"Here I am," Chauncey agreed. His mood was becoming agreeably mellow.
"Bad timing, that," Orfizzi said, gesturing upwards with his thumb.
Not sure what the man meant, Chauncey said, "Was it?"
"If the damned woman had gone up there ten minutes earlier," the Prince explained, "the blighters might have shot her." He shrugged, evidently irritated at his wife's perverse insistence on remaining alive, then rallied himself and changed the subject. "I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw those policemen."
Now what? "I'm not sure I follow," Chauncey admitted. "The man in charge." Prince Otto leaned forward, dropping his voice confidentially. "Black as the ace of spades."
"Ah, yes," Chauncey said, and the combination of nerves and liquor made him add, "Well, at least he isn't Jewish."
The Prince considered that. "I don't know," he mused. "With a Jew, you'd be certain in any event the fellow wasn't in league with the thieves."
"That's true," Chauncey said, and got to his feet, feeling the strong need of another drink.
"Would that be bourbon?" asked the Prince.
"It would. May I offer?"
"You certainly may. Say what you will about jazz, the Hollywood movie, the Broadway musical or the short story, I say America's contribution to the arts is bourbon."
"I agree with you," Chauncey said, in some surprise, and reached for the bottle, only to discover it was empty. And when he looked in the lower cabinet among the extras there was no bourbon to be seen. "Sorry," he said. "I'll have to go downstairs for more."
"Oh, don't bother, I'll be perfectly happy with Scotch. As happy as one can be with that woman in the house, of course."
"It isn't any bother," Chauncey assured him. "I'd rather stick to bourbon myself." And it would be pleasant to be away from the Prince for a few minutes.
But that was not to be. "I'll stroll along with you," the Prince announced, and did.
The main liquor storage was in a closet on the ground floor, next to a similar closet converted to a wine cellar, the latter with its temperature and humidity maintained at a dry fifty degrees. Chauncey and Orfizzi rode down together in the elevator, and to fill the time Chauncey described the wine cellar, as it was a recent conversion. "I'd like to see it," the Prince said.
"I'll show it you."
On the ground floor, they walked together down the corridor, and about halfway to the rear exit Chauncey stopped at a pair of doors on the right-hand side. "Liquor storage is on the left," he explained, "and this is the wine cellar." And he opened the door to look at the bleak eyes and shivering body of Dortmunder. "Ump!" Chauncey said, and quickly shut the door again, before the Prince could get around it to look inside.
"I didn't see it," said the Prince.
"Urn, yes," Chauncey said. "I, urn, I've just had an awful thought."
"You have?"
"I may be out of bourbon. Let's see." And Chauncey opened the other door, which displayed a floor-to-ceiling rank of horizontal bottle – storage spaces made of criss-crossed wooden slats, about two-thirds filled with liquor and liquor bottles. "Oh, of course," he said. "I have plenty." And he grabbed two bottles and put them in the startled Prince's hands, then took a third from the stacks for himself, the while gesturing with his free hand, saying, "You see the style. The wine cellar is identical, except of course for the humidity and temperature controls. Not needed in here, naturally."
"Naturally," agreed the Prince. He was holding the two bottles by the neck, as though they were small dead animals and he wasn't quite sure what he was expected to do with them.
Closing the door, Chauncey took the Prince by the elbow and led him off toward the elevator. "Now to our drink, eh?"
"But–" The Prince looked back over his shoulder at the closed wine-cellar door. "Oh," he said doubtfully, as Chauncey continued to propel him away. "Identical. Yes, urn, right."
Back to the elevator they went, boarded, and Chauncey pushed the button before the door closed. But then, as the door was sliding into place, he suddenly thrust the third bourbon bottle into the Prince's arms, said, "Join you in a minute. Something I have to take care of," and slipped out of the elevator.
"But–" The Prince's startled face disappeared behind the closing door, and the elevator whirred upward as Chauncey tore down the hall, flung open the door, and cried, "What are you doing in there?"
"Freezing to death," Dortmunder told him. "Can I come out?"
Chauncey looked both ways. "Yes."
"Good." He emerged, and as Chauncey closed the door he said, "Get me out of here."
"I don't under– Yes, of course." Chauncey frowned up and down the corridor, chewing the inside of his cheek.
"We had guards," Dortmunder said. "Not to mention elevators."
"Things happened," Chauncey said, distracted by his own thoughts. "Come with me." He took Dortmunder by the arm, and as he led him down the corridor toward the back there was a faint clink from inside his leather jacket. A vision of two full bourbon bottles in the sitting-room storage cabinet came clear to Chauncey's mind, and he offered Dortmunder a sidelong jaundiced glance, saying, "I see."
Dortmunder seemed too disgusted by events to reply, and the two of them progressed as far as the mudroom by the back door, where Chauncey took out his key ring, slipped one key off, and handed it over, saying, "This unlocks the door to the passage. Also the one at the other end. Get it back to me later."
Dortmunder gestured at the door beside them. "Won't we set off the alarm when we open this?"
"I'll say it was me, I thought I saw something in the garden. Hurry, man."
"All right." Dortmunder took the key.
Struck by sudden doubt, Chauncey said, "Are there any more of you still in here?"
"Only me," Dortmunder said, as though the fact spoke volumes about his life.
"What about the painting? It's gone, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah," Dortmunder said, looking surly. "That part went okay." And he left.
Chapter 16
When Dortmunder's head disappeared for the last time behind the elevator, Kelp withdrew his own head from the open panel in the housing and said to the others, "What do we do now?"
"What he told us," Bulcher answered. "We get the hell out of here."
"But what about Dortmunder?"
Chefwick said, "Andy, he'll either get away or he won't. But it won't do him any good if we stand around on the roof and get caught with him."
Kelp cast another worried glance into the elevator shaft, where there was nothing to be seen. "He's going to blame me for this," he said. "I know he will."
"Come on, Kelp," Bulcher said, and he picked up the rolled painting from the tarred roof and strode away.
So Kelp left, with many backward looks, and joined the other two on the return journey across the roofs and up the rope and back into the theater building and down the stairs to the balcony. Bulcher led all the way, and he was the one who opened the door at the foot of the stairs.
Unfortunately, it was intermission time within, and the rear of the balcony was once again full of Scotsmen. When Bulcher unexpectedly shoved open the door, he knocked one Scotsman's full cup of whiskey all over another Scotsman's kilt. Ignoring the damage, he made to push between them and go on about his business, but the empty-cupped Scotsman put a restraining hand on his chest and said, "Here, now. What do you think you're at?"
"Get out of my way," said Bulcher, who was in no mood for distractions. Behind him, Chefwick emerged from the stairs.