Good Behavior

Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake

Book: Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online
Authors: Donald E. Westlake
away?”
    â€œNo,” Dortmunder said. “In the first place, somebody on the street is gonna notice something like that.”
    â€œThere’s always nosy Parkers,” Tiny agreed. “One time, a guy annoyed me and annoyed me, so I made his nose go the other way.”
    â€œIn this building,” Dortmunder said, “there are also seventeen mail-order places, different kinds of catalogue outfits and like that. I’m checking, I’m looking around, I’m being very careful, and what I want to find is one of these mail-order people we can make a deal with.”
    Kelp said to Stan and Tiny, “I love this part. This is why John Dortmunder is a genius.”
    â€œYou’re interrupting the genius,” Tiny pointed out.
    â€œOh. Sorry.”
    â€œThe deal is,” Dortmunder said, “we’d go into the building on a Saturday night and we wouldn’t leave till Monday morning. We’d take everything we could get and carry it all to the mail-order place and put it all in packages and mail it out of the building Monday morning with their regular routine.”
    Tiny thoughtfully nodded his head. “So we don’t carry the stuff out,” he said. “We go in clean, we come out clean.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œI just love it,” Kelp said.
    Tiny leveled a gaze at Kelp. “Enthusiasm makes me restless,” he said.
    â€œOh. Sorry.”
    â€œWe’ll have to pick and choose,” Dortmunder pointed out. “Even if we had a week, we wouldn’t be able to take everything . And if we took everything, it’d be too much to mail.”
    Stan said, “You know, John, all my life I wanted to be along on a caper where there was so much stuff you couldn’t take it all. Just wallow in it, like Aladdin’s Cave. And this is what you’re talking about.”
    â€œThis is what I’m talking about,” Dortmunder agreed. “But I’m gonna need help in the setup.”
    â€œAsk me,” Stan said. “I’ll help. I want to see this thing happen.”
    â€œTwo things,” Dortmunder told him. “First, the mail-order outfit. It ought to be somebody that’s a little bent already, but not so bent the FBI’s got a wiretap.”
    â€œI can ask around,” Stan said. “Discreetly. I know some people here and there.”
    â€œI’ll also ask,” Tiny said. “Some people know me here and there.”
    â€œGood,” Dortmunder said. “The other thing is, a lockman. We need somebody really good, to follow the schematics I got and shut down all the alarms without kicking them on instead.”
    Tiny said, “What about that little model train nut guy from the pitcha switch? Roger Whatever.”
    â€œChefwick,” Dortmunder said.
    â€œHe retired,” Kelp said.
    Tiny looked at him. “In our line of work,” he said, “how do you retire?”
    â€œYou stop doing what you were doing, and you do something else.”
    â€œSo Chefwick stopped being a lockman.”
    â€œRight,” Kelp said. “He went out to California with his wife, and they’re running this Chinese railroad out there.”
    â€œA Chinese railroad,” Tiny said, “in California.”
    â€œSure,” Kelp said. “It used to run in China somewhere, but this guy bought it, the locomotive and the Chinese cars and even a little railroad station with the roof, you know, like hats that come out?”
    â€œLike hats that come out,” Tiny said.
    â€œLike a pagoda,” Kelp said. “Anyway, this guy put down track and made an amusement park and Chefwick’s running the train for him. So now he’s got his own lifesize model train set, so he isn’t being a lockman anymore, so he’s retired. Okay?”
    Tiny thought about it. “Okay,” he said, reluctantly.
    Stan said, “What about Wally Whistler? I know he’s

Similar Books

A Cowgirl's Secret

Laura Marie Altom

Our Kind of Love

Victoria Purman

Beach Trip

Cathy Holton

8 Mile & Rion

K.S. Adkins

His Uptown Girl

Gail Sattler

Silent Witness

Rebecca Forster