Stan said, “Charfont?”
“Hi, Stan,” Harriet said.
“Hi, Harriet.”
“What’s it to you?” Max wanted to know. “Read that back to me, Harriet.”
Leaving the paper in the typewriter, Harriet read while Max, a bulky older man with heavy jowls and thin white hair, his white shirt under the black vest smudged from leaning against used cars, listened and paced. He no longer smoked his old cigars, but ethereal cigar smoke wafted behind him anyway as he paced.
Harriet read: “‘Better Business Bureau of Greater New York. Gentlemen: When you first made contact with me, I assumed it was your purpose to bring me better business. Now I see your hope is to drive me out of business entirely, by aligning yourselves with these malcontents and mouth-breathers who apparently can neither see the particular automobile they are in the process of purchasing nor read the standard contract relating to that purchase. The Royally Mounted A-One Collection Agency knows these people better than you do, and I suggest you check with them before leaving any of them alone in your office. As for me, the laws of the State of New York are good enough for me, and your Boy Scout pledges are not needed, thank you very much. I would prefer that our correspondence end at this point. Sincerely, Maximilian Charfont.’”
Max stopped his pacing. He said, “Didn’t I have some swear words in there?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, what happened to them?”
“This is a very old typewriter,” Harriet pointed out. “From the Victorian era. It won’t type dirty words. If you got me a nice new computer, I could type Portnoy’s Complaint in here.”
“You don’t want a computer,” Max informed her, “and I don’t want no complaint.” Rounding on Stan, he said, “And wadda you want?”
“Well, I’d like to call my Mom, if it’s okay.”
Max lowered an eyebrow. “Local call?”
“Sure, a local call,” Stan said. “You expect my Mom to leave the five boroughs?”
“I don’t expect anything,” Max said. “That’s it, you drop by, use the phone? You wanna flush the toilet, too, drop a few notes to absent loved ones?”
“No, just the phone call,” Stan said. “And out back, there’s a Mercedes you might like.”
“Ah-huh,” Max said.
“Gas tank’s full,” Stan told his departing back.
Harriet had replaced Max’s letter with some Motor Vehicle form and was typing again, full tilt. She said, “Use the phone over there, okay?”
Meaning the room’s second desk. “Sure,” Stan said, and sat at desk number two and dialed his Mom’s cell phone, which she now kept in her cab, while she was working, so they could keep in constant touch.
“Hello!”
“Don’t shout, Mom.”
“I gotta shout, I’m next to a cement mixer!”
“You want me to call you back?”
“What?”
“You want me to call you back?”
“No, that’s okay,” Mom said, at a much more reasonable volume. “He turned off. How you doing out on Long Island?”
“Well, that’s what I’m—”
“Hold on, I got a fare, a fare!”
“Okay.”
Mom must have put the phone on the front seat next to her, amid the newspapers and take-out crap that always accumulated in there. He could hear a male voice, but not what it said, and then he heard his Mom’s distant voice say, “You got it,” and a few seconds later, she was back, very pleased. “JFK,” she said.
“Oh, yeah? Listen, that’s good, because things worked out different.”
“Long Island, you mean?”
“Well, it didn’t happen,” Stan said. “The rest of them all went off to discuss things with the officials, you know?”
“Uh-oh.”
“So it turns out,” Stan said, “I’ll be home for dinner after all.”
“No, you won’t,” Mom said.
“Why not?”
“John called, he’s got something. He wants a meet at the O.J., six o’clock.”
“Okay, then,” Stan said as Max came back in, trailing the memory of cigar smoke. “Where I am instead, I’m at Maximilian’s. When you’re done at Kennedy, come over here, pick me up, and we’ll go up to the O.J. together.”
“Don’t let that Maximilian cheat you, Stan.”
“What an idea,” Stan said, and hung up, and said, “Well, Max? Is that attractive?”
“But what does it attract?” Max wanted to know. “Truthfully, Stanley, how hot is that vehicle?”
“Well,” Stan said, “if it happened you wanted to fry an egg . . .”
“That’s what I thought. So that means,” Max explained, “a lotta work in the shop, changing parts, changing numbers on things, getting paperwork that doesn’t turn into dust in your hand. This is all expensive, Stanley, it’s time-consuming, the boys in the shop, it’s gonna take a lot of time away from their regular work, I’m not sure it’s even worth my while to get into it. But I know you, I like you, and I know you’re anxious to get movin outta here—”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Stan told him. “My Mom’s got a fare to Kennedy, and then she’s coming here to pick me up. So we got all the time in the world to discuss this. Isn’t that nice?”
“My lucky day,” Max said.
The phone rang, and Harriet answered: “Maximilian’s Used Cars, Miss Caroline speaking. Oh, I’m sorry, no, Mr. Maximilian is no longer with us, he retired to Minsk. Yes, I’ll pass that along. You, too.” Hanging up, she returned to her machine-gun typing. “The one with the machete,” she said.
37
When Dortmunder walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at four minutes before six that evening, Rollo, the bulky, balding bartender, was painting MERY XM on the extremely dusty mirror over the back bar, using some kind of white foam from a spray can, possibly shaving cream, while the regulars, clustered at one end of the bar, were discussing the names of Santa’s reindeer. “I know it starts,” the first regular said, “‘Now, Flasher, now, Lancer, now—’”
“Now, now, wait a second,” the second regular said. “One of those is wrong.”
Dortmunder walked over to stand at the bar, somewhat to the right of the regulars and directly behind Rollo, whose tongue was stuck slightly out of the left corner of his mouth as, with deep concentration, he painted downward a left-trending diagonal next to M.
“Oh yeah?” said the first regular. “Which one?”
“I think Flasher,” said the second regular.
A third regular joined in at that point, saying, “Naw, Lancer.”
Rollo started the second leg of the next letter.
“So what are you telling me?” demanded the first regular. “They’re both wrong?”
A fourth regular, who had been communing with the spheres of the universe, or maybe with the bottles on the back bar, inhaled, apparently for the first time in several days, and said, “Rupert.”
All the regulars looked at him. Rollo started the horizontal.
“Rupert what?” demanded the second regular.
“Rupert Reindeer,” the fourth regular told him.
The third regular, in total disdain, said, “Wait a minute. You mean the one with the red nose?”
“Yeah!”
“That’s not a reindeer!” the third regular informed him.
“Oh yeah?” Transition complete, the fourth regular was at this point fully in the here and now. “Then why do they call him Rupert Reindeer?”
“He’s not one of these reindeer,” the first regular explained.