Donald Westlake - Get Real

DORTMUNDER COULDN’T believe it. Again? Now what? Over the last week, he and the others had gotten used to this weird business. Dortmunder was still basically opposed to the whole thing, he assured himself of that, but there was just something about actually doing it. It was fun in some sort of unexpected way, and it drew you in.

For instance, last week they kind of took the show on the road. All of them except Ray, since there was to be no actual planning or wall-walking involved, went to a real pawnshop and talked to a real pawnbroker, who wasn’t like old suspenders-wearing pawnbrokers in the movies, but was some kind of Asian guy, very thin, who talked very fast with a hard click-like thing at the end of every word. He thought what they were doing was hilarious, and he kept cracking up with high-pitched giggles, his whole face scrunched around his laughing mouth. Marcy and Doug kept at him to stay serious, to remember the actual cash money they’d be paying him, and eventually he did settle down enough so they could get through it.

But it wasn’t any good. That is, it wasn’t any good on purpose. The whole point of the week was that Tiny knew this pawnbroker, so they all went over to talk with him (taxi scenes, with Tiny all over the front seat, and another reason not to include Ray), because this pawnbroker would be willing to take whatever it was they would be removing from the storage company.

But then it turned out he was only willing to take the stuff on consignment, and consignment was not going to cut it. Thieves don’t work on consignment. Thieves obtain the goods, they sell the goods, they take cash on the barrelhead. That’s why they finish with such a small percentage of the value of whatever they’ve taken, which was all right, because it meant they had something where they had nothing before.

So the pawnshop guy didn’t work out, at least in terms of what Doug kept calling the arc of the story. But in terms of what they were really doing, the pawnshop did exactly what it was supposed to do. Face it, in truth, if you and a group of friends decide to knock over this or that, what you do, you discuss it once (the OJ back room scene), you case the place (scout the location, in Doug’s term), you go in and get whatever it is and bring it out, and if it isn’t cash you discuss it with a fence, and that’s it. Over and done with.

There’s no way to get a whole television season out of a scenario like that, which is why the fertile little brain of Marcy was called upon to find frustrations and interruptions and roadblocks along the way. For a whole season, they’d start to plan the job, they’d move along setting it up, and then Marcy would throw a monkey wrench into the works, so that off they’d go back to the OJ for another confab.

That’s part of what made this whole thing strangely interesting: you never actually did anything, you just kept planning to. And at some point every day you’d sit in front of a television set and watch what you did yesterday, and agree you weren’t half bad. None of them; they were none of them half bad.

But here comes Babe again, with his shut it down you’re canceled. So now what’s up?

Doug voiced the question for them all: “Babe? Now what’s up? What’s gone wrong?”

“These people,” Babe snarled, pointing at them all, “are thieves. They’re rotten thieves.”

Doug, sounding as bewildered as everybody else, said, “Of course they are, Babe. That’s why they’re here.”

“They’re stealing,” Babe snapped at him, “from us. ”

“The storage business,” Doug agreed. “Yes, we know, we—”

“Cars,” Babe said.

In that instant, Dortmunder knew. And without looking at the others, he knew they also knew. Stan was going freelance.

Doug, who didn’t share this knowledge, said, “Cars? Babe, what are you talking about?”

Now, Babe pointed floorward. “At least four of the vehicles downstairs,” he said, “are missing. One of them was needed for a show yesterday, and when the driver got here it was gone.”

“Oh, guys,” Marcy cried, heartstruck. “You wouldn’t.”

“We didn’t,” Dortmunder said.

Babe said, “We have people coming downtown to do an inventory, find out exactly how many these people took.”

“Not us,” Dortmunder said.

Babe didn’t even bother to look at him. “I know there’s no honor among thieves,” he told Doug, “but this goes too far. We’re paying them, Doug, Each and every one of them has twenty-four hundred dollars out of us already.”

“Less taxes,” Kelp said, sounding bitter. “I don’t know where that money’s going.”

Doug turned to this new problem. “We talked about this, Andy,” he said. “It’s true your money’s coming from out of the country, but US citizens have to pay income tax no matter where they’re working, or where they get paid. You understood that, you agreed with it.”

“And,” Babe said, ice-cold, “it doesn’t make up for stealing our cars when you’re supposed to be cooperating with us.”

“Not us,” Dortmunder repeated.

Kelp pointed at Dortmunder and said to Babe, “He’s right, you know. It wasn’t us.”

Babe put hands on hips and lowered his head at Kelp. “Are you going to try to tell me,” he said, “you and your friends here didn’t rig the front door, and the back door, too, for some reason, so you could get in and out of this building whenever you want?”

“Of course we did,” Kelp said.

Dortmunder said, “Sure we did. That’s what we do.”

Now Babe managed to glare at the entire crew of them at once. “You admit it?”

“That’s how it works,” Kelp said. “You never go into a place unless you know how to get back out again. It’s called an exit strategy.”

Dortmunder explained, “You never want to be in a box with only one way out.”

Kelp said, “We rigged the roof door, too, did you know that?”

“What?” Babe could not hide his astonishment. “You can’t take cars out the roof!”

“We don’t take cars anywhere,” Dortmunder said. “The only time we take a car is when we need transportation to where we’re gonna take what we’re gonna take.”

Darlene suddenly announced, “Well, Ray and I didn’t take any old cars.” She sounded as though she couldn’t decide if she were angry or weepy. “We have alibis,” she told the world. “We both have alibis. We alibi each other every second.”

“Darlene,” Ray said, a note of caution in his voice.

Doug said, “Darlene, nobody thinks you or Ray did anything you weren’t supposed to.”

“And neither did we,” Kelp said. “Maybe even more so.”

Babe was beginning to look bedeviled. “If you people didn’t take those cars,” he said, “and I don’t believe that for a second, but if you didn’t take them, who did? Who else would?”

“Babe,” the kid said, surprising everybody. When Babe met his look, he said, “How many people have keys to this building?”

Babe frowned at him. “I have no idea,” he said. “So what?”

“A hundred?” the kid asked. “A thousand?”

Now Babe did try to think about it, and shrugged. “Probably more than a hundred,” he said. “Certainly less than a thousand.”

And the kid said, “And you trust every one of them?”

Exasperated, Babe said, “I don’t even know every one of them. What difference is that supposed to make?”

“There’s all those cars down there,” the kid said. “Just sitting there. Mostly, nobody cares about them. They’ve got the keys in them, Babe. More than one hundred people know they’re there.”