"Sir?"

But Dortmunder didn't answer. He remained frozen in position, having just that second noticed a face he knew on the Down escalator, descending steadily from the ceiling; a bright cheerful Christmassy face, gazing birdlike this way and that as he glided down that long diagonal. Dortmunder was so taken aback that it didn't occur to him to avert his own face until too late; Kelp had seen him, Kelp had flashed a huge smile, Kelp was up on tiptoe on the escalator waving one hand high over his head.

"Sir?"

"Christ," Dortmunder muttered. He gave the girl a bilious look and she backed away, uncertain whether to be frightened or offended. "All right," Dortmunder said. "The hell with it, all right."

"Sir?"

"I'll take the goddam thing."

Kelp was struggling his way through the multitudes, the bewildered husbands, the snotty-nosed children, the self-absorbed secretaries, the massed family groups, the smirking pairs of teenage girls, the short stout women carrying nine shopping bags, the tall slender women wearing fun furs over their shoulders and yellow-lensed sunglasses on top of their heads, all the flux and flow of gift-time in the metropolis, and Dortmunder, now that it was too late, lifted one shoulder to shield his face while he slipped the girl three crumpled saw-bucks.

"Dortmunder!"

"Yeah," Dortmunder said.

"What a coincidence!" Kelp was carrying a full Korvette's shopping bag; working some dodge, no doubt. "I just called your place about an hour ago, May said she didn't know where you were."

"Christmas shopping," Dortmunder said, as another man might say, "Cleaning the cesspool."

Kelp glanced at the girl, currently putting a fresh perfume bottle in a complicated little cardboard box, and he leaned closer to Dortmunder to say, quietly, "Whadaya wanna buy that stuff for? We hit one of them shopping centers out on the Island, we make a profit on it."

"For a Christmas present?" Dortmunder shook his head. "A Christmas present is different," he said. "A Christmas present is something you buy."

"Yeah?" Kelp received that as though it were a brand-new idea, but one possibly worth further thought.

"Besides," Dortmunder said, "I still got some of that Chauncey money." The five of them had split nearly seven thousand dollars after fencing all the jewelry and other goods from the fiasco.

Kelp was surprised. "You do? That was over a month ago!"

"Well, I'm not a big spender."

The girl came back with Dortmunder's purchase in a bag, and his change. "That's twenty-nine seventy," she said, and dropped a quarter and a nickel into Dortmunder's palm.

"You told me twenty-seven fifty."

"Plus tax."

"Well, shit," Dortmunder said, put his change in his pocket, picked up his parcel, and turned away.

"And Merry Christmas to you," the girl told his back.

"Listen," Kelp said, as they moved away from the counter, "I got to talk to you, that's why I was looking for you. It's too crowded in here, you want a lift home?"

Dortmunder gave him a wary look. "No new capers," he said.

"Nothing new," Kelp said, with funny emphasis. "I promise."

"Okay, then."

They went out to Herald Square. It was nearly six, quite dark, not quite freezing, and slowly, slightly, sloppily snowing. Jammed traffic and roly-poly bundled people were everywhere. "Colder'n hell," Dortmunder said.

"It isn't the cold, it's the humidity," Kelp told him. "The air's so damp, it gets right into your bones. If it'd get down below freezing, dry the air out, we wouldn't feel so cold."

Dortmunder looked at him. "Everything's gotta be the opposite with you," he said.

"I'm just saying."

"Don't. Where's your car?"

"I don't know yet," Kelp said. "Wait right here, I'll be back." And he sloshed away, carrying his Korvette's shopping bag into the swirling crowds and the gathering snow.

It was after Kelp was out of sight that what he'd said ricocheted in Dortmunder's mind. Aloud, he muttered, "He doesn't know yet?" Escape suggested itself, but when he thought about his alternatives – the subway in the Christmas rush, trying to find a cab in Herald Square at six o'clock on a shopping day in December, walking twenty-five blocks home in the snow and the cold – he realized he might just as well stay where he was. So he leaned his back against the wall of Macy's, near the entrance doors, put his hands in his overcoat pockets – his right hand closing around the box of perfume – and settled down to wait. Snow gathered on his shoulders and his black knit cap, snow melted on his forehead and caused little icy rivulets to run down his nose and cataract onto his coat buttons, and icy slush transmitted previews of the grave through his wet shoes to his feet.

He'd been standing there about five minutes when a distinguished gent in an astrakhan hat and white moustache and fur-collared coat paused in front of him, stuffed something into the breast pocket of Dortmunder's overcoat, and said, "Cheer up, old chap. And a merry Christmas to you." And walked on.

Dortmunder stared after him, nonplussed, then fingered his pocket and drew out a neatly folded dollar bill. "Well, Jesus H. Jumping Christ," he said.

A car was honking. Dortmunder looked past the dollar and saw a tan Mercedes-Benz at the curb, and somebody inside it waving. Kelp?

Kelp. And, yes, the Mercedes had MD plates; from Connecticut, as it happened. Dortmunder trotted around to the passenger side, slid into the car, and felt dry warmth bask over him as Kelp shot the Mercedes forward. "Ahhh," said Dortmunder.

"Impossible traffic," Kelp said. "Even Stan Murch wouldn't get anywhere in this stuff. I picked up this beast a block away, can you believe it? Took me that long just to come back." He glanced over. "What's with the dollar bill?"

Dortmunder was still holding it in his hand, and now he shoved it away in his side pocket. "I found it," he said.

"No kidding. Maybe this is your lucky day."

What an idea. "Yeah," said Dortmunder.

"In fact," Kelp said, "this is your lucky day." Dortmunder closed his eyes. He could enjoy the comfort of the car, and just not listen to anything Kelp had to say.

"For instance," Kelp said, "there's that question of the painting, and what happens six months from now."

"Four and a half," Dortmunder said. His eyes were still closed.

"Okay, four and a half."

"And I figure maybe I can leave the country," Dortmunder said. "Go to South America, maybe. Me and May, we could open up a bar or something. Is the guy gonna follow us all over the world for twenty grand?"

"Yes," said Kelp. "So long as they're looking for the painting, they'll look for you, and you know it."

Inside his closed eyes, Dortmunder sighed. "You could let me at least have my little dreams," he said.

"I got something better," Kelp told him. "I got an out."

"You don't."

"I do."

"You don't. Not unless you got the painting, and you don't. When Chauncey comes around and wants it back, there aren't gonna be any outs."

"One," Kelp said, and suddenly flew into a frenzy at the wheel, honking his horn in a mad bebop rhythm of toots, the while yelling, "Move your god darn ass whatsa matter don't you wanna go home?"

Dortmunder opened his eyes. "Take it easy," he said.

"They give anybody a license," Kelp grumbled, subsiding. Then he said, "Listen, I can't talk in this traffic. You got any of that good bourbon left?"

"You're kidding."

"I tell you what," Kelp said. "I'll buy a bottle of bourbon on the way downtown – not Chauncey's brand, but something nice. Something bottled in Kentucky."

"Yeah?"

"Invite me up to your place," Kelp said. "We'll have a drink, I'll give you my idea."

"You know what I think of your ideas," Dortmunder told him.

"Can it be worse than a visit from Chauncey's friend?"