Thieves' Dozen

No choice-hit the right blinker and pull in behind the bike. He'd always known this moment might someday appear, despite his precautions, and he'd worked out a game plan to deal with it. He intended to claim amnesia and let everybody else sort it out.

But there was something different about this traffic stop. In the first place, the cop, instead of taking that leisurely stroll around to the driver's window that's standard for such encounters, dashed for the passenger door, going klop-klop in his high leather boots, face strained with urgency. Yanking open that door, he flung himself backward onto the seat, hurling his left arm out to point, so forcefully he banged his gloved fingertip into the windshield as he cried, "Follow that Taurus!"

Stan looked at him. "What?"

The cop had himself turned around and completely into the car now. As he slammed the door, he aimed a very red face in Stan's direction. "Follow," he said, and thumped his leather-gloved fist on the dashboard, "that" and did the fingertip-mash against the windshield again, "TAURUS!"

"Okay, okay."

Stan didn't see any Tauri, but he figured, if he drove the direction the cop kept pointing, sooner or later a Taurus would present itself. It's a popular make of car. So he tromped the accelerator, and the car, a very nice BMW recently in the longterm parking lot at LaGuardia, leaped forward so as to multiple-g the cop backward into his bucket seat.

Taurus, Taurus. The cop peeled himself off the seat to say, "Good, that's good. See him? The green Taurus."

Then Stan did: recent vintage, pallid green, middle lane, moderate speed. "Got him."

"Good. Don't overtake him," the cop warned, "just keep him in sight."

"Piece of cake."

The cop had a little radio high on the angled strap of his Sam Browne belt. Flipping the toggle, he said into it, low but still audible to Stan, "Cycle broke down, commandeered a civilian vehicle, suspects in sight, still eastbound within city limits."

But not for long. Stan watched his exit go by, but he and the Taurus kept heading for Long Island, while the cop's radio made nasal guttural vomiting sounds the cop apparently interpreted as speech, because he said, "Ten-four," which Stan knew cops say because they can never seem to remember "Uh-huh."

Stan had never been commandeered before. He wondered if it came with benefits, but somehow doubted it. He said, "You don't mind my asking, wha'd the Taurus do?"

"Held up a jewelry store in Astoria."

Stan was astonished. "There's jewelry stores in Astoria?"

The cop shrugged. "Why not? Wedding rings, sorry-honeys. Your jewelry store's your universal."

"I suppose you're right," Stan said, and the cop tensed all over, like a sphincter: "He's go

Stan too had seen the Taurus's right directional blink on. Keeping well back, he said, "I suppose these guys are armed and dangerous."

"Jeez, I hope not," the cop said. "I'm on traffic detail. That's why we don't wa

"When they get stopped at a light," the cop said, "pull up next to them, I'll look it over, see if I can take them down without backup."

Stan knew he was just saying that to cover for what he'd said a minute ago, but what the hell: "You got it."

The cop took off his hat, to be in disguise, and sat forward, eyes tense, licking his lips.

Never had Stan seen anybody so lucky with traffic lights. The Taurus went this way and that way on the city streets, block after block with a traffic light hanging over every intersection, the Taurus steadily trending south by east, and every last one of those traffic lights was green when the Taurus arrived. Sometimes, particularly twice when the Taurus had made a turn at an intersection, Stan had to goose it to scoot through on the yellow, but he figured, he was under cop's orders here; he should be covered.

It bothered him a while, knowing he was part of messing up the day of a couple of fellow mechanics, but then it didn't bother him any more.

Meanwhile, the cop kept talking to his radio, giving it coordinates, progress reports, and the radio kept barfing back. Then the cop tensed again, putting on his hat as he said. "This is it. Next intersection-there!"

They were almost a full block back, a tan Jeep Cherokee between them, the green Taurus almost to the corner, when all at once cop cars came out of everywhere, left and right and practically dropping down from overhead, surrounding the Taurus, blocking it in good and, by the way, freaking out the driver of the Cherokee no end.

Stan slammed on the brakes. "Now what?"

"Wait here!" the cop barked, and jumped from the car.

Fat chance. The Taurus is a very popular car, and wishy-washy green for some reason is a very popular color. One of those moments when the cop had been busy giving coordinates and looking for street signs, Stan had managed to stop following green Taurus number one and start following green Taurus number two. Therefore, he was already backing to the corner, swinging around it, flooring that BMW out of there, even before the four little old ladies with the missals in their hands came stumbling out of their Taurus to stare at all that firepower.

What with one thing and another, Algy was the first to arrive at the Su

The car had been extracted and taken away. Guys in mustaches and blue jeans and tool belts were slowly closing the facade with sheets of plywood. Streamers of yellow Crime Scene tape were wrapped around everything in sight as though the Easter bu

The bank was at the corner of a two-story tan-brick structure that ran the length of the block, shops downstairs-Chinese takeout, video rental, dry cleaner, OTB-and apartments above, most of them with window air conditioner rumps mooning the traffic on the boulevard beyond the skimpy plane trees. Each apartment facade was as individual as each store, one bearing rent strike! signs, one suggesting come to jesus!, one with windows painted black, one crying remember K with the rest of the paper torn off, one with what appeared to be curtains and blinds and drapes. The corner apartment, above the bank, expressed its individuality through paranoia; every window was as barred and gated as a maximum-security cell, and through those iron braces could be read no trespassing and beware of dog and no soliciting and keep out and private property.

Downstairs, the bank had been a bit less prepared for intruders. It had been a retail store until its makeover into a branch

bank-probably ladies' better fashions-and still retained the large windows along both front and side streets for the display of the merchant's wares; or at least had still retained them until Morry Calhoun had swung by.

The video rental shop was next door to the bank; go in through there? But the shop was open and staffed, and its entrance was very much in the bored cops' sight line.

Algy walked around the corner, to the side street where the bank's former glass had already been replaced by plywood, and at the rear of the building was a solid fence of unpainted vertical wood slats, eight feet high and six feet wide. Approaching it, Algy saw that half its width was a wood-slat door, inset into the fence, with a round metal keyhole but no handle. Behind it, from what he could see over the top of the fence, was an area way ru