Bank Shot Read Free

from the rear. I didn’t do anything to –’
    â€˜You jammed on your brakes! How’m I supposed to –’
    â€˜Any insurance company in the world will tell you the driver in the back is the one who –’
    â€˜You jammed on your – We’ll see what the cops say!’
    The cops. Kelp gave the heavyset guy a bland, unworried smile and started to walk around the Pinto, as though to inspect the damage on the other side. There was a row of stores on the right here, and he’d already spotted an alley between two of them.
    On the way around the Pinto, Kelp glanced in and saw that the storage area in the back was full of open-top card-board cartons full of paperback books. About five or six titles, with dozens of copies of each title. One was called Passion Doll , another Man Hungry , another Strange Affair. The covers featured undressed girls. There were Call Me Sinner and Off Limits and Apprentice Virgin. Kelp paused.
    The heavyset guy had been following him, ranting and raving, waving his arms around so that his topcoat flapped – imagine somebody wearing a topcoat on a day like this – but now he stopped when Kelp did, and his voice lowered, and in an almost normal tone of voice he said, ‘So what?’
    Kelp stood looking in at the paperback books. ‘You were talking about the cops,’ he said.
    Other traffic was now having to detour around them. A woman in a Cadillac shouted as she went by, ‘Why don’t you bums get off the road?’
    â€˜I’m talking about traffic cops,’ the heavyset guy said.
    â€˜Whatever you’re talking about,’ Kelp said, ‘what you’re gonna get is cops. And they’re likely to care more about the back of your car than the front.’
    â€˜The Supreme Court –’
    â€˜I didn’t figure we’d get the Supreme Court to come out for a traffic accident,’ Kelp said. ‘What I figured, we’d probably get just local Suffolk County cops.’
    â€˜I got a lawyer to handle that,’ the heavyset guy said, but he didn’t seem as sure of himself any more.
    â€˜Also, you hit me from behind,’ Kelp said. ‘Let’s not leave that out of our calculations.’
    The heavyset guy looked quickly all around, as though for an exit, and then looked at his watch. ‘I’m late for an appointment,’ he said.
    â€˜So am I,’ said Kelp. ‘What I figure, what the hell, we’ve got the same amount of damage on each car. I’ll pay for mine, you pay for yours. We put a claim in with the insurance company, they’ll just up our rates.’
    â€˜Or drop us,’ the heavyset guy said. ‘That happened to me once already. If it wasn’t for a guy my brother-in-law knew, I wouldn’t have insurance right now.’
    â€˜I know how it is,’ Kelp said.
    â€˜Those bastards’ll rob you deaf, dumb and blind,’ the heavyset guy said, ‘and then all of a sudden boom – they drop you.’
    â€˜We’re better off we don’t have anything to do with them,’ Kelp said.
    â€˜Fine by me,’ the heavyset guy said.
    â€˜Well, I’ll see you around,’ Kelp said.
    â€˜So long,’ said the heavyset guy, but even as he said it he was starting to look puzzled, as though beginning to suspect he’d missed a station somewhere along the way.
    Dortmunder wasn’t in the car. Kelp shook his head as he put the Toronado in drive. ‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ he said under his breath and drove off with a grinding of metal.
    He didn’t realise he’d carried the Pinto’s front bumper away with him until two blocks later, when he started up from a traffic light and it fell off back there with one hell of a crash.

3
    Dortmunder had walked three blocks along Merrick Avenue, swinging his almost-empty attaché case, when the purple Toronado pulled to the curb beside him again and Kelp