Today, Monday, November 27, was their third day here, and Tom had informed them that winter rates would kick in two weeks from now, if they were still in residence. They’d promised to take that into account when considering their future plans.
So far, there hadn’t been much to do. They’d driven north the same day the trio in the motor home had come up here to turn themselves into a solo in the motor home. Little Feather was the only one in occupancy over there in Whispering Pines, while Guilderpost and Irwin had moved into a motel just south of Plattsburgh, where they had picture-window views of the wind howling down out of Canada and across Lake Champlain and into their rooms.
Although Tea Cosy, which in fact was the name on the small hanging sign outside the bed-and-breakfast, was the most comfortable venue among the three available to the conspirators, with its comfy, warm sitting room, where even Tiny could feel uncrowded, Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny had all agreed they didn’t particularly want Guilderpost and Irwin to know where they were, so meetings were taking place in Guilderpost’s room at the motel. In the meantime, Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny kept body and soul together, and dealt with the modest rent at the Tea Cosy, by committing the occasional minor felony, around and about. Enough to get on with, but not enough to lead local officials to create a task force. It was a living.
But was it an excuse for living? That was the question, and that was why, seated in the sitting room after yet another anchor-sized breakfast, digesting slowly and rather noisily while “Frère Jacques” was sung in counterpoint upstairs, waiting for the moment to go over to the Four Winds motel and read the letter Little Feather had yesterday sent to the casino, Dortmunder had professed his discontent: “What’s in it for me?”
“Well, if money isn’t what you mean,” Kelp said, “then what do you mean?”
“I mean,” Dortmunder said, “why am I in this place? I’m not a con artist. I’m not a grafter. I’m a thief. There’s nothing here to steal. We’re just riding Little Feather’s coattails—never mind, Tiny, you know what I mean—and we’re horning in on somebody else’s scam, and if they don’t manage to kill us—and you know, Tiny, that’s still Plan A they’ve got over there in their minds, and you can’t walk around with a hand grenade strapped on forever, for instance, you’re not even wearing it now—what do we get out of it?”
“A hundred K,” Kelp said.
“For what? Now, Andy, Tiny, listen to me. I think of myself as a person with a certain dignity and a certain professional ability and a certain standing, but what’s happening here is, I’m looking for crumbs from somebody else’s table, so why am I here?”
“That’s a very good question,” Tiny rumbled, and Kelp said, “To be perfectly honest, John—”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
“No, no, no, in this issue only,” Kelp assured him, then said, “The reason you’re here, and Tiny’s here, and I’m here, is because I screwed up. I misjudged Fitzroy, and essentially you didn’t get the gee you were supposed to get to make up for the other gee you didn’t get, and—”
“What are these gees?” Tiny demanded. “You two all of a sudden astronauts?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dortmunder told him. He did not want to get into a description with Tiny of his shopping experience at Speedshop.
“What it is,” Kelp said, “one thing leads to another, and that’s what happened here, and one thing led to another, and this is the other.”
They both looked at him, but Kelp was done. Dortmunder finally said, “That’s it? One thing led to another?”
“That’s the way it looks from here,” Kelp said. “Also, if you remember, we both wanted to know what Fitzroy and them were up to, and see maybe there’s a little something in it for us—”
“There’s always something in it for me,” Tiny grumbled.
“That’s right, Tiny, thank you,” Kelp said, and to Dortmunder, he said, “Then we got Tiny, and when Tiny’s aboard, you know, we always gotta come up with something.”
“Though sometimes,” Tiny said, “the something’s been kinda thinner than I’m used to. But I forgive you, Dortmunder. I always forgive you—”
“Thank you, Tiny.”
“—because you make me laugh,” Tiny said, and laughed, and the Tea Cosy rocked a little. “So here’s what it is,” he said. “We got these people gonna pull a scam. It looks like it could maybe work, and that’s a lotta money. And wherever there’s a lotta money, Dortmunder, there’s always sooner or later some use for the guy who does the thinking, which is you, and the guy who does the heavy lifting, which is me.”
“And don’t forget transportation,” Kelp pointed out.
“I was gonna mention transportation,” Tiny said, “on account it’s time to go over to the Four Winds and see how the windbags are coming along.”
“Fine,” Dortmunder said, rising. “Let’s see do we have a use for my talents.”
Tiny heaved himself to his feet, and the sofa sighed in gratitude. “And mine,” he said.
It hadn’t snowed during the night, but the wind had dusted the Jeep with fine cold sparkles of blown snowflake, which was very attractive on its new color. It was now a gleaming black, and sported Massachusetts license plates, with no medical degree but with enough plausibility to survive a trooper’s computer check. Now, as they wiped snow off the windows with their gloves, Tiny said, “You know, Dortmunder, time hangs heavy on your hands, why not steal the whole county?”
“And do what with it?”
“Move it farther south,” Tiny suggested.
13
Little Feather didn’t want to be associated with any of those people, not in anyone else’s mind, just in case sometime in the future she might want to be able to deny them, so she’d made Fitzroy sign over the motor home’s title to her, making herself more or less legal. She also wouldn’t travel from Whispering Pines Campground to the Four Winds motel and back by cab, nor would she permit Irwin and Fitzroy—it was always the two of them, that’s how much they trusted each other—to pick her up at the motor home. First, they would agree on a time, and then she would call a cab to take her for the inexpensive run into Plattsburgh, to a big supermarket there, where Irwin and Fitzroy would be waiting for her. They’d meet, discuss, do what they had to do, and then they’d return her to the supermarket, where she’d buy some grapefruit and Swedish flat bread and other necessities, and then call another cab to return her to the campground.
And that’s the way it happened today. Cab number one dropped her off at the supermarket. She went in the automatic in door, U-turned, went out the automatic out door, and there were Irwin and Fitzroy in the Voyager, which had never really worked well since the night Irwin had started it without benefit of key. (Which she hadn’t learned about, of course, until much later.)
Irwin always drove, Fitzroy beside him, and she traveled in back. Getting aboard, sliding the door shut, she said, “You mailed it?”
As Irwin drove them away across Plattsburgh toward Route 9 southward to the Four Winds, Fitzroy said, “They’ll be reading it today.”
“And then changing their pants,” Irwin commented.
“Good,” Little Feather said, meaning the letter having been delivered, not the casino managers changing their pants. But in fact, now that it had begun, she herself was feeling just the least bit nervous.
She wasn’t used to anxiety attacks, they didn’t suit her lifestyle. Little Feather had made her own way since she was fifteen and still known as Shirley Ann Farraff, when she’d left home and Cher first had become her ideal. She’d been a pony in Vegas shows, she’d gone through dealer’s school to become an accredited blackjack dealer, she’d waitressed or worked in department stores when times were bad, and she’d always come out okay. She’d never hooked, she’d never made the mistake of counting on a man instead of herself, and she’d never been proved wrong. When you count on yourself, you know whether or not you’re counting on somebody you can trust, and Little Feather was somebody that Little Feather could trust absolutely, so what was there ever to get nervous about?