Don't Ask (35 page)

cried, but Lusk or Ter ment had hung up. Across the way, a beaker exploded. racing, Perly prowled the luxurious parlor of Harry Hoch man's suite, while in the room the tension mounted. The eight people he'd assembled here did not include any of the lawyers or insurance executives who so cluttered this case; one way and another, these people here were all principals. And Jacques Perly, with their help --witting or unwitting--was about to crack this case wide open. He was, in fact, about to speak, to open the meeting, when Harry Hochman abruptly said, "Well? Are we all here?" Perly took a moment to answer. Hochman, because this was his suite, was attempting to direct the agenda of the meeting, but Perly had other ideas. "Yes, Mr. Hochman," he said eventually, "we're all assembled." "Then get on with it," Hochman said, either displaying irritability or revealing nervousness; hard to tell. "I'm a busy man." / "We're all busy men, Mr. Hochman," Perly said. "The question is, Busy at what? May I turn to you, sir," he said to another of the invited guests. "Would you tell the group your name and occupation?" The tall, slender, white-haired man recrossed his legs. Calm, self-confident, he sat comfortably in an uncomfortable chair, arms folded, and said, "Name's Hammond Cash. I'm regional manager for CDA." "Continental Detective Agency." "Yes, sir." "You have had the contract to provide security for the Votskojek embassy for some months now, is that correct?" "Yes, sir." "And there was a robbery at the embassy some little time ago?" The thin man smiled thinly. "It looked like a robbery, yes, sir." Perly was gratified to see, from the corner of his eye, Hradec Kralowc's sudden spasm of shock at that sentence, but he pretended for the moment not to have noticed. Concentrating on Cash, he said, "Looked like a robbery? Could you describe the event, Mr. Cash?" "Certainly." Cash had a battered old briefcase on the floor beside his chair. Reaching into it, bringing out a sheaf of papers, he said, "I have here the affidavits of the security men on duty at the time, but to sum it up, Ambassador Kralowc there had two guests aboard the ship, one of whom created a diversion at the gate while the other one scampered about, waving something that was supposed to be the relic of St. Ferghana--" "Supposed to be!" "One moment, Ambassador," Perly said. "You'll get your chance. Mr. Cash?" "Having made sure my men saw this artifact," Cash continued, "the accomplice made his escape in a powerboat operated by a third member of the group." "Quite elaborate," Perly suggested. "Yes, sir, very." Cash chuckled, then sobered and said, "My men naturally suggested phoning the police, but the ambassador wouldn't hear of it." "You mean, this relic was apparently stolen in front of the eyes of your security men, and Ambassador Kralowc refused to make a police report?" "Yes, sir. He apparently released the first man as well." Kralowc was on his feet, yowling: "What? What are you suggesting? What are you trying to imply?" "All in good time, Ambassador," Perly told him. "If you'll just be seated--" "I want to know what you think you're--" "Sit down, Hradec," Harry Hochman said with such cold distaste in his gruff voice that Kralowc dropped back into his seat as though he'd been hit by an air bag. Perly turned back to Cash. "Could you tell us what happened next?" 'They shut the embassy," Cash replied. "We stayed on the job, but they shut the place down and all the Votskojek nationals left the country." "I see." Perly turned to another of his guests, a thoughtful, pipe-smoking man. "Sir, would you tell us your name and occupation?" "John Mclntire," the thoughtful man said, sucking on his umighted pipe. "Johns Hopkins. Forensic science." "And have you had occasion to spend time on the Pride of Votskojek, the Votskojek embassy?" "Quite a lot of time, in fact." "For what purpose, sir?" "There was some question raised about the authenticity of a certain relic, a femur, this bone along here." He indicated by running the wet end of his pipe along his left pants leg. "And on the day of the alleged robbery, were you--" "Alleged!" Many people glared at Ambassador Kralowc this time, and he subsided after that one word. Perly turned back to Mclntire. "Were you contacted by Ambassador Kralowc later that same day?" "One of his people, I believe. Lusk or Terment. They called to say they were shutting the place down for a while, I wasn't to continue my work. That situation maintained until very recently, when my fellow investigators and I were permitted to study the relic once more. Or a relic; no telling if it's the same one." "No," Perly agreed. "No telling. Do you know why doubt had been raised about the relic to begin with?" "Some sort of dispute," Mclntire suggested, "with Votskojek's neighbor over there, another little country. Sorry, don't know the name." "Tsergovia," Perly supplied, and turned to the bulldog-shaped woman in the olive green uniform. "You are Ambassador Kotor of Tsergovia, are you not?" "Yes, I am." "Could you tell us why you raised this doubt about authenticity?" "We possessed a similar sacred relic ourselves," she said. "Until very recently, we thought ours was the real one and theirs the imitation. But we tested ours, and were embarrassed to learn we had the fake." "Why was this an issue?" "There were political considerations," the ambassadress said. "At least, we thought so." Perly turned to the scrawny old man in the clerical black and the red beanie. "You are Archbishop Minkokus, are you not?" "I am." "You head a commission concerning the future UN seats of both Votskojek and Tsergovia?" "I do." "Has there been a rumor that, because of religious bias, you intended to give favorable consideration to whichever country possessed the true relic?" "Scurrilous!" "But the rumor existed. Was it false?" "Of course! What an idea!" The old archbishop grew quite pink in the face. "Of course," Perly agreed, sympathetically. "But foolish ideas sometimes are believed." He turned to Ambassadress Kotor: "Did you believe the rumor?" "I'm sorry to say we did, for a while. Until we got to know the archbishop and found out what a fair and sensible man he was." "Thank you, my dear," said the archbishop, bowing in her direction his beamed head. Perly turned to Kralowc. "And did you believe the rumor?" "Of course not!" "No, you didn't," Perly said, and bore in. "You proved you didn't believe the rumor, by giving that relic to Harry Hochman!" Kralowc's eyes bugged out. "What?" "You and Harry Hochman," Perly pursued, "have been engaged in influence peddling, both here and in Europe, for some time. I have signed statements gathered by Interpol in Europe." "Now, wait a minute," Hochman said. "Just a damn minute here." "No, sir, Mr. Hochman," Perly said, turning on the financier. "You think of yourself as an art lover, an art collector, as well as a captain of industry." "I am," Hochman said, as though it were obvious, "that's what I am. I'm all of those things." "An art lover to the extent," Perly said, "that you would try anything, do anything, to get a work of art you loved." Too late cautious, "I certainly wouldn't say that," Hochman said. "I would," Perly told him. "I have affidavits concerning unethical and illegal activities you hired others to engage in, in Geneva and Rotterdam and Buenos Aires, to obtain certain works you coveted." "Oh, balderdash," Hochman said. 'The art world is a very special --That's Guy Claverack sitting right there; he's a dealer in-- you just ask him!" "We'll get to Mr. Claverack in due course," Perly said. "Suffice it to say, for now, you have been known to go to extreme lengths to get a work of art you desired." "No more than anyone else in the field who--" "Considerably more, I would say, Mr. Hochman. Not many art lovers would resort to blackmail!" Hochman screwed up his captain of industry face into shocked disbelief. "Are you out of your mmrf?" "I don't believe so." Perly took a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket, opened it, and handed it to Kralowc, who seemed stunned by events. "Ambassador, this is a list of women you have dated in New York City in the last twelve months. There are forty-nine names on this list." Kralowc gazed dully at the list Jtie shook his head. "If you say so." "We left three names off the list," Perly said. "Could you fill them in?" "Of course not," Kralowc said. "How am I supposed to remember?" "Three women you dated within the last year. Three women you spent time and money on. Three women you went to bed with. But you have no memory of them." "I don't know, I mean, I don't see the, what's the point in all this?" "They remember you," Perly said. "They and several of the others. I have affidavits concerning their sexual experiences with you. None of them felt you were, shall we say, highly motivated. Their general impression was that you hadn't much real interest in heterosexual experience." "I don't believe you," Kralowc said. "Where are these affidavits?" Perly pointed at a gruff-looking, gray-mustached, athletic man across the room. "In the possession of Bill Karnitz over there. He's a detective with the Fraud Squad of the New York Police Department." "Fraud!" "I suggest, Ambassador," Perly said, "that you and Dr. Karver Zorn have been lovers ever since you shared a room in your undergraduate days at Osigreb Polytechnic, that you married to hide this relationship, that you parade with attractive women in New York for the same reason, because you know exposure would ruin your diplomatic career." "That's ridiculous," Kralowc sputtered, "the UN is crawling with--" "You were followed, Ambassador," Perly interrupted, "when you left the embassy in disguise two days ago. You spent all of the last two nights at the home of Dr. Zorn in the Bronx. Why?" "I can explain!" "Go ahead, Ambassador." Kralowc stared, thought, started several sentences, moaned, closed his eyes, put his head in his hands. Now Perly had him, and he knew it. "I further suggest," he suggested, pointing a rigid finger at the top of Kralowc's head, "that Harry Hochman told you he wanted the relic of St. Ferghana, as well as the jewel-encrusted sarcophagus in which it was--" "Reliquary," Guy Claverack said. "I beg your pardon," Perly said; "you're absolutely right; I was carried away. Reliquary. It was the reliquary he really wanted, wasn't it? And threatened to expose your affair with Dr. Zorn if he didn't get it. And how did he know about that affair? Because he had loaned you his Vermont chateau as a secure love nest for you and your doctor friend!" Hochman surged to his feet: "This is outrageous! To sit here, in my own hotel, and listen to this absurd string of ridiculous--" "You think it's ridiculous, Mr. Hochman?" Perly pointed toward Bill Karnitz, the Fraud Squad cop. "After our meeting here, you'll be able to discuss this ridiculous story with Detective Karnitz." Hochman blanched. "I don't know why you're trying to frame me with all this, Perly," he said, "but I never knew Hradec Kralowc was a faggot until--" "I'm not! I'm not!" "I never let him use that place! He broke in there! He's probably in league with the thieves; I wouldn't put it past him. Question him\" Bill Karnitz spoke quietly from his corner. "We will, Mr. Hochman. We'll question everybody." "And if you have nothing to hide," Perly said, with a faint sneer, "you'll be all right." Hocriman could be seen adding up the things he had to hide. Silent, no longer full of braggadocio, he sat down. Perly turned to the group. "To sum up. Ambassador Kralowc faked a theft of the relic, but didn't report it to the police, because they would uncover the fraud at once. But the record would exist in the Continental Detective Agency files, if and when the question ever arose as to what had happened to the relic. Having established this false robbery, the ambassador closed the embassy, turned relic and reliquary over to Harry Hocriman, obtained a false relic from somewhere, then reopened the embassy. All would have gone well except that, on an occasion when he and his lover Zorn were in residence in their love nest provided by Harry Hochman at his chateau, thieves broke in and stole the entire art collection, including the relic and reliquary. Even then, no one would have been likely to search for the truth behind appearances if Harry Hochman, in panic, had not denied ever having had the relic and reliquary in his possession. But now we know why he told that lie, as we know why the ambassador who was supposed to be guarding the relic in New York was in fact asleep in Vermont when that very same relic was being stolen right out from under him… in Vermont.'" "Amazing deduction," the archbishop murmured. Perly smiled, pleased with himself. "A tricky little case," he said, "but I think that wraps it up." Guy Claverack, looking bewildered, said, "Jacques? I thought we were here because of the theft. What happened to the stolen art?" Perly looked at him in surprise. "The stolen art? I suppose the thieves still have it, until the insurance company pays off. This isn't about stolen art, Guy. Stolen-art cases are a dime a dozen. This is the case of the orphaned reliquary." for weeks the neighborhood had been complaining about the smell. State and federal offices, county offices, even town offices had been deluged with calls. Children on the way to school were getting sick and housewives in a several block radius were blacking out, especially on warm, sunny days. "It's like all the dead fish in the world, all in one place," people said. Nothing did any good. EPA vans went by, registering the air. OSHA inspectors closed down two dry-cleaning plants and a bowling alley. State police ticketed a record number of motorists. But still the smell hung over the neighborhood, a curse that would not lift. Finally, several of the neighborhood men got together and spent an entire weekend searching for several blocks in every direction, until at last they found the center of the stink, its fetid core. The smell was coming from a truck parked in the middle of the neighborhood on a commercial block. It even said it was a fish truck. Calls were made. More calls were made. "Come take this stinking truck away!" Weeks went by; the smell got worse; real estate values in the entire community were beginning to slide. And then, at last, a police tow vehicle arrived. And wouldn't you know it? Took the wrong truck. Phone Calls Monday morning, Guy received a phone call from Jacques Perly, saying, "When do you expect to hear from your people?" "Probably today sometime. Why? What can I tell them? I haven't heard any numbers yet." "Tell them we need more pictures," Perly said. "One of the insurance companies is holding out; they want to be sure your people haven't already moved the goods offshore. You know, paying the ransom and not getting anything for it." "Jacques, what are you talking about? Of course they've
still got it." "I'm just telling you what the insurance company says. A picture of the loot, or at least some of it, with a copy of today's newspaper showing so they know it's a new picture." "What if they say no?" "Then this one insurance company isn't going to pay, and that's a big chunk of it gone." "Jacques, this doesn't make sense, but I'll do what I can." "I'm sure you will, Guy. As you say, you're already out-of pocket." "And getting less pleased about it every second." "We'll laugh about this when it's over." "I'm glad to hear that." Monday afternoon, fresh from an entertaining lunch in his upstairs dining room, Guy received a phone call from the carpenters. First, he explained the negotiations were still in an early stage, and then he said, "They want another picture." There was a pause, and the gloomy-voiced carpenter said, "Oh, yeah?" "They're just dragging their feet, if you want my opinion, but there's nothing I can do about it. One of the insurance companies, they insist on proof you haven't already gotten rid of the collection somewhere else. They want a picture of it, some part of it, with a copy of today's newspaper visible, to show it's a new photograph." "Uh-huh. Do they care which newspaper?" "I'm sorry?" "Never mind." "Was that a serious question?" "Who knows what's serious, Mr. Claverack?" When Guy hung up, the sound in his ears was the fluttering of many dollar bills, flying away. Monday evening, Grijk Krugnk got a call from a friend, who said, "No names." "Oh, hello, Chon." "I said no names!" "Oh. Why?" "In case anyone's listening on this line." "Your line, or my line?" "Any line. Listen, I want you to do me a favor." "Sure ding, Cho--Oh. Zorry." "Don't worry about it. In the morning, I have to go out to where we left the truck with all the stuff in it; you know the stuff I mean. Don't mention it!" "Oh, no, I wouldn't." "We don't have a car now, so could you drive me out?" "Vad, are you giving id back?" "No, they need another picture, don't ask me why." "Oh. Hokay." "It's out on Long Island, in Farport, on Merrick Avenue, in a big gray truck that says j l carting on the doors." "You're comin vid me, aren'd choo?" "Sure, me or somebody with a camera. I just want you to know where it is. I'll come to your place around eight in the morning." "I'll be here, Chon. Oo! Zorry." "S'okay." The neighborhood was a lot more bearable now that they'd taken the right truck away at last. On the other hand, it was a lot more populated after they brought the wrong truck and very carefully parked it exactly where it had been parked before. There were vans, with men in the back, parked now at both ends of that block. Even after the video store in the middle of the block closed for the night, there were still people faintly visible moving around inside there. There were also people moving around on the roof of a two-story warehouse very near where the truck had been reparked. There was more traffic in the area than usual, and a lot of it consisted of slow-moving, plain four-door sedans with two burly guys in front. Pedestrians also made more of a presence than was usual at night in a Long Island commercial/ suburban south shore community. It kind of made you wonder, in a way. It was a little after one in the morning, and the active population of the neighborhood was still surprisingly high, though maintaining a rather low profile, when a vehicle with diplomat license plates and two occupants drove slowly down that block, braked slightly beside the returned truck, then drove on. Eight minutes later, it drove by once more, even slower than last time. And seventeen minutes after that, according to several videotaped records of the incident then being taken, the same vehicle appeared again, inched past the truck, pulled in behind it, and parked. Its lights switched off". Silence and darkness ensued for another three minutes. The passenger door of the new arrival opened, and a figure dressed in black emerged. He moved forward cautiously to the rear of the truck, which was closed with a segmented metal door that would slide up to open. He reached out and grasped the handle of this door, and as his fingers closed around it a million floodlights suddenly flashed on, aimed directly at him, and a million voices shouted, "Freeze! Police!" Like a rabbit in headlights, Hradec Kralowc spun about and pressed his back against the truck. "Diddums!" he wailed, voice cracking. "It's Diddums!" In the car, the Lada with diplomat plates, Dr. Karver Zorn lowered his forehead to the steering wheel and wished himself dead. Unfortunately, it didn't work. "Diddums," Hradec mumbled brokenly, over an dover, as they handcuffed him and read him his rights and stuffed him into a squad car. "Diddums. Diddums. If s Diddums." "Going for an insanity defense," the cops told one another. And with these lousy liberal judges, they figured, he'd probably get away with it, too. so that's that," Dortmunder said, watching from the window of a darkened, closed laundromat a block away as Kralowc and Dr. Zorn were arrested in a blaze of light. Handing the binoculars to Kelp, he said, "He doesn't look happy." "None of us look happy, John," Kelp said, and peered into the binoculars. 'The cops do." What had happened was, the instant Guy Claverack said, 'They want another picture," Dortmunder knew what it meant: The cops had found the truck, and were staked out all around it. He knew that, as clearly and instinctively as you know how to scratch where it itches, but of course instinctive knowledge always has to be verified scientifically, or it isn't worth anything, so the question was how to put some other puppy's paw in the snare and see if it went sfannnggg. It was Tiny who remembered that Kralowc had at one time put a bug on the Tsergovian embassy's phones, a fact that still stuck in Tiny"s craw. "Maybe it's still there," he said. Turns out, it was. Dortmunder and Kelp had come out to Farport by themselves, much earlier today, to see what happened to their puppy, and now, while waiting for the massive police presence to dissipate, they sat on adjoining driers with their feet swinging and discussed whether or not Guy Claverack knew he was sending them into a trap. Kelp kind of thought he did, and felt they should avenge themselves by visiting Mr. Claverack's storage rooms, but Dortmunder disagreed. "You didn't talk to him on the phone, I did. He didn't sound sly or guilty or nervous or anything like that; he just sounded irritated, like he wanted to get this show on the road and didn't see why there had to be all these delays." "I still think we oughta visit him." "Maybe," Dortmunder agreed. "Later on. But maybe not to burn our bridges there. It could be, down the road, we could do business with Claverack again." "I don't think I could afford it," Kelp said. The cops took quite a while to vacate the field of play, long enough for Kelp, having no choice, to become philosophic. "There are some bright sides to this," he announced. "Oh, yeah?" "Well, we didn't get nabbed, that's one thing." 'True." "And you and me and Stan, we come out about eight grand ahead. Almost." "Not the numbers we had in mind." "No, but it's something." "And the other guys got less than three." "Don't forget the extra three cents to Tiny." By the light of departing police cars, Dortmunder looked at his friend. "You gonna mention that to Tiny, when we get back?" "Maybe not," Kelp said. Zara, Grijk, and the archbishop stood admiring the sacred relic of St. Ferghana, gleaming inside its jewel-encrusted glass reliquary, standing atop a marble and iron fourteenth-century table, originally a side altar in a long-ago-sacked Moravian or Moldavian church, now given pride of place in the archbishop's office in the United Nations building, centered on the wall directly opposite the archbishop's desk, so that every time he looked up from his heavy labors, there it would be, safe and sound. For the foreseeable future, this would be the femur's home, that having been agreed to three weeks ago, once the relic and all the rest of Harry Hochman's art collection had been recovered out there on Long Island. Those involved, being the Tsergovian government, the United Nations secretariat, and the archbishop himself (but not Votskojek), had agreed that not only was this the safest location for the holy artifact under present unsettled global conditions but that it was only justice that the archbishop, who had worked so diligently to protect the saint's remain, should have her care put into his palsied yet capable hands. The new friends had come here after Zara Kotor's investiture as delegate to the United Nations from that body's newest member, Tsergovia, assuming the seat of the no-longer-extant nation of which at one time it had formed a part. The archbishop provided sherry, in very small glasses, they drank to their new understanding, and then they admired the relic a while. "It's hard to believe depravity like Kralowc's," the archbishop commented. "To hand over this symbol of purity and beauty and eternal truth to a mere temporal prince. The dear St. Ferghana is not to be of the mundane things of this mundane world." "I couldn't agree more," Zara said, and smiled upon the archbishop. Who smiled back, saying, "Well, at least we know we shall't have the unspeakable Kralowc to worry about anymore. Though it's a pity he didn't get his just desserts." "You mean," Zara said, "the punishment he so richly deserved?" 'That's it exactly." "Not that he got off scot-free," Zara acknowledged. In fact, Kralowc had escaped by the skin of his teeth, having plea-bargained his way onto a one-way flight out of America forever and back to Novi Glad (and Mrs. Kralowc) permanently. The videotaped confession he'd made in exchange for his freedom, in which he'd outlined his part in Harry Hochman's scheme to bilk the insurance companies of $6 million--a scheme carefully described to him beforehand by the federal prosecutors--was expected to feature prominently in Hochman's trial, upcoming in just a few months, once his lawyers' delaying tactics were exhausted, despite Kralowc's craven refutation of the confession once he was beyond the reach of American justice. "Id looks bigger in daydime," Grijk said, frowning through the glass at the bone. The archbishop said, "Eh?" Grijk abruptly looked terrified, but Zara distracted the archbishop's attention by grasping the elderly prelate's forearm and saying, "I was just thinking the same thing. You know, for people like Grijk and me, the only time we could ever see the holy relic of St. Ferghana was in the cathedral in Novi Glad, where they kept it in such a dark little corner." Dot's righd," Grijk said, bobbing his head. "Dorf's vhad I me and." "Well, the Votskojeks won't be getting their hands on this precious relic again anytime soon," the archbishop said with unsaintly satisfaction. Zara said, "Once they get into the UN, though, won't they petition for its return?" Chuckling deep inside his Adam's apple, the archbishop said, "That won't be for some little time, I'm afraid. There's a certain protocol to these things, you know, a certain dignity and ceremony; only one new nation's application would normally be considered at a time. You have come in ahead of Votskojek, and I believe next there will be some small island nation in the Atlantic, Maylohda, I believe, a former colony, and then… oh, someone. It's a changing world, you know." "Well, Archbishop," Zara said, "the nicest change is how we're all getting along." The archbishop agreed with that and pressed another eighth of an ounce of sherry on them, but Zara felt she shouldn't take up any more of his valuable time, and so they made their escape, and when they were out on First Avenue, with 163 flags flapping in the breeze and the UN building glinting over their shoulders in the sunlight, Zara said, as though she'd just thought of it that second, "I tell you what. Let's go see your cousin!" "You mean Diny?" Grijk was dubious. "I don't know, he's maybe--" "It'll be a nice surprise," Zara predicted. "Come on." Tiny had called Dortmunder and Kelp and said, "J-C.'s back; there's something she wants to talk to us about; come on over," so they went over, and they were all there, greeting one another, when the doorbell rang. "We're all here," Tiny pointed out. "So it's somebody else," said J.C., who hadn't gotten to her subject matter yet and so was a little irritated by the interruption. "Come on, Tiny, get em in and get em out." "You got it." Tiny buzzed for the downstairs door, then opened to the upstairs bell, and here came Zara Kotor and Grijk Krugnk, Zara beaming a big wide dolphin smile at Tiny, saying "Tchotchkus!" while Grijk grinned uneasily and said, "Hi, Diny." Kelp said, "Who?" "I brought champagne!" Zara announced, and held it up like a flag on the barricades. Smiling coquettishly at Tiny, she said, "You've been avoiding me, you bad boy." "Aw, naw, Zara," Tiny said. "I just been busy. Especially since Josie here come back." He gestured at J.C., who smiled like a shark and said, "Hii." Grijk, extremely uncomfortable, said, "Hi, J.Z." "Hi, Grijk." "Chon's still d'only one can pronounce id." Zara looked at J.C., and the champagne went to half-mast. "Hello?" she asked. Tiny made the introductions: "Zara, this is my roommate, Josie. Most people call her J.C. Josie, this is Zara Kotor; she went to Bronx Science." "Did she?" J.C. smiled on Zara. "I bet you were good at it, too." "Zara's," Tiny explained, "ambassador of Grijk's country, Tsergovia." "And today," Zara said, getting some of her wind back at the thought, "we are a member of the community of nations!" "No kidding," J.C. said. "So am I." "What I mean," Zara said, "today we are a member of the United Nations." "That, I'm not," J.C. said. "Congratulations!" Kelp said, and Dortmunder chimed in, "That's great news." "Though I've got my application in," J.C. said. "And we owe it all," Zara proclaimed, "to you guys!" J.C. said, "Tiny? Do we still have champagne glasses? Or did you bust them all while I was away?" "Josie, you can believe me," Tiny said, crossing the room to the nice glass-doored cabinet, "I never once touched your champagne glasses while you were gone." "I believe you," J.C. said. While Tiny got out the glasses, Kelp sidled over to Zara, pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Tiny, and murmured, "Whatwas that you called him?" Zara was about to answer when Grijk, with abrupt, unexpected forcefulness, said, "She called him Diny, same like you and me." Zara thought about it. Kelp watched her. Zara's expression cleared. "That's right. I called him Tiny." Tiny brought over the glasses, Grijk wrung the bottle's neck, and they toasted the newest member of the world's least exclusive club. Then Kelp said, "J.C. had something she wanted to talk about," and Dortmunder said, "Maybe she just wanted to talk to a couple of us," and Zara said, "That's okay, we'll go; we