"I know how to divide by two, Andy." Dortmunder also knew how to divide by zero, which was how he'd profited from his other operations recently-just a little run of hard luck, nothing worth talking about-which was why he'd finally nodded and said, "I'll look at this horse of yours," and why he was now here in the sultry New Jersey night, ankle-deep in some sort of warm, dark pulpiness, listening to Andy Kelp imitate horse whickers and deciding it was time they found the right animal and got the hell out of there.

Because the problem was that Dire Straits was, in a manner of speaking, in prison. A prison farm, actually, with fields and open sky, but a prison nevertheless, with tall fences and locked gates and a fairly complicated route in and out. And breaking into a prison for horses was not much easier than breaking into a prison for people, particularly when the horses involved were also valuable.

V-A-L-U-A-B-L-E. When Kelp first showed Dortmunder the item from the Daily News sports pages about how Dire Straits was insured for more than $1,000,000, Dortmunder had said, "A million dollars? Then what do we need with ten grand? Why don't we deal with the insurance company?"

"John, I thought of that," Kelp had said, "but the question is, Where would we keep it while we negotiated? I've only got the studio apartment, you know."

"Well, May wouldn't let me keep it at our place, I know that much." Dortmunder sighed and nodded. "OK. We'll settle for the ten."

That was last week. This week, on Tuesday, Kelp and Dortmunder and the old coot had driven out through the Holland Tunnel and across New Jersey into the Short Hills area in a Ford Fairlane the old coot had rented, and when they got to the place, this is what they saw. On a wandering country road through rolling countryside covered with the lush greenery of August was a modest Colonial-style sign reading YERBA BUENA RANCH, mounted on a post next to a blacktop road climbing up a low hill toward a white farmhouse visible some distance in through the trees. Kelp, at the wheel, turned in there just to see what would happen, and what happened was that, about halfway to the house-white-rail fences to both sides of the blacktop, more white-rail fences visible in the fields beyond the house-a nice young fellow in blue jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of a horse on it came walking out and smiled pleasantly as Kelp braked to a stop, and then said, "Help you, folks? This is a private road."

"We're looking for Hopatcong," Kelp said, just because the name HOPATCONG on a highway sign had struck him funny. So then, of course, he had to listen to about 18 minutes of instructions on how to get to Hopatcong before they could back up and leave there and drive on up the public road and take the right turn up a very steep hill to a place from which they could look down and see Yerba Buena Ranch spread out below, like a pool table with fences. The ranch was pretty extensive, with irregularly shaped fields all enclosed by those white wooden rails and connected by narrow roads of dirt or blacktop. Here and there were small clusters of trees, like buttons in upholstery, plus about ten brown or white barns and sheds scattered around out behind the main farmhouse. They saw about 30 horses hanging out and watched a little cream-colored pickup truck drive back and forth, and then Dortmunder said, "Doesn't look easy."

Kelp paused in taking many photos of the place to stare in astonishment. "Doesn't look easy? I never saw anything so easy in my life. No alarm system, no armed guards, not even anybody really suspicious."

"You can't put a horse in your pocket," Dortmunder said. "And how do we get a vehicle down in there without somebody noticing?"

"I'll walk him out," the old coot said. "That's no trouble; I know horses."

"Do you know this horse?" Dortmunder gestured at the pretty landscape. "They got a whole lot of horses down there."

"I'll know Dire Straits when I see him, don't you worry," the old coot said.

So now was the time to find out if that was an idle boast or not. Using the photos they'd taken from all around the ranch, plus New Jersey road maps and a topographical map that gave Dortmunder a slight headache, he'd figured out the best route to and from the ranch and also the simplest and cleanest way in, which was to start from a small and seldom-traveled county road and hike through somebody else's orchard to the rear of the ranch, then remove two rails from the perimeter fence there. They would go nowhere near the front entrance or the main building. The old coot would go with them to identify Dire Straits and lead him away. Going out, they'd restore the rails to confuse and delay pursuit. The old coot had rented a station wagon and a horse van with room for two horses- Dortmunder and Kelp couldn't get over the idea that they were working with somebody who rented vehicles rather than steal them-and so here they were, around two A.M. on a cloudy, warm night.

But where was Dire Straits?

Could he be off partying somewhere, for heavy money? The old coot insisted no; his anonymous boss had ways of knowing things like that, and Dire Straits was definitely at home these days, resting up between dates.

"He'll be in one of them buildings over there," the old coot said, gesturing vaguely in the general direction of planet Earth.

"I can still hear some back that way," Kelp said. "Now they're going, "Floor-flor."'

"That's a snort," the old coot said. "Those old plugs stay outside in good weather, but Dire Straits they keep in his stall, so he stays healthy. Down this way."

So they went down that way, Dortmunder not liking any bit of it. He preferred to think of himself as a professional and for a professional there is always the one right way to do things, as opposed to any number of amateur or wrong ways, and this job just wasn't laying out in a manner that he could take pride in. Having to case the joint from a nearby hilltop, for instance, was far less satisfactory than walking into a bank, or a jewelry wholesaler, or whatever it might be, and pretending to be a messenger with a package for Mr. Hutcheson. "There's no Mr. Hutcheson here." "You sure? Let me call my dispatcher." And so on. Looking things over every second of the time.

You can't show up at a ranch with a package for a horse.

Nor can you tap a horse's phone or do electronic surveillance on a horse or make up a plaster imitation horse to leave in its place. You can't drill in to the horse from next door or tunnel in from across the street. You can't do a diversionary explosion outside a ranch or use the fire escape or break through the roof. You can't time a horse's movements.

Well, you can, actually, but not the way Dortmunder meant.

The way Dortmunder meant, this horse heist was looking less and less like what the newspapers call a "well-planned professional robbery" and more and more like hobos sneaking into back yards to steal lawn mowers. Professionally, it was an embarrassment.

"Careful where you walk," the old coot said.

"Too late," Dortmunder told him.

Dortmunder's ideas of farms came from margarine commercials on television and his ideas of ranches from cigarette ads in magazines. This place didn't match either; no three-story-high red barns, no masses of horses running pell-mell past boulders. What you had was these long, low brown buildings scattered among the railed-in fields, and what it mostly reminded Dortmunder of was World War Two prisoner-of-war-camp movies- not a comforting image.

"He'll be in one of these three barns," the old coot said. "I'm pretty sure."

So they entered a long structure with a wide central cement-floored aisle spotted with dirt and straw. A few low-wattage bare bulbs hung from the rough beams above the aisle, and chest-high wooden partitions lined both sides. These were the stalls, about two thirds occupied.