Jimmy the Kid

by Donald E. Westlake

  "Which is exactly what we should have done," Murch's Mom said, and drank some beer.

  "Now, that's what I'll do next time," Murch admitted. "Until they get all that machinery off the BQE. But usually the best way is the BQE up to the Midtown Tunnel, and then into Manhattan." He was leaning urgently toward Kelp, gesturing with his full beer can. "See what I mean?"

  It was more of an explanation than Kelp had been looking for. "I see what you mean," he said.

  Dortmunder handed Kelp a beer and gestured at the gray armchair. "Have a seat."

  "No, thanks. I think I'd rather stand."

  "Suit yourself," Dortmunder said, and went over to sit on the arm of May's chair. "Go ahead," he said.

  All at once, Kelp had stage fright. All at once he'd lost all confidence in his idea and all confidence in his ability to put the idea across. "Well," he said, and looked around at the four waiting faces, "well. You've all read the book."

  They all nodded.

  The empty chair was like a bad omen. Kelp was standing there in front of everybody like an idiot, and right next to him was this empty chair. Turning his head slightly, trying not to see the empty chair, he said, "And I asked you all what you thought of it, and you all thought it was pretty good, right?"

  Three of them nodded, but Dortmunder said, "You didn't ask me what I thought of it."

  "Oh. That's right. Well, uh, what did you think of it?"

  "I thought it was pretty good," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp grinned with relief. His natural optimism was re turning to him now. Clapping his hands together he said, "That's right. It is pretty good, isn't it? And you know what else it is?"

  None of them knew.

  "It's full of detail," Kelp said. "The whole thing is worked out right from one end to the other, every detail. Isn't that right?"

  They all nodded. Dortmunder said, "But where do we come in?"

  Kelp hesitated; this was the moment. The gray armchair hung like a teardrop in his peripheral vision. "We do it!" he said.

  They all looked at him. Murch's Mom said, irritably, "What was that?"

  It was out now, and a sudden rush of excitement carried Kelp along on its crest. Crouching like a surfer in the curl, he leaned toward his audience and said, "Don't you see? That goddam book's a blueprint, a step-by-step master plan! All we do is follow it! They got away with it in the book, and we'll get away with it right here!"

  They were staring at him open mouthed. He stared back, fired with the vision of his idea. "Don't you see? We do the caper in the book! We do the book!"

  4

  Dortmunder just sat there. The others, as they began to catch hold of Kelp's idea, starting making exclamations, asking questions, making comments, but Dortmunder just sat there, heavily, and thought about it.

  Murch said, "I get it! You mean we do everything they do in the book."

  "That's right!"

  May said, "But it's a book about a kidnapping. It isn't a robbery, it's a kidnapping."

  "It works the same way," Kelp told her. "What difference does it make, it's still a caper, and every detail is laid right out there for us. How to pick the kid, how to get the kid, how to get the payoff-"

  May said, "But, you can't kidnap a little child! That's mean. I'm surprised at you."

  Kelp said, "No, it isn't. We wouldn't hurt the kid. I mean, we wouldn't hurt him anyway, but they make a whole big point about that in the book, how if they give the kid back unhurt the cops won't try so hard to get them later on. Wait, I'll find the place, I'll read it to you."

  Kelp reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a copy of the book. Dortmunder watched him, saw him leafing through it looking for the place, and still didn't say any. thing. He just sat there and thought about it.

  Dortmunder was not a natural reader, but his times in. side prison walls had shown him the usefulness of reading when you're waiting for a certain number of days to go by. Reading can speed the days a little, and that's all to the good. So all in all it had been a fairly familiar experience for him, reading a book, though strange to be doing it in a place with no bars over the window. And also strange to be doing it for some other reason outside the act of reading itself. All the way through he had kept wondering what Kelp had in mind, had even distracted himself from the story here and there while trying to guess what the purpose of it all could be, and the truth had never occurred to him. A blueprint. Kelp wanted them to read the book because it was a blueprint.

  Now Kelp was leafing back and forth through his copy, trying to find the part where it had said not to kill the child they were kidnapping. "I know it's here somewhere," he was saying.

  "We all read it," Murch's Mom said. "Don't start reciting it to us, like some Traffic Court judge."

  "Okay," Kelp said, and closed the book again. Standing there, holding it, looking like some kind of paperback preacher, he said, "You all agree with me, don't you? You see what a natural this is, what a winner this is."

  "There's a lot of driving in it," Murch said. "I noticed that right away."

  "Plenty for you to do," Kelp told him eagerly.

  "And they got the roads right," Murch said. "I mean, the guy that wrote the book, he got all the roads right."

  May said, "But you're still talking about kidnapping a child, and I still say that's a mean, terrible thing to do.'

  "Not if you do it like this book says."

  Murch's Mom said, "I suppose you'd want May and me to take care of this brat, like the women in the book."

  Kelp said, "Well, we're not talking about a baby or anything, you don't have to change anybody's diaper or anything like that. We're talking about a kid maybe ten, twelve years old."

  "That's very sexist," Murch's Mom said.

  Kelp looked blank. "Hah?"

  "Wanting May and me to take care of the kid. Role-assumption. It's sexist."

  "Goddammit, Mom," Murch said, "you've been off with those consciousness-raising ladies again."

  "I drive a cab," she said. "I'm no different from a man." Kelp said, "You want me to take care of the kid?" He seemed honestly bewildered.

  Murch's Mom snorted. "What does a man know about taking care of a child?"

  "But-"

  "I just wanted you to know," she said. "It was sexist, and I wanted you to know it was sexist."

  "And I still say it's mean," May said. Beside her, Dortmunder took a deep breath, but he didn't say any. thing. He was watching Kelp, listening to everybody and thinking.

  Kelp said to May, "How could it be mean? With you and Murch's Mom to take care of the kid, who's gonna treat him mean? We follow what the book says, he'll never be in any danger, and he won't even get scared. He'll probably be glad he doesn't have to go to school for a couple days."

  Dortmunder rose slowly to his feet. "Kelp," he said.

  Kelp looked at him, alert, bright-eyed, eager to be of assistance.

  "You and me," Dortmunder said, "we've worked together a few times over the years, am I right?"

  Kelp said, "Now, you're not gonna start dredging up the past, blaming me for-"

  "I'm not talking about blame," Dortmunder said. "I'm just saying we worked together."

  "Well, sure," Kelp said. "That's right, sure, we're longtime partners."

  "Now, Stan, here," Dortmunder said, "he's worked with us, too. What his job is, he drives, am I right?"

  "I'm the best," Murch said.

  "That's right," Kelp said. He seemed a little confused, but still bright-eyed and eager to please. "Stan drives, and he's the best."

  "And what do I do?" Dortmunder asked him.

  "You?" Kelp moved his hands vaguely. "You know what you do," he said. "You run it."

  "I run it. I make the plan, isn't that right?"

  "Well, sure," Kelp said.

  "Now," Dortmunder said, and his voice was beginning to rise just a little, "are you saying all those things that went wrong in the past are my fault?"

  "What? No no, I never-"

  "You're g
oing to bring in a plan?"

  "But-"

  "You don't like the way I do plans, is that it? You think there's something wrong with the plans I work out?"

  "No, I-"

  "You think some book writer's gonna do you a better plan than I am, is that what you come here to say?"

  "Dortmun-"

  "You can get right out of here," Dortmunder said, and pointed a big-knuckled finger at the door.

  "Just let me-"

  "You and that Richard Smart or whatever the hell his name is," Dortmunder raged, "the two of you can get the hell out of here, and don't come back!"

  5

  May had put together a special dinner, all of Dortmunder's favorites: Salisbury steak, steamed green beans, whipped potatoes from a mix, enriched white bread, beer in the can, and boysenberry Jell-O for dessert. On the table were lined up the ketchup, the A-1 sauce, the Worcestershire sauce, the salt and pepper and sugar, the margarine, and the can of evaporated milk. She had the entrйe done by midnight, and put it in the oven to keep warm till Dortmunder got home at quarter to four.

  From the slope of his shoulders when he walked in she knew things hadn't gone well. Maybe she should wait, and broach the subject some other time? No; if she waited for John Dortmunder to be in a good mood they'd both of them be very, very old before she ever said anything.

  He dropped his bag of tools on the gray armchair, where they clanked. He unzipped his black jacket, peeled off his black gloves, shook his head, and said, "I don't know, May. I just don't know."

  "Something go wrong?"

  "Twenty-five minutes going through that door," Dortmunder said. "I did everything right, everything smooth and perfect. Not a sound, not a peep. I go in through the door, I flash the light around, you know what the place is?"

  She shook her head. "I can't imagine," she said.

  "Empty."

  "Empty?"

  "Since last Tuesday and today," he said, waving one hand around, "they went out of business. Can you figure that? Just last Tuesday I walked by the front of the place, they're still open. All right, they're having an up-to-fifty-percent-off sale, but they're open. Who expects them to go out of business?"

  "I guess times are bad all over," May said.

  "I'd like to take the guy had that store," Dortmunder said, "and punch him right in the head."

  "Well, it isn't his fault either," May said. "He probably feels just as bad about closing up as you do."

  With a cynical look, Dortmunder shook his head and said, "Not damn likely. He made out on that sale he had there, don't you think he didn't. And what do I get? I get zip."

  "There'll be other times," May said. She wished she knew how to console him. "Anyway, wash up and I've got a nice dinner for you."

  Dortmunder nodded, heavy and fatalistic. Walking away toward the bathroom, shrugging out of his jacket, he muttered, "Living off the proceeds of a woman." He shook his head again.

  May scrinched her face up. He was always using that phrase, whenever things went wrong, and it was perfectly true that when he didn't make any money they had to live on her salary and fringe benefits from Bohack's, but she didn't mind. She'd told him a hundred times that she didn't mind. All she minded, actually, was that phrase:

  "Living off the proceeds of a woman." Somehow, the impression the phrase gave her didn't seem to have anything to do with being a cashier at Bohack's. Oh, well. He didn't mean anything bad by it. May padded on back to the kitchen to see to dinner, and also to change cigarettes. The one burning away in the corner of her mouth had become no bigger than an ember by now, causing a sensation of heat against her lips. She reached up, plucked the burning coal from her mouth with thumb and two fingers, and flipped it into the sink, where it sizzled in complaint and then died. Meanwhile, May had already taken the crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes from her sweater pocket and was finagling one cigarette out of it. It was a process like removing an accident victim from his crushed automobile. Freeing the cigarette, she straightened and smoothed it, and went looking for matches. Unlike most chain smokers, she couldn't light the new cigarette from the old, there never being enough of the old one left to hold onto, so she had a continuing supply problem with matches.

  Like now, for instance. There were no matches at all in the kitchen. Rather than carry the hunt through the rest of the apartment she turned on a front burner of the gas stove, crouched down in front of it, and crept up on the flame like a peeping tom creeping up on an open window. The smell of cigarette smoke mingled in the air with the smell of singed eyebrow. Squinting her eyes shut, she ducked back, puffed, shook her head, wiped her eyes, turned off the burner, and saw to dinner.

  Dortmunder was sitting at the table in the dinette end of the living room when she carried the two hot plates in, using potholders with cartoons on them. Dortmunder looked at the food as she put it before him, and he almost smiled. "Looks real nice," he said.

  "I thought you'd like it." She sat down opposite him, and for a while they just ate together in companionable silence. She didn't want to rush into this conversation, and in fact she wasn't even sure how she would start it. All she knew was that she wasn't looking forward to it.

  She waited till they were having their coffee and Jell-0, and then said, "I had a call today from Murch's Mom."

  "Oh, yeah?" He sounded neither interested nor suspicious. What a simple, honest, trusting man, May thought, looking at him, feeling for him again the same tenderness as when they'd first met, the time she caught him shoplifting in Bohack's. That time, he hadn't run or lied or complained or caused any trouble at all; he'd just stood there, looking so defeated she hadn't had the heart to turn him in. She'd even helped him stuff the sliced cheese and the packaged baloney back into his armpits, and had said, "Look, why not hit the Grand Union from now on?" And he'd said, "I always liked the Bohack coffee." It was the first thing he'd ever said to her.

  She cleared her throat; she was feeling misty and emotional, and that would never do. Much as she hated the role, what she had to do now was start manipulating her man; it was, after all, for his own good. So she said, "She told me, Murch's Mom told me, that Andy Kelp is still trying to organize that kidnapping idea."

  Dortmunder paused with a spoonful of Jell-O, gave a disgusted look, and went back to his eating.

  "He wanted Stan to drive," May said, "but Stan wouldn't go into it without you."

  "Good," Dortmunder said.

  "I'm worried about Kelp," May said. "You know what he's like, John."

  "He's a jinx," Dortmunder said. "He's also an ingrate, and besides that he's a bigmouth. Let's not spoil a nice dinner with talk about Kelp."

  "I'm just afraid of the kind of woman he'll get," May said. "You know, to take care of the child."

  Dortmunder frowned. "What child?"

  "The one they kidnap."

  Dortmunder shook his head. "He'll never get it off the ground. Andy Kelp couldn't steal third in the Little League."

  "Well, that would make it even worse," May said. "He's really determined to do it, you know. He'll get the wrong people, some awful woman who doesn't care about children, and some barfly to do the driving, and they'll just get themselves in trouble."

  "Good," Dortmunder said.

  "But what if the child gets hurt? What if the police surround the hideout, what if there's a shoot-out?"

  "A shoot-out? With Kelp? He's so gun-shy, he goes out to the track, he surrenders at the beginning of every race."

  "But what about the other people with him? There's no telling who he'll wind up with."

  Dortmunder looked pained, and May remembered that he and Kelp really were old friends; so maybe there was a chance, after all. But then Dortmunder's expression became mulish, and he said, "Just so he doesn't wind up with me. He's jinxed me long enough."

  May cast around for another argument, considered a specific mention of the friendship between Dortmunder and Kelp, and finally decided not to do that. If she did, he might just be angry enough now to deny the fr
iendship, and then later on he'd think he had to stand by the denial. Better to let the dust settle for a minute.

  They were finishing the Jell-O when she started again, coming in from another direction entirely, saying, "I read that book again. It isn't bad, you know."

  He looked at her. "What book?"

  "The one Kelp showed us. The one about the kidnap. ping."

  He straightened and looked around the room, frowning. "I thought I threw that out," he said.

  "I got another copy." She'd gotten it from Kelp, but she didn't think she should mention that.

  He turned his frown toward her. "What for?"

  "I wanted to read it again. I wanted to see if maybe Kelp had a good idea after all."

  "Kelp with a good idea." He finished his Jell-O and reached for his coffee.

  "Well, he was smart to bring it around to you," she said. "He wouldn't be able to do it right without you."

  "Kelp brings a plan to me."

  "To make it work," she said. "Don't you see? There's a plan there, but you have to convert it to the real world, to the people you've got and the places you'll be and all the rest of it. You'd be the aw-tour."

  He cocked his head and studied her. "I'd be the what?"

  "I read an article in a magazine," she said. "It was about a theory about movies."

  "A theory about movies."

  "It's called the aw-tour theory. That's French, it means writer."

  He spread his hands. "What the hell have I got to do with the movies?"

  "Don't shout at me, John, I'm trying to tell you. The idea is-"

  "I'm not shouting," he said. He was getting grumpy.

  "All right, you're not shouting. Anyway, the idea is, in movies the writer isn't really the writer. The real writer is the director, because he takes what the writer did and he puts it together with the actors and the places where they make the movie and all the things like that."

  "The writer isn't the writer," Dortmunder said.

  "That's the theory."

  "Some theory."

  "So they call the director the aw-tour,' she explained, "because that's French for writer."