Don't Ask by Donald E. Westlake

Author:Donald E. Westlake [Donald E. Westlake]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: General Interest
Published: 2011-06-19T08:35:44.407000+00:00

33

T–l^w . we of you," Arnie Albright said when he opened the door and saw Dortmunder and Kelp both standing there, unnatural smiles on both their faces. "So, Dortmunder, you brought somebody along to talk to so you don't have to talk to me."

"Nah," Dortmunder said, and Kelp said, "I asked to come along, Arnie, I hadn't seen you for such a long time."

"You're lucky you got a nose doesn't grow," Arnie told Kelp, and stepped back to usher them into his smelly apartment.

Arnie's apartment was much like the grizzled, gnarly Arnie himself. Its small rooms had big windows looking out past a black metal fire escape at the stained brown brick back of a parking garage no more than four feet away. For decoration, the walls were covered with part of Arnie's calendar collection. Pretty pictures, sexy pictures, dumb pictures, all over an infinity of Januaries, Januaries starting on every possible day of the week, under pictures of automobiles from every automotive era, pinups from every era of permissiveness, plus enough cuddly puppies, kittens, foals, and ducklings to induce diabetes. Just to keep interest alive, the occasional calendar began with October or March.

In front of the parking garage-view windows was an old library table, on the surface of which Arnie had laminated several of his less valuable half-year calendars--duplicates and drugstore displays and those on which pencil additions graced the girls. On this table now was also a small brown paper bag, toward which Arnie gestured, saying, "That's what you came here for. Not to see me. People don't ever want to see me, you can take my word on that."

"You're too hard on yourself, Arnie," Dortmunder assured him as he moved toward the table and the paper bag.

Seating himself at the table, Arnie said, "Save your breath, Dortmunder, I know what a scumbag I am. People in this town, they call a restaurant, before they make the reservation they say, 'Is Arnie Albright gonna be there?' I know these things, Dortmunder."

It was so hard to talk with Arnie. How could you agree with him, but on the other hand how could you not agree with him? Avoiding the issue entirely, Dortmunder said, "So you've got plastic, huh?"

"Sit down, Dortmunder," Arnie offered. "If you can bear to be that close to me, with the smell."

Dortmunder and Kelp took the other two chairs at the table, Dortmunder trying to look nothing but businesslike, Kelp with a manic bright expression of camaraderie and fellow-feeling. "Okay," Dortmunder said,

"here we are."

"It's my stomach," Arnie said. "My own stomach hates me; it's so aggravated it gives me this breath. Well, you can smell it for yourself;

I smell like a toilet."

"It's not that bad, Arnie," Dortmunder said. It was, in fact, worse.

Kelp, talking through that Kabuki mask of palship, said, "You got some cards for us, huh, Arnie?"

"That's why you're here," Arnie said, and dumped out of the paper bag half a dozen batches of credit cards, each held by a rubber band, each with its own scrawled note on a scrap of paper on top.

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