“Well, it’s the truth,” Little Feather said.
“I know it’s the truth,” Dortmunder agreed, “that’s what I don’t like about it.”
Since Little Feather hadn’t gotten back to the Winnebago until after five, there’d been general agreement that she should order pizza and beer delivered in, even though, as she’d pointed out, that was a hell of an order for a woman living alone. “You’ll reheat the leftovers,” Kelp had told her.
“I’m ordering with pepperoni, without pepperoni, with and without extra cheese.”
“You’re an indecisive person.”
So they had the pizza delivered in, and Little Feather reported on her meetings, first with Marjorie Dawson and then with the bunch in judge’s chambers, telling part of the story before the pizza arrived and the rest after the pizza left, when Dortmunder announced that he didn’t like it.
So now Guilderpost said, “I don’t see what the problem is, John. We’ve reached the first plateau, the DNA.”
“From here,” Irwin said, “it’s plain sailing.”
“No,” Dortmunder said. “They’re fighting it. From the beginning, they’re fighting it. They don’t want Little Feather in their clubhouse.”
“Well, they’re going to have to get used to it,” Irwin said.
Dortmunder said, “No, listen. You’re acting like these people are the same as the people you sold the Dutch land things to, like you come in and scam them and they take it like a sport and that’s it. But they aren’t like that, not from the get-go.”
“I don’t believe their attitude matters anymore, John,” Guilderpost told him. “At first, it was certainly troubling, particularly for Little Feather—”
“I didn’t like the night in jail,” Little Feather remarked.
“Of course you didn’t, my dear,” Guilderpost agreed, and then said to Dortmunder, “But we’re past that now. I spoke with my contact at Feinberg today, and he put me in touch with their DNA expert, Max Schreck. Little Feather will phone him in the morning, he’ll phone Judge Higbee, and we’re well on our way.”
“That’s right,” Irwin said. “From now on, it’s simply the lab work, and the judge says, ‘Look at that, it’s a match. Little Feather is hereby declared a Pottaknobbee. Welcome to the casino.’”
“And you fellows collect a not-inconsiderable recompense,” Guilderpost added.
“I don’t like it,” Dortmunder said.
“You don’t like the recompense? We agreed—”
“Not the recompense,” Dortmunder said, “the story Little Feather come back with. The meeting she had.”
Tiny said, “You listen to Duh—John. He’s got a nose for this kind of thing.”
“All right, John,” Guilderpost said in his most kindly fashion, “tell us what it is you don’t like about today’s events.”
“The whole thing,” Dortmunder told him, “starting from yesterday. No, starting from the day before yesterday. Now today the guy from the tribes shows up with a lawyer that isn’t even his regular lawyer but is a lawyer from another outfit like your Feinberg outfit from New York, meaning what they declared here is war. And when those guys declare war, I don’t think they mean to play fair.”
Irwin said, “But, John, what can they do? We’ve got them cold.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure,” Dortmunder said. “I’m thinking, if I was them, and I wanted Little Feather out of my hair, and I was beginning to think the DNA thing was gonna go against me, what would I do?”
“Kill me,” Little Feather said.
“They thought of it,” Dortmunder assured her, “but they know they’re too obvious. So they gotta do something else.”
Guilderpost said, “I suppose they might try to negotiate with her, buy her off.”
“They tried that,” Little Feather said.
“If I was them,” Dortmunder said, “and I’m in the spot they’re in, what do I do? And I’m beginning to think I know what I do.”
Tiny said, “What you did.”
Dortmunder nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking, Tiny.”
Kelp said, “They would, wouldn’t they?”
Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny all nodded, not happy. Guilderpost and Irwin both looked baffled. Guilderpost said, “What do you mean?”
Dortmunder said, “What did we do, to make sure the DNA was gonna be a match?”
“You put grampa in there,” Little Feather said.
“So if I’m on the other side,” Dortmunder said, “what do I do?”
“No!” Guilderpost cried. “They wouldn’t dare!”
“I bet they would,” Dortmunder said.
Irwin said, “That isn’t fair! We worked hard for this!”
“I told you,” Dortmunder said, “these guys don’t mean to play fair.”
“We’ll have to guard the grave,” Guilderpost declared, “twenty-four hours a day.”
“Yeah, that’ll be good,” Dortmunder commented, “a bunch of dubious guys hanging around one grave in a cemetery for a week or two, day and night. You don’t think anybody’s gonna start to wonder something, do you?”
Guilderpost said, “Then what do you suggest?”
“I dunno,” Dortmunder told him. “That’s what I’m trying to think.”
Irwin said, “I can’t believe anybody would actually do that. Dig the man up and put a different body in there?”
“We did it,” Guilderpost said, and Irwin frowned deeply.
“I really don’t wanna have to dig him up again,” Dortmunder said. “Dig him up, put something else in, wait for the tribes to do whatever they do, then dig up the grave again and put him back. Once a grave robber could just be circumstances, but three times? By then, it’s a career.”
“I’m with John,” Kelp said.
“Then what can we do?” Guilderpost asked, but nobody answered him.
For a little time, they all just sat there, the six of them, listening to one another digest pizza. Everybody frowned and concentrated. From time to time, one or another sighed.
“Stones,” Tiny said.
They all looked at him. Kelp said, “Tiny? That wasn’t about the pizza, was it?”
Tiny made a gesture with both hands, like a guy switching the shells over the pea. “Switch the stones,” he said.
Dortmunder smiled. A burden lifted from his shoulders. “We could do that,” he said. “Thank you, Tiny.”
“I could do that,” Tiny said.
Irwin said, “You mean take the Redcorn headstone, move it to a different grave, replace it with the other headstone.”
“Then the tribes come down,” Dortmunder said, “they dig up the wrong grave, they do what they do, and then we switch the stones back again.”
“A lot better than grave digging,” Kelp said.
Irwin said, “And that way, you don’t disturb the soil over the Redcorn grave. It’s been six weeks now, the soil won’t show any signs of recent digging.”
“Particularly,” Guilderpost said, “if the tribes dig up the wrong grave.”
“Now,” Dortmunder said, “I like it.”
24
Friday, December 1. The only interesting workweek in Judge T. Wallace Higbee’s entire twelve-year career on the bench was at last, thank God, coming to an end.
It had all started on Tuesday, when Frank Oglanda and Roger Fox had filed the charges of fraud and extortion against the young woman who, it seemed, must be known henceforward as Little Feather Redcorn. The case had at first seemed like no more than the normal run of stupidity, this time on the part of someone then named Shirley Ann Farraff, until Marjorie Dawson had come to chambers the next day to say the perp wouldn’t play the game.
Then the Mohawks’ peacemaking plaque had surfaced to buttress Little Feather Redcorn’s story, and at that point, it seemed to the judge, the smart move would have been for Roger and Frank to cut a deal with the young lady. Not try to buy her off and send her on her way, but deal her in. That would have been the smart move, and the judge couldn’t help but wonder why Frank had decided to be stupid instead.