DOUG WATCHED them go down the stairs, listened to the fire door slam, then closed this upper door and turned to the group, to Babe and Marcy and Ombelen and Muller, now on their feet in the Combined Tool living room, and beamed as he said, “That went very well.”

Babe said, “You notice, the first thing John asked about was the lock on this door here.”

“Well, it is pretty elaborate, Babe. Anybody’s likely to notice it.”

Muller said, “They were all very interested in this place. They wanted to know, what are the secrets here?”

“Well,” Babe said, “what we told them is almost completely true. Secrets that don’t concern any of us here.” Nodding at Muller’s wheelie suitcase, he said, “Except for a little cash going through, every once in a while.”

Muller said, “They might very well be interested in that cash, if they knew it existed.”

“Well, it’s leaving with you today,” Babe said. “And the next time there’s our cash in here is when the Brits wire the gang their payments and we draw it out of the New York bank.” He grinned and spread his hands. “If they want to steal their own pay, they’re welcome to it.”

“But something like that,” Marcy said.

They all looked at her. Babe said, “Something like what?”

“What if,” Marcy said, “they were going along with all this only because they wanted to steal something else?”

Babe frowned. “Like what?”

“I don’t mean for real,” Marcy said. “I mean, in our story line. Could we get that in, get an audience to understand that the gang is agreeing to be filmed only because they really intend to steal something else entirely?”

Babe said, “I keep asking, steal what from us? We don’t have anything useful to them.”

“I don’t know,” Marcy said. “A camera truck? Those are very valuable.”

Scoffing, Babe said, “What are they gonna do with a camera truck? Peddle it under the table to NBC?”

“I don’t know,” Marcy said, “but it would be a nice complication if they meant to steal from us as well as from the storage place. Okay if I think about it a while?”

“Think all you like,” Babe told her.

Doug said, “But, Marcy, I’ll tell you what you do have to think about. Factions.”

Marcy looked abruptly guilty, as though suddenly realizing she hadn’t prepared her homework. “I know,” she said. “I’ll work on that, Doug, I really will.”

Muller said, “Excuse me, I am only an outsider here, but if you do not object to the question, factions? What factions?”

Doug gestured at the television screen where they’d recently watched the snippet of their still-unnamed show. “In that footage,” he said, “they’re all agreeing with one another all the time. There’s no factions, there’s no arguments, there’s no choosing sides. You can’t have drama that way.”

“I see,” Muller said, though he sounded doubtful.

Marcy said, “Doug’s right. They have to struggle toward a consensus, it can’t all be too easy. The only problem is, it seems as though they do all get along. It’s up to me to find a way to get them to disagree about something.”

“You have to,” Doug told her. “We want them fighting with each other. We want some yelling, people waving their arms around. They’re all too happy with one another. We need some conflict.”

“If possible,” Marcy said.

YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY, ” Dortmunder snarled. “You want to do this thing?”

They were seated with beers in Dortmunder’s living room, Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny and the kid, and to Dortmunder’s appalled disbelief it turned out the rest of them all wanted to go on with the show.

“It’ll be fun,” the kid said, not for the first time, but what would you expect from the kid?

What you would not expect is for Kelp to say, “I thought we looked pretty good on that thing. I want Anne Marie to see it,” referring to his live-in friend.

And what you would really not expect is for Tiny to say, “Whadaya in such a hurry for, Dortmunder? We’re in no hurry to go anywhere.”

“The whole idea,” Dortmunder said, “is go along with these people until we know what our target is, then disappear and wait, then clean them out. That’s the whole idea. That’s what we’re doin all this for. We’re not here to be in a movie.”

“TV show,” Kelp corrected.

“Reality show,” the kid amended.

Tiny said, “Dortmunder, you know as well as I know what was in that bag by the door in there that’s goin out by plane today. Now we know what that place is used for, and we were almost right, it’s for their money courier, but that doesn’t mean there’s money in there all the time, only when they’re moving it. And today they’re moving it, so now there’s nothing in there.”

“Which was the reason to wait,” Dortmunder said. “Disappear, let them start to forget us, then clean them out.”

“John,” Kelp said, “the next time there’s gonna be money in that place it’s gonna be our money, from England. You wanna go steal your own money?”

“Money from wages,” Dortmunder said, “is not the same as the same money from theft. Money from theft is purer. There’s no indentured servitude on it, no knuckling under to whatever anybody else wants, no obedience. It isn’t yours because you swapped it for your own time and work, it’s yours because you took it.”

“Basically, Dortmunder,” Tiny said, “I agree with you. But there’s an extra little spin on it this time.”

“Because it’s fun,” said the one-note kid.

“Also,” Tiny said, “I agree with Kelp. I want Josie to see this thing. I want to tell you, Dortmunder, I’m impressed by every one of us, and that’s also you. I looked at those guys in that back room, I believed them.”

Dortmunder sat back, appalled. “I don’t know what’s happening here,” he said. “You people have completely forgot who and what you are. You want to go down to that place, day after day, and pretend to be, pretend to be I don’t even know what.”

“Ourselves,” Kelp said.

“You don’t have to pretend to be yourself,” Dortmunder said. “You are yourself.”

“But this is fun,” the damn kid said. “John, listen, just relax into it. We’ll do this for a while, and then we’ll get paid something, and then it’ll be over or it’ll stop being fun or whatever, and then we’ll go in and clean them out.”

“We’ll keep an eye on Varick Street,” Kelp said, “until some other time Muller’s staying there, so we’ll know there’s money there, and we’ll know it isn’t ours, and it’ll be just as pure as anything you want.”

Rising, the kid said, “I’ll get us another beer while you guys talk. There’s more beer in the refrigerator, isn’t there, John?”

He took Dortmunder’s sigh for a yes.

Early that evening, he was alone again in the apartment when May came home with her daily donation from Safeway. She reached the living room doorway, looked in, and said, “John? What’s wrong?”

“You won’t believe this, May.”

She said, “Is there time for me to put the groceries down and get a beer?”

There was. When she was back in the living room, in her chair, Dortmunder said, “You think you know people,” and then told her about his day. When he was finished, he said, “So? Whadaya think?”

“What do I think?” She shrugged. “John, honestly, it doesn’t sound that bad.” Smiling, she said, “I’d like to see that show myself. Tell you the truth, it kind of sounds like fun.”

Dortmunder sighed into his beer.