The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  Dortmunder said, “But don’t you want me to—”

  “Come back in here!”

  “Oh,” Dortmunder said. “Uh, I better tell them over there that I’m gonna move.”

  “Make it fast,” the robber told him. “Don’t mess with me, Diddums. I’m in a bad mood right now.”

  “OK.” Turning his head the other way, hating it that his back was toward this bad-mooded robber for even a second, Dortmunder called, “They want me to go back into the bank now. Just for a minute.” Hands still up, he edged sideways across the sidewalk and through the gaping doorway, where the robbers laid hands on him and flung him back deeper into the bank.

  He nearly lost his balance but saved himself against the sideways-lying pot of the tipped-over Ficus. When he turned around, all five of the robbers were lined up looking at him, their expressions intent, focused, almost hungry, like a row of cats looking in a fish-store window. “Uh,” Dortmunder said.

  “He’s it now,” one of the robbers said.

  Another robber said, “But they don’t know it.”

  A third robber said, “They will soon.”

  “They’ll know it when nobody gets on the bus,” the boss robber said, and shook his head at Dortmunder. “Sorry, Diddums. Your idea doesn’t work anymore.”

  Dortmunder had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t actually part of this string. “How come?” he asked.

  Disgusted, one of the other robbers said, “The rest of the hostages got away, that’s how come.”

  Wide-eyed, Dortmunder spoke without thinking: “The tunnel!”

  All of a sudden, it got very quiet in the bank. The robbers were now looking at him like cats looking at a fish with no window in the way. “The tunnel?” repeated the boss robber slowly. “You know about the tunnel?”

  “Well, kind of,” Dortmunder admitted. “I mean, the guys digging it, they got there just before you came and took me away.”

  “And you never mentioned it.”

  “Well,” Dortmunder said, very uncomfortable, “I didn’t feel like I should.”

  The red-eyed maniac lunged forward, waving that submachine gun again, yelling, “You’re the guy with the tunnel! It’s your tunnel!” And he pointed the shaking barrel of the Uzi at Dortmunder’s nose.

  “Easy, easy!” the boss robber yelled. “This is our only hostage; don’t use him up!”

  The red-eyed maniac reluctantly lowered the Uzi, but he turned to the others and announced, “Nobody’s gonna forget when I shot up the switchboard. Nobody’s ever gonna forget that. He wasn’t here!”

  All of the robbers thought that over. Meantime, Dortmunder was thinking about his own position. He might be a hostage, but he wasn’t your normal hostage, because he was also a guy who had just dug a tunnel to a bank vault, and there were maybe 30 eyeball witnesses who could identify him. So it wasn’t enough to get away from these bank robbers; he was also going to have to get away from the police. Several thousand police.

  So did that mean he was locked to these second-rate smash-and-grabbers? Was his own future really dependent on their getting out of this hole? Bad news, if true. Left to their own devices, these people couldn’t escape from a merry-go-round.

  Dortmunder sighed. “OK,” he said. “The first thing we have to do is—”

  “We?” the boss robber said. “Since when are you in this?”

  “Since you dragged me in,” Dortmunder told him. “And the first thing we have to do is—”

  The red-eyed maniac lunged at him again with the Uzi, shouting, “Don’t you tell us what to do! We know what to do!”

  “I’m your only hostage,” Dortmunder reminded him. “Don’t use me up. Also, now that I’ve seen you people in action, I’m your only hope of getting out of here. So this time, listen to me. The first thing we have to do is close and lock the vault door.”

  One of the robbers gave a scornful laugh. “The hostages are gone,” he said. “Didn’t you hear that part? Lock the vault door after the hostages are gone. Isn’t that some kind of old saying?” And he laughed and laughed.

  Dortmunder looked at him. “It’s a two-way tunnel,” he said quietly.

  The robbers stared at him. Then they all turned and ran toward the back of the bank. They all did.

  They’re too excitable for this line of work, Dortmunder thought as he walked briskly toward the front of the bank. Clang went the vault door, far behind him, and Dortmunder stepped through the broken doorway and out again to the sidewalk, remembering to stick his arms straight up in the air as he did.

  “Hi!” he yelled, sticking his face well out, displaying it for all the sharpshooters to get a really good look at. “Hi, it’s me again! Diddums! Welsh!”

  “Diddums!” screamed an enraged voice from deep within the bank. “Come back here!”

  Oh, no. Ignoring that, moving steadily but without panic, arms up, face forward, eyes wide, Dortmunder angled leftward across the sidewalk, shouting, “I’m coming out again! And I’m escaping!” And he dropped his arms, tucked his elbows in and ran hell for leather toward those blocking buses.

  Gunfire encouraged him: a sudden burst behind him of ddrrritt, ddrrritt, and then kopp-kopp-kopp, and then a whole symphony of fooms and thug-thugs and padapows. Dortmunder’s toes, turning into high-tension steel springs, kept him bounding through the air like the Wright brothers’ first airplane, swooping and plunging down the middle of the street, that wall of buses getting closer and closer.

  “Here! In here!” Uniformed cops appeared on both sidewalks, waving to him, offering sanctuary in the forms of open doorways and police vehicles to crouch behind, but Dortmunder was escaping. From everything.

  The buses. He launched himself through the air, hit the blacktop hard and rolled under the nearest bus. Roll, roll, roll, hitting his head and elbows and knees and ears and nose and various other parts of his body against any number of hard, dirty objects, and then he was past the bus and on his feet, staggering, staring at a lot of goggle-eyed medics hanging around beside their ambulances, who just stood there and gawked back.

  Dortmunder turned left. Medics weren’t going to chase him, their franchise didn’t include healthy bodies running down the street. The cops couldn’t chase him until they’d moved their buses out of the way. Dortmunder took off like the last of the dodoes, flapping his arms, wishing he knew how to fly.

  The out-of-business shoe store, the other terminus of the tunnel, passed on his left. The getaway car they’d parked in front of it was long gone, of course. Dortmunder kept thudding on, on, on.

  Three blocks later, a gypsy cab committed a crime by picking him up even though he hadn’t phoned the dispatcher first; in the city of New York, only licensed medallion taxis are permitted to pick up customers who hail them on the street. Dortmunder, panting like a Saint Bernard on the lumpy back seat, decided not to turn the guy in.

  —

  His faithful companion May came out of the living room when Dortmunder opened the front door of his apartment and stepped into his hall. “There you are!” she said. “Thank goodness. It’s all over the radio and the television.”

  “I may never leave the house again,” Dortmunder told her. “If Andy Kelp ever calls, says he’s got this great job, easy, piece of cake, I’ll just tell him I’ve retired.”

  “Andy’s here,” May said. “In the living room. You want a beer?”

  “Yes,” Dortmunder said simply.

  May went away to the kitchen and Dortmunder limped into the living room, where Kelp was seated on the sofa holding a can of beer and looking happy. On the coffee table in front of him was a mountain of money.

  Dortmunder stared. “What’s that?”

  Kelp grinned and shook his head. “It’s been too long since we scored, John,” he said. “You don’t even recognize the stuff anymore. This is money.”

  “But—From the vault? How?”

  “After you were taken away by those other guys—they were caught, by the way,” Kelp interrupted
himself, “without loss of life—anyway, I told everybody in the vault there, the way to keep the money safe from the robbers was we’d all carry it out with us. So we did. And then I decided what we should do is put it all in the trunk of my unmarked police car in front of the shoe store, so I could drive it to the precinct for safekeeping while they all went home to rest from their ordeal.”

  Dortmunder looked at his friend. He said, “You got the hostages to carry the money from the vault.”

  “And put it in our car,” Kelp said. “Yeah, that’s what I did.”

  May came in and handed Dortmunder a beer. He drank deep, and Kelp said, “They’re looking for you, of course. Under that other name.”

  May said, “That’s the one thing I don’t understand. Diddums?”

  “It’s Welsh,” Dortmunder told her. Then he smiled upon the mountain of money on the coffee table. “It’s not a bad name,” he decided. “I may keep it.”

  PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Lawrence Block. “The Ehrengraf Experience” by Lawrence Block, copyright © 1978 by Lawrence Block. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (August 1978). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Lawrence Block. “Keller on the Spot” by Lawrence Block, copyright © 1997 by Lawrence Block. Originally published in Playboy (November 1997). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Lawrence Block. “Like a Thief in the Night” by Lawrence Block, copyright © 1983 by Lawrence Block. Originally published in Cosmopolitan (May 1983). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Everett Rhodes Castle. “The Colonel Gives a Party” by Everett Rhodes Castle, copyright © 1943 by Everett Rhodes Castle. Renewed. Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post (May 8, 1943). Reprinted by permission of Christopher G. Castle on behalf of the estate of Everett Rhodes Castle.

  Leslie Charteris. “The Damsel in Distress” by Leslie Charteris, copyright © 2014 Interfund (London) Ltd. Excerpt from The Saint Intervenes (a.k.a. Boodle) by Leslie Charteris, reprinted under a license arrangement originating with Amazon Publishing, www.apub.com.

  Max Allan Collins. “Quarry’s Luck” by Max Allan Collins, copyright © 1994 by Max Allan Collins. Originally published in Blue Motel (White Wolf, 1994). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Richard Connell. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, copyright © 1924 by Richard Connell; copyright renewed © 1952 by Louise Fox Connell. Used by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Bradley Denton. “Blackburn Sins” by Bradley Denton, copyright © 1993 by Bradley Denton. Originally published in Blackburn (St. Martin’s, 1993). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  George Fielding Eliot. “The Copper Bowl” by George Fielding Eliot, copyright © 1928 by Weird Tales. Renewed. First published in Weird Tales (December 1928). Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales, Ltd.

  Paul Ernst. “Horror Insured” by Paul Ernst, copyright © 1936 by Weird Tales. Renewed. First published in Weird Tales (January 1936). Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales, Ltd.

  Loren D. Estleman. “The Black Spot” by Loren D. Estleman, copyright © 2015 by Loren D. Estleman. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (March/April 2015). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Bruno Fischer. “We Are All Dead” by Bruno Fischer, copyright © 1955 by Bruno Fischer. Originally published in Manhunt (January 1955). Reprinted by permission of Nora Kisch on behalf of the Estate of Bruno Fischer.

  Robert L. Fish. “Sweet Music” by Robert L. Fish, copyright © 1967 by Robert L. Fish. Originally published in The Hochmann Miniatures (New American Library, 1967). Reprinted by permission of MysteriousPress.com.

  Erle Stanley Gardner. “The Kid Stacks a Deck” by Erle Stanley Gardner, copyright © 1932 by Erle Stanley Gardner; copyright renewed © 1959 by Erle Stanley Gardner. Originally published in Detective Fiction Weekly (March 28, 1932). Reprinted by permission of Queen Literary Agency, Inc., on behalf of the Erle Stanley Gardner Trust.

  Erle Stanley Gardner. “The Racket Buster” by Erle Stanley Gardner, copyright © 1930 by Erle Stanley Gardner; copyright renewed © 1957 by Erle Stanley Gardner. Originally published in Gang World (November 1930). Reprinted by permission of Queen Literary Agency, Inc., on behalf of the Erle Stanley Gardner Trust.

  Erle Stanley Gardner. “The Cat-Woman” by Erle Stanley Gardner, copyright © 1927 by Erle Stanley Gardner; copyright renewed © 1954 by Erle Stanley Gardner. Originally published in Black Mask (February 1927). Reprinted by permission of Queen Literary Agency, Inc., on behalf of the Erle Stanley Gardner Trust.

  Erle Stanley Gardner. “In Round Figures” by Erle Stanley Gardner, copyright © 1930 by Erle Stanley Gardner; copyright renewed © 1957 by Erle Stanley Gardner. Originally published in Detective Fiction Weekly (August 23, 1930). Reprinted by permission of Queen Literary Agency, Inc., on behalf of the Erle Stanley Gardner Trust.

  Edward D. Hoch. “The Theft from the Empty Room” by Edward D. Hoch, copyright © 1972 by Edward D. Hoch. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (September 1972). Reprinted by permission of Patricia M. Hoch.

  William Irish. “After-Dinner Story” by Cornell Woolrich writing as William Irish, copyright © 1938 by Cornell Woolrich; copyright renewed © 1966 by Claire Woolrich Memorial Scholarship Fund. Reprinted by permission of JP Morgan Chase Bank as Trustee for the Claire Woolrich Memorial Scholarship Fund.

  Gerald Kersh. “Karmesin and the Big Flea” by Gerald Kersh, copyright © 1938 by Gerald Kersh. Originally published in Courier (Winter 1938/1939). Reprinted by permission of New World Publishing.

  Donald E. Keyhoe. “The Mystery of the Golden Skull” by Donald E. Keyhoe, copyright © 2016 Steeger Properties, LLC. Originally published in Dr. Yen Sin (July/August 1936). Reprinted by permission of Steeger Properties, LLC. All rights reserved.

  R. T. Lawton. “Boudin Noir” by R. T. Lawton, copyright © 2009 by R.T. Lawton. Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (December 2009). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Stephen Marlowe. “The Shill” by Stephen Marlowe, copyright © 1958 by Stephen Marlowe. Originally published in A Choice of Murders, edited by Dorothy Salisbury Davis (Scribner, 1958). Reprinted by permission of Ann Marlowe.

  Frank McAuliffe. “The Dr. Sherrock Commission” by Frank McAuliffe, copyright © 1965 by Frank McAuliffe. Originally published in Of All the Bloody Cheek (Ballantine, 1965). Reprinted by permission of Liz Gollen on behalf of the Estate of Frank McAuliffe.

  C. S. Montanye. “A Shock for the Countess” by C. S. Montanye, copyright © 2016 by Steeger Properties, LLC. Originally published in Black Mask (March 15, 1923). Reprinted by permission of Steeger Properties, LLC. All rights reserved.

  David Morrell. “The Partnership” by David Morrell, copyright © 1981 by David Morrell. Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (May 27, 1981). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Q. Patrick. “Portrait of a Murderer” by Q. Patrick, copyright © 1942 by Q. Patrick; copyright renewed © 1961. Originally published in Harper’s Magazine (April 1942). Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  Jas. R. Petrin. “Car Trouble” by Jas. R. Petrin, copyright © 2007 by James Robert Petrin. Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (December 2007). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Eugene Thomas. “The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon” by Eugene Thomas, copyright © 2016 by Steeger Properties, LLC. Originally published in Detective Fiction Weekly (February 1, 1936). Reprinted by permission of Steeger Properties, LLC. All rights reserved.

  Donald E. Westlake. “Too Many Crooks” by Donald E. Westlake, copyright © 1989 by Donald E. Westlake. Originally published in Playboy (August 1989). Reprinted by permission of Einstein Literary Management on behalf of the Estate of Donald E. Westlake.

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