Fitzroy sighed. This was the good news. What might have happened otherwise was the bad news. He said, “Where am I going, Andy?”
“You’re gonna like it,” Andy told him. “See that big rig up there, the shiny silver one?”
“Yes.”
“Got a crew of two, got a bunk up in the cab, drive twenty-four hours a day. Back is loaded up with cardboard cartons, big soft cardboard cartons because they’re all full of Nerf balls. You’re gonna go in luxury, Fitzroy, on a cushion of Nerf balls.”
“Go where, Andy?”
“Nerf balls,” Andy repeated. “Where else? San Francisco. You’ll be there in no time, Fitzroy.”
45
What I especially don’t like about Arnie Albright,” Dortmunder said, “is everything.”
“He must have some qualities,” Stan said.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dortmunder answered. “I think Arnie Albright is the one guy around and about with absolutely zero qualities. I think Arnie Albright is composed one hundred percent of deficits.”
They were having this conversation on the West Side Highway, having driven south in a two-car caravan after completing Fitzroy and Irwin’s travel arrangements. Stan and Dortmunder were in the Lexus, Kelp and Tiny behind them in some doctor’s dark green Bentley, and they were on their way to West Eighty-ninth Street, where a fence lived named Arnie Albright, who was the only fence Dortmunder knew who was neither in jail nor actually a cop running an undercover sting operation.
(The thing to do with those sting operations is know when to stop being a customer. The money’s always very good, and you know the cops aren’t going to rip you off. Also, they keep the neighborhood safe. So long as you aren’t present on roundup day, where’s the downside?)
The unfortunate part about selling stolen goods to Arnie Albright was, you had to be in his presence to do so. “I don’t see,” Dortmunder groused, “why Andy can’t go up and talk to him, he knows Arnie as well as I do.”
“Andy says,” Stan told him, “he barely knows Arnie at all, and only through you.”
“Everybody claims to barely know Arnie at all,” Dortmunder said, but he knew there was no way out of this. An Arnie Albright encounter was coming his way, like it or not; like one of those movies where the Earth is going along, minding its own business, and an asteroid crashes into it.
Both cars left the highway at Ninety-sixth Street, went past the argument in front of the parking building on the north side of the street just past the underpass that has been going on for three generations now, went east over to Broadway, then south to Eighty-ninth Street.
When they made the turn, they saw that the van was still where they’d left it. It was a blue Econoline van with white waves painted on its sides, plus the information:
ERSTWHILE FISH EMPORIUM
Estab. since 1947
J. Erstwhile, Founder
This van possessed commercial license plates, which meant it wouldn’t be towed away, which everything else is, sooner or later. It was not a found object, like the Lexus or the Bentley, but had been borrowed from a friend of Kelp’s, one Jerry Erstwhile, ne’er-do-well grandson of the original Jake. Since it was now full of everything the group had liberated from Thurstead, and since they hadn’t known exactly how long they’d have to leave it unattended at the curb, they’d wanted to be sure they had a vehicle that would not draw attention from anybody for any reason whatsoever, and so far, it had apparently worked.
As they drove past the fish van, Stan said, “I’m done with this car, unless you want it for something.”
“Not me,” Dortmunder said.
“No prints around?”
“Not me,” Dortmunder said, showing his gloves.
“Fine, then,” Stan said, and parked next to a fire hydrant, since there were, as usual, no legal places to park within several miles of this location.
Apparently, Kelp had had enough of the Bentley as well, because he took the next hydrant along, and the four gathered on the sidewalk, where Kelp said, “John, we’ll just loiter and make ourselves nondescript and unremarkable while you go have a word with Arnie.”
Dortmunder had too much dignity to try to get out of it with everybody watching, so he said, “I’ll be back,” much as General MacArthur once did, and marched down the block past Erstwhile to Arnie’s place, an apartment over a tanning salon that used to be a video shop and before that a bookstore.
As he walked, Dortmunder remembered various moments with Arnie Albright over the years, like the time Arnie had said, “It’s my personality. Don’t tell me different, Dortmunder, I happen to know. I rub people the wrong way. Don’t argue with me.” Or when he’d explained, “I know what a scumbag I am. People in this town, they call a restaurant, before they make the reservation, they say, ‘Is Arnie Albright gonna be there?’”
And the weird thing, as Dortmunder well knew, was that Arnie considered Dortmunder himself the closest thing he had to a friend. As he’d once said, “At least you lie to me. Most people, I’m so detestable, they can’t wait to tell me what a turd I am.” Which was probably true.
All Dortmunder hoped was that Arnie was healthy at the moment. Arnie got little diseases from time to time, each one more disgusting than the last. Recently, when Dortmunder had been forced by circumstance to have business dealings with Arnie, the fence had just broken out in something so horrible (salsa oozing from every pore on his body) that, he’d explained, “My doctor says, ‘Would you mind staying in the waiting room and just shout to me your symptoms?’” May Arnie today, Dortmunder prayed, to Whoever might be Listening, at least be healthy.
Dortmunder entered the tiny vestibule of Arnie’s building, rang the button, and waited for Arnie’s snarl of greeting over the intercom. Instead of which, without a word being said, the buzzer sounded, unlocking the door.
Dortmunder simultaneously pushed on the door and recoiled. No challenge? No “Who the hell goes there?”
Cops. Had to be. Like most fences, Arnie was occasionally visited by marauding bands of cops, who have a proprietary view of fencing, not liking civilians to horn in on their sting operations. So was this the middle of a cop visit? And had the cops said, “Just let them in, Arnie, let’s see who’s coming to visit”? Was this, in short, a trap?
“Hal-loo-ooo.”
That was somebody calling down the stairs. Could that possibly have been Arnie? Curious despite himself, Dortmunder pushed the door farther open and looked up the staircase, and there at the top, smiling, stood Arnie Albright himself, a grizzled, gnarly guy with a tree-root nose.
Dortmunder, not trusting the evidence of his senses, said, “Arnie?”
“Why, it’s John Dortmunder!” Arnie cried with evident delight. “Come on up, John Dortmunder, it’s been too long since I seen you!”
Dortmunder stepped all the way into the hall, letting the door snick shut behind himself. He peered hard, but there didn’t seem to be anybody behind Arnie holding a gun to his head. He said, “Arnie? Is that you?”
“The new me, John Dortmunder!” Arnie announced, and waved a beckoning arm. “Comon up, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Well,” Dortmunder said, “we got some stuff in a van out here.”
“In a minute, in a minute, I’ll get my coat. But come up first, let’s visit.”
Visit? With Arnie Albright? Wondering if he had somehow fallen into a parallel universe, Dortmunder went on up the stairs, the smiling Arnie receding before him like a friendly vampire. “Come in, come in for a minute, John Dortmunder,” this new Arnie said, backing into his apartment. “You wanna cuppa tea?”