The Hot Rock

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Oh, are you tired?”

  Ten.

  “No,” he said quickly. “Not in particular. Maybe the light in the restaurant was a bit too dim, I might have been straining my—”

  Eleven.

  Greenwood lunged at the phone, yanked the receiver to his head, shouted, “What is it?”

  “Hello?”

  “Hello yourself! What do you want?”

  “Greenwood? Alan Greenwood?”

  “Who’s this?” Greenwood demanded.

  “Is that Alan Greenwood?”

  “God damn it, yes! What do you want?” He could see from the corner of his eye that the girl had risen from the sofa, was standing looking at him.

  “This is John Dortmunder.”

  “Dort—” He caught himself, coughed instead. “Oh,” he said, much calmer. “How are things?”

  “Fine. You available for a piece of work?”

  Greenwood looked at the girl’s face while thinking of his bank accounts. Neither prospect was pleasing. “Yes, I am,” he said. He tried a smile at the girl, but it wasn’t returned. She was watching him a bit warily.

  “We’re meeting tonight,” Dortmunder said. “At ten. You free?”

  “Yes, I think I am,” Greenwood said. Not happily.

  9

  Dortmunder walked into the O. J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at five minutes to ten. Two of the regulars were having a game at the bowling machine, and three more were remembering Irish McCalla and Betty Page at the bar. Behind the bar stood Rollo, tall, meaty, balding, blue-jawed, in a dirty white shirt and dirty white apron.

  Dortmunder had already set things up with Rollo on the phone this afternoon, but he stopped at the bar a second as a courtesy, saying, “Anybody here yet?”

  “One fellow,” Rollo said. “A draft beer. I don’t think I know him. He’s in the back.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rollo said, “You’re a double bourbon, aren’t you? Straight up.”

  Dortmunder said, “I’m surprised you remember.”

  “I don’t forget my customers,” Rollo said. “It’s good to see you back again. You want, I’ll bring you the bottle.”

  “Thanks again,” Dortmunder said and walked on down past the memory trippers and past the two doors with the dog silhouettes on them and the sign on one door POINTERS and on the other door SETTERS and past the phone booth and through the green door at the back and into a small square room with a concrete floor. None of the walls could be seen because practically the whole room was taken up floor to ceiling with beer cases and liquor cases, leaving only a small opening in the middle big enough for a battered old table with a green felt top, half a dozen chairs, and one bare bulb with a round tin reflector hanging low over the table on a long black wire.

  Stan Murch was sitting at the table, half a glass of draft beer in front of him. Dortmunder shut the door and said, “You’re early.”

  “I made good time,” Murch said. “Instead of goin’ all the way around on the Belt, I went up Rockaway Parkway and over Eastern Parkway to Grand Army Plaza and right up Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge. Then up Third Avenue and through the park at Seventy-ninth Street. At night you can make better time that way than if you went around the Belt Parkway and through the Battery Tunnel and up the West Side Highway.”

  Dortmunder looked at him. “Is that right?”

  “In the daytime that way’s better,” Murch said. “But at night the city streets are just as good. Better.”

  “That’s interesting,” Dortmunder said and sat down.

  The door opened and Rollo came in with a glass and a bottle of something that called itself Amsterdam Liquor Store Bourbon — “Our Own Brand.” Rollo put the glass and the bottle down in front of Dortmunder and said, “There’s a fellow outside I think is maybe with you. A sherry. Want to give him the double-o?”

  Dortmunder said, “Did he ask for me?”

  “Asked for a fellow name of Kelp. That the Kelp I know?”

  “The same,” Dortmunder said. “He’ll be one of ours, send him on in.”

  “Will do.” Rollo looked at Murch’s glass. “Ready for a refill?”

  “I’ll string along with this for a while,” Murch said.

  Rollo gave Dortmunder a look and went out, and a minute later Chefwick came in, carrying a glass of sherry. “Dortmunder!” he said in surprise. “It was Kelp I talked to on the phone, wasn’t it?”

  “He’ll be here in a minute,” Dortmunder said. “You know Stan Murch?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Stan’s our driver. Stan, this is Roger Chefwick, he’s our lockman. Best in the business.”

  Murch and Chefwick nodded to each other, mumbling words, and Chefwick sat down at the table. “Will there be many more of us?” he said.

  “Just two,” Dortmunder said, and Kelp came in, carrying a glass. He looked at Dortmunder and said, “He said you had the bottle.”

  “Sit down,” Dortmunder invited. “You all know each other, don’t you?”

  They did. Everybody said hello, and Kelp poured bourbon into his glass. Murch took a tiny sip of beer.

  The door opened and Rollo stuck his head in. “There’s a Dewar’s and water out here that asked for you,” he said to Dortmunder, “but I don’t know about him.”

  Dortmunder said, “Why not?”

  “I don’t think he’s sober.”

  Dortmunder made a face. “Ask him if he calls himself Greenwood,” he said, “and if he does send him on in here.”

  “Right.” Rollo looked at Murch’s beer. “You all set?” he said.

  “I’m fine,” Murch told him. His glass was still one-quarter full, but the beer didn’t have any head any more. “Unless I could have some salt,” he said.

  Rollo gave Dortmunder a look. “Sure,” he said and went out.

  A minute later Greenwood came in, a drink in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. “The barman said the draft beer wanted this,” he said. He looked high, but not drunk.

  “That’s me,” Murch said.

  Murch and Greenwood had to be introduced, and then Greenwood sat down and Murch sprinkled a little salt into his beer, which gave it back some head. He sipped at it.

  Dortmunder said, “Now we’re all here.” He looked at Kelp. “You want to tell the story?”

  “No,” said Kelp. “You do it.”

  “All right,” Dortmunder said. He told them the story, and then he said, “Any questions?”

  Murch said, “We get a hundred fifty a week until we do the job?”

  “Right.”

  “Then why do it at all?”

  “Three or four weeks is all we’d get out of Major Iko,” Dortmunder said. “Maybe six hundred apiece. I’d rather have the thirty thousand.”

  Chefwick said, “Do you want to take the emerald from the Coliseum or wait till it’s on the road?”

  “We’ll have to decide that,” Dortmunder said. “Kelp and I went over there today and it looked well guarded, but they might be even more security-conscious on the road. Why don’t you go over tomorrow and see how it looks to you?”

  Chefwick nodded. “Fine,” he said.

  Greenwood said, “Once we get this emerald, why turn it over to the good Major at all?”

  “He’s the only buyer,” Dortmunder said. “Kelp and I have already been through all the switches we might want to pull.”

  “Just so we’re flexible in our thinking,” Greenwood said.

  Dortmunder looked around. “Any more questions? No? Anybody want out? No? Good. Tomorrow you all drift over to the Coliseum and take a look at our prize, and we’ll meet back here tomorrow night at the same time. I’ll have the first week’s living expenses from the Major by then.”

  Greenwood said, “Couldn’t we make it earlier tomorrow night? Ten o’clock breaks into my evening pretty badly.”

  “We don’t want it too early,” Murch said. “I don’t want to get caught in that rush hour
traffic.”

  “How about eight?” Dortmunder said.

  “Fine,” said Greenwood.

  “Fine,” said Murch.

  “Perfectly all right with me,” said Chefwick.

  “Then that’s it,” said Dortmunder. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow night.”

  Everybody stood. Murch finished his beer, smacked his lips, and said, “Aaaahhh!” Then he said. “Anybody want a lift anywhere?”

  10

  It was ten minutes to one of a weeknight, and Fifth Avenue across from the park was deserted. An occasional cab showing its off-duty sign rolled south, but that was about it. A spring drizzle was leaking out of the black sky, and the park across the way looked like the middle of a jungle.

  Kelp rounded the corner and headed up the block for the embassy. He’d left the cab on Madison Avenue, but with the misty rain oozing inside his coat collar he was beginning to think he’d been overcautious. He should have had the cab drop him at the embassy door and to hell with cover. He’d concerned himself with the wrong kind of cover, a night like this.

  He trotted up the embassy steps and rang the bell. He could see lights behind the first-floor windows, but it took a long while for someone to come open the door, and then it was a silent black man who motioned Kelp in with long slim fingers, shut the door after him, and led him away through several opulent rooms before finally leaving him alone in a bookcase-lined den with a pool table in its middle.

  Kelp waited three minutes, standing around doing nothing, and then decided the hell with it. He got the rack from under the table, racked up the balls, selected a cue, and began to play a little rotation with himself.

  He was just about to sink the eight when the door opened and Major Iko came in. “You’re later than I expected,” he said.

  “I couldn’t find a cab,” Kelp said. He put down the cue, patted various pockets, and came up with a crumpled sheet of lined yellow paper. “This is the stuff we need,” he said and handed the Major the sheet of paper. “You want to give me a ring when it’s ready?”

  “Stay a moment,” the Major said. “Let me look this over.”

  “Take your time,” Kelp said. He went back to the table and picked up the cue and sank the eight ball. Then he walked halfway around the table and dropped the nine and — on ricochet — the thirteen. The ten was already gone, so he tried for the eleven, but it glanced off the fifteen and wound up in bad position. He hunkered down, shut one eye, and began to study various lines of sight.

  The Major said, “About these uniforms—”

  “Just a minute,” Kelp said. He sighted a little more, then stood, aimed carefully, and shot. The cue ball bounced off two cushions, grazed the eleven, and rolled into the pocket.

  “Hell,” Kelp said. He put the cue down and turned to Iko. “Anything wrong?”

  “The uniforms,” the Major said. “It says here four uniforms, but it doesn’t say what kind.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Kelp pulled some Polaroid prints from another pocket. They showed guards at the Coliseum from various angles. “Here’s some pictures,” Kelp said, handing them over. “So you’ll know what they look like.”

  The Major took the prints. “Good. And what are these numbers on the paper?”

  “Everybody’s suit size,” Kelp said.

  “Naturally. I should have realized.” The Major tucked the list and prints into his pocket and smiled crookedly at Kelp. “So there really are three other men,” he said.

  “Sure,” Kelp said. “We weren’t gonna do it just the two of us.”

  “I realize that. Dortmunder forgot to tell me the names of the other three.”

  Kelp shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He told me you tried to pump him on that, and he said you’d probably try with me too.”

  The Major, in sudden irritation, said, “Damn it, man, I ought to know who I’m hiring. This is absurd.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Kelp said. “You hired Dortmunder and me. Dortmunder and me hired the other three.”

  “But I need to check them out,” the Major said.

  “You already talked this over with Dortmunder,” Kelp said. “You know what his attitude is.”

  “Yes, I know,” said the Major.

  Kelp told him anyway. “You’ll start makin’ up dossiers on everybody. You make up enough dossiers, you’ll attract attention, maybe tip the whole thing.”

  The Major shook his head. “This goes against my training,” he said, “against everything I know. How can you deal with a man if you don’t have a dossier on him? It isn’t done.”

  Kelp shrugged. “I don’t know. Dortmunder says I should pick up this week’s money.”

  “This is the second week,” the Major said.

  “That’s right.”

  “When are you going to do the job?”

  “Soon as you get us the stuff.” Kelp spread his hands. “We weren’t just sittin’ around for a week, you know. We earned our money. Go to the Coliseum every day, sit around and work out plans every night, we’ve been doin’ that for a week now.”

  “I don’t begrudge the money,” the Major said, though it was clear he did. “I just don’t want it to drag on too long.”

  “Get us the stuff on that list,” Kelp said, “and we’ll get you your emerald.”

  “Good,” said the Major. “Shall I see you to the door?”

  Kelp glanced longingly at the pool table. “Would you mind? I’m sort of set up for the twelve, and then there’s only two more balls after that.”

  The Major seemed both surprised and irritated, but he said, “Oh, very well. Go ahead.”

  Kelp smiled. “Thanks, Major.” He picked up the cue, sank the twelve, sank the fourteen, took two shots to sink the fifteen, and finished off by sinking the cue ball on a three cushion rebound. “There,” he said and put up the cue.

  The Major let him out, and he stood ten minutes in the rain before he got a cab.

  11

  The New York Coliseum stands between West 58th Street and West 60th Street facing Columbus Circle on the southwest corner of Central Park in Manhattan. The Coliseum faces the park and the Maine Monument and the statue of Columbus and Huntington Hartford’s Gallery of Modern Art.

  On the 60th Street side, midway along the beige brick wall, there is an entrance surmounted by a large chrome number 20, and 20 West 60th Street is the address of the Coliseum staff. A blue-uniformed private guard is always on duty inside the glass doors of this entrance, day and night.

  One Wednesday night in late June, at about three-twenty in the morning, Kelp came walking eastward along West 60th Street wearing a tan raincoat, and when he was opposite the Coliseum entrance he suddenly had a fit. He went rigid, and then he fell over, and then he began to thrash around on the sidewalk. He cried, “Oh! Oh!” several times, but in a husky voice that didn’t carry far. There was no one else in sight, no pedestrians and no moving automobiles.

  The guard had seen Kelp through the glass doors before the fit started, and knew that Kelp had not been walking as though drunk. He had in fact been walking very calmly until he had his fit. The guard hesitated a moment, frowning worriedly, but Kelp’s thrashing seemed to be increasing, so at last the guard opened the door and hurried out to see what he could do to help. He squatted beside Kelp, put a hand on Kelp’s twitching shoulder, and said, “Is there anything I can do, Mac?”

  “Yes,” Kelp said. He stopped thrashing and pointed a .38 Special Colt Cobra revolver at the guard’s nose. “You can stand up very slow,” Kelp said, “and you can keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The guard stood up and kept his hands where Kelp could see them, and out of a car across the street came Dortmunder and Greenwood and Chefwick, all dressed in uniforms exactly like the one the guard was wearing.

  Kelp got to his feet, and the four marched the guard into the building. He was taken around the corner from the entrance and tied and gagged. Kelp then removed his raincoat, sh
owing yet another uniform of the same type, and went back to take the guard’s place at the door. Meanwhile Dortmunder and the other two stood around and looked at their watches. “He’s late,” Dortmunder said.

  “He’ll get there,” Greenwood said.

  Around at the main entrance there were two guards on duty, and at this moment they were both looking out at an automobile that had suddenly come out of nowhere and was hurtling directly toward the doors. “No!” cried one of the guards, waving his arms.

  Stan Murch was behind the wheel of the car, a two-year-old Rambler Ambassador sedan, dark green, which Kelp had stolen just this morning. The car had different plates now, and other changes had also been made.

  At the last possible second before the impact Murch pulled the pin on the bomb, shoved the door open, and leaped clear. He landed rolling, and continued to roll for several seconds after the sounds of the crash and the explosion.

  The timing had been beautiful. No eyewitness — there were none but the two guards — would have been able to say for sure that Murch had leaped before the crash rather than been thrown clear because of it. And no one would have supposed that the sheet of flame that suddenly erupted from the car as it crashed to a stop halfway through the glass doors was not the result of the accident but had been made by the small incendiary bomb with the five-second fuse whose pin Murch had pulled just before his exit.

  Nor would anyone suppose that the stains and smears on Murch’s face and clothing had been carefully applied almost an hour ago in a small apartment on the Upper West Side.

  The crash, at any rate, was magnificent. The car had leaped the curb, had seemed to bound twice in crossing the wide sidewalk, and had lunged into and through the glass doors on the rise, thudding to a grinding halt, half in and half out, and then bursting at once into flame. Within seconds the fire reached the gas tank — it was supposed to, having been assured by some alterations Murch had made this afternoon — and the explosion shattered what glass the car had missed.

  No one in the building could have failed to hear Murch’s arrival. Dortmunder and the others heard it, and they smiled at one another and moved out, leaving Kelp behind to guard the door.