“Come in, Benny,” Roger said, with more warmth than Benny was used to.

Benny came in, shutting the door behind himself, grinning eagerly, and stood hunched in the middle of the room, basking in the rare pleasure of his uncle’s approval, while Roger said to Frank, “I was about to say that what we need to do is discredit the woman somehow. Stall as long as we can, while we get something on her.”

“Something like what?” Frank asked from out of sight behind the bar, where he was looking for the other bottle of Wild Turkey.

“Something reprehensible. Something that would make people want to shun her even if she was Pottaknobbee. Something to make the tribes get together and throw her out, and be damned to DNA.”

Frank reappeared, holding the fresh bottle. “I don’t know, Roger,” he said.

Roger said, “Benny, help your uncle Frank open that bottle.”

“Okay!”

Frank readily gave up the job, to lean on the bar instead and say, “What reprehensathing? There are no Commies anymore. Nobody would believe an Indian lesbo. We already know she’s got no police record. Thank you, Benny. Pour some in there, and see if your uncle Roger needs any more.”

“I do.” Benny hurried on his rounds, and Roger said, “If there’s nothing else, Frank, how about bad associates?”

Frank peered at him across the room from bar to desk, where Roger stood holding his glass like anyone at a cocktail party, Benny standing beside him, smiling, holding the bottle by the neck, not knowing if he was expected to put it down or keep it at the ready for further pouring, and deciding to hold on to it to be on the safe side. “Bad associates?” Frank demanded. “What bad associates?”

“There’ve got to be some, Frank,” Roger told him. “Where did this Little Feather Redcorn come from? Out of the blue, she’s suddenly here with histories and claims. There’s got to be somebody behind her, some whadayacallit, puppeteer, pulling the strings. She can’t be doing all this on her own, so the people who put her up to it, why are they hiding? Because they’re no good, Frank.”

“You lost me somewhere in there,” Frank admitted.

Roger offered Benny another encouraging smile. Two, in one day! “That’s why,” he told Frank, “I’ve had Benny follow the woman ever since she got out of jail, so he can tell us who she associates with. Benny?”

Benny looked alert. “Yes, Uncle Roger?”

“Little Feather Redcorn,” Roger said, extremely patient. “Who does she associate with?”

“Nobody,” Benny said.

Roger blinked at him. Frank said, “Where’s that bottle I just opened?”

“Just a minute, Frank,” Roger said. “We have to keep our wits about us now.”

Frank looked thoughtful.

Roger said to Benny, “She doesn’t talk to anybody?”

“Mostly, she stays in that motor home thing, down at Whispering Pines,” Benny said. “Sometimes she takes taxis, but only to the supermarket or the drugstore and like that. Last night, she went into Plattsburgh and went to a diner by herself and had dinner and then went to a movie by herself and then took another taxi home again to the motor home. This afternoon, she associated with Judge Higbee and a lawyer woman named Marjorie Dawson and Uncle Frank.”

“She didn’t associate with me,” Frank said.

Roger said, “I don’t believe it.”

Benny looked stricken. “Honest to God, Uncle Roger! I swear I been on her every—”

“No, no, not you, Benny,” Roger said. “I’m sure you did the job right.”

Benny looked astounded. “You are?”

“Frank,” Roger said, “leave that bottle and—”

“I don’t have the bottle.”

“I have it, Uncle Frank!”

“Put it down, Benny. And Frank, leave your glass then, and come over to the conversation area, and let’s have a conversation, the three of us.”

“Me, too?”

“Yes, Benny, come along.”

The three went to the burgundy sofas L-ing around the glass and chrome coffee table as Frank said, “What are we going to do?”

“We don’t know yet,” Roger told him. “That’s what the conversation’s about. The one thing I know for sure, though, it’s got to be something drastic.”

I don’t like this,” Dortmunder said.

“What, the pizza?” Kelp asked. “The pizza’s fine.” “It’s very good pizza,” Irwin declared.

“Not the pizza,” Dortmunder told them, “the story Little Feather just gave us.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Little Feather said.

“I know it’s the truth,” Dortmunder agreed, “that’s what I don’t like about it.”

Since Little Feather hadn’t gotten back to the Winnebago until after five, there’d been general agreement that she should order pizza and beer delivered in, even though, as she’d pointed out, that was a hell of an order for a woman living alone. “You’ll reheat the leftovers,” Kelp had told her.

“I’m ordering with pepperoni, without pepperoni, with and without extra cheese.”

“You’re an indecisive person.”

So they had the pizza delivered in, and Little Feather reported on her meetings, first with Marjorie Dawson and then with the bunch in judge’s chambers, telling part of the story before the pizza arrived and the rest after the pizza left, when Dortmunder announced that he didn’t like it.

So now Guilderpost said, “I don’t see what the problem is, John. We’ve reached the first plateau, the DNA.”

“From here,” Irwin said, “it’s plain sailing.”

“No,” Dortmunder said. “They’re fighting it. From the beginning, they’re fighting it. They don’t want Little Feather in their clubhouse.”

“Well, they’re going to have to get used to it,” Irwin said.

Dortmunder said, “No, listen. You’re acting like these people are the same as the people you sold the Dutch land things to, like you come in and scam them and they take it like a sport and that’s it. But they aren’t like that, not from the get-go.”

“I don’t believe their attitude matters anymore, John,” Guilderpost told him. “At first, it was certainly troubling, particularly for Little Feather—”

“I didn’t like the night in jail,” Little Feather remarked.

“Of course you didn’t, my dear,” Guilderpost agreed, and then said to Dortmunder, “But we’re past that now. I spoke with my contact at Feinberg today, and he put me in touch with their DNA expert, Max Schreck. Little Feather will phone him in the morning, he’ll phone Judge Higbee, and we’re well on our way.”

“That’s right,” Irwin said. “From now on, it’s simply the lab work, and the judge says, ‘Look at that, it’s a match. Little Feather is hereby declared a Pottaknobbee. Welcome to the casino.’”

“And you fellows collect a not-inconsiderable recompense,” Guilderpost added.

“I don’t like it,” Dortmunder said.

“You don’t like the recompense? We agreed—”

“Not the recompense,” Dortmunder said, “the story Little Feather come back with. The meeting she had.”

Tiny said, “You listen to Duh—John. He’s got a nose for this kind of thing.”

“All right, John,” Guilderpost said in his most kindly fashion, “tell us what it is you don’t like about today’s events.”

“The whole thing,” Dortmunder told him, “starting from yesterday. No, starting from the day before yesterday. Now today the guy from the tribes shows up with a lawyer that isn’t even his regular lawyer but is a lawyer from another outfit like your Feinberg outfit from New York, meaning what they declared here is war. And when those guys declare war, I don’t think they mean to play fair.”

Irwin said, “But, John, what can they do? We’ve got them cold.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure,” Dortmunder said. “I’m thinking, if I was them, and I wanted Little Feather out of my hair, and I was beginning to think the DNA thing was gonna go against me, what would I do?”

“Kill me,” Little Feather said.

“They thought of it,” Dortmunder assured her, “but they know they’re too obvious. So they gotta do something else.”