Read Get Real for Free Online Page B

area in the middle just big enough for a beat-up old round wooden table with a once-green felt top, surrounded
     by half a dozen armless wooden chairs. The light Dortmunder had switched on was a single bare bulb under a round tin reflector
     hanging from a long black wire over the center of the table.
    Dortmunder and Kelp went around this furniture to left and right, Kelp putting down the tray as they took the chairs that
     most directly faced the open door. The first arrivals always took the chairs facing the door, leaving it to the latecomers
     to be made uneasy by the proximity of an open door behind their backs.
    As he poured Amsterdam Liquor Store Bourbon over the ice in their glasses, Kelp said, “You tell them the story. I like to
     listen to it.”
    “Well, Stan already knows the story,” Dortmunder pointed out. “It’s only Tiny and the kid.”
    “So those are the ones you tell.”
    The hallway out there abruptly dimmed, as though there’d been a partial eclipse of the hall. Seeing that, Kelp said, “Here
     comes Tiny now.”
    As Dortmunder nodded, the doorway filled with enough person to choke Jonah’s whale. This creature, who was known only to those
     who felt safe in considering him their friend as Tiny, had the body of a top-of-the-line SUV, in jacket and pants of a neutral
     gray that made him look like an oncoming low, atop which was a head that didn’t make you think of Easter Island so much as
     Halloween Island. In his left fist he carried a glass of what looked like, but was not, cherry soda. When he spoke it wasn’t
     a surprise that bass notes of an organ sounded: “I’m late.”
    “Hi, Tiny,” Kelp said. “No, you’re not.”
    Ignoring that, Tiny said, “I hadda take the limo driver back.”
    “What, to the car service?”
    “That’s where I got him. Turns out, he’s from California.” Tiny shook his Halloween Island head and came over to sit at Dortmunder’s
     right, so at least he had the doorway in profile.
    Kelp said, “That could be okay, Tiny. There’s okay people in California.”
    “In California,” Tiny said, “he’s also a limo driver.”
    “So he knows how,” Kelp said.
    “Every year,” Tiny said, “he drives people to the Oscars. Celebrities. He wanted to tell me, every year, every year, the celebrities
     he drove to the Oscars.”
    “Oh,” Kelp said.
    “There’s only so many,” Tiny said, “celebrities goin to the Oscars you can put up with. So finally I took him back, dropkicked
     him through the door, and said, gimme one doesn’t speak English. So how are you people?”
    Dortmunder took over the conversational ball: “Just fine, Tiny.”
    “I hope you got a good one here,” Tiny said.
    “So do we,” Dortmunder said.
    “It’s been a while,” Kelp said.
    “Oh, I’m doin okay,” Tiny said. “I always do okay. I squeeze out a little livin here and there. But I’d like a little cushion
     for a while.”
    “So would I,” Dortmunder said, and Stan and Judson came in together.
    Stan carried a draft beer in one hand and a saltshaker in the other. As a driver, he preferred to limit his alcohol intake
     to the occasional sip, but beer left to its own devices soon grows flat, which nobody likes. A sparing shimmer of salt over
     the beer every once in a while causes the head to magically return.
    Judson, on the other hand, was carrying a drink nobody recognized. It was in a tall cocktail glass with ice and was a kind
     of palish rose color, as though it were Tiny’s drink’s anemic sister.
    When they came in, while the others were sharing greetings, Stan looked around, made a quick assessment, and said, “We’re
     late.” Then he homed in on the chair to Kelp’s left, leaving the kid to choose one of the chairs on the vulnerable side. But
     that was all right; he was a calm sort.
    Once they were all seated, Kelp said, “Kid, if you don’t mind a nosy question, what’s that?”
    “Campari and soda,” the kid said, with the proud smile