Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

Victor said. ‘I should know. I was an agent for twenty-one months.’
    Herman was on his feet, the chair tipping over behind him. ‘What’s going on here?’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ Kelp said, fast and soothing. He patted the air in a gesture of reassurance. ‘It’s all right. They fired him.’
    Herman, in his mistrust, was trying to look in seven directions at once; his eyes kept almost crossing. ‘If this is entrapment –’ he said.
    â€˜They fired him,’ Kelp insisted. ‘Didn’t they, Victor?’
    â€˜Well,’ Victor said, ‘we sort of agreed to disagree. I wasn’t exactly fired precisely, not exactly.’
    Herman had focused on Victor again, and now he said, ‘You mean it was political?’
    Before Victor could answer, Kelp said smoothly, ‘Something like that. Yeah, it was political, wasn’t it, Victor? ’
    â€˜Uh. Sure, yeah. You could call it … I guess you could call it that.’
    Herman shrugged his shoulders inside his sports jacket, to adjust it. Then he sat down again with a relieved smile, saying, ‘You had me going there for a minute.’
    Dortmunder had learned patience at great cost. The trial and error of life among human beings had taught him that whenever a bunch of them began to jump up and down and shout at cross-purposes, the only thing a sane man could do was sit back and let them sort it out for themselves. No matter how long it took. The alternative was to try to attract their attention, either with explanations of the misunderstanding or with a return to the original topic of conversation, and to make that attempt meant that sooner or later you too would be jumping up and down and shouting at cross-purposes. Patience, patience; at the very worst, they would finally wear themselves out.
    Now, he looked around the table at everybody smiling in new comprehension – Murch was salting his beer again – and then he said, ‘What we had in mind for this job was a lockman.’
    â€˜That’s what I am,’ Herman said. ‘Last night, I was just filling in. You know, helping out. Usually I’m a lockman.’
    â€˜For instance.’
    â€˜For instance the People’s Co-operative Supermarket on Sutter Avenue about three weeks ago. The Lenox Avenue office of the Tender Loving Care Loan Company a couple weeks before that. Smilin Sam Tahachapee’s safe in the horse room behind the Fifth of November Bar and Grill on Linden Boulevard two days before that. The Balmy Breeze Hotel safe in Atlantic City during the Retired Congressmen’s Convention the week before that. The Open Hand Check Cashing Agency on Jerome Avenue the –’
    â€˜You don’t need work,’ Kelp said. He sounded awed. ‘You got all the work you can handle.’
    â€˜Not to mention money,’ Murch said.
    Herman shook his head with a bitter smile. ‘The fact is,’ he said, ‘I’m broke. I really need a score.’
    Dortmunder said, ‘You must run through it pretty quick.’
    â€˜Those are Movement jobs,’ Herman said. ‘I don’t get to keep any of it.’
    This time Victor was the only one who understood. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re helping to finance their schemes.’
    â€˜Like the free-lunch program,’ Herman said.
    Kelp said, ‘Wait a minute. These are Movement jobs, so you don’t get to keep the money. What does that mean exactly? Movement jobs. You mean they’re like for practice? You send the money back?’
    Victor said, ‘He gives the money to the organisation he belongs to.’ Mildly, he said to Herman, ‘Which movement do you belong to, exactly?’
    â€˜One of them,’ Herman said. To Kelp he said, ‘I don’t set any of those things up. These people that I believe in –’ with a glance at Victor – ‘that your nephew would know about, they set