Meanwhile, Fairkeep’s traffic light had finally changed, permitting him to cross the avenue, and as he came nearer they could see he was a pleasant-looking guy in his early thirties, with that kind of open helpful manner that people’s mothers like. Which didn’t mean he was trustworthy.

Or particularly swift. He reached the entrance at the far end of the wrought-iron fence, then stood there gaping around, apparently not able to figure out who anybody might be, until Dortmunder raised an arm and waved at him.

Then the guy came right over, big smile on his face, hand stuck out for a shake from several yards away, and when he got close enough he said to Dortmunder, “You must be Mr. Murch.”

“In that case, I got it wrong,” Dortmunder told him. “I’m John. This is Murch. Siddown.”

Still smiling, Fairkeep put his unshaken hand away and said, “I’m Doug Fairkeep.”

“We know,” Dortmunder said. “Siddown.”

So Fairkeep sat down and said to Stan, “I had a very pleasant chat with your mother yesterday.”

“I heard about that,” Stan said. “Usually, she’s a little better at keeping her lip buttoned.”

“Oh, don’t be hard on your mom,” Fairkeep said, with a little indulgent smile. “She could tell I didn’t mean any trouble for you guys.”

Dortmunder said, “What do you mean for us guys?”

“I work for Get Real,” Fairkeep explained. “We produce reality shows and sell them to the networks. Maybe you’ve seen some—”

“No,” Dortmunder said.

Fairkeep was almost but not quite hurt. “No? How can you be sure you never saw even—”

“John and I,” Stan explained, “don’t do much TV.”

“I do the six o’clock news sometimes,” Dortmunder allowed, “for the apartment house fires in New Jersey.”

“Well, reality TV,” Fairkeep told them, regaining the wind in his sails, “is the future. You don’t have these fake little made-up stories, with actors pretending to be spies and sheriffs and everything, you’ve got real people doing real things.”

Dortmunder gestured at Trader Thoreau and its surround. “I got all that here.”

“But not shaped,” Fairkeep said. “Not turned into entertainment.”

Stan said, “Why doesn’t she come sit with us?”

Fairkeep looked at him. “What? Who?”

“Your friend,” Stan said, and pointed to where she lurked just outside the fence in crowded pedestrian land, being knocked about by elbows and shoulders as she tried to pretend she wasn’t taking pictures with a cell phone. “The fat girl in red.”

For just an instant, Fairkeep turned as red as the fat girl’s coat, but then he laughed, open and cheerful, and said, “You guys are something. Sure, if you want. Where is she?” Not waiting for an answer (because he obviously knew she would be behind him to focus on the other two at the table), he twisted around and waved to her to join them.

She obeyed, but hesitantly, as though not sure she’d interpreted the gesture properly, and when she neared them Fairkeep said, “Join us, Marcy. Marcy, this is John and that’s Stan Murch.”

Marcy perched herself on the leading edge of the table’s fourth chair, but as she opened her mouth to speak a waiter appeared, harried and hurried but somehow with a smooth still inner core, to say, “For you, folks?”

Stan said, “We all want a beer. Beck.”

Fairkeep said, “Oh, nothing for me, thanks.”

“You’re paying for it,” Stan told him, “so you might as well take it.” He nodded to the waiter, who was anxious to be off. “That was four Beck.”

Slap, four paper napkins hit the table and the waiter was gone.

Stan said, “Marcy, let me look at that phone.”

“Sure.” She handed him the phone, and he smiled at her as he pocketed it.

Fairkeep said, “Hey—”

“While we’re at it,” Dortmunder said, “why don’t you give me that receiver now? It’s there in your right pocket.”

“My what?”

“The thing that’s recording us,” Dortmunder said.

Fairkeep bridled. “I’m not going to give you any company equipment!”

Stan said, “You know, we could get the same effect if we just throw you under that bus there.”

Fairkeep turned and looked at the bus. “It’s moving pretty slow,” he said.

Dortmunder said, “That could make it worse.”

Fairkeep thought about that, while Marcy sat and stared from face to face. Whatever was going on, she was pretty sure she wasn’t qualified at this level.

Then all at once Fairkeep offered a broad smile, like the sun coming out on a previously cloudy day, and said, “You guys really are something. Here.” Taking the little gray metal box from his pocket, handing it to Dortmunder, he said, “You don’t want the mike, do you?”

“No need.”

The waiter returned then, to slap bottles and glasses and a check on the table. “That’ll be twenty-six dollars,” he said.

Fairkeep, about to reach for his wallet, reared back and said, “Twenty-six dollars!”

“I just work here,” the waiter said.

Fairkeep nodded. “Maybe I should,” he said, and put two twenties on the check. “I’ll need a receipt.”

“I know,” the waiter said, and sailboarded away.

Dortmunder said, “Cash? I thought guys like you always used credit cards.”

“Cash,” Fairkeep told him. “I leave a ten percent tip and put in for twenty.”

Stan laughed. “Doug,” he said, “you’re a desperado.”

“No,” Fairkeep said, unruffled, “but you guys are. Here’s what I’m offering, if I get an okay from you and an approval from my bosses up above. Twenty thousand a man, plus six hundred a working day per diem. That’s for up to five men, and what you’re selling us is permission to film you at work, doing what we needn’t go into in any detail but that which makes you of interest to us. We would expect to be filming a few days a week for no fewer than six and no more than twelve weeks.”

Dortmunder said, “Filming us doing what we do.”

“That’s right.”

“What we do for real.”

“That’s why it’s called reality.”

“And then,” Dortmunder said, “you’re gonna show all this on TV.”

“That’s the whole point of it.”

“The part I don’t get,” Dortmunder said, “is the part where we don’t go to jail.”

“Oh, I know there’s gonna be a few problems along the way,” Fairkeep said, cheerily confident. “There’s always a few problems, and we work around them, and we’ll work around the problems this time. Believe me, this one is gonna be easy.”

Dortmunder looked at him. “Easy,” he said.

“Compared to the dominatrix series we did,” Fairkeep told him, “this is a snap. That one was nothing but problems. And laundry.”

“So what we’re gonna do that you’re gonna make a movie of is break the law. I mean, break a bunch of laws; you never get to break just one.”

“We’ll work around it,” Fairkeep assured him. “We got a great staff, crack people. Like Marcy here.”

They all contemplated Marcy. “Uh-huh,” Dortmunder said.

“So we’ll all kick it around,” Fairkeep said. “Beat the bushes, burn the midnight oil. You’ll bring your expertise, we’ll bring ours. And you guys never have to go one step forward if you’re not comfortable.”

Dortmunder and Stan looked at each other, and Dortmunder knew Stan was thinking just what he himself was thinking: We don’t have anything else. Twenty grand to playact with a bunch of clowns with cameras. Plus the per diem.

Dortmunder nodded at Fairkeep. “Maybe,” he said firmly.

“Me, too,” said Stan.

Fairkeep beamed. “Great!” From inside the jacket came a fancy pen and a cheap pad. “Give me a contact number,” he said.

“I’ll give you my Mom’s number,” Stan told him. Since he lived with his Mom, this was also Stan’s number, but Dortmunder felt Stan wasn’t wrong to try for a little distance here.

Fairkeep copied down the number Stan rattled off, then said, “Where is this? Brooklyn?”

“Right.”

“What is it, her cell?”

“No, it’s her phone,” Stan said. “On the kitchen wall.” He wouldn’t give out her cell phone number in the cab; Mom wouldn’t like that.