Good Behavior Read Online Free Page A

You’re a burglar .
    He looked pained. “Oh, now,” he said, but the second note was already well under way. He smiled back tentatively at Sister Mary Serene, then read note number two:
    We didn’t turn you in to the police at the other end of the block last night. We could have .
    â€œOh,” he said. “Police at the other end of the block, uh huh. You figure I, uh …”
    Mother Mary Forcible looked at him.
    â€œWell,” he said, and shrugged, and sighed, and thought it over. “Uh, thanks,” he said.
    Mother Mary Forcible had the next note all ready; she slid it across the desk.
    Possibly you can help us in return .
    He frowned, studied the note, turned it over to read the blank back, shook his head. Then he stared around the office, looking for something, saying, “What, you got a safe you can’t open or something?”
    Too bad this wasn’t Thursday; it took an awfully long time to explain the situation.

5
    Andy Kelp let himself into the apartment with a credit card, looked into the living room at Dortmunder and May, and said, “It’s just me. Don’t get up.” Then he went on to the kitchen and got a beer. A wiry, bright-eyed, sharp-nosed man, he looked around the kitchen with the quick interested manner of a bird landing on a berry bush. An assortment of gourmet crackers were arranged on a plate on the kitchen table. Kelp took one with sesame seeds, washed it down with beer, and went back to the living room, where May was lighting a fresh cigarette from the tiny ember of the previous butt and Dortmunder was sitting with his bandaged foot on the coffee table. “How you doing?” he said.
    â€œTerrific,” Dortmunder told him, but it sounded like irony.
    May dropped the sputtering ember in the ashtray and talked through fresh smoke: “I wish you’d ring the doorbell like everybody else, Andy,” she said. “What if we’d been in a tender moment?”
    â€œHuh,” Kelp said. “That didn’t even occur to me.”
    â€œThanks a lot,” Dortmunder said. He didn’t seem to be in the best of moods.
    Kelp explained to May, “On the phone, John said he hurt his foot, and I didn’t know if you were home, so I figured I’d save him walking to the door.” To Dortmunder, he said, “What did happen to your foot?”
    â€œHe fell off a roof,” May said.
    â€œJumped off,” Dortmunder corrected.
    â€œSorry I couldn’t come along last night,” Kelp told him. “Did O’Hara work out?”
    â€œUp to a point.”
    â€œWhat point?”
    â€œThe point where he was arrested.”
    â€œWhoops,” Kelp said. “And he just got out of the slammer, too.”
    â€œMaybe he can get his old room back.”
    Kelp drank beer and pondered briefly on the accidents of fate that had led to his place being taken last night by Jim O’Hara. There but for the grace of God, and all that. He said, “Where were you while O’Hara was being arrested?”
    â€œJumping off the roof.”
    â€œFalling off,” May corrected.
    Dortmunder ignored that. “I spent the night in a convent,” he said.
    Kelp didn’t quite get the joke, but he smiled anyway. “Okay,” he said.
    â€œThe nuns bandaged his foot,” May said, “and loaned him a cane.”
    â€œThey got this vow of silence,” Dortmunder explained, “so there’s no phone, so I couldn’t call May and tell her not to worry.”
    â€œSo naturally, I worried,” May said.
    Kelp said, “Wait a minute. You spent the night in a convent? ”
    â€œI already told you that,” Dortmunder said.
    â€œYeah, but—You mean, you did? You spent the night in a convent?”
    â€œIt was the convent roof he sprained his ankle on,” May said, “when he fell off the other roof.”
    â€œJumped off.”
    â€œSo— I