Jimmy the Kid

by Donald E. Westlake

  "I wish you hadn't told me that," Dortmunder said. He looked at his watch. "If the Caddy's coming through, it'll be pretty soon."

  "Sure it's coming through," Kelp said. "Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right around two-thirty."

  "Uh huh. If it turns out it's no good, Murch'll come take over here at four. Try to stay awake until then."

  "I wasn't really asleep," Kelp said. "Not really. Anyway, I'm wide awake now."

  "Uh huh. If Murch doesn't show up here at four, that means we're either following the Caddy or some damn thing has gone wrong, and you should pack up everything and go home."

  "Right," Kelp said.

  Dortmunder glanced toward the tunnel, looked at Kelp, sighed and said, "See you later."

  "Sure."

  Dortmunder left and went down the warped wooden stairs and out to the street. He walked to the corner, went a block up Tenth Avenue, and got into the Renault just around the corner on Fortieth Street. Murch, at the wheel, said, "Anything new?"

  "Kelp was asleep," Dortmunder said.

  "It's all that beer he drinks," Murch said. "He drinks that beer and then he sits in the sun, and he falls asleep."

  "I just told him that."

  "So what do we do? Follow the Caddy?"

  "If it shows up."

  "Right." Murch started the Renault, drove a block, waited for a green light, turned left on Dyer Avenue, and parked over against the left-hand curb.

  There wasn't much room in the Renault, and Dortmunder had long legs. While he shifted around, trying to get comfortable, Murch rolled down his side window and took a long narrow cigar out of his shirt pocket. Dortmunder stopped squirming to watch him light it, and then said, "What's that? You don't smoke cigars."

  "I thought I'd try one," Murch said.

  "It stinks," Dortmunder said.

  "You think so? I kind of like it."

  Dortmunder shook his head. He scrunched around again, moving himself an inch farther away from Murch, and then rolled his side window down. He hung his right arm outside, and watched the incoming tunnel traffic stream past his right elbow and on up Dyer Avenue.

  Dyer Avenue, on the west side of midtown Manhattan, has almost no true existence at all. It runs eight blocks, from Thirty-fourth Street to Forty-second Street, and contains no houses, no shops, no churches or schools or factories. Lined with the blank walls of warehouse backs and overpass supports, it is partially roofed by ramps leading to the upper levels of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and is used exclusively to funnel traffic coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel. There's no reason to park there, and in fact no parking is permitted.

  Which was what the mounted policeman told them, ten minutes later. Coming up on Dortmunder's side of the car, he leaned down beside the neck of his horse and said, "There's no parking here, fella."

  Dortmunder looked up and back, and saw this policeman's face suspended in midair. Then he saw it was a policeman's head with a horse's body. He just stared.

  "Didn't you hear me, fella?" the policeman said.

  Dortmunder reared back, as best he could in the Renault, closed one eye, and finally managed to get the right perspective. "Oh," he said. "Right. Yeah." Nodding to the policeman, he turned to tell Murch to drive them away from there.

  "Just a minute," the policeman said, and when Dortmunder looked at him again he was climbing down off his horse. Now what? Dortmunder thought, and he waited while the policeman got himself down onto the blacktop and leaned his head close to the window. He gave Dortmunder a hard look, and then gave Murch a hard look. He also sniffed loudly, and Dortmunder realized the police. man thought they were drunk. He sniffed again, and wrinkled his face up, and said, "What's that stink?"

  "His cigar," Dortmunder said. "I told him it stunk," he said, and watched the Caddy go by. Silver-gray Cadillac limousine, whip antenna, gray-uniformed chauffeur, kid in the backseat, Jersey plate number WAX 361. Dortmunder sighed.

  "Urp," Murch said. Then, being very hasty, he said, "Okay, officer, I'll move it now." He even shifted into gear.

  "Just hold on there," the policeman said. The Cadillac went on up to Forty-second Street and turned right. The policeman, leading his horse, walked slowly in his tight riding boots around the front of the Renault. He studied the car and the license plate, and frowned through the windshield at the two men inside there. Murch gave him a big wide smile, and Dortmunder just looked at him.

  There wasn't room for the horse between the left side of the Renault and the brick wall of the overpass support, so the policeman left it standing broadside in front of the car.

  Still smiling broadly at the policeman, Murch said out of the corner of his mouth, "What if he asks for license and registration?"

  "Maybe there's a registration in the glove compartment."

  "Yeah, but I don't have a license."

  "Wonderful," Dortmunder said, and the policeman leaned down to look in Murch's window and say, "What are you parked here for, anyway?"

  Murch said, "I got a dizzy spell coming through the tunnel." Out front, the horse's tail, which was on Dortmunder's side of the car, lifted up and the horse began to relieve himself.

  The policeman said, "Dizzy spell, huh? Let's see your-"

  "Your horse," Dortmunder said loudly.

  The policeman looked past Murch at Dortmunder. "What?"

  "Your horse," Dortmunder said, "is shitting on our car."

  The policeman leaned in and looked through the windshield at his horse. "Son of a bitch," he said. He removed his head from the car, went around front, grabbed the reins, and led the horse away from the car.

  "Get us out of here," Dortmunder said.

  "Right." Murch put the Renault in gear again and angled out away from the curb and around the policeman and his horse. Moving slowly by, he called to the policeman, "Thank you, officer. I feel a lot better now."

  The horse apparently preferred walking to standing still when relieving itself, and was now walking slowly up Dyer Avenue, plopping contentedly behind itself, and ignoring the policeman's efforts to make it stop. "Yeah yeah," the policeman said, nodding in distraction at Murch, and to the horse said, "Stop there, Abner, stop there."

  Up at Forty-second Street the light was against them. They stopped, and Dortmunder said, "Goddam it to hell and goddam it back again."

  "So we'll try it again Friday," Murch said.

  "The horse'll shit in the window next time."

  The light turned green and Murch made a left. "You want me to take you home?"

  "Might as well."

  At Tenth Avenue the light was against them. Murch said, "I threw out the cigar, did you notice?"

  "I told you it stunk."

  "Friday we'll wait around the corner on Forty-second. You can park there."

  "Sure," Dortmunder said.

  The light remained red. Murch looked thoughtful. He said, "Listen, you in a hurry?"

  "In a hurry for what?"

  "Let's take a little drive, okay?"

  Dortmunder shrugged. "Do what you want."

  "Fine," Murch said. The light turned green and he headed up Tenth Avenue.

  Dortmunder brooded for forty blocks, as Tenth Avenue changed its name to Amsterdam Avenue and its language to Spanish, but as they crossed Eighty-sixth Street he finally sat up, looked out at the world, and said, "Where we going?"

  "Up to Ninety-sixth," Murch said, "and over to Central Park West, and then down. After that I'll take you home."

  "What's the idea?"

  Murch shrugged, and seemed slightly embarrassed. "Well, you never know," he said.

  "You never know what?"

  "In the hook, the car goes to Central Park West."

  Dortmunder stared at him. "You think the Caddy's going to be on Central Park West because the car in the book was on Central Park West?"

  March showed increasing discomfort. "I figured," he said, "what the hell, it won't cost us anything. Besides, in the book the kid's coming in for special speech therapy, right? So this kid, i
n the Caddy, he's got to be coming in to see some specialist like that, too, and Central Park West is full of those guys."

  "So's Park Avenue," Dortmunder said. "So's a lot of other places, all over town."

  "If you don't want to do it," Murch said, "it's okay with me. I just figured, what the hell."

  Dortmunder looked at the sign for the cross street they were passing: Ninety-fourth. "You want to go to Ninety-sixth, and then down?"

  "Right."

  "Well, we're here already, so go ahead."

  "It probably won't come out to anything," Murch said, "but the way I figured, what-"

  "Yeah, I know," Dortmunder said. "You figured, what the hell."

  "That's the way I figured," Murch said, and made the turn on Ninety-sixth Street. They traveled two blocks to Central Park West, turned right again, and headed south, with the park on their left and the tall apartment buildings on their right. They traveled south for twenty-five blocks, Murch looking more and more awkward and Dortmunder feeling more and more fatalistic, when all of a sudden Murch slammed on the brakes and shouted, "Son of a bitch!"

  A cab behind them honked, squealed its brakes, and twisted on around them with various words shouted out into the air. Dortmunder looked where Murch was pointing, and he said, "I just don't believe it."

  The Caddy. Silver-gray, whip antenna, Jersey plate number WAX 361. Parked in a bus stop, big as life. When Murch drove slowly by, the chauffeur was sitting behind the wheel in there reading a tabloid newspaper. His hat was off.

  Murch found a space in front of a fire hydrant in the next block. He was grinning all over his face when he — switched the engine off and turned to say to Dortmunder, "I just had a hunch, that's all. I figured, what the hell, and I just had a hunch."

  "Yeah," Dortmunder said.

  "You get things like that sometimes," Murch said. "It's just a hunch you get, they come on you sometimes."

  Dortmunder nodded, heavily. "We'll pay for this later on," he said, and got out of the car, and walked back up toward the Cadillac. It was parked facing this way, and the chauffeur's head was hidden behind his open newspaper.

  Dortmunder didn't look right on Central Park West, and he knew it. He felt eyes on him, mistrusting him. It seemed to him that doormen, as he walked by, glared at him and clutched their whistles. Cruising cabs accelerated. Dog walkers stood closer to their Weimaraners and Schnauzers. And old men in wheelchairs, being pushed by stout black ladies in white uniforms, scrabbled at their blankets.

  Dortmunder walked slowly by the Cadillac. The back seat was empty and the side windows were open, but it was very hard to see inside. Aware of being an alien here, still feeling the eyes on him, Dortmunder didn't want to stop, so he kept on walking even though he didn't know if there was a telephone in the limousine or not.

  Well, he couldn't keep walking north forever. At the next corner he stopped, looked indecisive, then patted himself all over, pantomiming a search for some small but necessary object. In a large elaborate movement, he snapped his fingers, suggesting the sudden realization that the small but necessary object had been left behind; at home, perhaps. He then turned around and walked the other way.

  The Cadillac was getting closer. Coming from behind it he had a clearer view of the interior, but it still wasn't good enough. He walked more and more slowly, squinting, trying to see into the damn car.

  Well, screw it. He went over to the Cadillac, leaned down, stuck his head in the open window by the back seat, and saw that indeed there was a telephone mounted on the back of the front seat. He nodded in satisfaction. The chauffeur remained inside his newspaper.

  Dortmunder got his head out of the Cadillac and walked briskly on down to the Renault. He opened the Renault door, but before getting in he looked back up at the Cadillac. The chauffeur still hadn't moved, but as Dortmunder watched he suddenly jumped, yanked the newspaper down into his lap, spun around and stared at the empty hack seat. He then faced front again, looking baffled. He turned his head this way and that, staring suspiciously all around. His eyes met Dortmunder's, and he frowned, deeply.

  Dortmunder got into the Renault. He arranged his feet as best he could, closed the door, and said, "The amazing thing is, there's a goddam telephone in there."

  Murch was still grinning from ear to ear, and he had his paperback copy of Child Heist open in his hands. "Now we wait for the kid to come out again," he said, reading the words from the book. "Then we'll take a look at his route home." He slapped the book shut and said, "Just like it says in the book!"

  "Yeah," said Dortmunder.

  9

  When Dortmunder escorted May into the 0. J. Bar and Grill, Rollo the bartender was in the process of separating two customers who had come to blows during a statistical discussion of the New York Mets. Stools and chairs were being kicked as the customers thrashed around on the floor with their arms around one another. Rollo, avoiding their feet, circled them looking for an opening. Dortmunder gestured for May to move off to the left, and the two of them got in behind the cigarette machine, in the front corner of the room.

  "So this is the 0. J.," May said, as a stool went crashing over on its side. The seat part of the stool separated from the chrome legs and went rolling away toward the rear, making metal noises on the floor. The three other customers in the place were all straining toward the television set, trying to make out what George Peppard was saying to Jill St. John.

  "It's usually quieter than this," Dortmunder said.

  Out there on the floor, Rollo had gotten hold of a shoulder and was shaking it. Then, with his other hand, he got hold of a different shoulder and tried throwing it away. The shoulders, though wearing different colored jackets, didn't want to separate at first; Rollo had to do a lot of shaking with his left hand while making three strong throwing gestures with his right before they popped apart. Then the one customer went skidding away on his back under a booth, and Rollo picked the other one up by his shoulder and hair and carried him to the front door. Ort his way by the cigarette machine he nodded to Dortmunder and said, "How ya doin?"

  "Fine," Dortmunder said.

  Rollo pushed the door open with the customer's head, and ejected the customer. Then he turned and went back for the other customer, who was scrambling out from under the booth. Rollo picked him up by his belt, in the middle of his back, and half-carried half-ran him across the floor and through the door and out onto Amsterdam Avenue. When he came back in, he nodded again to Dortmunder, who was escorting May out from behind the cigarette machine, and said, "When he asked for white cream de mint I knew there was gonna be trouble."

  "Rollo," Dortmunder said, "this is May."

  "How ya doin?" Rollo said.

  "I'm fine," said May. "Does that happen a lot?"

  "Not so much," Rollo said. 'We mostly got beer drinkers in here. Beer drinkers got a low center of gravity, they don't like to fight much. They just like to sit there, mind their own business."

  "I like a nice beer myself," May said.

  "I seen you were a good person when you walked in," Rollo said. To Dortmunder he said, "The other bourbon's in the back. I give him your glass."

  "Okay."

  "Expecting anybody else?"

  "The draft beer and salt," Dortmunder said. "And he'll be bringing his mother."

  "Oh, yeah, I remember her. She's also a draft beer, right?"

  "Right."

  "That's nice," Rollo said. "I like ladies in the place, it makes for a better atmosphere."

  "Thank you," May said.

  "You go on back," Rollo said, "I'll bring you your beer, little lady."

  Dortmunder and May went to the back room, and Kelp was sitting there with the bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He got to his feet and said, "Hi, May. Sit down. What was all the noise out there?"

  "That was Rollo," Dortmunder said, "cutting back on his services."

  "He's very gallant," May said.

  Kelp, looking at his watch, said, "Murch and his Mom are late."


  Dortmunder nodded. "I know. And the worst of it is, he'll tell us why."

  "And," Kelp said, "what route he should of took." May said, "Maybe he couldn't find a deserted farmhouse."

  Kelp said, "Why not? We found the kid, didn't we? We followed the book and we found the kid. So now the book says we want a deserted farmhouse, we'll find a deserted farmhouse?'

  Dortmunder said, "You know, there are these little moments when that book gives me a swift pain in the ass."

  "It's been right so far," Kelp said. "You got to give credit where credit is due."

  May said, "Tell me about this boy. John says you found out about his family and all."

  "Right," Kelp said. "His name is Jimmy Harrington. His father's a lawyer on Wall Street, in the firm of McIntire, Loeb, Sanderson and Chen. He's a partner there."

  Dortmunder said, "He's a partner? I thought his name was Harrington."

  "It is," Kelp said.

  "There isn't any Harrington in the company name. Just those other people."

  "McIntire," Kelp said, "Loeb, Sanderson and Chen."

  "Right," Dortmunder said. "That bunch. If Harrington's a partner, where's his name?"

  "They got a whole bunch of partners," Kelp said. "I saw a piece of their stationery, there's this whole line of names down the left side, they're all partners. I think maybe McIntire, Loeb, Sanderson and Chen are maybe the first partners."

  "The founders," May suggested.

  "I get it," Dortmunder said. "Okay, fine."

  "Anyway," Kelp said, "Harrington is maybe fifty-five, he's got four grown-up kids and grandchildren, the whole thing. He's also got a second wife, and she's got grown-up kids. But when they got married they had a kid together, and that's Jimmy. The father's name is Herbert and the mother's name is Claire."

  "I feel sorry for the mother," May said. "She's going to feel terrible."

  "Maybe," Kelp said. "She and Herbert broke up six years ago, she lives down in Palm Beach, Florida. From what I found out so far, she hasn't been north in six years, and I don't think Jimmy travels south. Jimmy lives out on the family estate in New Jersey, way over by Pennsylvania."

  Rollo came in with May's beer while Kelp was saying that; he put it on the table, looked around, and said, "Everybody set?"