Prosker studied Dortmunder's face, and his own face had finally lost its pained-innocence expression, replaced by a look of calculation. He thought things over for a while and then flung the shovel down and briskly said, "All right. You people wouldn't kill me, you aren't murderers, but I can see you aren't going to give up. And it looks like I won't get rescued. Help me up out of here, and we'll talk." His whole manner had abruptly changed, his voice deeper and more assured, his body straighter, his gestures quick and firm.
Dortmunder and Greenwood gave him a hand out of the hole, and Greenwood said, "Don't be so sure about me, Prosker."
Prosker looked at him. "You're a ladykiller, my boy," he said. "Not exactly the same thing."
"Well, you're no lady," Greenwood told him.
Dortmunder said, "The emerald."
Prosker turned to him. "Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Would you let me out of your sight before I handed over the emerald?"
"That isn't even funny," Dortmunder said.
"That's what I thought," Prosker said, and spread his hands, saying, "In that case, I'm sorry, but you'll never get it."
"I am gonna kill him!" Greenwood shouted, and Murch and Chefwick and Kelp strolled over to listen to the conversation.
"Explain," Dortmunder said.
Prosker said, "The emerald is in my safe deposit box in a bank on Fifth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. It takes two keys to open the box, mine and the bank's. The bank regulations require that I go down into the vault accompanied only by an officer of the bank. The two of us have to be alone, and in the vault I have to sign their book, and they compare the signature with the specimen they keep on file. In other words, it has to be me and I have to be alone. If I gave you my word I wouldn't tell the bank officer to call the police while we were down there you wouldn't trust me, and I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't believe it myself. You can mount a perpetual watch on the bank if you wish, and kidnap and search me every time I go into it and come out, but that only means the emerald will stay where it is, useless to me and useless to you."
"God damn it," said Dortmunder.
"I'm sorry," Prosker said. "I'm truly sorry. If I'd left the stone anywhere else, I'm sure we could have worked out some arrangement where I would be reimbursed for my time and expenses-"
"I ought to rap you in the mouth!" Greenwood shouted.
"Be quiet," Dortmunder told him. To Prosker he said, "Go on."
Prosker shrugged. "The problem is insoluble," he said. "I put the stone where neither of us can get it."
Dortmunder said, "Where's your key?"
"To the box? In my office in town. Hidden. If you're thinking of sending someone in my place to forge my signature, let me be a good sport and warn you that two of the bank's officers know me fairly well. It's possible your forger wouldn't meet either of those two, but I don't think you should count on it."
Greenwood said, "Dortmunder, what if this louse was to die? His wife would inherit, right? Then we'd get the stone from her."
Prosker said, "No, that wouldn't work either. In the event of my death, the box would be opened in the presence of my wife, two bank officers, my wife's attorney and no doubt someone from Probate Court. I'm afraid my wife would never get to take the emerald home with her."
"God damn it to hell," said Dortmunder.
Kelp said, "You know what this means, Dortmunder."
"I don't want to hear about it," Dortmunder said.
"We get to rob a bank," Kelp said.
"Just don't talk to me," Dortmunder said.
"I am sorry," Prosker said briskly. "But there's nothing to be done," he said, and Greenwood hit him in the eye, and he fell backwards into the hole.
"Where's the shovel?" Greenwood said, but Dortmunder said, "Forget that. Get him up out of there, and back in the truck."
Murch said, "Where we going?"
"Back to the city," Dortmunder said. "To make the Major's day."
1
"I am not happy," the Major said.
"On the other hand," Dortmunder said, "I'm giggling all over."
They were all sitting around the Major's office, having arrived in time to interrupt his lunch. Prosker, in dirt-stained pajamas and bathrobe, was sitting in the middle, where everyone could see him. The Major was behind his desk, and Dortmunder and the others were grouped in a semicircle facing him.
Prosker said, "I continue to be sincerely sorry. It was shortsighted of me, but I moved in haste and now regret in leisure." He had a nicely developing black eye.
"Just shut up," Greenwood told him, "or I'll give you something else to regret."
"I hired you people in the first place," the Major said, "because you were supposed to be professionals, you were supposed to know how to do the job right."
Kelp, stung, said, "We are professionals, Major, and we did do the job right. We've done four jobs, and we did them all right. We got away with the emerald. We broke Greenwood out of jail. We got into the police station and back out again. And we kidnaped Prosker from the asylum. We've done everything right."
"Then why," the Major said angrily, "don't I have the Balabomo Emerald?" He held a hand out, empty palm up, to demonstrate that he didn't have it.
"Circumstances," Kelp said. "Circumstances have conspired against us."
The Major snorted.
Chefwick said, "Major, at the moment you are short-tempered, and it's perfectly understandable. But so are we, and also with justification. I won't speak for myself, Major, but I will tell you that in my twenty-three years in this business I have gotten to know a large number of people engaged in it, and I assure you this team could not be improved upon anywhere."
"That's right," Kelp said. "Take Dortmunder. That man's a genius. He's sat down and worked out four capers in four months and brought every last one of them off. There isn't another man in the business could have done that. There isn't another man in the business could have organized the Prosker kidnaping alone, much less the other three jobs."
Greenwood said, "And what Chefwick said about the rest of us goes double for Chefwick, because not only is he one of the best lockmen in the business, he is a grade-A first-class railroad engineer."
Chefwick blushed with pleasure and embarrassment.
The Major said, "Before you all start proposing toasts to one another, let me remind you that I still do not have the Balabomo Emerald."
"We know that, Major," said Dortmunder. "We still don't have our forty grand each either."
"You're getting it an inch at a time," the Major said angrily. "Do you realize I have so far paid out over twelve thousand dollars to you people in salaries alone? Plus nearly eight thousand in material and supplies for all these practice robberies you keep performing. Twenty thousand dollars, and what do I have to show for it? The operation was successful, but the patient died. It just won't do. It won't do any more, and that's final."
Dortmunder heaved himself to his feet. "That's all right by me, Major," he said. "I came down here willing to give it one more try, but if you want to call it off I won't fight you. Tomorrow's an anniversary for me, I'll be out of the pen four months tomorrow, and all I've done in all that time is run around after that goddamn emerald of yours. I'm sick of it, if you want the truth, and if Prosker hadn't goaded me into it I would have quit before this caper."
"Something else for me to be sorry for," Prosker said fatalistically.
"Shut up, you," Greenwood said.
Kelp was on his feet, saying, "Dortmunder, don't get mad. You too, Major, there's no point everybody getting mad at everybody. This time we know for sure where the emerald is."