Watch Your Back by Donald Westlake Page A

said, “You know I gotta throw the meter, I wouldn’t wanna get stopped by a cop.”

    “Fine,” Dortmunder said. “Stan can pay the fare.”

    “No meter, Mom,” Stan said.

    She sulked all the way downtown.

Chapter 11
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    Everybody hated Dortmunder’s living room. Dortmunder hated it himself, under the circumstances. They couldn’t sit all together around a table, everybody at the same height, the same distance from one another. There was nobody to bring drinks, and not that much variety of drink anyway. The only thing Tiny could find to mix with his vodka was cranberry juice, which was a comedown from the red wine he was used to. Stan and his Mom did have the beer they preferred to harder stuff when driving (and backseat driving), but neither of them liked Dortmunder’s salt shaker. “It comes out too fast!”
    The first ten minutes were spent going back and forth to the kitchen, which was actually quite far from the living room, a fact Dortmunder had never noticed before. Finally, though, they all settled down, Dortmunder in his regular chair, Murch’s Mom in May’s regular chair, Tiny on much of the sofa with Kelp on the sliver of sofa that was left, and Stan on a wooden chair he’d brought from the kitchen.

    “Now,” Tiny said, “I know we’re here because you people got something, but first I gotta know, what’s with the O.J.?”

    Dortmunder said, “Rollo wouldn’t let us use the back room. He didn’t look happy.”

    “He looked morose,” Kelp said.

    Dortmunder nodded at him. “The very word I was thinking.”

    “Also,” Kelp said, “the regulars weren’t saying anything.”

    Stan said, “What? The loudmouths at the bar?”

    “Not a peep,” Kelp told him. “They looked like they didn’t wanna attract attention.”

    “That’s the only thing they ever want to attract,” Stan said, and his Mom said, “When Stan is right, he’s right,” and Stan said, “Thanks, Mom.”

    “Also,” Dortmunder said, “there were two guys in the place, throwing their weight around.”

    With a little purr in his voice, Tiny said, “Oh, yeah?”

    Kelp said, “Those were mob guys, John. You could smell it on them.”

    Tiny shook his head. “Mob guys in the O.J. Why don’t they stick to the Copacabana?”

    Dortmunder said, “I think something’s going on in there that’s linked up with the mob.”

    Kelp said, “You know how they like to kill one another in restaurants and bars? Maybe those guys were in there waiting for Mickey Banana Nose to walk in, and bang–bang.”

    “Then I’d like them to get it over with,” Dortmunder said. “And not do any stray bullets into Rollo.”

    “That could be why he was morose,” Kelp said, then held up the jelly glass into which he had poured from Dortmunder’s freebie bottle. “You know, John?” he said. “Not to badmouth your apartment, but this stuff doesn’t taste as good here as it does at the O.J.”

    “I noticed that myself,” Dortmunder admitted. “I guess it doesn’t travel.”

    Tiny said, “Whadawe gonna do about the O.J.?”

    “Tomorrow afternoon,” Kelp told him, “John and me, we’ll go over, see what the story is, are they finished whatever they’re doing over there. Right, John?”

    “Sure,” Dortmunder said. “Could we get to the actual topic now? The reason we’re here?”

    “If I’m gonna get back to Canarsie before my bedtime,” Murch’s Mom said, “we better.”

    “Good,” Dortmunder said. “This opportunity comes to us courtesy of Arnie Albright.”

    “He’s off in rehab,” Stan said.

    Dortmunder sighed. “No,” he said, “he’s back.” And he then related, with footnotes from Kelp, everything Arnie had said to them in his apartment.

    When he finished, Stan said, “This elevator goes up the outside of the apartment building?”

    “Right,” Dortmunder said. “And it’s only got doors at the top and bottom.”

    “Something goes wrong up top,” Stan said, “that