The babe was tall and very well proportioned, with lustrous black hair in two long braids halfway down her back, almost to her waist. She wore a long white-fringed buckskin jacket and a short white-fringed buckskin skirt and the kind of tall red leather boots that are allegedly meant for walking.
“Too bad I already know Josie,” Tiny commented. He was the only one in the world who called J. C. Taylor Josie.
“I don’t know,” Kelp said. “She looks to me like you could strike matches on her.”
And, as their red Jeep rolled closer to the trio at the motor home, it was true. The babe was a babe, all right, but she looked more like an action figure made out of stainless steel than an actual person. She stood with one hand on one hip and one leg cocked, as though ready to show her karate moves at the slightest provocation.
Kelp drove up close and stopped, with his side of the car facing the three people, so that was the side Tiny got out. Dortmunder had to walk around the big red hood of the Jeep, and by then Kelp was already introducing everybody: “Tiny, this is Fitzroy Guilderpost, and that’s Irwin, and I don’t know the lady.”
“I guess you don’t,” Irwin said.
Guilderpost said, “Forgive me, this is Tiny?”
“It’s kind of a nickname,” Tiny explained.
“I see,” Guilderpost said. “Well, may I introduce Little Feather. Little Feather, that says he’s Tiny, that’s Andy Kelp, also sometimes Andy Kelly, and that’s John. John, I’m sorry, I don’t know your last name.”
“I’m not,” Dortmunder said. “Go ahead, Tiny.”
“Right.”
Tiny stepped forward and showed all assembled the hand grenade taped to his left hand, then closed the hand to keep the lever pressed to the grenade’s side as he pulled the pin. Moving closer to Guilderpost, whose eyes had grown considerably wider, he extended the pin, saying, “Hold this for me, will you?”
Guilderpost gaped at the hand grenade. All three of them gaped at the hand grenade. Not taking the pin, Guilderpost said, “What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m goin inside there,” Tiny said, “look around, see the situation.”
“But why—Why that thing?”
“Well, if I was to faint or anything in there,” Tiny said, “I wouldn’t be holding this safety lever anymore, would I?”
Irwin said, “Is that—Is that an actual—Is that live?”
“At the moment,” Tiny said.
Guilderpost, flabbergasted, said, “But why would you do such a thing?”
Dortmunder answered, saying, “Fitzroy, we’ve got like a few reasons not to trust you a hundred percent. So Tiny sees to it, if something happens to somebody, something happens to everybody.”
Tiny turned to the babe. “Little Feather,” he said, “you hold this pin for me, okay? Don’t lose it now.”
Little Feather was the first of the three to recover. Grinning at Tiny, she accepted the pin and said, “This is awful sudden. Pinned on the first date.”
“That’s just how I am,” Tiny told her, and said to the rest, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Tiny started for the motor home, but Irwin suddenly jumped in front of him, saying, “No, well, wait, why don’t you let me go in first? You know, it might be unfamiliar to you and all.”
“We’ll go in together, then,” Tiny said, and turned to Dortmunder to say, “See? Plan B every time.”
“I see,” Dortmunder said.
Tiny and Irwin went into the motor home and Little Feather gave Guilderpost an angry grin as she said, “Temporary partners. We’ll take care of them. Fitzroy, you’re never going to outsmart these people.”
“Little Feather,” Guilderpost answered, torn between anger and embarrassment, “we can discuss this privately.”
Kelp said, “You know, Little Feather, I think you people need us, wouldn’t you say so?”
“You may be right,” Little Feather said, and the motor home door opened and Irwin stuck his head out to say, “All clear.” Then he hurtled out among them, and it became obvious he’d done that because Tiny had given him a slight shove, and now there was Tiny in the doorway, saying, “They had a couple cute things set up. The electric wire to the toilet, I liked that one.”
Kelp shook his head at Guilderpost, saying, “Fitzroy, you disappoint me.”
“That was Irwin’s idea,” Guilderpost told him. “All those booby traps were his idea.”
Little Feather said, “And guess who turned out to be the boobies.”
“All right, all right,” Irwin said. His nose appeared to be out of joint. “He’s happy now, so let’s go in.”
“Nah, let’s not,” Tiny said. “That’s a very small living room you got there.”
“Especially for you, I guess,” Little Feather said.
“Right.” Coming out to join the rest, Tiny said, “So why don’t we just stand here in the sunlight and talk this over? But first, Kelp, you and, uh, John, whyn’t you put your guns on the ground by your feet?”
“Okay,” Dortmunder said, and he and Kelp took out their pistols and put them on the concrete while Tiny said, “And you three, same thing.”
Guilderpost said, “Why do you assume we’re armed?”
Irwin was already taking two pistols out of his pockets, putting them on the ground as he said, “Oh, come on, Fitzroy, stop playing the fool.”
So Guilderpost shrugged and brought out a cannon of his own and grunted as he bent to put it on the ground. “I must say,” he commented, “I don’t much care for this meeting so far.”
“It’ll get better,” Tiny assured him.
Little Feather’s pistol turned out to be a chrome Star .22 in a thigh holster. She looked both fetching and lethal as she drew it, and then she stood holding it, giving Tiny a speculative look.
He raised part of an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”
“I’m wondering,” she said. “If I was to shoot Andy there, would you really blow yourself up?”
“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he pointed out, “so it seems to me all you’d be doing was buy yourself some trouble.”
“Very weird,” she decided, and did a nice Bunny dip to put the .22 next to her boots.
Kelp said, “Start off anytime, guys.”
Guilderpost said, “Shouldn’t you, uh, Tiny, shouldn’t you put the pin back in now?”
“Nah, I’m fine here,” Tiny told him.
Irwin said, “But what if you forget, or stumble, or whatever?”
“Tough on us all, I guess,” Tiny said. “Little Feather, you still got the pin?”
She held it up, a round copper-colored ring in the sunlight.
“Good,” Tiny said, and turned to Guilderpost to say, “Start here.”
“Very well,” Guilderpost said. “But I must say I find that hand grenade distracting.”
“I’ll think about the hand grenade,” Tiny promised, “you think about your story.”
“Before the story,” Little Feather said, “there’s one thing we got to get straight.”
“Money,” Dortmunder said.
“You read my mind,” Little Feather told him. Gesturing at Guilderpost and Irwin, she said, “I’m hooked up with these two, and it’s a third each, and each of us puts in a third, one way or another. Guilderpost thought it up, Irwin’s Mr. Science, and I’m the goods. Now you birds come along, and I can see where maybe you’re useful, but I’m not doing any more shares. I’m not into this for a sixth.” Nodding at Tiny, she said, “You’re gonna have to wear that hand grenade the rest of your life, if you think you’re gonna hold me up for a share.”
Dortmunder said, “So you have a different idea.”
“An offer,” Little Feather said. “A cash buyout, once it’s over.”