Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake Page A

absentminded and all, but—”
    Tiny said, “He’s the guy let the lion out at the zoo, isn’t he?”
    â€œJust fiddling with the lock on the cage,” Stan said. “Absentminded, that’s all.”
    â€œNo good,” Kelp said. “Wally’s in Brazil, without any extradition.”
    â€œWithout what?” Dortmunder asked.
    â€œIn Brazil?” Tiny asked.
    â€œHe was helping some people at Customs down in Brooklyn,” Kelp told them. “You know, people that didn’t want to tie up the government with a lot of red tape and forms and stuff, so they were just going to get their imports at night and leave it at that, you know the kind of thing.”
    â€œYou said Brazil,” Tiny reminded him.
    â€œYeah, well, Wally, what Wally’s problem is, he’s just too good at his line of business.” Kelp shook his head. “You show Wally a lock, he just has to caress the thing, and poke at it, and see how it works, and the first thing he knew he went through a door, and then a couple more doors, and like that, and when he tried to go back the ship had sailed.”
    â€œThe ship,” Dortmunder said. It didn’t seem to him there’d been a ship in the story up till then.
    â€œThat he was on,” Kelp said, “that he didn’t know it. They were just leaving, and one of those doors he went through was into the ship from the warehouse, and it turned out they had some reasons of their own to leave in the middle of the night, so they didn’t want to go back to let him off, so he rode along and now he’s in Brazil without extradition.”
    â€œ That was the word,” Dortmunder said. “Explain that.”
    â€œWell, most places in the world,” Kelp explained, “you find yourself broke and you don’t speak the language and all, you go confess to a crime in, like, Duluth or St. Louis or somewhere, and then the governments get together and do a lot of legal paper on you and they extradite you and the government pays your air fare and you get to St. Louis or Duluth or wherever it was, and you say, ‘Oops, my mistake, I didn’t do that after all,’ and you’re home. Only with Brazil, we got no treaty, they won’t extradite, so Wally’s stuck. And he says Brazil is so poor, most places don’t have locks, so he’s going crazy. So he’s trying to get to Uruguay.”
    â€œFor the extradition,” Dortmunder guessed.
    â€œYou got it.”
    Stan said, “How about Herman X?”
    Tiny, who had been observing Kelp so carefully that Kelp was beginning to fidget, now swiveled his head around to look at Stan. “Herman what?”
    â€œX,” Stan said.
    â€œHe’s a black power radical,” Dortmunder explained, “but he’s also a good lockman.”
    â€œHe was with us that time we took the bank,” Stan said.
    â€œNow, the problem with Herman,” Kelp started, and everybody turned to look at him. “Don’t blame me ,” he said. “I’m just telling you the situation.”
    â€œTell us the situation,” Tiny suggested.
    â€œWell,” Kelp said, “the problem with Herman is, he’s in Africa.”
    Dortmunder said, “Without extradition?”
    â€œNo, Herman doesn’t need extradition. He’s vice-president of Talabwo.”
    Tiny said, “Is that a country?”
    â€œFor now,” Kelp said. “There’s a lot of unrest over there.”
    Dortmunder said, “Talabwo. That’s the country wanted the Balabomo Emerald that time.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Kelp said. “And you gave Major Iko the paste emerald and he brought it home and when they found out it wasn’t real they ate him, I think. Anyway, there was trouble back and forth, and Herman was with his radical friends at the UN to steal some secret documents that proved the drought was a plot by the white