth robe, plus a small dark S&W .38 clamped in his right fist, pointed unswervingly at the burglar, a slope–shouldered defeated–looking fellow in dark clothing and thinning hair, who had an air of such dejection and collapse there seemed no need to point anything at him more threatening than a banana.

“Evening, Mr. Fairbanks,” Overkraut said, moving toward the burglar, bringing out his handcuffs, being sure not to get in the line of fire.

“Very prompt response time,” Max Fairbanks said. “Very good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The burglar humbly extended his wrists to be cuffed. Overkraut had meant to cuff him behind his back, but the gesture was so meek, so pathetic, that he hadn’t the heart to make things worse for the guy, so he went ahead and squeezed the metal rings onto those bony wrists, while the burglar sighed a long and fatalistic sigh.

While Overkraut frisked the burglar, surprised to find him weaponless, Kebble said, “Any idea how many of them broke in, Mr. Fairbanks?”

“Only this one, I think,” Fairbanks answered. “Looks like he did something cute to the front–door alarm.”

Officer Kebble shook her head, while the extremely attractive young woman in terry–cloth robe number one came in and stood by the door to watch. “If only,” Kebble said, “they would turn those talents to good. But they never do.”

Overkraut said, “You won’t need that pistol any more, sir.”

“Right.” Fairbanks dropped the S&W into his terry–cloth pocket.

Kebble said, “Had he taken anything, sir, before you found him?”

“I don’t think so, he was just —” But then Fairbanks stopped and frowned at the burglar and said, “
Just
a minute.”

The burglar lifted his head. “What,” he said.

“Let me see those hands,” Fairbanks demanded.

“What? What?”

“Show Mr. Fairbanks your hands,” Overkraut said.

“I got nothing in my hands.” The burglar turned his hands over as best he could with cuffs on, to show his open palms.

“No,” Fairbanks said. “That ring.”

The burglar stared. “What?”

“That’s my ring!”

The burglar covered the ring with his other hand. “No, it isn’t!”

“That son of a bitch took my ring! I left it on the kitchen sink, and —”

“It’s
my
ring!”

“Quiet, you,” Overkraut said, and meaningfully touched the nightstick on his belt.

“But —”

“Officers, I want that ring.”

“But —”

“I don’t want you to impound it as evidence, or any of that nonsense, I want my ring back, and I want it now.”

“It’s my ring!”

Overkraut faced the agitated burglar. “Unless you want
real
trouble, mac,” he said, “you’ll take that ring off this second, and you won’t give me any lip.”

“But —”

“That’s lip.”

“I —”

“And that’s lip,” Overkraut said. He slid the nightstick out of its loop on his belt.

The burglar breathed like a bellows, very nearly producing more lip, but managed to control himself. Bobbing on his heels like somebody who needs badly to go to the bathroom, he at last pulled the ring off the finger of his right hand and dropped it into Overkraut’s left palm. “This isn’t right,” he said.

Ignoring him, Overkraut turned to drop the ring into Fairbanks’s palm, saying, “Glad you spotted that, sir.”

“Oh, so am I, Officer.” Holding the ring up, smiling on it, he said, “There you are, you see? The symbol of twee. I based my whole corporation on this.”

If that was an insider tip, Overkraut didn’t get it. “Well, I’m glad you got it back, anyway, sir,” he said.

Sounding mulish, the burglar said, “It isn’t right. I’ll go along with some things, but that isn’t right.”

“Officers,” Fairbanks said, as he slipped the ring onto the third finger of his own right hand (he had a wedding ring on the left, though the attractive young woman over by the door didn’t, Overkraut noticed), “officers, I have to say, although I’m grateful for your presence, and I’m glad we captured this fellow and got my ring back —”

“
My
ring.”

“— I have to admit, there’s a certain embarrassment involved here, and — I’m not sure how to say this, particularly in front of the, uh, what do you call him? Perpetrator?”

Kebble said, “Why don’t I put him in the car, and call in to the station that we got him, and, sir, you can talk to my partner.”

“That’s very good, Officer, thank you so much.”

Kebble herded the burglar out of the room, the man throwing many sullen looks over his shoulder on the way, and once they had gone, Fairbanks said to Overkraut, “Officer, I’m now going to explain to you why, although your capture of this felon this evening is creditable and indeed newsworthy, my own presence here, and Miss Kimberly’s, are, for a variety of reasons, best left out of the picture.”

“Mr. Fairbanks,” Overkraut said, “I’m all ears.” Which was in fact almost accurate.