Good Behaviour Page 5

  Dortmunder stared at him in angry disbelief.

  "The ad agencies have this? The travel agents?"

  "No no no," Kelp said, "what you've got is, the building is wired through the main stairwell to every floor. Every tenant taps in and rents as much or as little security as he wants."

  "Oh, fine," Dortmunder said.

  "So maybe on such-and-such a floor there's nothing at all, but maybe there's everything in the world."

  "You got it," Kelp told him.

  "And no way to tell which."

  "Exactly. Also, they got their own back-up generator, so don't think about knocking out the power."

  "Oh, I wouldn't," Dortmunder said.

  "The heart of it all is down in the basement and the subbasement," Kelp said, "and believe me it is very well guarded."

  "I believe you," Dortmunder said.

  "Good. You should believe me." Kelp turned to May.

  "I don't want to sound a sour note here, May," he said, "but I wouldn't send my boyfriend into that place, if I had one, if I wanted him back."

  May put two fingers to her mouth and drew on a non-existent cigarette.

  She could smell the nicotine on her fingers.

  "John," she said, "Andy's right."

  "I don't know enough about the place," Dortmunder complained.

  "That's the problem. Every place in the world has little gaps, little corners not as strong as everywhere else, but I don't know where they are in this place, and there's no way to find out."

  "You did your best," May assured him.

  "Tomorrow's Thursday, isn't that the day the nuns can talk?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll go with you," May offered.

  "I'll explain you did your best."

  "My best," Dortmunder said. He drank beer and slapped the Polaroid pictures with his cane.

  You could hear her from the elevator. Welcome home, Frank Ritter thought, and clenched his teeth as he faced the bronze door, waiting for it to open and the onslaught to begin.

  Bronze does not make the best mirror. The lone figure reflected in the four bronze walls of this small private elevator appeared to be soft, rounded and apish, none of which was true about the actual Frank Ritter. Sixty-four years old, six feet two inches tall, Ritter kept his body in fine trim with a combination of careful diet, professionally monitored exercise and occasional plastic surgery. In certain lights, he could look younger than his oldest son, Charles, who was just forty.

  "In order to be vital, you must look vital."

  "Nobody wants to shake a shaking hand."

  "Think about tomorrow and today will take care of itself."

  "Work in the twentieth century; rest in the twenty-first."

  These were among the self-generated aphorisms included in the commonplace book which Frank Ritter carried with him always, in his left inside jacket pocket, over his heart. With a binding of hand-tooled leather over sheets of thin steel, the commonplace book also served as protection against a well-aimed assassin's bullet; ineptly aimed assassins' bullets Ritter had overcome in the past and was ready to overcome in the future. Most attempted assassins, working out of emotion rather than reason, were likely to be inept, but one might as well prepare for every eventuality.

  "In a tough world, be tougher."

  Here's how tough Frank Ritter was: One of the printed memo pads on his desk, in addition to From the desk of Frank Ritter and For your immediate attention from Frank Ritter, was one printed simply You'll never work in this town again, with room above for the recipient's name and address and room below for Ritter's small tight signature. Frank Ritter (A) was not given to empty threats, and (B) was on his second hundred-sheet You'll never… pad.

  In all the world, it seemed, full of animate and inanimate objects, the only object he could neither buy nor destroy was his own youngest daughter, Elaine.

  "The sharpest thorns are in your own roses," read another aphorism in that commonplace book, and he did mean Elaine. Now, as the elevator slid smoothly to a stop and the doors prepared to open, Ritter's face became even harder and stonier and more unforgiving than usual, and his sphincter automatically clenched. The doors slid open; here it came.

  She was in full cry, striding back and forth in front of the fat deprogrammer, Hendrickson, who merely stood there with hands folded, an amiable smile on his face like a father indulgently watching his small child sing "On the Good Ship Lollipop." Ritter's eyelids half-closed, as though his daughter were playing a bright light on him instead of a piercing voice.

  It would be easy, of course, simply to avoid the damn girl for the two hours every Thursday afternoon when her so-called vow of silence permitted her to speak, and in his weakest moments which weren't very weak-Ritter wished it were possible to take that easy path. But to avoid her during those brief intervals when she would permit herself to give voice would be to imply that she was a prisoner, that she was being merely stored here, which was definitely not the case.

  As Ritter himself had told the recalcitrant wretch a million times, she was being saved here, rescued from childish folly and misguided emotion. She was here because he loved- her, God damn her to hell and back, and that's why, whenever he was anywhere near New York City on a Thursday afternoon, he made it a point to come up here and listen to the stupid, inane, ungrateful, infuriating little sweetheart. If she weren't his daughter and he didn't love her like his own flesh and blood-well, she was, of course-if his feelings toward her weren't so basically paternal and tender he'd have the goddamn girl blacklisted on the planet Earth.

  She was in mid-sentence directed at Hendrickson-something about soft being the way of the transgressor until God got His Hands on you, and then, oh, boy-when she became aware of this new target for her venom and spleen-not very saintly, eh?-and she swung about, yelling, "There's the defier now! In the Middle Ages the barons thought they could defy God, they thought their puny temporal power made them God's equals, God's superiors, so they could beat and kick and torture God's emissaries here below, and where are they now?"

  "They'd be dead anyway, Elaine."

  "They're in Hell! Burning and roasting endlessly in Hell! Their eyes boiling in their skulls, the charred flesh peeling back ever and ever from their melting bones, the flames clutching and clutching at their screaming tongues, breaths of fire drawn into their suppurating lungs-"

  Ugh; whenever the girl got into one of her gloating descriptions of Hell it just made Ritter's stomach churn. Well, that's what the Turns in his pocket were for. Reaching for one, tuning the girl's shrill voice out, he said beneath her diatribe, "Hendrickson, Hendrickson, when is this going to end?"

  "Lord knows, Mr. Ritter."

  That redirected her fire at Hendrickson: "You dare call upon the God you defile with your every…" And so on. Sighing, sucking a Turn, Ritter said to Hendrickson, "Just how much progress do you think you've made so far?"

  "Absolutely none, to be bluntly honest," Hendrickson said, without embarrassment.

  "You're supposed to be the best."

  "Since there are none better at what I do, I am the best. If you'd like to try some people I can think of, Mr. Ritter, who'd take your money and sneak around behind your back and rape your daughter and claim it was sex therapy-" "No no no no no," Ritter said, shaking his head and both hands.

  "I just want to see some sign we're getting somewhere."

  "This is, as I've told you before," Hendrickson said, "by far the toughest case I've ever had."

  Elaine stood in front of her father, hands on hips, bent forward at the waist, thrusting her agitated face into his, screaming, "When are you going to give this up?"

  "Never!"

  "When are you going to let me live my own life?"

  Ritter was astonished.

  "That's what I'm trying for," he said, in absolute sincerity.

  "That isn't your life, down there with those scruffy nuns! Your life is fur coats in the summer! Your life is Gstaad and Palm Beach! Your life is as wife to a po
werful, well-educated man and mother to his children!"

  "Like my mother?" she demanded.

  "Is that supposed to be my life?"

  "Be careful," Ritter told her, raising a finger.

  "Never say a word against your mother."

  "You destroyed her!"

  "She is not destroyed. She is an active and productive member of society, which is better than we can say for you. If you took any interest in this world, you would have seen a photo of your mother in the New York Times just last Monday, in connection with one of her innumerable charity functions, functions which I may say are a much more realistic use officer instincts than this self-centered egotistic withdrawal and cowering away from the world which you claim-" "My mother's a drunk!"

  Ritter raised that finger again, but his manner was calm and his voice almost remorseful: "And that was a sin against the fourth commandment, as well as against the ideal of charity. Your mother's ailments are not to be bandied about as though she didn't deserve our understanding."

  The fact is, Elaine's mother Gwen was a drunk. Ritter's second wife, she was like the first, tall and slender and ash blonde, the both of them having been chosen from that same northeastern mating pool which has furnished hostesses and helpmeets for so many of our better politicians and captains of industry. If there was one flaw with the type-it might have something to do, Ritter thought, with too close inbreeding-it was a tendency toward alcoholism. Generally, they remained for twenty or more years decorative and useful before this tendency made it necessary to replace them, and even afterward most of them remained tractable.

  One mustn't blame the poor creatures, as Elaine seemed to be doing. It was just something in the blood; alcohol, usually.

  Now, having successfully accused Elaine of sin-the girl's stricken look told him his statement had struck home-Ritter pressed his advantage, or his luck, saying sadly, "The sharpest thorns are in your own roses."

  She gave him a look of scorn.

  "The rose grows from a dung heap she said.

  If there was one thing this troubling child had inherited from her father it was a knack for aphorism, and yet somehow she had never yet come up with one he felt worthy of memorialization in his commonplace book.

  "Elaine," he said.

  "SISTER MARY GRACE!"

  "ELAINE! When are you going to give up this nonsense?"

  "Never!"

  "Then you'll never leave this apartment," he said, calmer.

  She was calmer, too.

  "Oh, yes, I will," she said.

  Her assurance was so total that he had to smile at her, and say, "Do you expect God Himself to come down from Heaven and escort you back to that miserable primitive convent down there?"

  "In a way," she said.

  "He's taking His own sweet time at it, isn't He?"

  She folded her arms. Her look was defiant, smug, infuriating; not at all what Frank Ritter would call holy.

  "We'll see," she said.

  "You didn't tell me they kept birds," May said.

  Dortmunder listened to the twittering from within the low stone convent building.

  "I didn't see them last time."

  "Well, that must be nice for them," May said.

  "Birds make a nice pet."

  Dortmunder pulled the thick old rope hanging beside the heavy wooden door and from far inside came a deep bong-bong. At once, the twittering stopped, then started again, redoubled. A moment went by, and then the door was drawn open by a buxom smiling older nun in full fig; not one of the ones Dortmunder had met his earlier time here.

  "Uh," he said, "I'm-" "Oh!" the nun said, delighted, and clapped her hands together.

  "You're John! Yes, of course, I remember you in the chapel, you might remember I helped to hold the ladder, I'm Sister Mary Amity, I was almost the second person to see you, just after Sister Mary Serene, we were both in the chapel in contemplation, and she looked up, and then I looked up, and oh, I suppose this is your wife, do come in both of you, we're just delighted to have visitors, it doesn't happen very often, isn't it lucky it's just when we're permitted to speak, be careful of the stone floor, it is uneven, I'll go get Mother Mary Forcible, what was it I wanted to say?

  Never mind, it will come to me. Don't go 'way now."

  "We won't," Dortmunder promised, and Sister Mary Amity bustled away down the long colonnade.

  "Well!" May said.

  "It's their talk time," Dortmunder said.

  "I guess so."

  The twittering, now that they were inside the wall, wasn't birds after all but conversation, lots and lots of conversation, much of it taking place in the open courtyard just to their left. The building itself was L-shaped, built away from the street corner, with the open section partly slate-floored and partly turned into flower beds, at the moment bursting with spring blooms. High stone walls separated this yard from the two street sides, while arched walkways or colonnades (or cloisters, actually) ran along the two building facades. Dortmunder and May stood under this walkway, just inside the main front door, and looked out through the stone arch at the chattering nuns, many of whom peeked back while maintaining their conversations with one another, pretending they weren't dying of curiosity.

  "Here she comes," Dortmunder said, as Mother Mary Forcible came pattering down the walkway, elbows working as she hustled along. Sister Mary Amity, who'd let them in, jogged in her wake until, just before reaching Dortmunder and May, Mother Mary Forcible turned and said,

  "Thank you, Sister. I'll take over now."

  "Oh," said the sister.

  "Yes, of course, Mother." She waved as she reluctantly receded, calling, "Nice to see you. Chat again sometime."

  "Sure," Dortmunder said. Then he introduced May and Mother Mary Forcible, and extended the cane, saying, "I brought this back. Thanks for the loan."

  "Oh, Sister Mary Chaste will be very happy," Mother Mary Forcible said, taking the cane.

  "She's been using a hoe, not really satisfactory."

  "And I wanted to say…" Dortmunder said, hesitating.

  "Yes, of course. Come along to the office, we'll be comfortable there." She chugged off, and as they followed her down the walkway she said, "Would you care for coffee? Tea?"

  "Not for me, thanks," May said.

  "I'm just fine, Sister," Dortmunder said.

  "We make good coffee, as you know."

  "Oh, yeah, I know that, Sister," Dortmunder said. What he didn't say was, he didn't feel right taking their coffee when he was just here to tell them the deal was off.

  The whitewashed walls and scrubbed wooden floors and heavy-beamed ceilings led them to Mother Mary Forcible's tiny crammed office, where she ushered them in, shut the door, put the cane in a corner, and said,

  "Now."

  "See, the problem is," Dortmunder said, while Mother Mary Forcible walked briskly around him to her desk, picked up two thick looseleaf books with black covers, and turned with them.

  "John has been trying," May said.

  "Before we go any further," Mother Mary Forcible said, "I want to give you these." And she extended the two looseleaf books.

  Having no choice, Dortmunder took them and stood cradling them in his hands. They were large and bulky and fairly heavy. He said, "What's this?"

  "I think I told you," Mother Mary Forcible said, "that Sister Mary Grace is enabled to send us notes from time to time, and we mail messages to her by the same route. We told her you would be coming to rescue her-" "Oh, well, that was-" "John did do his best," May said.

  "And so," Mother Mary Forcible went on, "she arranged to have these two volumes smuggled out."

  Dortmunder looked at the looseleaf books in his hands.

  "Smuggled out? From there?"

  May took one of the books from his hands and opened it.

  "John," she said.

  "This is a list of all the tenants, and which security measures they've leased. And here's wiring diagrams.

  John? Here's the access code for the co
mputer that runs the security!"

  Dortmunder was turning the pages of the other book. Floor plans. Staff assignments. Names of vendors and scheduled days of delivery. It went on and on.

  "Sister Mary Grace is such an unworldly little thing," Mother Mary Forcible was saying.

  "She wasn't sure if you'd want any of this, or if it would help at all, but she sent it along just in case, which I thought was very enterprising of her. Are they useful?"

  Dortmunder looked up. His eyes were shining.

  "Let us prey," he said.

  NUMBERS

  Tiny Bulcher picked up the Honda Civic and put it on the back of the flatbed truck. He had to climb up, and push and tug the car a bit, to nestle it in next to the Mustang, but when he was done there was just about enough room left for one more small car; a VW Beetle, maybe, or a Mazda. Tiny got down onto the sidewalk and slogged up to the cab, where he opened the door and said to the stocky red-haired driver,"Okay, Stan."

  "Hey!" said somebody.

  Tiny started to heave his bulk up onto the passenger seat of the cab.

  "Hey! Hey, you!"

  Stan Murch said, "I think that guy's calling you, Tiny."

  "Oh, yeah?" Tiny put both feet back on the curb and turned to see what the guy wanted.

  "You yellin at me, fella?"

  "That's my car!" the guy said, sounding very upset, pointing at the Honda Civic. He was tall and slender and had thinning brown hair and a polo shirt that was a little too loose.

  Tiny didn't bother to look at the car; he'd seen it already.

  "Yeah?" he said.

  "Well- Well- That's my car!" The guy seemed stuck at that point, unable to follow his own thought anywhere. Or maybe he was just distracted by now having this clear view of Tiny Bulcher, who was a kind of mastodon in clothes, a sort of lowland Abominable Snowman, a creature made from the parts rejected by Dr.

  Frankenstein when he was sewing together his monster. When people found themselves being looked at by this gigantic bad tempered drill press, generally speaking they did tend to forget what it was they'd been going to say.

  After a sufficient silence had gone by, "Okay," Tiny said, with a voice like two boulders being rubbed together, and he turned back to climb into the cab.