Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake Page A

them up, and they put together the group that does the job. What we say is, we’re liberating the money.’
    â€˜I think of it the other way around,’ Kelp said. ‘I think of it that I’m capturing the money.’
    Dortmunder said, ‘What was the last job you did on your own? Where you got to keep the loot?’
    â€˜About a year ago,’ Herman said. ‘A bank in St. Louis.’
    â€˜Who’d you work with?’
    â€˜Stan Devers and Mort Kobler. George Cathcart drove.’
    â€˜I know George,’ Kelp said.
    Dortmunder knew Kobler. ‘All right,’ he said.
    â€˜Now,’ Herman said, ‘let’s talk about you boys. Not what you’ve done, I’ll take Kelp’s word for that. What you want to do.’
    Dortmunder took a deep breath. He wasn’t happy about this moment. ‘We’re going to steal a bank,’ he said.
    Herman looked puzzled. ‘Rob a bank?’
    â€˜Steal a bank.’ To Kelp he said, ‘You tell him.’
    Kelp told him. At first Herman sort of grinned, as though waiting for the punch line. Then, for a while, he frowned as though suspecting he was surrounded by mental cases. And finally he looked interested, as though the idea had caught his fancy. At the end he said, ‘So I can take my time. I can even work in daylight if I want.’
    â€˜Sure,’ Kelp said.
    Herman nodded. He looked at Dortmunder and said, ‘Why is it still just a maybe?’
    â€˜We don’t have any place to put it,’ Dortmunder said. ‘Also, we have to get wheels for it.’
    â€˜I’m working on that,’ Murch said. ‘But I may need some help.’
    â€˜A whole bank,’ Herman said. He beamed. ‘We’re gonna liberate a whole bank.’
    Kelp said, ‘We’re gonna capture a whole bank.’
    â€˜It comes to the same thing,’ Herman told him. ‘Believe me, it comes to the same thing.’

12
    Murch’s Mom stood smiling and blinking in the sunlight in front of Kresge’s holding her purse strap with both hands, arms extended down and in front of her so that the purse dangled at her knees. She was wearing a dress with horizontal green and yellow stripes which did nothing to improve her figure, and below that yellow vinyl boots with green laces all the way up. Above the dress she wore her neck brace. The purse was an ordinary beige leather affair, which went much better with the neck brace than with the dress and boots.
    Standing next to a parking meter, peering at Murch’s Mom’s image in an Instamatic camera, was May, dressed in her usual fashion. The original idea was that May would be the one in the fancy clothes and Murch’s Mom would take the pictures, but May had absolutely refused to buy the kind of dress and boots Dortmunder had in mind. It also turned out that Murch’s Mom was one of those people who always take pictures low and to the left of what they were aiming at. So the roles had been reversed.
    May kept frowning into the camera, apparently never being quite content with what she saw – which was perfectly understandable. Shoppers would come along the sidewalk, see Murch’s Mom posing there, see May with the camera, and would pause a second, not wanting to louse up the picture. But then nothing would happen except that May would frown some more and maybe take a step to the left or right, so the shoppers would all finally murmur. ‘Excuse me,’ or something like that and duck on by.
    At last May looked up from the camera and shook her head, saying, ‘The light’s no good here. Let’s try farther down the block.’
    â€˜Okay,’ said Murch’s Mom. She and May started down the sidewalk together, and Murch’s Mom said under her breath, ‘I feel like a damn fool in this get-up.’
    â€˜You look real nice,’ May said.
    â€˜I know what I look like,’ Murch’s Mom said grimly.