Why Me? Read Free

down, then flared up; dipped down, flared up; dipped down, flared up; dipped down. Went out.
    A second match flared.
    â€œA pipe smoker,” Dortmunder grumbled. “I might of known. We’ll be here till sun-up.”
    Flare-dip; flare-dip; flare-dip. Flare, out.
    Pause.
    The car engine started, without a roar. After another little interval, the headlights went on. Time passed, and abruptly the car whipped backward two or three feet, then jolted to a stop.
    â€œHe put it in the wrong gear,” Dortmunder commented. He was beginning to hate that old fart.
    The car moved forward. In no hurry at all, it angled away from the curb, joined the stream of no traffic, and disappeared from view.
    Bones cracking, Dortmunder unlimbered himself and shook his head. Even a straightforward jewelry store burglary couldn’t be simple: mysterious intruders, foreign languages, pipe smokers.
    Oh, well, it was over now. Moving forward through the store, Dortmunder brought out his pencil flash, shone it around in brief spurts of light, and found under the cash register the small safe those people had opened and closed. And now Dortmunder smiled, because at least this part of the job was working out. It had seemed to him that any merchant who had bought that burglar alarm might very well have bought this safe—or one generally like it—and here it was. Another old friend, like the alarm system. Seating himself cross-legged tailor-fashion on the floor in front of this old friend, spreading his tools out around himself, Dortmunder went to work.
    It took fifteen minutes, about par for this kind of can. Then the safe door swung open, and Dortmunder beamed his flash in on the trays and compartments. Some nice diamond bracelets, a few okay sets of earrings, an assortment of jeweled brooches, and a varied array of rings. A tray of engagement rings, with diamonds small enough to fall through a cotton sheet; Dortmunder left those behind, but much of the rest went into his various pockets.
    And here in this drawer was a little box, which when open proved to be black velvet lined, and to contain only one item; a ring set with a suspiciously large red stone. Now why would any jeweler put a fake stone like this in his safe? On the other hand, could it possibly be real and yet have found its way to this small-time neighborhood shop?
    Dortmunder considered leaving the thing, but then decided he might just as well take it along. The fence would tell him if it was at all valuable.
    Stowing the swag and his tools into the various pockets of his jacket, Dortmunder got to his feet and spent a minute longer in the place, shopping. What would be nice for May? Here was a ladies’ digital watch, with a simulated platinum band; you pressed this button here on the side, and on the TV-screen-shaped black face numbers appeared, telling you the exact time down to hundredths of a second. Very useful for May, who happened to be a supermarket cashier. And what made it a ladies’ watch, the numbers were pink.
    Dortmunder pocketed the watch, took one last look around, saw nothing else of interest, and left. He did not bother to close the safe.
    4
    Georgios Skoukakis hummed a little tune as he drove his maroon Buick Riviera northeastward across Queens toward Belmont Race Track and Floral Park and his own tidy little home near Lake Success. He had to smile when he thought how excited those two men had been, so nervous and keyed up. Here were they, experienced guerrillas, soldiers, fighters in Cyprus, young men barely in their thirties, healthy, professional and well-armed. And on the other hand here was himself, Georgios Skoukakis, 52, naturalized American citizen, jeweler, small merchant, no history of violence or guerrilla activity, never even in the Army, and who was it stayed calm? Who was it had to say, “Easy, easy, gentlemen, haste makes waste”? Who was it behaved naturally, normally, calmly, holding the Byzantine Fire in the palm of