Read Online Get Real by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online Page B

restored just a bit of his spirits. Sitting straighter, he said, “The first meeting
     was wonderful. We’re gonna have a winner there, boys and girls. But there’s nothing for us to do on
that
score, not now. The Finch family is our problem today, so don’t even think about the gang. We won’t hear a word from them
     for a couple of weeks.”

13
    N INE P.M. The Holland Tunnel-bound traffic along Varick Street moved more freely now, and two groups of men, pedestrians, a trio and
     a duet, converged from north and south toward the GR Development building. As the groups came together on the sidewalk in
     front of the metal fire-door entrance to the building, greeting one another as though this were a happy coincidence, three
     miles to the north Manny Felder took many Weegee-style photos of the back room at the OJ while out front Roy Ombelen nursed
     his white wine and listened with growing astonishment to the regulars discuss the possible meanings of the letters D, V, and
     D, and farther east, in midtown, Doug Fairkeep, unable to keep his appointment with the other two at the OJ due to the revelation
     of the sexual orientation of Kirby Finch, brainstormed with his production assistants, while growing stacks of Dunkin’ Donuts
     coffee containers kept a kind of score.
    Andy Kelp liked locks and locks liked Andy Kelp. While the others milled around and chatted to cover his activities, he bent
     to the two locks in this door, bearing with him picks and tweezers and narrow little metal spatulas.
    Judson took the opportunity to ask Dortmunder, “You think we’re gonna find that cash down here?”
    “I think,” Dortmunder said, “Doug has seen cash somewhere and it has to be somewhere he works. The two places we know where
     he works are that midtown office building and here. Maybe they wouldn’t want bribe money laying around the office, so we’ll
     see what we come up with down here.”
    “
There
we go,” Kelp said, and straightened, and pulled open the door.
    Pitch-black inside. They all piled in, and only when the door was shut did flashlights appear, two of them, one held by Kelp
     and one by Dortmunder, both hooded by electrical tape to limit their beams. The flashlights bobbed around, then closed on
     the iron interior staircase along the rear part of the left wall. At this level, it rose from front to back.
    Holding the light on the stairs, Kelp moved off across the crowded garage toward it, followed by Tiny, who used his hips and
     knees to clear a path through the underbrush of vehicles. Judson went next, then Stan, who said over his shoulder to Dortmunder,
     bringing up the rear with the other light, “This reminds me of Maximillian.”
    “I know what you mean,” Dortmunder said, Maximillian being the owner and operator of Maximillian’s Used Cars, a fellow known
     to purchase rolling stock of dubious provenance, no questions asked. He didn’t pay much, but he paid more than the goods on
     offer had cost the offerer.
    “A fella,” Stan said, “could switch the cars around in here, waltz out with one a day for a week, they’d never notice.”
    “You could be right.”
    Kelp had reached the stairs and started up. The others followed, and when Kelp got to the second floor he turned to his right,
     tried to open the door there, and it was locked.
    As the others crowded up after him, wanting to know the cause of the delay, he studied this blank door in front of him and
     said, “That’s weird.”
    “What’s weird?” everybody wanted to know.
    “It’s locked.”
    “Unlock it,” everybody suggested.
    “I can’t,” Kelp said. “That’s what’s weird. It isn’t a regular door lock, it’s a palm-print thing. There’s no way to get it
     open unless it recognizes your palm.”
    Judson said, “Down on the street they put a little simple lock you went through like butter, and up here they’ve got a high-tech
     lock?”
    “Like I said,” Kelp said. “It’s weird.”
    Tiny, next nearest