The Hot Rock

1

Dortmunder carried a loaf of white bread and a half gallon of homogenized milk over to the cashier. Because it was a Friday afternoon the supermarket was pretty full, but there weren't many people ahead of him at the speed checkout and he got through pretty quickly. The girl put the bread and milk into a large bag and he carried it out to the sidewalk with his elbows held close to his sides, which looked a little weird but not terribly so.

The date was the fifth of July, nine days since the fiasco at the Coliseum up in New York, and the place was Trenton, New Jersey. The sun was shining and the air was pleasantly hot without humidity, but Dortmunder wore a light basketball jacket over his white shirt, zipped almost all the way up. Perhaps that was why he looked so irritable and sour.

He walked a block from the supermarket, still carrying the bag with his elbows pressed to his sides, and then he stopped and put the bag on the hood of a handy parked car. He reached into the right-hand pocket of his jacket and pulled out a can of tuna fish and dropped it into the bag. He reached into the left-hand pocket and pulled out two packets of beef bouillon cubes and dropped them into the bag. He reached into his left-side trouser pocket and pulled out a tube of toothpaste and dropped that into the bag. Then he zipped open his jacket and reached into his left armpit and took out a package of sliced American cheese and dropped that into the bag. And finally he reached into his right armpit and took out a package of sliced baloney and dropped that into the bag. The bag was now much more full than before, and he picked it up and carried it the rest of the way home.

Home was a fleabag residence hotel downtown. He paid an extra two dollars a week for a room with a sink and a hotplate, but he made up for it a dozen times over in the money saved by eating at home.

Home. Dortmunder walked into his room and gave it a dirty look and put his groceries away.

The place was neat, anyway. Dortmunder had learned about neatness during his first stretch and had never gotten out of the habit. It was easier to live in a neat place, and having things orderly and clean made even a gray crapper stall like this bearable.

For a time, for a time.

Dortmunder put water on for instant coffee and then sat down to read the paper he'd glommed from the head this morning. Nothing in it, nothing interesting. Greenwood hadn't made the papers for almost a week now, and nothing else in the world caught Dortmunder's attention.

He was looking for a score. The three hundred bucks he'd received from Major Iko was long since gone and he'd really been scrimping ever since. He'd reported in to the parole office here as soon as he'd hit town - no point making unnecessary trouble for himself - and they'd gotten him some sort of cockamamie job at a municipal golf course. He worked there one afternoon, trimming the edges of a green, the color reminding him of the stinking Balabomo Emerald, and wound up with a sweet sunburn on the back of his neck. That was enough of that. Since then he'd been making do on slim pickings.

Like last night. Out walking around, looking for whatever might come his way, he'd hit on one of those twenty-four-hour laundromat places, and the attendant, a chubby old woman in a gray faded flower-print dress, was sitting in a blue plastic chair sound asleep. In he'd gone and quietly tapped the machines one by one and walked out with twenty-three dollars and seventy-five cents in quarters in his pockets, damn near weight enough to pull his pants off. If he'd had to run away from a cop right then it would have been no contest.

He was sipping his instant coffee and reading the funnies when the knock came at the door. He started, looking instinctively at the window, trying to remember if there was a fire escape out there or not, and then he remembered he wasn't wanted for anything right now and he shook his head in irritation at himself and got up and walked over and opened the door, and it was Kelp.

"You're a tough man to find," Kelp said.

"Not tough enough," Dortmunder said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, "Come in." Kelp walked in and Dortmunder shut the door after him and said, "What now? Another hot caper?"

"Not exactly," Kelp said. He looked around the room. "Livin' high," he commented.

"I always throw it around like this," Dortmunder said. "Nothing but the best for me. What do you mean, not exactly?"

"Not exactly another caper," Kelp explained.

"What do you mean, not exactly another caper?"

"The same one," Kelp said.

Dortmunder looked at him. "The emerald again?"

"Greenwood stashed it," Kelp said.

"The hell," Dortmunder said.

"I'm only telling you what Iko told me," Kelp said. "Greenwood told his lawyer he stashed the stone, and sent the lawyer to tell Iko. Iko told me and I'm telling you."

"Why?" Dortmunder asked him.

"We still got a chance for our thirty gee," Kelp said. "And the hundred fifty a week again while we get set up."

"Set up for what?"

"To spring Greenwood," Kelp said.

Dortmunder made a face. "Somebody around here is hearing bells," he said. He went over and picked up his coffee and drank.

Kelp said, "Greenwood's for it and he knows it. His lawyer says the same thing, he doesn't stand a chance to beat the rap. And they'll give him the book because they're sore about the stone being gone. So either he turns the stone over to them to lighten the sentence or he turns it over to us for springing him. So all we have to do is bust him out and the stone is ours. Thirty gee, just like that."

Dortmunder frowned. "Where is he?"

"In jail," Kelp said.

"I know that," Dortmunder said. "I mean, which jail? The Tombs?"

"Naw. There was trouble, so they moved him out of Manhattan."

"Trouble? What kind of trouble?"

"Well, we were white men stealing the black man's emerald, so a lot of excitable types from Harlem took the subway downtown and made a fuss. They wanted to lynch him."

"Lynch Greenwood?"

Kelp shrugged. "I don't know where they learn stuff like that," he said.

"We were stealing it for Iko," Dortmunder said.

"He's black."

"Yeah, but nobody knows that."

"All you have to do is look at him," Dortmunder said.

Kelp shook his head. "I mean, nobody knows about him being behind the heist."

"Oh." Dortmunder walked around the room, gnawing the knuckle of his right thumb. It was what he did when thinking. He said, "Where is he, then? What jail is he in?"

"You mean Greenwood?"

Dortmunder stopped pacing and looked at him. "No," he said heavily. "I mean King Farouk."

Kelp looked bewildered. "King Farouk? I haven't heard of him in years. Is he in the can somewhere?"

Dortmunder sighed. "I meant Greenwood," he said.

"What's this about-"

"It was sarcasm," Dortmunder said. "I won't do it again. What jail is Greenwood in?"

"Oh, some dinky can out on Long Island."

Dortmunder studied him suspiciously. Kelp had said that too offhand, he'd thrown it away a little too casually. "Some dinky can?" he said.

"It's a county jug or something," Kelp said. "They're holding him there till the trial."

"Too bad he couldn't get bail," Dortmunder said.

"Maybe the judge could read his mind," Kelp said.

"Or his record," Dortmunder said. He walked around the room some more, gnawing his thumb, thinking.

Kelp said, "We get a second shot at it, that's all. What's to worry about?"

"I don't know," Dortmunder said. "But when a job turns bad I like to leave it alone. Why throw good time after bad?"

"Do you have anything else on the fire?" Kelp asked him.

"No."

Kelp gestured, calling attention to the room. "And from the looks of things," he said, "you ain't flush. At the very worst, we go back on Iko's payroll again."

"I guess so," Dortmunder said. The doubts still nagged him, but he shrugged and said, "What have I got to lose? You got a car with you?"

"Naturally."

"Can you operate this one?"

Kelp was insulted. "I could operate that Caddy," he said indignantly. "The damn thing wanted to operate itself, that was the trouble."

"Sure," said Dortmunder. "Help me pack."