Why Me? Read Online Free PDF Page A

efficient.”
    â€œFine,” said Dortmunder. Another argument saved.
    â€œSee what it is,” Kelp said, “I got access— You know what I mean?”
    â€œAccess. You can get into.”
    â€œRight. It’s a wholesaler for telephone equipment. Not the phone company; you know, one of those private companies.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œTheir warehouse fronts on the street behind me.”
    â€œAh,” said Dortmunder.
    â€œI got lots of stuff.”
    â€œTerrific.”
    â€œI got— You know how I just dialed your number?”
    â€œWith your nose?”
    â€œHeh, heh. That’s pretty good. Listen, lemme tell you. I got these cards. I got this card with holes punched in it for your telephone number, and I put the card in a slot in this phone here, and the card dials the number.”
    â€œMore efficient,” Dortmunder said.
    â€œYou got it. I got phones now all— You know where I’m calling you from?”
    â€œThe closet?”
    â€œThe bathroom.”
    Dortmunder closed his eyes. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said.
    â€œYou know, I was home here when you called yesterday.” Kelp sounded a bit aggrieved.
    â€œNot according to the machine.”
    â€œI kept trying to tell you it was me.”
    â€œYou said you were the machine.”
    â€œNo, afterward . Did you do the thing?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWho with?”
    â€œSingle-o.”
    Kelp chuckled, and said, “You didn’t do the big jewel thing out to Kennedy, did you?”
    Skoukakis Credit Jewelers was near Kennedy Airport. Dortmunder said, “How’d you know? Was it in the papers?”
    â€œIn the— John, are you—” Guk-ick, guk-ick, guk-ick . “Oop! Hold on.”
    â€œNo,” said Dortmunder, and hung up, and went back to the kitchen and turned the heat on under the kettle. He rinsed his breakfast dishes, and the water was just boiling when the phone rang. He went ahead and made coffee, added lots of milk and sugar, stirred, put the spoon in the sink, walked back to the living room, and picked up the phone on the fourteenth ring. “Yeah.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you?”
    â€œI was making coffee.”
    â€œYou need an extension in the kitchen.”
    â€œNo, I don’t. Who was your other call?”
    â€œA wrong number.”
    â€œGood thing you didn’t miss it.”
    â€œWell, anyway. Where were you last night?”
    â€œWhere you said. Out by Kennedy.”
    â€œCome on, John,” Kelp said. “Don’t milk the joke.”
    â€œMilk what joke?”
    Sounding exasperated, Kelp said, “You did not steal some twenty-million-dollar ruby from Kennedy Airport last night.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Dortmunder said. “Who said I did?”
    â€œ You did. I make a joke about the big heist at Kennedy last night, and you—”
    â€œI was out near Kennedy. Right.”
    â€œNot near Kennedy. At Kennedy.”
    â€œOh. It was a misunderstanding.”
    â€œSo what you hit was a—”
    â€œAndy.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou maybe aren’t the only one who puts little extras on their phones.”
    â€œThere’s something you want?”
    â€œYou ever hear of wiretap?”
    â€œWho do you want tapped?”
    â€œNobody. But let’s just pretend, just for fun, let’s just make believe the police or somebody have tapped your phone or my phone or whatever.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œOh, to find out if either one of us happened to commit a crime recently.”
    â€œOh. I see what you mean.”
    â€œAlso,” Dortmunder said, “there is no such thing as a twenty-million-dollar ruby.”
    â€œValuable,” Kelp said. “Priceless. It’s in the papers and on television and everything.”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking that big last night,” Dortmunder said, and the