Jimmy The Kid

by Donald Westlake

  “I’ve had traffic cops say the same thing.” She really wasn’t in a wonderful mood at all.

  The staircase was narrow; they had to go up one at a time. Kelp let Murch’s Mom go first, and naturally her son had to follow, so Kelp went up last. He called past Murch, “Did you read the book, Mrs. Murch?”

  “I read it.” She was stumping up the stairs as though stair–climbing was the punishment for a crime she hadn’t committed.

  “Wha’d you think?”

  She shrugged. Grudging it, she said, “Make a nice movie.”

  “Make a nice bundle,” Kelp told her.

  Murch said, “The part where they put the car in the truck. That was okay.”

  Kelp was feeling the awkwardness of a guy bringing his new girl friend around to meet the fellas at the bowling alley. He called up the stairs to Murch’s Mom’s back, “I thought it had a like a kind of realism to it.”

  She didn’t say anything. Murch said, “And they got away with it at the end. That was okay.”

  “Right,” Kelp said. All of a sudden he was convinced Dortmunder wasn’t going to see it. Murch hadn’t seen it, Murch’s Mom hadn’t seen it, and Dortmunder wasn’t going to see it. And Dortmunder had this prejudice anyway about ideas brought to him by Kelp, even though none of the disasters of the past had been truly Kelp’s fault.

  They were at the third–floor landing, and May was standing in the open doorway of the apartment. There was a cigarette dangling in the corner of her mouth, and she was wearing a dark blue dress and a green cardigan sweater with the buttons open and with a pocket down by the waist that was bulged out of shape by a pack of cigarettes and two packs of matches. She looked very flat footed, because she had on the white orthopedic shoes she wore in her job as a cashier at a Bohack’s supermarket. She was a tall thin woman with slightly graying black hair, and she was usually squinting because of cigarette smoke in her eyes, since at all times she kept a cigarette burning away in the corner of her mouth.

  Now, she said hello to everybody and invited them in, and Kelp paused just inside the door to say, “Did you read it?”

  Murch and his Mom had gone through the foyer into the living room. Voices could be heard in there, as they greeted Dortmunder. May, closing the front door, nodded and said, “I liked it.”

  “Good,” Kelp said. He and May went into the living room, and Kelp watched Dortmunder just leaving the room by the opposite door. “Uh,” Kelp said.

  May said, “You want a beer?” She called after Dortmunder, “John, and a beer for Kelp.”

  “Oh,” Kelp said. “He’s getting beer.”

  Murch and his Mom were settling on the sofa. The two full ashtrays on the drum table suggested that May was probably claiming the blue armchair, and that left only the gray armchair. Dortmunder would be sitting in that.

  “Have a seat,” May said.

  “No, thanks,” Kelp said. “I’d rather stand. I’m sort of up and excited, you know?”

  Beer cans were being opened in the kitchen; kop, kop, kop. Murch’s Mom said, “May, I’m crazy about that lamp. Where’d you get it?”

  “Fortunoff’s,” May said. “On sale, a discontinued model.”

  Murch said, “I know we’re a little late, but we ran into traffic on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. I couldn’t figure it out.”

  “I told you there was construction there,” his mother said. “But you don’t listen to your mother.”

  “At eight o’clock at night? I figured four, five o’clock, they go home. Am I supposed to know they leave the machinery there, close the thing down to one lane all night?”

  Kelp said, “To come to Manhattan you take the Brooklyn Queens Expressway?”

  “Up to the Midtown Tunnel,” Murch said. “You see, coming from Canarsie–”

  Dortmunder, coming in then with his hands full of beer cans, said, “Everybody can drink out of the can, right?”

  They all agreed they could, and then Murch went on with his explanation to Kelp, “Coming up out of Canarsie,” he said, “you’ve got special problems, see. There’s different routes you can take that’s better at different times of day. So what we did this time, we took Pennsylvania Avenue, but then we didn’t take the Interborough. See what I mean? We took Bushwick Avenue instead, and crossed over to Broadway. Now, we could have taken the Williamsburg Bridge, but–”

  “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 returning 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!”

  Chapter 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 g
ive 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 anything. He just sat there and thought about it.

  Dortmunder was not a natural reader, but his times inside 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 still say it’s mean,” May said. Beside her, Dortmunder took a deep breath, but he didn’t say anything. 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 long–time 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 going 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!”

  Chapter 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 entrée 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 thin
gs 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.