In sudden hope, the voice said, "Yeah? Yeah?"
"Craig Fitzgibbons," Mologna said, an almost religious awe trembling in his voice.
"Who the hell is that?"
"A guy who will never come around to call us liars, Dortmunder."
"I'm not Dortmunder."
"Sure, sure. I can do your setup for you, that's all. I sit here astonished at myself. Now, what about the quo?"
"The what?"
"The Byzantine Fire," Mologna explained.
"Oh, that. You get it back," the voice said, "as soon as you make the announcement."
"What announcement?"
"Police breakthrough. Proof positive the thief with the Byzantine Fire is this fella Craig Whoever. Arrest expected any minute."
"All right. Then what?"
"I get the ring back to you, my own way. Indirect like."
"When?"
"Today."
"And if you don't?"
"Another police breakthrough. Proof positive it isn't Craig Thingummy."
"Okay," Mologna said, nodding. Leon came in and made the world's most expressive shrug of incredulity, representing in himself all of the thousands and thousands of employees of the New York Bell Telephone Company. Mologna nodded, waving him away, not caring any more. "I'm in a good mood today," he told the phone. "You've got yourself a deal, Dortmunder."
"Call me Craig," said Dortmunder.
44
Every half hour Dortmunder phoned May, who was staying home from work so she could listen to an all-news radio station ("You give us twenty-two minutes, we'll give you the world," they threatened). Dortmunder would have preferred to be his own listening post, but down here in the telephone company conduit, far beneath the mighty metropolis, there was no such thing as radio reception. As for TV, forget it.
"There's trouble in Southeast Asia," May told him at ten-thirty.
"Uh-huh," Dortmunder said.
"There's trouble in the Middle East," she said at eleven o'clock.
"That figures," he said.
"There's trouble in the Cuban part of Miami," she announced at eleven-thirty.
"Well, there's trouble everywhere," Dortmunder pointed out. "There's even a little right here."
"They have positively identified the thief who stole the Byzantine Fire," she said at noon. "It was just a bulletin, interrupted the trouble in baseball."
Dortmunder's throat was dry. "Hold it," he said, and swigged some beer. "Now tell me," he said.
"Benjamin Arthur Klopzik."
Dortmunder stared across the conduit at Kelp, as though it was his fault. (Kelp stared back, expectant, alert.) Into the phone, Dortmunder said, "Who?"
"Benjamin Arthur Klopzik," May repeated. "They said it twice, and I wrote it down."
"Not Craig Anybody?"
"Who?"
"Benjamin—" Then he got it. "Benjy!"
Kelp could stand no more. "Tell me, John," he said, leaning forward. "Tell me, tell me."
"Thanks, May," Dortmunder said. It took him a second to realize the unfamiliar, uncomfortable feeling in his cheeks was caused by a smile. "I hate to sound really optimistic, May," he said, "but I have this feeling. I just think maybe it might be almost possible that pretty soon I'll be able to come up out of here."
"I'll take the steaks out of the freezer," May said.
Dortmunder hung up and just sat there for a minute, nodding thoughtfully to himself. "That Mologna," he said. "He's pretty smart."
"Wha'd he do? John?" Kelp was bouncing up and down in his eagerness and frustration, slopping beer out of the can onto his knees. "Tell me, John!"
"Benjy," Dortmunder said. "The little guy the cops wired."
"What about him?"
"He's the guy Mologna says boosted the ring."
"Benjy Klopzik?" Kelp was astonished. "That little jerk couldn't steal a paper bag in a supermarket."
"Nevertheless," Dortmunder said. "Everybody's after him now, right? Because of being wired."
"They want him almost as bad as they want you," Kelp agreed.
"So the cops announce he's the guy lifted the ruby ring. He won't come back and say no, it wasn't me. So that's the end of it."
"But where is he?"
"Who cares?" Dortmunder said. "The Middle East, maybe. The Cuban part of Miami, maybe. Maybe the cops killed him and buried him under Headquarters. Wherever he is, Mologna's pretty damn sure nobody's gonna find him. And that's good enough for me." Reaching for the phone, grinning from ear to ear, Dortmunder said, "That's plenty good enough for me."
45
Life is unfair, as Tony Costello well knew. He was on the very brink of losing his job as police-beat reporter on the six o'clock news, and it was all because nobody knew he was Irish. It was bad enough that "Costello," though Irish, sounded Italian; but then his mother had had to go and compound the problem by naming him Anthony. Sure there were lots of micks named Anthony, but you go ahead and combine «Anthony» with «Costello» and you might just as well forget the wearin' o' the green altogether.
Plus, Tony Costello's additional misfortune was that he was a black Irishman, with thick black hair all over his head, and a lumpy prominent nose, and a short and chunky body. Oh, he was doomed right enough, that he was.
If only it were possible to bring it out into the open, to talk about it, go up to some of these dumb micks—Chief Inspector Francis X. Mologna, for instance, there was a tub of dolphin shit for you—and say to these fellas, "God damn it to hell and back, I'm Irish!" But he couldn't do that—the prejudice, the old boys' club, the whole Irish Mafia that runs the Police Department and always has would have to be acknowledged that way, which of course was out of the question—and as a result all the best scoops, the inside dope, the advance words-to-the-wise all went to that son of a bitch Scotsman, that Jack Mackenzie, because the dumb micks all thought he was Irish.
"Looks like spring today!" said a pretty girl in the elevator at noon on Saturday, but Tony Costello didn't give a shit. His days as police-beat reporter were numbered, the numbers were getting smaller, and there was nothing he could do about it. A month, six weeks, two months at the outside, and he'd be shipped bag and baggage to Duluth or some damn place, some network affiliate where the police beat was automobile accidents and Veterans' Day parades. Maybe it looked like spring today, maybe last night's drenching rain had been winter's valedictory, maybe this morning's soft breezes and watery sun heralded the new season of hope, but if there was no hope in Tony Costello's heart—and there was none—what could it matter to him? So he snubbed the pretty girl in the elevator, who spent the rest of the day looking rather bewildered, and he stamped down the corridor past all the other busy-busy network employees into his own cubicle, where he asked Dolores, the secretary he shared (for as long as he was still here) with five other reporters, "Any messages?"
"Sorry, Tony."
"Sure," Costello said. "Sure not. No messages. Who would call Tony Costello?"
"Buck up, Tony," Dolores said. She was slender, but motherly. "It's a beautiful day. Look out the window."
"I may jump out the window," Costello said, and his phone rang.
"Well, well," Dolores said.
"Wrong number," Costello suggested.
But Dolores answered it anyway: "Mister Costello's line." Costello watched her listen, nod, raise her eyebrows; then she said, "If this is some sort of prank, Mister Costello's far too busy—"