Thieves' Dozen (Short Stories) by Donald E. Westlake

Author:Donald E. Westlake [Westlake, Donald E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: det_irony
Published: 2011-02-10T03:43:57+00:00

the empty hall, glanced into the empty bedroom,

opened the apartment door and looked out at five

cops looking in.

Umm. Two of them were women cops. All

five were just standing around the corridor with

faintly eager and hungry looks, like lions in the

Colosseum. Behind them, the door to the apartment

across the hall was propped half-open.

OK. So they still think the odds are that their

missing burglar is at the party, so they've set up

this corridor equivalent of a radar trap. Each

partygoer on the way out will be taken into the

apartment across the hall-with that good citizen's

cooperation and approval, no doubt-and frisked.

The women cops are for the women partygoers.

And all five were looking at Dortmunder as though

he were their first customer.

Uh-uh. True, he didn't have the stash on him,

but the identity papers he carried were in case of

routine stops, not for anything serious. These

documents were like vampires, they crumbled

when exposed to light.

Dortmunder extended the tray, "Have a

shrimp?"

"We're on duty," one of the women cops said,

and the other cops looked faintly embarrassed.

"Maybe later," Dortmunder suggested, and he

closed the door on all those official eyes before

they got the idea to dry-run their little gauntlet on

the help.

What now? Eventually, this party, like all

good things, must end. Until then, he was probably

more or less safe, but as things stood, there was

absolutely no way for him to get out of this

apartment. Until they got their hands on the burglar,

the police would not relax their vigilance for a

second.

Until they got their hands on the burglar. Until

they got their hands on somebody.

Play the hand. Dortmunder slipped sideways

into the bedroom, balancing the tray one-handed as

he opened the dresser drawer where he'd stashed

the stash. He was careful about his selection; a

proper Christmas gift should be something you'd

like to receive yourself, so he resisted the impulse

to keep the best swag for himself, instead choosing

to sacrifice two brooches and a bracelet that were

definitely cream of the crop. These went into his

pants pocket and back out of the bedroom he eased,

on the alert.

And here came Larry and Sheila down the

hall away from the party, he still assuring her that

she was the one making all the decisions, while

she wore the expression of someone who can't

figure out what it is that keeps biting her on the ass.

They would all meet at the midpoint of the hall,

with just enough room for everybody to get by.

Well, it could have been anybody, but, in fact,

Dortmunder had been thinking about Larry a bit,

anyway. The guy was a smart-aleck, which was

good; he'd be more likely to think he could bullshit

the cops the way he was doing Sheila, more likely

to rub them the wrong way and attract their

attention. And now this business of sidestepping

past one another in the hall just made it easier.

"I don't want to go if you don't want to go,"

Sheila was saying, her eyes phosphorescent with

tears that hadn't yet started to fall, and at that point

in the middle of Larry's long-suffering sigh, darned

if the server didn't almost dump his whole tray of

shrimp and red sauce all over Larry's shirt. "Hey!

Watch it!"

"Oops! Here,

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