Why Me? by Donald E. Westlake

home.”
    They didn’t want to, but Mologna possessed a heavy, brooding, humorless authority that no minor clerk could stand up to for long, so fairly soon Zachary himself was on the line, sounding irritable: “Yes, Mologna? What is it at this hour? You found the ring?”
    â€œA foreign fella in a ski mask offered me a bribe tonight,” Mologna said. “If I would turn the ring over to him once I got it.”
    â€œA bribe?” Zachary sounded not so much astonished as bewildered, as though the very word were brand-new to him.
    â€œTwenty thousand cash in an envelope. He put it in my glove compartment himself, with his own bare hands. I have it locked in there—I’ll turn it over to the fingerprint people in the mornin.”
    â€œTwenty thousand dollars ?”
    â€œAnd sixty thousand more when I give them the ring.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t take it?”
    Mologna said not a word. He just sat there and let Zachary listen to his own monstrous question, until at last Zachary cleared his throat, mumbled something, coughed, and said, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
    â€œSure not,” Mologna said. “Sorry to disturb you so late, but I wanted to report this right away. Should the good Lord in His infinite wisdom and mercy see fit to call me to His bosom this very evenin, I wouldn’t want anyone to come across that envelope and think I meant to keep the dirty money.”
    â€œOh, of course not,” Zachary said. “Of course not.” He still sounded more dazed than amazed.
    â€œGood night to you, now,” Mologna said. “Sleep well.”
    â€œYes. Yes.”
    Mologna hung up and sat a moment in his comfortable den with the antique guns mounted on the wall, as Zachary’s blurted question circled again in his mind: “And you didn’t take it?” No, he didn’t take it. No, he wouldn’t take it. What did the man think he was? You don’t get to be top cop in the great city of New York by takin bribes from strangers .
    18
    May was looking worried when Dortmunder got home, which he didn’t at first notice because he was feeling irritable. “Cops stopped me twice,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. “Show ID, where you going, where you been. And Stan didn’t show, he was arrested. Complete mess everywhere.” Then he saw her expression, through the spiraling ribbons of cigarette smoke, and said, “What’s up?”
    â€œDid you watch the news?” The question seemed heavy with unexpressed meaning.
    â€œWhat news?”
    â€œOn television.”
    â€œHow could I?” He was still irritable. “I been spending all my time with cops and subways.”
    â€œWhat was the name of that jewelry store you went to last night?”
    â€œYou can’t take the watch back,” he said.
    â€œJohn, what was the name ?”
    Dortmunder tried to remember. “Something Greek. Something khaki .”
    â€œSit down, John,” she said. “I’ll get you a drink.”
    But he didn’t sit down. Her strange manner had finally broken through his annoyance, and he followed her through the apartment to the kitchen, frowning, saying, “What’s going on?”
    â€œDrink first.”
    Dortmunder stood in the kitchen doorway and watched her make a stiff bourbon on the rocks. He said, “You could tell me while you’re doing that.”
    â€œAll right. The store was Skoukakis Credit Jewelers.”
    â€œThat’s right.” He was surprised. “That’s just exactly what it was.”
    â€œAnd do you remember the people who came in and fussed around and then left?”
    â€œClear as a bell.”
    â€œThey were the ones,” May told him, coming over to hand him his drink, “who’d just stolen the Byzantine Fire.”
    Dortmunder frowned at her. “The what?”
    â€œDon’t you read the papers or