Jimmy the Kid

by Donald E. Westlake

  "It'll be over soon," Kelp said, but not with his usual sparkle. He'd cut out the sparkle about an hour ago, when after one optimistic remark he'd made Dortmunder had given him a flat look and had started thumping his right fist into his left palm. Now, Kelp too seemed beaten by events, even if only temporarily.

  Lincoln Tunnel. Murch paid the toll, and they drove through, following a slow-moving, belching tractor-trailer bringing-if the back doors could be believed-pork fat to an anxious city.

  Out the other side, Murch scooted the van around the tractor-trailer and headed up Dyer Avenue to Forty-second Street, where a red light stopped him. "Where to?" he called back.

  "Out," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp said, "Don't we have to let the kid off first?"

  "That's right," Dortmunder said.

  May called to Murch, "Stop at Eighth Avenue. He can take the subway there, up to Central Park West."

  "Right."

  Jimmy had been half dozing, sitting on his Air France bag and leaning back against May's side. Now she jostled his shoulder, saying, "Here we are, Jimmy. New York."

  "Mm?" The boy sat up, blinking. When he stretched, his bones cracked like tree limbs. "Boy, what a trip," he said.

  Murch drove to Eighth Avenue and stopped. May gave the boy a token, and Kelp opened the rear door for him. Carrying his bag, he climbed awkwardly out onto the street. (In some places this might have caused comment, but at Eighth Avenue and Forty-second Street in New York City a twelve-year-old boy with an Air France bag climbing out of the back of a veterinarian's truck at eight-thirty on a Friday morning was the closest thing to normality that had happened there in six years.)

  "So long, Jimmy," May called, and waved to him.

  "So long, everybody," Jimmy said, waving to them all through the open door of the truck. "Don't feel bad," he said, and turned away.

  Kelp pulled the door shut, and Murch drove them on. "How much farther?" he asked.

  "Turn down Seventh," Dortmunder said, "and park as soon as you can."

  Kelp was frowning. He said, "Don't feel bad'? What did he mean, 'Don't feel bad'?"

  May said, "I suppose because we're all separating now. We kind of got close there, after all, and he did warn us about the police."

  Kelp continued to frown. "It doesn't feel right," he said.

  Dortmunder looked at him. "What's up?"

  "The kid said, 'Don't feel bad.' Why would he-?"

  Kelp blinked. Dortmunder looked at him. The two of them swiveled their heads and looked at the suitcase May was sitting on. May said, "What's the mat-?" Then she too looked down at the suitcase. "Oh, no," she said.

  "Oh, no," Kelp said.

  "Open it," Dortmunder said.

  Murch, stopping for the red light at Seventh Avenue, called, "What's going on back there?"

  They were all on their knees now around the suitcase. May was releasing the catches. She was opening it. They were looking in at two pieces of broken shelf, for weight, and several pieces of small-size clothing, to keep the boards from rattling around.

  "He pulled a switch on us," Kelp said.

  Dortmunder yelled at Murch, "Circle the block! Get that kid back!"

  The light was green. Murch tore the Econoline around the corner, down to Forty-first Street, and made the next right turn on the yellow.

  "Here's something else," May said, and took from the suitcase a small package wrapped in brown paper.

  Murch, driving like hell, yelled back, "What's happening?"

  "He pulled a switch on us," Kelp yelled. "He left us his laundry!"

  May had opened the package. Inside the brown paper was a stack of bills. "There's a note here," May said, and read it aloud while Kelp counted the bills. "Dear friends. Thank you for everything you've done for me. Let this be a small token of my esteem. I know you're too smart to come after me again, so this must be farewell. Kindest regards, Jimmy."

  "There's a thousand bucks here," Kelp said.

  "Two hundred apiece," Dortmunder said. "We just made two hundred dollars."

  "Here we are," Murch said, and braked to a stop at Eighth Avenue and Forty-second Street.

  Jimmy was gone.

  29

  September 29

  Mr. John Donald Riley

  27 West 45th St.

  New York, N. Y. 10036

  Dear John:

  I know I promised you I'd never get involved in a law. suit again, but I think this just might be the exception to the rule. My friend Hal out on the coast tells me he's seen a rough cut of a movie called Kid Stuff that is a direct steal from my book Child Heist, except it's played for laughs. Now, it's bad enough to steal from me, but to make fun of me at the same time is even worse.

  Hal says the thing is a low-budget no-name-star quickie done here in the east, produced and written and directed by somebody named James Hurley Harrington. I don't know who this Harrington is, he's never done anything else, but he's obviously a crook. I'm told the distribution deal is being worked out with either Columbia or MGM. Maybe the best way to approach it is through them instead of going after this Harrington direct. But you're the lawyer, so I'll leave that up to you. Hal tells me there's no question, it's an open-and-shut case.

  Say hello to Maribelle and the kids.

  Yours,

  Richard Stark

  October 7

  Mr. Richard Stark

  73 Cedar Walk

  Monequois, NJ 07826

  Dear Dick:

  Enclosed find a tax form from England to be filled out. It's the usual form telling them you're an American citizen and have not lived in their territory in the last eighteen months. You could send it on to the publisher direct.

  I've looked into the situation re Kid Stuff, and I'm afraid the story there is more complicated than it might seem at first blush. James Hurley Harrington, to begin with, is a thirteen-year-old boy, apparently a child genius of some kind. The story I get, and I do believe I have this on good authority, is that Harrington himself was kidnapped just about a year ago, the ransom was paid, and the boy was released unharmed. His father is well off, and has apparently put up the hundred fifty thousand or so that it took to make the picture.

  It seems to me, Dick, there's no question but that the kidnappers used your book in abducting the Harrington boy. However, Harrington himself has used only the events which in fact happened to him, and as you know factual events cannot be copyrighted. If there is an infringement of copyright here, and I don't see how there can help but be, I doubt you could make a case against anyone but the kidnappers. And, unfortunately, no one knows who they are.

  I understand from my own sources, by the way, that it's quite a funny little movie.

  Sincerely.

  John Donald Riley

  30

  Dortmunder could never get used to the feeling of riding in the cab of a tractor-trailer when there wasn't any trailer hooked on the back. This big loud red engine, snorting diesel fumes oh a pipe just above his window, growling through all the gears, struggling like it was puling a building along behind itself, and when you turn around and look back there's nothing there. Just the growling cab and himself sitting up high on the passenger's side while Stan Murch did the driving. For some reason, this cab-without-trailer experience always made Dortmunder feel as though he were tilting forward, as though he were about to fall off a cliff. He kept his feet planted on the floor and his back pressed against the seat.

  "There's Kelp," Murch said.

  Dortmunder squinted. "I see him," he said.

  It had taken a long time for Dortmunder to be willing to see Kelp again-almost a year. And a couple of mouths after that before he'd work with him any more. He still wouldn't have anything to do with any big stuff Kelp might bring around, but he was grudgingly willing now to join in with Kelp on the occasional burglary or, like tonight, the occasional hijacking.

  It was nine o'clock in the evening, and this space under the West Side Highway along the piers was lined with trailers. Som
e were empty, waiting to be loaded tomorrow morning with goods coming in by ship. Others were full, waiting to be off-loaded tomorrow morning with their goods going into ships. Almost all of them were trailers only, without cabs.

  This was the best time of day to hit this area. Late enough for the workmen all to have gone home, but not so late than any passing patrol car would get suspicious. Hook their cab onto a trailer, drive down to Brooklyn, turn it over to their contact there, take their money, go home.

  But not just any trailer. It had to be a trailer with useful goods in it. Like the one tonight. Kelp claimed to have learned about a trailer full of television sets. If he was right, it was rent money and then some.

  Murch pulled to a stop next to where Kelp was loitering. Kelp had been prepared to fade away between the trailers if anybody else had come along, hut now lie stepped boldly out and said, "Hiya," as Dortmunder climbed down from the cab.

  "Hello," Dortmunder said. They had an agreement:

  they were polite, even friendly with one another, but neither of them ever mentioned the past. It had been a year and a half since the kidnapping fiasco and they both knew that Dortmunder still had a tantrum left in him on that one and that the tantrum, if it did burst, would have to burst on Kelp's head. So neither of them talked about yesterday, or permitted any reminder of the past.

  "It's this one," Kelp said, gesturing to a ratty-looking trailer with a lot of dents on it.

  Dortmunder looked at it, and the trailer just didn't give the impression of being full of valuable things. He said, "You sure?"

  "Positive."

  "Yeah," Dortmunder said, and he did not say, You're been positive before. What he did, he walked down to the back of the trailer, saying, "Let's just double-check."

  Kelp, following him down between the trailers, said, "I don't think maybe we ought to-"

  Dortmunder threw the lever and opened the rear door.

  The alarm made an awful sound, it went right through your head like a science-fiction ray gun. "Shit," Dortmunder said. Through the open door, streetlight glare reflected off white cartons with the letters TV on them. "Shit again," Dortmunder said.

  Kelp was already running, and now Dortmunder followed him. Murch was boiling out of the stolen cab, and all three men ran across Twelfth Avenue and down into the warren of side streets known as the West Village. After two blocks they slowed to a walk, and then strolled on eastward toward Greenwich Village, ignoring the propositions of the homosexuals who hung out in this area at night.

  It took Dortmunder four blocks to build himself up to it but finally, gritting his teeth, he turned toward Kelp and said, "I'm sorry."

  "It's okay," Kelp said. "Could have Happened to any. body." He was so glad that for once he couldn't be blamed for what had happened that he didn't even mind the loss of the TV sets.

  They walked on a bit farther, reaching the relatively bright lights of Sheridan Square, where they stopped again and Murch said, "So now what?"

  "Look," Kelp said. "We're done so early, why don't we grab a movie? Stop off, pick up May, go to a movie."

  "A movie," Dortmunder said.

  "Sure. Maybe a nice comedy, take our minds off our troubles. There's a new one out called Kid Stuff, supposed to he pretty funny. Whadaya say?"

  "Sure," Murch said.

  Dortmunder shrugged. "What can it hurt," he said.

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