Jimmy the Kid

"Now we wait for the kid to come out again," Parker said. "Then we'll take a look at his route home."

8

When Dortmunder walked into the apartment, Kelp was asleep at the window with the binoculars in his lap. "For Christ's sake," Dortmunder said.

"Huh?" Startled, Kelp sat up, scrabbled for the binoculars, dropped them on the floor, picked them up, slapped them to his face, and stared out at the Lincoln Tunnel exit.

They hadn't been able to find an apartment overlooking the Midtown Tunnel. This one, in a condemned tenement on West Thirty-ninth Street, had an excellent view of the Manhattan exit of the Lincoln Tunnel, bringing cars in from New Jersey. It also, since it faced south, got a terrific amount of sun; even though it was now October, they were all getting sunburns, with white circles around their eyes where they would hold the binoculars.

Kelp was sitting in a maroon armchair with broken springs; this was a furnished apartment, three rooms full of the most awful furniture imaginable. The floor lamps alone were cause for weeping. Kelp's notebook and pen were on a drum table next to him, the drum table having been painted with green enamel and its top having been covered with Contac paper in a floral design. The walls were covered with a patterned wallpaper showing cabbage roses against an endless trellis. Some of this wallpaper had peeled itself off, and curls of it lay against the molding in all the corners. On the floor beside Kelp's chair stood three empty beer cans and three full beer cans.

Dortmunder slammed the door. "You were asleep," he said.

Kelp put the binoculars down and turned an innocent face. "Huh? I was just resting my eyes a minute."

Dortmunder crossed the room and picked up the notebook to study the entries. "You been resting your eyes since one-thirty," he said.

"There wasn't anything useful since one-thirty," Kelp said. "You think chauffeured limousines with a kid alone in the back seat come through every minute?"

"It's all that beer you drink," Dortmunder told him. "You drink that stuff and then you sit in the sun here, and you go to sleep."

"For maybe two minutes," Kelp said. "Maybe at the most five. But not what you could call a deep sleep."

Dortmunder shrugged and dropped the notebook back on the drum table. "Anyway," he said, "we've got that Caddy to follow."

"Sure," Kelp said. "It's a natural. And I bet it's got a phone in it. Why else would it have that big antenna thing?"

"Because it's probably the police commissioner of Trenton, New Jersey," Dortmunder said, "and they'll see Murch and me following the car, and we'll get picked up for anarchists."

"Ha ha," Kelp said.

Dortmunder looked out the window. "Traffic," he said.

"You know," Kelp said, "I have a very hopeful feeling about this operation."

"I wish you hadn't told me that," Dortmunder said. He looked at his watch. "If the Caddy's coming through, it'll be pretty soon."

"Sure it's coming through," Kelp said. "Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right around two-thirty."

"Uh huh. If it turns out it's no good, Murch'll come take over here at four. Try to stay awake until then."

"I wasn't really asleep," Kelp said. "Not really. Anyway, I'm wide awake now."

"Uh huh. If Murch doesn't show up here at four, that means we're either following the Caddy or some damn thing has gone wrong, and you should pack up everything and go home."

"Right," Kelp said.

Dortmunder glanced toward the tunnel, looked at Kelp, sighed and said, "See you later."

"Sure."

Dortmunder left and went down the warped wooden stairs and out to the street. He walked to the corner, went a block up Tenth Avenue, and got into the Renault just around the corner on Fortieth Street. Murch, at the wheel, said, "Anything new?"

"Kelp was asleep," Dortmunder said.

"It's all that beer he drinks," Murch said. "He drinks that beer and then he sits in the sun, and he falls asleep."

"I just told him that."

"So what do we do? Follow the Caddy?"

"If it shows up."

"Right." Murch started the Renault, drove a block, waited for a green light, turned left on Dyer Avenue, and parked over against the left-hand curb.

There wasn't much room in the Renault, and Dortmunder had long legs. While he shifted around, trying to get comfortable, Murch rolled down his side window and took a long narrow cigar out of his shirt pocket. Dortmunder stopped squirming to watch him light it, and then said, "What's that? You don't smoke cigars."

"I thought I'd try one," Murch said.

"It stinks," Dortmunder said.

"You think so? I kind of like it."

Dortmunder shook his head. He scrunched around again, moving himself an inch farther away from Murch, and then rolled his side window down. He hung his right arm outside, and watched the incoming tunnel traffic stream past his right elbow and on up Dyer Avenue.