Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake Page B

‘I look like the Good Humor flavor of the month. Lemon pistachio.’
    â€˜Let’s try here,’ May said. Coincidentally, they were in front of the bank.
    â€˜Okay,’ Murch’s Mom said.
    â€˜You stand against the wall in the sunlight,’ May said.
    â€˜Okay.’
    Murch’s Mom backed up slowly across the brick rubble toward the trailer, and May backed up against the car parked there. This time, Murch’s Mom held the purse at her side, and her back was against the trailer wall. May took a fast picture, then stepped forward two paces and took a second one. With the third, she was at the inner edge of the sidewalk – too close to get all of Murch’s Mom in the picture and with the camera angled too low to include her head.
    â€˜There,’ May said. ‘I think that’s got it.’
    â€˜Thank you, dear,’ Murch’s Mom said, smiling, and the two ladies walked around the block.

13
    Dortmunder and Kelp quartered around the remoter bits of Long Island like a bird dog who’s lost his bird. Today’s car was an orange Datsun 240Z with the usual MD plates. They drove around under a sky that kept threatening rain but never quite delivered, and after a while Dortmunder began to grouse. ‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘I’m not making any income.’
    â€˜You’ve got May.’
    â€˜I don’t like living on the earnings of a woman,’ Dortmunder said. ‘It isn’t in my makeup.’
    â€˜The earnings of a woman? She’s not a hooker, she’s a cashier.’
    â€˜The principle’s the same.’
    â€˜The interest isn’t. What’s that over there?’
    â€˜Looks like a barn,’ Dortmunder said, squinting.
    â€˜Abandoned?’
    â€˜How the hell do I know?’
    â€˜Let’s take a look.’
    They looked that day at seven barns, none of them abandoned. They also looked at a quonset hut that had most recently contained a computer-parts factory which had gone broke, but the interior was a jumble of desks and machinery and parts and junk, too crowded and filthy to be useful. They also looked at an airplane hangar in front of a pock-marked blacktop landing strip-a onetime flying school, now abandoned, but occupied by a hippie commune, as Dortmunder and Kelp discovered when they parked out front. The hippies had mistaken them for representatives of the sheriff’s office and right away began shouting about squatters’ rights and demonstrations and all and didn’t stop shouting until after Dortmunder and Kelp got back in the car and drove away again.
    This was the third day of the search. Days one and two had been similar.
    Victor’s car was a black 1938 Packard limousine, with the bulky trunk and the divided rear window and the long coffinlike hood and the headlights sitting up on top of the arrogant broad fenders. The upholstery was scratchy gray plush, and there were leather thongs to hold onto next to the doors on the inside and small green vases containing artificial flowers hanging in little wire racks between the doors.
    Victor drove, and Herman sat beside him and stared out at the countryside. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘There’s got to be something you can hide a trailer in.’
    Casually, Victor said. ‘What newspapers do you read mostly, Herman?’
    Dortmunder walked into the apartment and sat down on the sofa and stared moodily at the turned-off television set. May, the cigarette in the corner of her mouth, slopped in from the kitchen. ‘Anything?’
    â€˜With the encyclopedias,’ Dortmunder said, staring at the T.V., ‘I could’ve picked up maybe seventy bucks out diere today. Maybe a hundred.’
    â€˜I’ll get you a beer,’ May said. She went back to the kitchen.
    Murch’s Mom brooded over the pictures. ‘I never looked so foolish in my life,’ she said.
    â€˜That isn’t the point,