Thieves' Dozen

"What I told you on the phone," Arnie reminded him. "Them two tried to sell me stolen TV sets."

Petey said, "We never said they were stolen."

"Sharrap," the lieutenant told Petey. To Arnie, he said, "These three, huh?"

"No, no, them two. That one's my cousin, John Diddums, from outta town."

"First cousin!" Dortmunder cried. In that moment, he became the only person in history ever to love Arnie Albright.

The lieutenant's forehead expressed all sorts of disbelief. "This isn't a crook?"

"Absolutely not," Arnie said. "I'm the black sheep of the family, Lieutenant. John there, he's my inspiration for honesty. He runs the family grocery store in Shickshi

The lieutenant frowned at Dortmunder. "Where the hell is Shickshi

"Pe

The lieutenant thought things over. He said, "Arnie? You'll come downtown, make a statement?"

"Naturally," Arnie said. "I told you, I'm the straight goods now."

"Will wonders never cease." To his armed forces, the lieutenant said, "Take those two, leave that one."

Kate cried out, "This is a hell of a thing! Lou, what we-"

"Shut up, Kate," Petey said, and Kate shut up. But she fumed, as she and Petey were taken away by all the uniforms, followed by the lieutenant, who closed the door.

Dortmunder dropped into the chair by the window like something that had fallen out of an airplane. Arnie came over to sit across the table and say, "Quick, lemme see those coins. We don't got a whole lotta time."

Wondering, handing over the Ziploc bag, Dortmunder said, "Arnie? Why'd you turn those two in?"

"You kidding?" Loupe in eye, Arnie studied coins. "They were cops. Undercover. Entrapment, like they like to do. That's probably what got your pal Stoon."

"Cops? Are you sure?"

The loupe looked at Dortmunder; still an uncomfortable event. "What's the first thing they said when they come in? 'We're just partners." Dortmunder? Were they just partners?"

"He put his hand on her knee, while you were out on the phone."

"They do the four-hand aerobics, am I right?"

"Sure. So?"

"If two regular, honest crooks walk in here," Arnie said, "and they're a guy and a broad, what do they care what we think about whether they're schtuppin' or not, am I right?"

"You're right."

"But an undercover cop," Arnie said, studying coins again, "when he's out on the job, he'll pretend to be a druggie, a burglar, a murderer, a spy, any goddam thing. He'll say he's anything at all, because everybody that matters knows he really isn't. But the one thing he can't say is he's getting it on with his partner, because when that gets home to the wife, she'll know it's true."

"You had me very worried, Arnie," Dortmunder said. "I probably didn't show it, but I was really very worried."

"They won't uncover themselves until they get downtown," Arnie said, "so we got a little time. Not much."

"Really very worried," Dortmunder said.

"I may be ugly, stupid, bad-smelling, antisocial, friendless and a creep," Arnie said, "but I don't get entrapped by officer Petey and officer Kate. I tell you what I'll do with these coins."

"Yeah?"

From his pocket Arnie took the piece of rye bread and a set of truck keys. The keys he dropped on a January of a boy carrying his girlfriend's books home from school down a country lane, and the bread he started to eat. "I palmed those when we went down to look at the goods," he said, around the stale bread. "I got no use for trucks or TVs, Dortmunder, but there's a guy over in Jersey-"

"I know him."

"An even swap," Arnie said. "I'll take the coins, you take the truck and the TVs."

"Done."

Dortmunder scooped in the keys and got to his feet. "Better give me the Ziploc bag, Arnie," he said.

"For why?"

"To carry the loot in."

Arnie gaped at him, bread an unlovely mass in his mouth. "The TVs and the truck? In a Ziploc bag?"

Dortmunder smiled upon him. "That's how you tell that joke, Arnie," he said, and got out of there.

NOW WHAT?

EVERYBODY ON THE SUBWAY WAS READING THE DAILY NEWS, and every newspaper was open to exactly the same page, the one with the three pictures. The picture of the movie star, smiling. The picture of the famous model, posing and smiling. And the picture of the stolen brooch. Shaped vaguely like a boomerang, with a large, dark stone at each end and smaller, lighter stones scattered between like stars in the night sky seen, say, from a cell, even the brooch seemed to be smiling.

Dortmunder was not smiling. He hadn't realized how big a deal this damn brooch would be. With pictures of the brooch in the hands of every man, woman and child in the greater New York metropolitan area, it was begi

Over breakfast (sweetened orange juice, coffee with a lot of sugar, Wheaties with a lot of sugar), that concept had appeared to make a kind of sense, even to have a certain elegance. John Dortmunder, professional thief, with his sloped shoulders, shapeless clothing, lifeless hair-colored hair, pessimistic nose and rusty-hinge gait, knew he could, if he wished, look exactly like your normal, average working man, even though, so far as he knew, he had never earned an honest dollar in his life. If called upon to transport a valuable stolen brooch from his home in Manhattan to a new but highly recommended fence in Brooklyn, therefore, it had seemed to him that the best way to do it was to place the brooch between two slabs of ham with a lot of mayo

Only now he didn't know. What was it about this brooch? Why was its recent change of possessor all over the Daily News?

The train trundled and roared and rattled through the black tu

300G BROOCH IN DARING HEIST

Lone Cat Burglar Foils Cops, Top Security

Well, that wasn't so bad. Dortmunder couldn't remember ever having been called daring before, nor had anyone before this ever categorized his shambling jog and wheezing exertions as that of a cat burglar.

Anyway, on to the story:

"In town to promote his new hit film, Mark Time 111: High Mark, Jer Crumbie last night had a close encounter with a rapid-response burglar who left the superstar breathless, reluctantly admiring and out the $300,000 brooch he had just presented his fiancée, Desiree Makeup spokesmodel Felicia Tarrant.

'"It was like something in the movies,' Crumbie told cops. 'This guy got through some really tight security, grabbed what he wanted and was out of there before anybody knew what happened.'

"The occasion was a private bash for the Hollywood-based superstar in his luxury suite on the 14th floor of Fifth Avenue's posh Port Dutch Hotel, frequent host to Hollywood celebrities. A private security service screened the invited guests, both at lobby level and again outside the suite itself, and yet the burglar, described as lithe, in dark clothing, with black gloves and a black ski mask, somehow infiltrated the suite and actually managed to wrest the $300,000 trinket out of Felicia Tarrant's hands just moments after Jer Crumbie had presented it to her to the applause of his assembled guests.