Thieves Dozen

by Donald E. Westlake

  A paddy wagon tore past, behind Dortmunder’s clenched shoulder blades, siren screaming. So did a second one. Meantime, the bodega guy reached under his fruit display and came out with a fresh new sandwich-size brown paper bag. “There’s plastic people,” he explained, “and there’s paper people, and I can see you’re a paper man.”

  “Right,” Dortmunder said.

  “So here you go,” the guy said, and held the bag wide open for Dortmunder to transfer his lunch.

  All he could hope was that no brooch made any sudden leap for freedom along the way. He opened the original bag, which in truth was a real mess by now, about to fall apart and very greasy and dirty, and he took the paper towel–wrapped sandwich out of it and put it in the fresh, crisp, sharp new paper bag, and the bodega guy gave it a quick twirl of the top to seal it and handed it over, saying, “You want a nice mango with that? Papaya? Tangelo?”

  “No, thanks,” Dortmunder said. “I would, but I break out.” “So many people tell me that,” the bodega guy said, and shook his head at the intractability of fate. “Well,” he said, cheering up, “have a nice day.”

  A paddy wagon went by, screaming. “I’ll try to,” Dortmunder promised, and walked away.

  No more subways. One burning subway a day was all he felt up to, even if it did keep him from being gathered up in that sting operation and sent away to spend the rest of his life behind bars in some facility upstate where the food is almost as bad as your fellowman.

  Dortmunder walked three blocks before he saw a cab; hang the expense, he hailed it: “You go to Manhattan?”

  “Always been my dream,” said the cabbie, who was maybe some sort of Arab, but not the kind with the turban. Or were they not Arabs? Anyway, this guy wasn’t one of them.

  “West 78th Street,” Dortmunder said, and settled back to enjoy a smoke-free, fire-free, cop-free existence.

  “Only thing,” the Arab said, if he was an Arab. “No eating in the cab.”

  “I’m not eating,” Dortmunder said.

  “I’m only saying,” the driver said, “on account of the sandwich.”

  “I won’t eat it,” Dortmunder promised him.

  “Thank you.”

  They started, driving farther and farther from the neighborhood with all the paddy wagons, which was good, and Dortmunder said, “Cabbies eat in the cabs all the time.”

  “Not in the backseat,” the driver said.

  “Well, no.”

  “All’s the space we can mess up is up here,” the driver pointed out. “You eat back there, you spill a pickle, mustard, jelly, maybe a chocolate chip cookie, what happens my next customer’s a lady in a nice mink coat?”

  “I won’t eat the sandwich,” Dortmunder said, and there was no more conversation.

  Dortmunder spent the time trying to figure out what the guy was, if he wasn’t Arab. Russian, maybe, or Israeli, or possibly Pakistani. The name by the guy’s picture on the dash was Mouli Mabik, and who knew what that was supposed to be? You couldn’t even tell which was the first name.

  Their route took them over the Brooklyn Bridge, which at the Manhattan end drops right next to City Hall and all the court buildings it would be better not to have to go into. The cab came down the curving ramp onto the city street and stopped at the traffic light among all the official buildings, and all at once there was a pair of plainclothes detectives right there, on the left, next to the cab, waving their shields in one hand and their guns in the other, both of them yelling, “You! Pull over! Right now!”

  Oh, damn it, Dortmunder thought in sudden panic and terror, they got me!

  The cab was jolting forward. It was not pulling over to the side, it was not obeying the plainclothesmen, it was not delivering Dortmunder into their clutches. The driver, hunched very low over his steering wheel, glared straight ahead out of his windshield and accelerated like a jet plane. Dortmunder stared; he’s helping me escape!

  Zoom, they angled to the right around two delivery trucks and a parked hearse, climbed the sidewalk, tore down it as the pedestrians leaped every which way to get clear, skirted a fire hydrant, caromed off a sightseeing bus, tore on down the street, made a screaming two-wheeled left into a street that happened to be oneway coming in this direction, and damn near managed to get between the oncoming garbage truck and the parked armored car. Close, but no cigar.

  Dortmunder bounced into the bulletproof clear plastic shield that takes up most of the legroom in the backseat of a New York City cab, then stayed there, hands, nose, lips and eyebrows pasted to the plastic as he looked through at this cabbie from Planet X, who, when finished ricocheting off his steering wheel, reached under his seat and came up with a shiny silver-and-black Glock machine pistol!

  Yikes! There might not be much legroom back here, but Dortmunder found he could fit into it very well. He hit the deck, or the floor, shoulders and knees all meeting at his chin, and found himself wondering if that damn plastic actually was bulletproof after all.

  Then he heard cracking and crashing sounds, like glass breaking, but when he stuck a quaking hand out, palm up, just beyond his quaking forehead, there were no bulletproof plastic pieces raining down. So what was being broken?

  Unfolding himself from this position was much less easy, since he was much less motivated, but eventually he had his spine unpretzeled enough so he could peek through the bottom of the plastic shield just in time to watch the cabbie finish climbing through the windshield where he’d smashed out all the glass, and go rolling and scrambling over the hood to the street.

  Dortmunder watched, and the guy got about four running steps down the street when his right leg just went out from under him and he cartwheeled in a spiral down to his right, flipping over like a surfer caught in the Big One, as the Glock went sailing straight up into the air, lazily turning, glinting in the light.

  It was a weirdly beautiful scene, the Glock in the middle of the air. As it reached its apex, a uniformed cop stepped out from between two stopped vehicles, put his left hand out, and the Glock dropped into it like a trained parakeet. The cop grinned at the Glock, pleased with himself.

  Now there were cops all over the place, just as in the recurrent nightmare Dortmunder had had for years, except none of these came floating down out of the sky. They gathered up the former cabbie, they directed traffic and then arranged for the garbage truck—which now had an interesting yellow speed stripe along its dark green side—to back up enough so they could open the right rear cab door and release the passenger.

  Who knew he should not look reluctant to be rescued. It’s OK if I seem shaky, he assured himself, and came out of the cab like a blender on steroids. “Th-thanks,” he said, which he had never once said in that dream. “Th-thanks a lot.”

  “Man, you are lucky,” one of the cops told him. “That is one of the major bombers and terrorists of all time. The world has been looking for that guy for years.”

  Dortmunder said, “And that’s my luck? Today I hailed his cab?”

  The cop asked, “Where’d you hail him?”

  “In Brooklyn.”

  “And you brought him to Manhattan? That’s great! We never would’ve found him in Brooklyn!”

  All the cops were happy with Dortmunder for delivering this major league terrorist directly to the courthouse. They congratulated him and grinned at him and patted his shoulder and generally behaved in ways he was not used to from cops; it was disorienting.

  Then one of them said, “Where were you headed?”

  “West 78th Street.”

  A little discussion, and one of them said, “We’ll go ahead and drive you the rest of the way.”

  In a police car? “No, no, that’s OK,” Dortmunder said. “Least we can do,” they said.

  They insisted. When a cop insists, you go along. “OK, thanks,” Dortmunder finally said.

  “This way,” a cop said.

  They started down the street, now clogged with gawkers, and a cop behind Dortmunder yelled, “Hey!”

&nb
sp; Oh, now what? Dortmunder turned, expecting the worst, and here came the cop, with the lunch bag in his hand. “You left this in the cab,” he said.

  “Oh,” Dortmunder said. He was blinking a lot. “That’s my lunch,” he said. How could he have forgotten it?

  “I figured,” the cop said, and handed him the bag. Dortmunder no longer trusted himself to speak. He nodded his thanks, turned away and shuffled after the cops who would drive him uptown.

  Which they did. Fortunately, the conversation on the drive was all about the exploits of Kibam the terrorist—the name on the hack license was his own, backward—and not on the particulars of John Dortmunder.

  Eventually they made the turn off Broadway onto 78th Street. Stoon lived in an apartment building in the middle of the block, so Dortmunder said, “Let me out anywhere along here.”

  “Sure,” the cop driver said, and as he slowed Dortmunder looked out the window to see Stoon himself walking by, just as Stoon saw Dortmunder in the backseat of a slowing police car.

  Stoon ran. Who wouldn’t?

  Knowing it was hopeless, but having to try, Dortmunder said, “Here’s OK, this is fine, anywhere along here, this’d be good,” while the cop driver just kept slowing and slowing, looking for a spot where there was a nice wide space between the parked cars, so his passenger would be able to get to the curb in comfort.

  At last, stopped. Remembering his sandwich, knowing it was hopeless, unable to stop keeping on, Dortmunder said, “Thanks I appreciate it I really do this was terrific you guys have been—” until he managed to be outside and could slam the door.

  But he couldn’t run. Don’t run away from a cop, it’s worse than running away from a dog. He had to turn and walk, in stately fashion, rising on the balls of his feet, showing no urgency, no despair, not a care in the world, while the police car purred away down West 78th Street.

  Broadway. Dortmunder turned the corner and looked up and down the street, and no Stoon. Of course not. Stoon would probably not come back to this neighborhood for a week. And the next time he saw Dortmunder, no matter what the circumstances, he’d run all over again, just on general principle.

  Dortmunder sighed. There was nothing for it; he’d have to go see Arnie Albright.

  Arnie Albright lived only eleven blocks away, on 89th between Broadway and West End. No more modes of transportation for today; Dortmunder didn’t think his nerves could stand it. Holding tight to the lunch bag, he trekked up Broadway, and as he waited for the light to change at 79th Street a guy tapped him on the arm and said, “Excuse me. Is this your wallet?”

  So here’s the way it works. The scam artist has two identical wallets. The first one has a nice amount of cash in it, and ID giving a name and phone number. The scam artist approaches the mark, explains he just found this wallet on the sidewalk, and the two inspect it. They find a working pay phone—not always the easiest part of the scam—and call that phone number, and the

  “owner” answers and is overjoyed they found the wallet. If they wait right there, he’ll come claim the wallet and give them a handsome reward (usually $100 to $500). The scam artist then explains he’s late for an important appointment, and the mark should give him his half of the reward now ($50 to $250) and wait to collect from the owner. The mark hands over the money, the scam artist gives him the second wallet, the one with all the dollar-size pieces of newspaper in it, and the mark stands there on the corner awhile.

  “Excuse me. Is this your wallet?”

  Dortmunder looked at the wallet. “Yes,” he said, plucked it out of the scam artist’s hand, put it in his pocket and crossed 79th Street.

  “Wait! Wait! Hey!”

  On the north corner, the scam artist caught up and actually tugged at Dortmunder’s sleeve. “Hey!” he said.

  Dortmunder turned to look at him. “This is my wallet,” he said. “You got a problem with that? You wanna call a cop? You want me to call a cop?”

  The scam artist looked terribly, terribly hurt. He had beagle eyes. He looked as though he might cry. Dortmunder, a man with problems of his own, turned away and walked north to 89th Street and down the block to Arnie Albright’s building, where he rang the bell in the vestibule.

  “Now what?” snarled the intercom.

  Dortmunder leaned close. He had never liked to say his own name out loud. “Dortmunder,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Cut it out, Arnie, you know who it is.”

  “Oh,” the intercom yelled, “Dortmunder! Why didn’t ya say so?” The buzzer, a more pleasant sound than Arnie’s voice, began its song, and Dortmunder pushed his way in and went up to Arnie’s apartment, where Arnie, a skinny, wiry ferret in charity cast-off clothing, stood in the doorway. “Dortmunder,” he announced, “you look as crappy as I do.”

  Which could not be accurate. Dortmunder was having an eventful day, but nothing could make him look as bad as Arnie Albright, even normally, and when Dortmunder got a little closer he saw Arnie was at the moment even worse than normal. “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “Nobody knows,” Arnie said. “The lab says nobody’s ever seen this in the temperate zones before. I look like the inside of a pomegranate.”

  This was true. Arnie, never a handsome specimen, now seemed to be covered by tiny red Vesuviuses, all of them oozing thin red salsa. In his left hand he held a formerly white hand towel, now wet and red, with which he kept patting his face and neck and forearms.

  “Geez, Arnie, that’s terrible,” Dortmunder said. “How long you gonna have it? What’s the doctor say?”

  “Don’t get too close to me.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  “No, I mean that’s what the doctor says. Now, you know and I know that nobody can stand me, on accounta my personality.”

  “Aw, no, Arnie,” Dortmunder lied, though everybody in the world knew it was true. Arnie’s personality, not his newly erupting volcanoes, were what had made him the last resort on Dortmunder’s list of fences.

  “Aw, yeah,” Arnie insisted. “I rub people the wrong way. I argue with them, I’m obnoxious, I’m a pain in the ass. You wanna make something of it?”

  “Not me, Arnie.”

  “But a doctor,” Arnie said, “isn’t supposed to like or not like. He’s got that hypocritic oath. He’s supposed to lie and pretend he likes you, and he’s real glad he studied so hard in medical school so he could take care of nobody but you. But, no. My doctor says, ‘Would you mind staying in the waiting room and just shout to me your symptoms?’”

  “Huh,” Dortmunder said.

  “But what the hell do you care?” Arnie demanded. “You don’t give a shit about me.”

  “Well,” Dortmunder said.

  “So if you’re here, you scored, am I right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sure,” Arnie said. “Why else would an important guy like you come to a turd like me? And so I also gotta understand Stoon’s back in the jug, am I right?”

  “No, you’re wrong, Arnie,” Dortmunder said. “Stoon’s out. In fact, I just saw him jogging.”

  “Then how come you come to me?”

  “He was jogging away from me,” Dortmunder said.

  “Well, what the hell, come on in,” Arnie said, and got out of the doorway.

  “Well, Arnie,” Dortmunder said, “maybe we could talk it over out here.”

  “What, you think the apartment’s contagious?”

  “I’m just happy out here, that’s all.”

  Arnie sighed, which meant that Dortmunder got a whiff of his breath. Stepping back a pace, he told him, “I got something.”

  “Or why would you be here. Let’s see it.”

  Dortmunder took the paper towel–wrapped package out of the paper bag and dropped the bag on the floor. He unwrapped the paper towels and tucked them under his arm.

  Arnie said, “What, are you delivering for a deli now? I’ll give you a buck and half for it.”

  “Wait for it,” Dortmunder advised. He
dropped the top piece of Wonder Bread on the floor, along with much of the mayo and the top slab of ham. Using the paper towels, he lifted out the brooch, then dropped the rest of the sandwich on the floor and cleaned the brooch with the paper towels. Then he dropped the paper towels on the floor and held the brooch up so Arnie could see it, and said, “OK?”

  “Oh, you got it,” Arnie said. “I been seeing it on the news.” “In the News.”

  “On the news. The TV.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Let’s have a look,” Arnie said, and took a step forward. Dortmunder took a step back. It had occurred to him that once Arnie had inspected this brooch, Dortmunder wouldn’t be wanting it back. He said, “The newspaper says that it’s worth $300,000.”

  “The newspaper says Dewey defeats Truman,” Arnie said. “The newspaper says sunny, high in the 70s. The newspaper says informed sources report. The news—”

  “OK, OK. But I just wanna be sure we’re gonna come to an agreement here.”

  “Dortmunder,” Arnie said, “you know me. Maybe you don’t want to know me, but you know me. I give top dollar, I don’t cheat, I am 100 percent reliable. I don’t act like a normal guy and cheat and gouge, because if I did, nobody would ever come to see me at all. I have to be a saint, because I’m such a shit. Toss it over.”

  “OK,” Dortmunder said, and tossed it over, and Arnie caught it in his revolting towel. Whatever he offers, I’ll take, Dortmunder thought.

  While Arnie studied the brooch, breathing on it, turning it, Dortmunder looked in his new wallet and saw it contained a little over $300 cash, plus the usual ID plus a lottery ticket. The faking of the numbers on the lottery ticket was pretty well done. So that would have been the juice in the scam.

  “Well,” Arnie said, “these diamonds are not diamonds. They’re glass.”

  “Glass? You mean somebody conned the movie star?”

  “I know that couldn’t happen,” Arnie agreed, “and yet it did. And this silver isn’t silver, it’s plate.”

  In his heart, Dortmunder had known it would be like this. All this effort, and zip. “And the green things?” he said.