Don't Ask (28 page)

"Relax, John," May suggested. "You don't want him to get in touch with you when he gets here, and you can't do anything about anything until tonight, anyway."

Dortmunder nodded. Looking out at the view, he said, "There's just so much about this I don't like, you know?"

Under the swag light was a round dark wood-veneer table, flanked by two chairs with cushioned seats. Settling into one of these and finding it less comfortable than it looked, May said, "Do you want to talk about it, John?"

Did he? There was a little silence while he contemplated that question, and then he sighed and shook his head. "The first thing," he said, now looking at his own dim green reflection in the glass, "is the rush to do it, the pressure, the deadline."

"But you've got it all organized, don't you?"

"How do I know? I'm not even there. Two places at once, that's another problem. And also, May," he added, turning away from the glass and his own cheerless image to the more cheerful view of her seated there with one forearm on the table, fingers hardly twitching at all for a nonexistent cigarette, "also beyond that," he said, "I've always believed, and I've always said, you shouldn't get too complicated with a piece of work."

"That's right," she agreed.

"If a job can't be done with five men," he said, "it isn't worth doing.

That's what I've always said."

"I've heard you say it," she confirmed.

"And now here we are, and here's this thing, it's in two places at once--no, three, we got a bunch, who knows how many or if they know what they're doing, going into the bottom of that church over there, that Rivers of Blood place to get the glass box--and we got what, hundreds of guys?"

"Oh, not that many," May said.

"Not five, either." Dortmunder turned back to the sliding glass door, decided he didn't want to look through his own reflection anymore, grabbed the door's handle, yanked, felt several sharp pains in his hand and wrist, figured out how to unlock the door, yanked harder than before, and the door zipped away along its well-oiled track, boinked off the end piece, and came demurely rolling back in front of him again. He gently moved it out of the way, then at last looked out unencumbered at all that scenery, and felt that real mountain air on his face, and said,

"And I still got to find Hochman's place."

"You'll find it," May assured him. "Hasn't it been easy up till now?"

Well, sure; because up to now all it consisted of was an 800 number.

Having left his instructions with Tiny and Kelp, having made last-minute arrangements with Grijk, all Dortmunder'd had to do was dial 800 HAPHOUR and book himself and May into Kinohaha for tonight, including the special hotel-operated bus-- they called it a jitney, for some reason--that left the Port Authority at 2:00 p.m. and arrived at the hotel door at 6:15. Meanwhile, May had packed for them both, had taken a cab to the Port Authority, and they'd connected there at two minutes to two, "Plenty of time," as May had pointed out, to catch the nearly empty bus. They even got to sit in the front row on the right, where you can see where you're going.

Figuring that anybody who drove this round-trip twice a day to make a living probably knew the quickest routes, Dortmunder kept track of the roads the bus driver chose, jotting them down on a scrap of paper, even while knowing Stan Murch would argue with every decision along the way.

Still, he was doing his part. And he didn't lose the paper, either.

And now it was 6:30, the long June day continuing undiminished outside, they were here in room 1202 on one of Arnie Albright's good-till-Tuesday credit cards, and it was time for Dortmunder to do his next part. He took a deep inhale of pure country air, coughed, turned away from the view, and said, "You want this open or closed?"

"Oh, open," May said. "I love the air."

"Yeah, it's okay. I'll go out, see what I can get."

"I'll be in the tub," said May, who, unlike Dortmunder, knew how to be on vacation.

Dortmunder nodded vaguely, searched his pockets, found the room key, and left.

The lobby was huge. Not high-ceilinged, just long and wide and spread out, with acres of neutral carpeting and lots of conversational groups of empty sofas and big free-form-shaped roped off areas of tropical plants. Vast stretches of this lobby were just wasted, lying fallow, and the reason is, most destination resorts built since World War II have been designed with the idea that someday, someday, the particular state in which this particular resort is located just might legalize gambling; and whadaya know? Right here's where we'll put the slots.

All unknowing, Dortmunder walked through several ranks of ghost slot machines, looking around. But not for Grijk. The deal there was, Grijk would drive himself up, by himself, in an embassy car, with all the embassy spy stuff in the trunk, and would find a bed-and-breakfast somewhere in this general neighborhood-- Vermont, it's full of cute little bed-and-breakfast places with interesting histories and authentic architectural details and amiable current owners and fairly solid antique furnishings and Laura Ashley everywhere, check it out--and find his own dinner somewhere, while Dortmunder and May planned to eat at Kinohaha the dinner they were already paying for (or not paying for, given the method of payment) in the package they'd agreed to. Then, after dinner, Grijk would drive over to Kinohaha and wander around the lobby--this big lobby here--until he and Dortmunder caught sight of each other. Then, without either acknowledging awareness or knowledge of the other, Dortmunder would follow Grijk out to his car, they would both board it, and they would drive over to…

Where? That5s what Dortmunder was here to find out. Where is Harry Hochman's chateau? And what is the clever, subtle, indirect, fiendishly cunning method by which Dortmunder would ferret out its location? Time would tell.

Over there. Over there, in a lobby corner that now, in its pre gambling phase, was rather out of the way and forlorn, stood a small, ornate desk at which sat a small, ornate woman trying to look as though she weren't bored out of her mind. guest services, read the brass sign on the desk, and if you think that means she's here to service the guests, you're wrong, mister, and you're out of line, and, if you don't move along this instant, it may become necessary to call for the bell captain. Huh!

"Excuse me," Dortmunder said.

The small, ornate woman gave him an extremely skeptical look, but no words.

There was a small, ornate chair in front of the s. o. desk and woman, but Dortmunder somehow didn't feel he ought to sit in it. Standing beside this chair, not touching it at all, bent slightly forward at the waist, he said, "My wife and I, uh…"

And the sun broke through the clouds! Perking right up, the guest servitor said, "Yes, sirl Do sit down, sit down!" And she waved many scarlet false nails in the direction of the chair.

So Dortmunder sat down. "We just got here," he explained, "and we thought we'd like to maybe, uh, take a little trip around, see some stuff in the uh, uh, uh…"

"Neighborhood," she suggested. "Area. Environs."

"Yeah, like that," Dortmunder agreed. "We figured, we don't want to spend all our time in the uh, uh, uh…"

"Hotel," she offered. "Grounds. Compound."

"That's it." Dortmunder rested a palm on the desk, next to the dangerous brass sign. "So something away from here," he said. "Something, uh, uh, uh…"

"Interesting," she concluded. "Different. Unusual."

"Yeah."

She pointed one of the scarlet nails off that away, saying, "You saw all of our, uh…"

"Information?" he wondered. "Brochures? Pamphlets?" He hadn't. "Yeah," he lied, "but they're all uh, uh, uh…"

"Expected," she finished. "Standard. Uninspiring."

"Yeah."

She smiled brightly. "How about Harry Hochman's chateau?"

He gaped at her.

She said, "Do you know who Harry Hochman is? He's the owner of Kinohaha.

Do you know what his company is? It's the third-largest hotel chain in the world. Do you know what he has only eleven miles from this very spot? A beautiful chateau that he built personally, under his own direction, just for himself and his beloved wife, Adele."

"Whadaya know," Dortmunder said.

"No one is permitted inside, of course," she said, "not even when it's empty, like now--"

"Oh, it's empty?" "Yes, but still no one is permitted inside," she said, with a sympathetic little smile. "But we're encouraged to encourage the guests to drive over there and take a look at the place, just to admire Mr. Hochman's, uh…"

"Taste," guessed Dortmunder. "Skill. Money."

She was absolutely beaming at him by now. "Would you like to see the chateau?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where it is?"

"No."

So she opened a drawer and whipped out a little map, and drew a circle around the hotel and another circle around the chateau, and drew a line showing the best route between the two. Then she handed Dortmunder this map, and a big smile, and a wish he should have a nice day.

"Thank you," Dortmunder said.

In the amber glow of the Hyundai's dashboard lights, Grijk stared pop-eyed at the map. "You even god a map," he said.

"Sure," Dortmunder agreed.

"You pwofessionals," Grijk said, his deep voice deeper with admiration.

"I don't know how you do such a ting."

"You learn this stuff, over the years," Dortmunder told him, with a modest little shrug. "How to find out what you gotta know, if you're gonna do the job."

Grijk just couldn't get over it. "You found oud where id is," he said,

"you god da way we ged dere, you even goddida place is empty."

"Tricks of the trade," Dortmunder said. "So why don't we head on over there now, okay?"

"Sure, Chon."

"It's John."

Starting the Hyundai's washing-machine motor, Grijk said mournfully, "I vish I could say yours so good like you could say mine."

"Yeah, well."

Shaking his head, Grijk put the Hyundai into a loud gear and drove shakily out of Kinohaha's huge parking area--almost as big as the lobby--and out to the empty public highway.

Empty. Not even eleven o'clock, and all Vermonters and their summertime visitors were well tucked in for the night. This was an early-fading part of the world, all right. In fact, when Dortmunder and May had drifted down to the dining room for dinner at 8:30, it turned out the kitchen was just getting ready to close, and it had been made pretty plain that upright people were done with dinner by 8:30, not starting it. Feeling the pressure all around him to gulp down his chicken and peas and mashed potatoes and clear out of this bright, ugly dining room so the staff could go home, Dortmunder had slowed his intake so much, he ate as though he had the metabolism of a king cobra, and even May began to get nervous at the general chill in the air hovering over all these empty tables, and said, "Maybe we shouldn't have dessert."

"Oh, yes, we should," Dortmunder said.

Dortmunder had the pecan pie with the vanilla ice cream, and it was pretty damn good. It was, in fact, sitting quite comfortably inside Dortmunder right now as he rode beside Grijk through the green darkness of Vermont in the orange embassy Hyundai, a car that, wearing diplomat plates, looked like a little girl in her mother's high heels.

Though they would never learn who specifically had been responsible, the truth is, it was a third-generation Dartmouth student who had taken as a design touch for his dormitory room that one crucial road sign that caused Dortmunder and Grijk to wander irrelevant portions of Vermont for an extra twenty minutes before finally getting back on track, but except for this one glancing nod from the Ivy League, molders of America's leaders, the journey was uneventful, and soon enough they found themselves at the front side of the chateau.

Even at night, even from uphill, the chateau was impressive, a sprawling, turreted, gabled, lofty folly that fit with this mountain scenery without at all blending in; like a black beauty mark on the cheek of a cancan dancer, it augmented the surrounding niceness without ever for a second appearing natural.

And the other thing about the chateau, which became immediately apparent, was that when the small, ornate woman had described the place as "empty" she had not meant that as a synonym for alone. The chateau was not actually one building but three, the central magnificence being flanked by two outrider buildings, both pocket versions of the same architectural style, the one on the left appearing to be a combination garage/storage/ utility structure, and the one on the right a fairly modest but nevertheless roomy house, two stories high plus attic, and occupied.

Very occupied. Scattered out front of this appendage building were a pickup, a station wagon, a dirt bike, three bicycles, a tricycle, and a stroller. Lights were on in two upstairs rooms, and blue television light flickered in a couple of adjoining downstairs windows.

Of course. Naturally. People like the Hochmans would have a staff in residence, a large family to take care of the place while they're away and see to it no vandals break in. Or others.

"Well, let's put it this way," Dortmunder said. "If they made it too easy, I'd probably get bored and not even want to go on with it."