FIFTY-SEVEN

One Monday in June, the reservoir gang converged on 46 Oak Street in the peaceful upstate rural community of Dudson Center. Already in residence at the house were May Bellamy, Tom Jimson, and Murch’s Mom. Coming from Islip, Long Island (home of the lobotomy; known in psychiatric circles as Icepick, Long Island), was Doug Berry, his custom-packaged pickup laden with gear for the job ahead: diving equipment, a 10hp outboard motor, uninflated inflatable boat, lots of other stuff. In a borrowed bakery van, driving up from New York City, were Stan Murch and Wally Knurr, with Wally’s computer components strapped down on the bread shelves in back. Also coming from the city, in a silver Cadillac with California MD plates, equipped with cruise control, a/c, cassette player, reading lights and extremely woodlike dashboard trim, traveled Andy Kelp (driver), John Dortmunder (front-seat passenger), and Tiny Bulcher (all over the rear seat). Of these vehicles, only the Cadillac was being followed, by a large roughhewn shambling fellow named Ken Warren, wedged with his tow bar into a small red two-door Toyota Chemistra.

The travelers in the Cadillac remained unaware of the intense interest seven car-lengths behind them and chatted mostly about their upcoming task. “I’ve been wrong before,” Dortmunder conceded, “but I just have a feeling. This time, we’re gonna get that box.”

“The reason you’re feeling good,” Kelp told him, ignoring the red Toyota in all three rearview mirrors, “is the same reason I’m feeling good. We are not going into that reservoir. Not you, and not me.”

“Let Doug go in the reservoir.”

“Right.”

“He likes that kind of thing.”

“He does.”

“We don’t.”

“We don’t.”

In the backseat, Tiny wriggled around, uncomfortable, and finally reached underneath himself to pull out a tambourine, which he stared at in irritated astonishment. “Hey,” he said. “There’s a tambourine in this car.”

“A what? You sure?” Kelp looked in the interior rearview mirror as Tiny held up the tambourine, blocking the view of the red Toyota. “It looks like a tambourine,” he admitted.

“It is a tambourine,” Tiny said, and shook it. Tambourine music filled the air.

“I remember that sound,” Dortmunder said. “They used to have those in the movies.”

“Wait a second,” Tiny said, and from the crevice between seat and back he brought out a small cardboard box. “Now we got a deck of tarot cards.” Putting down the tambourine (jing!), he took the cards out of their box and riffled them. “Looks like a marked deck,” he said.

Dortmunder said, “Andy, what kinda doctor did you get this car from?”

“I dunno,” Kelp said. “He was making a house call, I think. It was in front of a Reader and Advisor on Bleecker Street.”

“I don’t want this doctor doing any operations on me,” Tiny said. He shuffled the cards. “John, you want me to tell your fortune?”

“Maybe not,” Dortmunder said.

The red Toyota, still unnoticed, was a block behind the Cadillac when it made the turn onto Oak Street and pulled up onto the gravel driveway beside the house. Stopping just shy of the chain-link fence, Kelp said, “Looks like we’re first.”

“Yeah?” Dortmunder looked interested. “What do we win?”

“Just the glory,” Kelp told him.

Ken Warren steered the red Toyota past 46 Oak Street, watching the trio from the Cadillac unload luggage from the trunk. He drove on by, made the next right, took the next left onto Myrtle Street and parked near the far corner there. Leaving the tow bar behind—it would be easier to tow the Toyota with the Cadillac than the other way around—he locked up and retraced his route on foot, shambling along round-shouldered and thrust-jawed like a bad-tempered bear.

The Cadillac had been left unlocked, and he was seated behind its wheel, door open, looking through his keys for the one to fit this ignition, when a bread company van pulled in behind him, filling the rearview mirrors and blocking his exit.

Now, Ken was the big silent type, not because he had nothing to say but because of his deep nasal twang and severe glottal stop. He preferred to be thought of as a silent tough guy rather than a geek who couldn’t talk right. But there were moments when speech was necessary, and this looked like one of them. “Hey,” Ken said, and leaned out to look back at the van’s driver, who he assumed was just making a delivery. “Moo fit!” he called.

Stan Murch, who was not exactly making a delivery, and who knew from the MD plates that (1) Andy Kelp had driven this car here, and (2) that ugly mug at the wheel wasn’t Andy Kelp, switched off the van’s engine, pulled on the emergency brake, and stepped out to the driveway, calling toward the house, “Andy! Mayday!”

Wally, climbing over the driver’s seat to get out on the same side as Stan, said, “Who is he, Stan?”

“No idea.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“No idea.”

There is one rule in Ken Warren’s profession: If you’re in the car, it’s yours. Therefore, he slammed the driver’s door of the Cadillac, hit the button that locked all four doors, and went back to his methodical run-through of his keys. Once he got this vehicle started, he’d use it to push the van out of his way.

People erupted from the house; first Andy Kelp, then Dortmunder, May, Tiny, and Tom. While May and Tom stayed on the porch, observing, Kelp and Dortmunder and Tiny went over to join Stan and Wally in looking at the beefy man inside the Cadillac.

“What’s going on?” Kelp asked.

“No idea,” Stan said.

“That man was in the car,” Wally said in great excitement, “when we got here.”

“He’s still in the car,” Kelp pointed out, and rapped on the glass in the driver’s door. “Hey! What’s the story?”

Got it! The Cadillac engine caught, and Ken looked over at the right-door mirror just in time to see a heavy-laden pickup pull into the driveway behind the van, filling the driveway and blocking the sidewalk as well. A handsome blond guy in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt that said WORK IS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T SURF got out and strolled curiously forward.

“What’s the story here?” Doug asked.

“No idea,” Stan said.

Hell! Could he push both the van and the pickup? Deciding he had no choice, he could but try, Ken shifted into reverse and watched a green-and-white taxi pull up to the curb, parking crossways just behind the pickup.

Murch’s Mom got out of her cab and joined the crowd beside the Cadillac, saying, “What’s happening?”

“No idea,” said her son.

Ken considered the chain-link fence. Drive through it? Unlikely; the metal pipe supports were embedded in concrete. It wouldn’t be any good to make the Cadillac inoperable.

Murch’s Mom went into the house for a potato. Kelp leaned close to the glass separating him from the stranger. “We’re gonna put a potato in the exhaust!” he yelled. “We’re gonna monoxide you!”

Ken was feeling very put-upon. And also, come to think of it, a little confused. This mob around the Cadillac just didn’t look right. Could he have made a mistake?

No. The car was right: make, model, and color. The license plate was right. There was a tambourine on the backseat.

Still, something was wrong. As the woman cabdriver came out of the house carrying a big baking potato in her hand, Ken cracked the window beside him just far enough to make conversation possible, and announced through the crack, “Ngyou’re gno gnipthy!”

Kelp reared back: “What?”

“Gnone of ngyou are gnipthyth!”

“He’s a foreigner,” Stan decided. “He doesn’t talk English.”

Ken glared at him. “Ngyou makin funna me?”

“What is that he talks?” Murch’s Mom asked, holding the potato. “Polish?”

“Could be Lithuanian,” Tiny said doubtfully.

Dortmunder turned to stare at him. “Lithuanian!”

“I had a Lithuanian cellmate once,” Tiny explained. “He talked like—”

Ken had had enough. Pounding the steering wheel, “Ah’m sthpeakin Englisth!” he cried, through the open slit in the window.

Which did no good. Dortmunder said to Tiny, “Tell him it’s our car, then. Talk to him in Lithuanian.”

Tiny said, “I don’t speak Lith—”

“Ikn’s gnot your car!” Ken yelled. “Ikth’s the bankth’s car!”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Kelp said. “I understood that.”

Dortmunder turned his frown toward Kelp: “You did?”

“He said, ‘It’s the bank’s car.’ ”

“He did?”

“Fuckin right!” Ken yelled.

Murch’s Mom pointed the potato at him. “That was English,” she said.

“He’s a repo,” Stan said.

“Ah’m a hawk!” Ken boasted.

“Yeah, a car hawk,” Stan said.

Wally said, “Stan? What’s going on?”

Stan explained, “He’s a guy repossesses your car if you don’t keep up the payments.” Turning to Kelp, he said, “Andy, you stole a stolen car. This guy wants it for the bank.”

Ken nodded fiercely enough to whack his forehead against the window. “Yeah! The bank!”

“Oh!” Kelp spread his hands, grinning at the repo man. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Ken peered mistrustfully at him.

“No, really, fella,” Kelp said, leaning close to the window, “no problem. Take it. We’re done with it anyway.”

Handing Doug the potato, Murch’s Mom said, “I’ll move my cab.”

Handing Stan the potato, Doug said, “I’ll move my pickup.”

Handing Wally the potato, Stan said, “I’ll move the van.”

Wally pocketed the potato and smiled at the man in the Cadillac. He’d never seen a repo man before.

Ken, with deep suspicion, watched all the other vehicles get moved out of his way. Everybody smiled and nodded at him. The other woman and the mean-looking old guy came down off the porch to hang out with everybody else. The woman seemed okay, but the old guy suddenly said, “Kill him.” His voice was thin and reedy, and his lips barely moved, but everybody heard him, all right. Including Ken.

The others all turned toward the old guy, and several of them said, “Huh?”

“Drag him out through the crack in the window,” the old guy suggested. “Bury him in the back yard in a manila envelope. He knows about us.”

Everybody blinked at that, but then Dortmunder said, “He knows what about us?”

The mean-looking old guy kind of shifted position and looked at various pieces of gravel, but he didn’t have anything else to say. So the others all turned back to Ken with their big smiles on again.

Smiles that Ken mistrusted; none of this behavior was traditional. Lowering his window another fraction of an inch, he said, “Ngyou dough wanna argnue?”

Kelp grinned amiably at him. “Argue with a fluent guy like you? I wouldn’t dare. Have a happy. Drive it in good health.” Then he leaned closer, more confidentially, to say, “Listen; the brake’s a little soft.”

The other vehicles were all out of the way now, but people kept milling around back there. The van driver returned from moving his van to lean down by Ken’s window and say, “You heading back to the city? What you do, take the Palisades. Forget the Tappan Zee.”

Ken couldn’t stand it. Trying hopelessly to regain some sense of control over his own destiny, he stared around, grabbed the tambourine, shoved it into the van driver’s hand: “Here. This ain’t the bank’s,” he said, the clearest sentence of his life.

The blond guy stood down by the sidewalk and gestured for Ken to back it up; he was going to guide him out to the street. Ken put the Cadillac in reverse again, and the woman from the porch came over to say, “You want a glass of water before you go?”

“Gno!” Ken screamed. “Gno! Just lemme outta here!”

They did, too. Three or four of them gave him useful hand signals while he backed out to the street, and then all nine of them stood in the street to wave good-bye; a thing that has never happened to a car hawk before.

Ken Warren had his Cadillac but, as he drove away, he just didn’t look very happy about it. Much of the fun seemed to have gone out of the transaction for him.