Thieves' Dozen

Kelp, saying, "John? You got something?" came trailing along.

Dortmunder and the pickup approached each other. As the vehicle neared, Dortmunder waved his arms over his head, demanding that the thing stop, which it did, and a sleepy young guy looked out at him, saying, "Who the hell are you?"

"Your goddamn horses," Dortmunder said, his ma

The fellow stared at him. "You aren't Russwinder."

"I work for him, don't I?" Dortmunder demanded. "And I never seen anybody so mad. We need light back there, he sent us down, get your portable generator. You got a portable generator, don't you?"

"Well, sure," the fellow said. "But I was go

"Light," Dortmunder insisted. Around them, half-awake and half-dressed ranch employees made their way toward the center of chaos, ignoring Dortmunder and Kelp, whose bona fides were established by their being in conversation with the ranch's pickup truck. "We can't see what we're doing back there," Dortmunder said, "and Mr. Russwinder's mad."

The young fellow clearly saw that this was a time to be accommodating to one's neighbor and to one's neighbor's employee. "OK," he said. "Climb in."

"We'll ride in back," Dortmunder told him and clambered up into the bed of the pickup, which was pleasantly aromatic of hay. Kelp followed, eyes bright with hope, and the pickup lurched forward, jounced around in a great circle and headed back toward the ranch.

The pickup seemed to think it was a horse; over the fields it bucked and bounced, like a frying pan trying to throw Dortmunder and Kelp back into the fire. Clutching the pickup's metal parts with every finger and every toe, Dortmunder gazed back at the receding scene in the orchard, which looked now like a battle in a movie about the Middle Ages. "Never again," he said.

Ka-bump! The pickup slued from field to dirt road, a much more user-friendly surface, and hustled off toward the barns. "Well, this time," Kelp said, "you can't blame me."

Dortmunder looked at him. "Why not?"

The cowboy behind the wheel slammed both feet and a brick onto the brake pedal, causing the pickup to skid halfway around, hurl itself broadside at the brown-plank wall of the nearest barn and shudder to a stop with millimeters to spare. Dortmunder peeled himself off the pickup's bed, staring wildly around, and the maniac driver hopped out, crying, "The generator's in here!" Off he went at a lope.

Dortmunder and Kelp shakily assisted each other to the ground, as their benefactor dashed into the barn. "I'd like to wait and run him over," Dortmunder said, getting into the pickup's cab and sliding over to the passenger side.

Kelp followed, settling behind the wheel. The engine was on, so he just shifted into gear and they drove away from there, brisk but not reckless. No need to be reckless.

At the highway, Dortmunder said, "Left leads past that orchard. Better go right, up the hill."

So they went up the hill. As they drove past the high clearing where they'd taken pictures down at the ranch, Kelp slowed and said, "Look at that!"

It was positively coruscating down there, dazzling, like night-time on the Fourth of July. Police and fire engine flashing lights in red and blue mingled with the white of headlights, flashlights, spotlights. Men and horses ran hither and yon. Every building in the area was all lit up.

"Just for a second," Kelp said, pulling off the road and coming to a stop.

Dortmunder didn't argue. It was really a very interesting sight, and they could, after all, claim some part in its creation. They got out and walked to the edge of the drop-off to watch. Faint cries and horse snorts drifted up through the sultry air.

"We better go," Dortmunder said at last.

"Ya. You're right."

They turned back to the pickup, and Kelp said, with surprise, "Well, look at this!" He reached out his hand and took the end of a bridle and turned to smile at Dortmunder, saying, "I guess he likes us!"

Dortmunder looked at the creature munching calmly at the other end of the bridle. "It is him, isn't it?"

"He followed me home," Kelp said, gri

"No," Dortmunder said.

Surprised, Kelp ducked his head and hissed, so Dire Straits wouldn't hear him, "Dortmunder, the insurance company! A million dollars!"

"I am not taking a stolen race horse through the Lincoln Tu

"In the park."

"He'd get mugged. He'd get stolen. He'd get found."

"We gotta know somebody with a back yard!"

"And neighbors. Andy, it doesn't play. Now, come on, say goodbye to your friend; we're going home."

Dortmunder continued on to the pickup, but Kelp stayed where he was, an agonized expression on his face. When Dortmunder looked back, Kelp said, "I can't, John, I just can't." The hand clutching the bridle shook. "I'm holding a million dollars! I can't let go."

Dortmunder got into the pickup, behind the wheel. He looked out through the open passenger door at Kelp in the dark, on the hilltop, holding a strip of leather with $ 1,000,000 on the other end. "I'm going to New York now," Dortmunder told him, not unkindly. "Are you coming, or are you staying?"

TOO MANY CROOKS

"DID YOU HEAR SOMETHING?" DORTMUNDER WHISPERED.

"The wind," Kelp said.

Dortmunder twisted around in his seated position and deliberately shone the flashlight in the kneeling Kelp's eyes. "What wind? We're in a tu

"There's underground rivers," Kelp said, squinting, "so maybe there's underground winds. Are you through the wall there?"

"Two more whacks," Dortmunder told him. Relenting, he aimed the flashlight past Kelp back down the empty tu

Dortmunder gave it another whack.

The block of concrete fell onto the floor of the vault. "Oh, thank God," somebody said.

What? Reluctant but unable to stop himself, Dortmunder dropped sledge and flashlight and leaned his head through the hole in the wall and looked around.

It was the vault, all right. And it was full of people.

A man in a suit stuck his hand out and grabbed Dortmunder's and shook it while pulling him through the hole and on into the vault. "Great work, Officer," he said. "The robbers are outside."

Dortmunder had thought he and Kelp were the robbers. "They are?"

A round-faced woman in pants and a Buster Brown collar said, "Five of them. With machine guns."

"Machine guns," Dortmunder said.

A delivery kid wearing a mustache and an apron and carrying a flat cardboard carton containing four coffees, two decafs and a tea said, "We all hostages, mon. I go

"How many of you are there?" the man in the suit asked, looking past Dortmunder at Kelp's nervously smiling face.

"Just the two," Dortmunder said, and watched helplessly as willing hands dragged Kelp through the hole and set him on his feet in the vault. It was really very full of hostages.