Thieves' Dozen

"Now, that's not fair," Bohker said defensively, parking beside his house. "I apologized, didn't I?"

"Still," Dortmunder said, "we'll both be happier if we do it this way. Which key is it?"

So Bohker took the little key off his key ring, and he and Kelp watched Dortmunder solemnly lock the envelope away in the crowded, messy glove compartment, and an hour and 45 minutes later, on the bus to Buffalo, Kelp turned in his seat and said, "You did, didn't you?"

"Sure, I did," Dortmunder agreed, taking wads of Bohker's money out of his pants pockets. "Treat me like that, threaten me with troopers."

"What's cousin Bohker looking at in that envelope?"

"Fertilizer brochures."

Kelp sighed, probably thinking about family complications.

"Still, John," he said, "you can hardly blame the guy for jumping to conclusions."

"I can if I want," Dortmunder said. "Besides, I figured I earned this, with what he put me through. That stuff, what's-it. Anguish, you know the kind. Mental, that's it. Mental anguish, that's what I got," Dortmunder said, and stuffed the money back into his pockets.

THE DORTMUNDER WORKOUT

When Dortmunder walked into the OJ. bar & grill on Amsterdam Avenue that afternoon, the regulars were talking about health and exercise, pro and con. "A healthy regime is very important," one of the regulars was saying, hunched over his beer.

"You don't mean 'regime,'" a second regular told him. "A healthy regime is like Australia. You mean 'regimen.'"

"'Regimen' is women," a third regular put in. "Something about women."

The other regulars frowned at that, trying to figure out if it meant anything. In the silence, Dortmunder said, "Rollo."

Rollo the bartender, observing the world from a three-point stance-large feet solidly planted on the duckboards behind the bar, elbow atop the cash register drawer-seemed too absorbed either by the conversation or in contemplation of the possibility of health to notice the arrival of a new customer. In any event, he didn't even twitch, just stood there like a genre painting of himself, while the first regular said, "Well, whatever the word is, the point is, if you got your health you got everything."

"I don't see how that follows," the second regular said. "You could have your health and still not have a Pontiac Trans Am."

"If you got your health," the first regular told him, "you don't need a Pontiac Trans Am. You can walk."

"Walk where?"

"Wherever it was you were go

"St. Louis," the second regular said, and knocked back some of his tequila sunrise in satisfaction.

"Well, now you're just being argumentative," the first regular complained.

"Some of that health stuff can get dangerous," the third regular put in. "I know a guy knew a guy had a heart attack from the Raquel Welch workout video."

"Well, sure," the first regular agreed, "it's always possible to exercise too much, but-"

"He wasn't exercising, he was just watching."

"Rollo," Dortmunder said.

"When I was in the Army," the first regular said, "they used to make us do sailor jumps."

"If you were in the Army," the second regular told him, "they were soldier jumps."

"Sailor jumps," insisted the first regular.

"We used to call those jumping jacks," the third regular chimed in.

"You did not," the second regular told him. "Jumping jacks is that little girl's game with the lug nuts."

"Rollo," Dortmunder demanded, and this time Rollo raised an eyebrow in Dortmunder's direction, but then he was distracted by movement from the third regular, the jumping jacks man, who, with a scornful "Lug nuts!" climbed off his stool, paused to wheeze and then said, "This is jumping jacks." And he stood there at a kind of crumpled attention, arms at his sides, heels together, chest in.

The second regular gazed upon him with growing disgust. "That's what?"

"It isn't sailor jumps, I know that much," the first regular said.

But the third regular was unfazed. "This is first position," he explained. "Now watch." Carefully, he lifted his right foot and moved it about 18 inches to the side, then put it back down on the floor. After stooping a bit to be sure he had both feet where he wanted them, he straightened up, more or less, faced forward, took a deep breath you could hear across the street and slowly lifted both arms straight up into the air, leaning his palms against each other above his head. "Position two," he said.

"That's some hell of an exercise," said the second regular.

The third regular's arms dropped to his sides like fish off a delivery truck. "When you're really into it," he pointed out, "you do it faster."

"That might be sailor jumps," the first regular admitted.

"In my personal opinion," the second regular said, twirling the dregs of his tequila sunrise, "diet is the most important part of your personal health program. Vitamins, minerals and food groups."

"I don't think you got that quite right," the third regular told him. "I think it goes, animal, vitamin or mineral."

"Food groups," the second regular contended. "This isn't twenty questions."

The first regular said, "I don't get what you mean by this food groups."

"Well," the second regular told him, "your principal food groups are meat, vegetables, dessert and beer."

"Oh," the first regular said. "In that case, then, I'm OK."

"Rollo," Dortmunder begged.

Sighing like an entire Marine boot camp, Rollo bestirred himself and came plodding down the duckboards. "How ya doin?" he said, flipping a coaster onto the bar.

"Keeping healthy," Dortmunder told him.

"That's good. The usual?"

"Carrot juice," Dortmunder said.

"You got it," Rollo told him, and reached for the bourbon bottle.

PARTY ANIMAL

THERE WAS NO USE GOING ANY FARTHER DOWN THE FIRE ESCAPE. More cops were in the yard: A pair of flashlights white-lined the dark down there. From above, the clonk-clonk of sensible black shoes continued to descend on rusted metal stairs. A realist, Dortmunder stopped where he was on the landing and composed his soul for 10 to 25 as a guest of the state. American plan.

What a Christmas present.

A window, left of his left elbow. Through it, a dimly lighted bedroom, empty, with brighter light through the door ajar opposite. A pile of coats on the double bed. Faint party chatter wafting out through the top part of the window, open two inches.

An open window is not locked. It was a cold December out here. Dortmunder was bundled in a peacoat over his usual working uniform of black shoes, slacks and shirt-but with the party going on in there, the window had been opened at the top to let out excess heat.

Sliiide. Now open at the bottom. Sliiide. Now closed. Dortmunder started across the room toward that half-open door.

"Larry," said the pile of coats in a querulous female voice. "There's somebody in here."

The pile of coats could do a snotty male voice, too: "They're just going to the John. Pay no attention."

"And putting down my coat," Dortmunder said, dropping his peacoat with its cargo of burglar tools and knickknacks from the corner jeweler, from where he had traveled up and over rooftops to this dubious haven.

"Ouch!" said the girl's voice.

"Sorry."

"Get on with it, all right?" Boy's voice.

"Sorry."

A herd of cops went slantwise downward past the window, their attention fixed on the darkness below, the muffled clatter of their passage hardly noticeable to anyone who didn't happen to be (a) a habitual criminal and (b) on the run. Despite the boy's advice to get on with it, Dortmunder stayed frozen until the last of the herd trotted by, then he took a quick scan of the room.