Don't Ask (2 page)

Tiny made introductions: "Dortmunder, this is--" And he cleared his throat.

Dortmunder leaned forward, looking alert. "Say what?" 'This is____________________ " Tiny repeated, pointing a fat thumb at the new one, and repeated the throat clearing.

"It's his name," Kelp said. "The best I can figure, it's Grijk Krugnk."

"Only wid an accent," said the new one, with an accent, "over da cccchhh."

"Well, I'm still working on it, uh, Grijk," Kelp said, and said to Dortmunder, "He's not from around here."

"So you're talking to me," Dortmunder observed.

Kelp grinned and shrugged. "Sure, why not? What's a few fish between friends?"

"Now that you told the whole world and everybody."

"Aw, come on, John," Kelp said. "Isn't it better to have a funny story than a bitter secret?"

"I wish you'd given me the choice."

"Dortmunder," Tiny said, low and impatient, "you with us or what?"

"I'm with you, Tiny."

"And you met my cousin."

"Oh, he's your cousin? Grijk Krugnk?"

"Dere!" announced Grijk Krugnk triumphantly, pointing a weisswurst, or possibly a finger, at Dortmunder. "He can say it!"

"] can?"

"Yeah, my cousin," Tiny said. "Frorrthe old country. My long lost cousin, you could say."

"I see the family resemblance, Tiny," Dortmunder said.

"Most people do. Anyway, the old country, they got a problem, so Grijk looked me up."

"Dat's right."

"So I figured, the country my grandparents had the sense to get out of, they got a problem, I gotta show some loyalty, am I right?"

Everybody agreed Tiny was right. (Everybody always agreed Tiny was right.) Tiny nodded, agreeing with himself, and turned to Grijk. '`Tell them about it."

Grijk nodded, his bald head sending semaphores. '%Ve godda gedda bone," he said.

Dortmunder and Kelp and Murch all sat there, attentive, wanting more.

But Grijk had no more to give. He nodded emphatically and consumed half his noncherry soda.

It was Dortmunder who pressed the issue, saying to Tiny, "Did he say a bone?"

"Yeah," Tiny said. "The femur of Saint Ferghana." (Oddly enough, he pronounced femur correctly, with the long e as in female.) "That's a bone?" Dortmunder asked.

"It's a relic," Tiny explained. "From a saint. It's a bone from a saint, so it's a relic." He consulted his cousin. "Am I right?" "Dat's right!"

"Now, the old country," Tiny went on, "what they--"

"Pardon me, Tiny," Dortmunder said, "but exactly what old country is this?"

"Well, that's kind of complicated, Dortmunder," Tiny said. "It's a very old country, but, on the other hand, it's a very new COuntry, tOO."

"Does this country have a name?"

"Lately," Tiny said.

Dortmunder frowned. "Lately? That's its name?"

"No no," Tiny said. "You always complicate things, Dortmunder. It's called Tsergovia." And beside him, his cousin sat to attention at the sound of the sacred syllables.

"Tsergovia,"'Dortmunder said. "I never heard of it." He glanced at Kelp, who shook his head, and at Stan, who said, "If it isn't in the five boroughs, I never heard of it."

Tiny said, "This poor little country, it really got screwed around with over the years. It was independent for a long time in the Middle Ages, and then it got to be part of the AustroHungarian empire, and one time it was almost a part of Albania, except over the mountains, and later on the Commies put it together with this other crap country, Votskojek--"

Grijk growled.

"--and called it something else, but now the Commies are out, that whole Eastern European thing is coming apart, and Tsergovia's becoming its own country again."

"Free at last," Grijk said.

"So it's gonna be a real different country," Tiny said, "from when my grandparents decided to get the hell out of…" He frowned, and turned to his cousin. "What was the name of that place again?"

"Styptia," Grijk said.

"Yeah, that's it," Tiny agreed. "My ancestral village home."

"A beautiful little willage," Grijk said, "nested in da crags a da mountains."

"My one grandfather was the village blacksmith," Tiny told the others, familial pride in his voice. "And the other…" Again he was at a loss; scratching various acres of his forehead, he said,

"Grijk? What was my other grandfather? You never told me." "Oh, veil,"

Grijk said. "Such a long time ago."

"Yeah, but what did he do before he left for the U.S.? One was the village blacksmith, but what was the other one?" "Veil," Grijk said, reluctantly, "da willage idiot." "Oh," said Tiny.

"Bud only because," Grijk hastened to add, "dere weren't d'opportunities in dot liddle place. Nod like here."

"Yeah, that's true," Tiny agreed.

"And nod like da way it's gonna be, vid your help." "Whatever I can do, Grijk, you know that," Tiny said. Dortmunder said, "Tiny? What's the problem?" 'qYell, the problem," Tiny said, "the problem is the UN."

Dortmunder absorbed that. He said, "You want us to go up against the United Nations? Us five here?"

"No, we're not going up against the UN," Tiny said, as though it were Dortmunder who was being ridiculous. "We're going up against Votskojek--"

Grijk growled.

"--which is a whole nother thing."

"Which nother thing?" Dortmunder wanted to know.

The bone's in the mission," Tiny explained.

"Well, that makes sense," Kelp said. "You got a religious relic, you keep it in the mission."

"Not that kind of mission," Tiny said.

"Is this in California?" Dortmunder asked, expecting the worst. "It's not that kind of mission," Tiny said, louder. "It's the Votskojek"--growl--"mission to the UN. Or it will be if they get the seat, which they ain't gonna get, because we're gonna get the bone." He turned to his cousin. "Isn't that right?"

"Dat's right!"

"Wait a minute," Dorununder said, "I'm seeing some daylight here, I think. Either that or my brain's on fire. Tsergovia's a brand-new country, so they aren't in the UN yet, and in order to get accepted into the UN they've got to steal this saint's bone from this other brand-new country. The bone is like their admission to the UN."

Kelp said, "John, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. The United Nations lets you become a member if you got a bone? That's too stupid to even be a sentence."

"Nevertheless," Dortmunder said, "I bet that's the story here. Am I right, Tiny?"

"You're right, Dortmunder," Tiny said.

Kelp said, "He's right?"

"More or less," Tiny said. "And if you guys come into this with me, you'll be doin a wonderful thing for a little country never hurt nobody."

Dortmunder nodded. He said, "And?"

Tiny was not a subtle man. He could be seen pretending not to understand what Dortmunder meant. He said, "And? That's it, and. That's the story."

"Tiny," Dortmunder said, more in sorrow than in anger, "if we get this bone and turn it over to your cousin here, Tsergovia gets into the UN, don't ask me why. What do we get out of it?"

"Heroes!" Grijk cried."A statue in the main square in the capital atOsigreb! Your. pictures on stamps! Your names in children's schoolbooks!" 'I'hat's kind of, uh, public," Dortmunder pointed out, "for a burglary.

I mean, Tiny, we're talking a burglary here, aren't we?"

"Right up your alley, Dortmunder."

"What I like out of a burglary, Tiny," Dortmunder said, "no offense to you or Tsergovia, is not so much publicity as profit."

"Vot problem we god in Tsergovia," Grijk said very sincerely, "is we god nod enough hard currency."

"I know exactly how you feel," Dortmunder said.

"So vot we could offer," Grijk went on more brightly, "is fifty tousand dollars apiece."

"Well, that's nice," Stan said, and he and Kelp and Dortmunder all smiled.

"In Tsergovia," Grijk finished.

They stopped smiling. Kelp said, "What do you mean? We got to go there and bring it back?"

"Veil, it would be in drafts," Grijk explained, "nod in dollars, so you wouldn't bring it back, you know, you couldn't spend drafts anyvere bud in Tsergovia."

"That's what you call your money," Dortmunder guessed. "Drafts."

"D'exchange rate is wery good right now," Grijk told him. "It's, uh, I tink today it's two tousand six hundred fifty drafts." 'to the dollar." 'to da penny. Tinka all dose drafts! You could stay da best hotels, eat da best restaurants, ski da mountains, water sports da lakes, meet beautiful local girls--"

"I don't know," Dortmunder said, regretfully shaking his head. "Vacation travel hadn't actually been part of my plans, May and me, we thought we'd just stick around the city this summer."

Kelp said, 'q'any? Isn't there anything we could get for ourselves?

Something valuable in this mission we could pick up while we're in there anyway? Crown jewels? Old master paintings on the wall? You know, Tiny, a little something for our trouble." "Gas money," Stan said.

'Tney got a couple electric typewriters in the mission there," Tiny suggested doubtfully. "And, uh, Andy, you always like phones."

"Not enough, Tiny," Dortrnunder said. "I can't speak for Andy and Stan, but--"

"Oh, sure you can," Kelp said, and Stan said,"Go ahead, be my guest."

"Okay," Dortmunder said. "In that case, Tiny, I got to tell you, we don't see it. We value your friendship, the nice professional relationship we had in the past, we hope to work with you again in the future--"

"Naturally," Tiny said.

"But this time, I'm sorry to say it, Tiny, this time is a pass. You break and enter, you risk arrest and imprisonment--"

"A country's mission," Stan said, "probably they got armed guards."

"They do," Tiny conceded.

"Murderers!" Grijk shouted, thumping the table with his free hand.

"Scoundrels!"

"So there's another risk," Dortmunder said. "And for what? For some guy's bone that I don't even know, thath"

"Girl," Tiny said. "Saint Ferghana was a girl. And it's her leg bone, the bone from the hip to the knee."

Kelp said, "Which leg?"

Dortmunder shook his head at his friend. "I don't think that matters, Andy," he said. "In the first place, she's dead. And in the second place, we're turning the job down." 'qCell, that's true," Kelp agreed.

Tiny turned to his cousin and performed a massive shrug, like tectonic plates moving. "I'm sorry, Grijk," he said, "but there it is. I told you I'd give it my best shot, present the thing with the best spin on it, but the truth is, if I didn't have this feeling for the old country, if it was just a professional question, me, too, I'd give it a no."

Fiercely glaring into the middle distance, Grijk raised his glass of noncherry soda, drained it, threw the glass across the room, where it hit a wooden wine case and shattered (Rollo wouldn't like that), and cried, "We must nod stop!"

"We're not gonna stop, Grijk," Tiny assured him, "not you and me.

But these fellas here, they're gonna stop. And I don't blame them." Kelp said, "Thank you, Tiny."

"It's just that I have to keep in mind," Dortmunder explained, '%what it says across the bottom of my family crest."

Tiny lowered an eyebrow; in fact, half an entire forehead. "And what's that, Dortmunder?"

"'Quid lucrum istic mihi est?'"

"Meaning?"

"what's in it for me?'"

Saint Ferghana Karanovich (1200?-1217) was born into a family of murdering and robbing innkeepers in Varnic, a then important stop for wayfarers to and from the HOist IAO (qv), who had to cross the Carpathians from Karnolia to Transylvania through the Feoda Pass (much later to become the site of a significant tank engagement during the Battle of the Crevasses in WORLD WAR TWO [qv]).

For generations, the Karanovich family had operated an inn some little way off the beaten path, high in the mountains just north of the primary route (the beaten path) through the pass. Customers for the inn were few and far between as a result of this poor location, and for decades the Karanoviches, whose unrelented interbreeding had made them nasty, brutish, and not very tall, supplemented their meager income by murdering and robbing the unwariest of the passing wayfarers.

By the age of eleven, young Ferghana, too, had become an active participant in these activities, which, even by the community standards of the time (early 13C), were generally considered Optional--historical aside--not for credit unacceptable. Having no knowledge of the world beyond that imparted to her by her ungentlemanly uncles, Ferghana could not have known that in normal society it was deemed wrong for ladies of her tender years to introduce themselves into the beds of male strangers late at night so as to distract them until an uncle could surreptitiously enter the room with a club. Though eventually she would, with time and wisdom and patient instruction, renounce these activities, there are reasons to believe that until the age of seventeen she played her role in the family enterprise with unfeigned zest.