Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake Page B

what did your friend say?”
    â€œNothing. Just told me to come see J.C. Taylor and said he’d phone ahead to set me up. But he acted a little funny.”
    The elevator door closed. The two Japanese kept talking together, secure in their native tongue. Dortmunder said, “What kind of funny?”
    Shrugging, Tiny said, “I don’t know for sure. Just a feeling I had.”
    â€œI don’t want to walk into anything stupid.”
    â€œNo, no,” Tiny said. “This guy wouldn’t do anything like that. People don’t do humorous things to me, they know I don’t appreciate it. I just had a little funny feeling, that’s all, the way he talked.”
    The elevator stopped at seven, and they stepped out to the hall. Behind them, the door slid closed and the Japanese gentlemen rode on up.
    The office directory facing the elevators listed far more firms than were on the floors higher up. A ramshackle conglomeration of small companies had rented space on this non-prestige lower floor, leaving richer businesses to pay the higher rents that went with a higher address.
    â€œSeven-twelve we want,” Tiny said. “Down this way.”
    The corridor walls were dotted with doors showing obscure names on their doors. The door of room 712 listed three:
    Super Star Music Co.
Allied Commissioners’ Courses Inc.
Intertherapeutic Research Service
    Dortmunder said, “Which one do we want?”
    â€œJ.C. Taylor, that’s all I know.”
    Tiny pushed open the door, and they stepped into a small cluttered receptionist’s office. All the available wall space was taken up by floor-to-ceiling gray metal shelves, piled high with small brown cardboard cartons. A door in the opposite wall was marked with the one word PRIVATE. The receptionist, typing labels on an old black manual typewriter on a battered gray metal desk, was a hard-looking brunette of about thirty. She was wearing a pale blue blouse and tight black slacks over black boots. She glanced up when Dortmunder and Tiny walked in, looked back down at her work, finished the label she was typing, and swiveled from the typing side of her desk to the side with the telephone and the Rolodex and the clutter of correspondence and pencils and general trivia. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. She was brisk and efficient and in an apparent hurry to be rid of them, so she could get back to her typing. “What can I do for you?”
    Tiny said, “J.C. Taylor, please.”
    â€œI’m afraid he isn’t in right now. Did you call for an appointment?”
    â€œI don’t like phones,” Tiny said. “My friend told me just come over.”
    She lifted an eyebrow. “Your friend?”
    â€œFella named Murtaugh,” Tiny said. “Pete Murtaugh.”
    â€œAh.” Her attitude changed, became both more interested and more guarded. “And your name?”
    â€œMr. Bulcher. My friend said he’d call here, talk to Taylor for me.”
    â€œYes, he did.” She glanced quickly at Dortmunder, as though making up her mind about something, then said briskly to Tiny, “One moment, please,” and got to her feet.
    Tiny nodded toward the door marked PRIVATE, saying, “You mean, maybe Taylor’s in after all?”
    â€œIt could be,” she said, and suddenly grinned, as though at some private joke. The grin eased the hardness out of her features and made her much better looking. “I’ll be with you boys in just a minute,” she said, and walked around the desk and through the inner door, closing it behind herself.
    Tiny glanced at Dortmunder and said, “What do you think?”
    Dortmunder said, “Is this the same kind of funny feeling you got from your friend?”
    â€œYeah, I guess it is,” Tiny said. Then he frowned and gestured at the telephone on the desk. “That button just lit up.”
    â€œThey’re making a call,”