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So while Tiny carved and Anne Marie filled the plates that Dortmunder shuttled from the table, Kelp explained to the others the story till now. Then Tiny moved the turkey remnant to the side table and everybody sat down, and J.C. said, “Why did they do it?”

“First,” Anne Marie said, “the toast. Andy?”

She’d made him buy a bunch of bottles of red wine with corks in them, so everybody now had a glass of wine in front of their place. Kelp picked up his and said, “Well, Thanksgiving tradition. I think maybe we got us something going here.”

“Hear hear,” everybody said, and tasted the wine, and agreed it was very good stuff, and picked up their knives and forks, and J.C. said, “All right. So why did they do it?”

“If you mean the switch,” Kelp told her, “that’s what John and me keep asking them and they keep not wanting to tell us. If you mean anything else, they don’t want anybody to know what they’re up to, and we figure that’s because it’s gonna go public and they don’t want anybody around that might tip the word on them.”

J.C. shook her head. “I’ve done some cons,” she said. “I’ve done some scams. I tell myself I oughta be able to figure this out.”

May said, “Anne Marie, this stuffing is so moist, it’s wonderful.”

“It’s the apples, I think,” Anne Marie said.

Dortmunder said to J.C., “I don’t think we got enough information yet.” To Kelp, he said, “There’s another partner, right?”

“That’s what he says,” Kelp said, and to Anne Marie, he said, “This stuff is really great, hon, we oughta eat like this every night.”

“We do, Andy,” Anne Marie said.

J.C. said, “So maybe the other partner is what’ll tell you.”

Dortmunder said to Anne Marie, “Great gravy, really great gravy, goes with the turkey like they were meant for each other.” Then he said to J.C., “We’ll find out tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock.”

“Speaking of which,” Tiny said, “that’s a very tight schedule, Kelp.”

“I didn’t want to give them a chance to booby-trap us.”

“Tight for us.

Dortmunder said, “No, I think Andy’s right. We’re not trying to blow them up, just talk to them. Doesn’t take that much preparation.”

“Maybe,” Tiny said, and patted Anne Marie, to his right, on the arm—she flinched—and said, “This is a great meal, Anne Marie. Every bit of it. I’m gonna be around for seconds.”

“Good,” Anne Marie said, smiling at him and favoring her other arm.

Kelp said, “It would be nice if we had a car with a remote control. And a bomb, you know? Send it out there, see what happens. If nothing happens, then we go out there with the other car.”

J.C. said, “You’re going to have to give me the recipe for these creamed onions, Anne Marie. Isn’t she, Tiny?”

“Yes,” Tiny said, and turned to Kelp to say, “Hand grenade and duct tape.”

Kelp looked at him. “You’d be willing to do that?”

“I done it before,” Tiny said. “It always makes people switch over to Plan B, every time.”

“Okay, good,” Kelp said. “You got the grenade?”

“I know where to get it.”

Dortmunder said, “I think I should find us some guns, too.”

“Okay,” Kelp said. “And in the morning, I’ll go steal us a car.”

“You know,” Anne Marie said, “Thanksgiving dinner conversation in Lancaster, Kansas, wasn’t at all like this.” And she smiled happily around at her guests.

9

Little Feather knew she had to stay patient with these clowns. They were going to make her very, very rich, so all she had to do was hang in there with them until everything was taken care of, when she wouldn’t need them anymore. But right now, they were all indispensable to one another, she and Fitzroy and Irwin, so they had to get along together, so she had to go on being patient, no matter how irritating they might become, Fitzroy with his genius act and Irwin sniffing around her as though she couldn’t tell he didn’t really want her body, only wanted that money she was going to collect.

Of course, now that Grandpa Elkhorn was installed in that grave out in Queens, she was the most indispensable of the three. Until then, Fitzroy could always have decided to replace her with another Indian maid, even though she was perfect for the job at hand. But now? Now it would take a hell of a lot for them to want to go dig up some third body somewhere.

So, even though they were all still indispensable to one another, now that she had become the most indispensable of them all, she could permit herself to show just the tiniest bit of impatience, peeking around the patience she still maintained. She could permit her voice to rise just the slightest bit when she asked, “Tell them?”

“It may be necessary, Little Feather,” Fitzroy said apologetically. “We’ll have to take that possibility into account.”

They were having this discussion shortly after Fitzroy’s phone call to the one guy he’d managed to find, and the three of them were now seated around in the rather cramped living room of the quarters Fitzroy had picked up from somewhere to be their base of operations while they were in New York. The quarters were cramped, but they wouldn’t be staying in them much longer. Still, it was another reason that Little Feather was finding patience a difficult mode to hold on to. And now this.

“Already I’m having to share with you guys,” she pointed out. “And now, how many more are gonna show up?”

“In the first place, Little Feather,” Fitzroy said, “you aren’t sharing with us, we’re all sharing together. Don’t forget who conceived of this idea.”

“You’re the genius, I know that,” Little Feather assured him, not for the first time. “I’m not taking anything away from you. But the idea was to deal with these guys the way you dealt with the guys in Nevada, and for a month now, you led me to believe you did deal with them, and now all of a sudden they’re not only alive but they’re gonna be partners?”

“Only for a little while,” Irwin promised. “Believe me, Little Feather, I don’t like those fellows any more than you do. In fact,” he said, tenderly touching fingertips to the end of his nose, “I’ve got more reason than you have not to like them. But Fitzroy’s probably right.”

“Thank you, Irwin,” Fitzroy said, with barely any irony at all.

“They’re not as easy to handle as the ones in Nevada,” Irwin went on. “So there they are, they’re alive, they know about the body switch, and if we keep them out, don’t try to work some kind of deal with them, when the story hits the papers and the TV, they could make a lot of trouble for us.”

“Out of spite, if nothing else,” Fitzroy added.

“Exactly,” Irwin said. “But if we bring them in, sooner or later we’ll get a shot at them.”

“You had your shot at them,” Little Feather told him, “the night they did the work.”

Fitzroy said, “We underestimated them, Little Feather. I’m afraid I must admit to that. It’s my fault, I take full—”

“All right, all right,” Little Feather said. “I’m not here to play the blame game. So we’re gonna have to see them in the morning. We gonna use this place?”

“I don’t see why not,” Fitzroy said. “It would be simplest.”