Drowned Hopes (1990) – Mysterious Press

A Dortmunder Heist (#7)

___The gray man made a sound that might have been meant for a laugh. “A surprise, huh?” he said. “Surprised me, too.”
___May said, “So you do know him.” She sounded as though she didn’t know if that was good news or bad news.
___“Tom and I were inside together,” Dortmunder told her, unwillingly. “We were cellmates for a while.”
___The gray man, who looked too flinty and stringy and knotted to be named anything as simple and friendly as Tom, made that laugh sound again, and said, “Cellmates. Pals. Right, Al? Thrown together by the vagaries of fortune, right?”
___“That’s right,” Dortmunder said.
___“Why don’t we sit in the living room,” Tom suggested, his lips a thin straight line. “My coffee’s gettin cold in there.”
___“Sure,” Dortmunder said.
___Tom turned away, going back into the living room, walking rigid, like a man who’s been broken and then put back together a little wrong, using too much Krazy Glue. Behind his stiff back, May waggled eyebrows and shoulders and fingers at Dortmunder, asking, Who is this person, why is he in my house, what’s going on, when will it end? and Dortmunder shrugged ears and elbows and the corner of his mouth, answering, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know if this is some kind of trouble or not, we’ll just have to wait and see. Then they followed Tom into the living room.
___Tom sat on the better easy chair, the one that hadn’t sagged all the way to the floor, while Dortmunder and May took the sofa, sitting facing Tom with the look of a couple who’ve just been asked to think seriously about life insurance.