Jimmy the Kid Read Online Free Page A

May probably would, she was smart, and in any case she’d go along with it if Dortmunder did. Murch probably not, he tended not to understand anything that didn’t have wheels, but that wouldn’t really matter. Not if Dortmunder went for it. Murch would follow Dortmunder’s lead, and Murch’s Mom would follow Murch.
    So it all came down to Dortmunder, and how could Dortmunder say no? It was a natural, it had struck Kelp in that jail cell as a natural, and it was going to strike Dortmunder as a natural. Going to. Have to. No question.
    Kelp, growing more and more terrified that Dortmunder wasn’t going to think it was a natural, walked around and around the block for half an hour until a voice called to him from amid the traffic, “Hey, Kelp!”
    He looked up and saw a cab going by, with Murch in the back seat, waving at him out the window. Kelp waved back and the cab continued on, toward the building in the middle of the block where Dortmunder and May lived. Kelp turned around and walked briskly after it, and saw the cab pull in next to a fire hydrant down there. Murch got out, waving at Kelp again, and then the driver got out and walked around the front of the cab to the sidewalk. The driver was short and stocky, wearing grey pants and a black leather jacket and a cloth cap.
    â€œHi,” Kelp shouted, and waved.
    Murch stood waiting, and when Kelp got there he said, “Hey, Kelp. How come you were going the wrong way?”
    Kelp frowned at him. “The wrong way?”
    â€œYou were going that way. You miss the address?”
    â€œOh, right!” Kelp said. He didn’t want to display nervousness or indecision, so he shouldn’t mention about walking around the block for half an hour. “Ha ha,” he said. “How do you like that, I walked right on by it. I guess I must have been thinking, huh?”
    The cabdriver said, “We going in or what are we gonna do? I could be out making a buck.” She pulled the cloth cap off, and it was Murch’s Mom.
    â€œOh, hi, Mrs. Murch,” Kelp said. “I didn’t recognize you. Sure, let’s go in.”
    â€œThis is my shift,” Murch’s Mom said. “I’m supposed to be working now.”
    â€œIt’ll be a short meeting, Mom,” Murch said. “Then maybe you’ll get somebody that wants to go to the airport.”
    The three of them had entered the tiny vestibule of the building, and Kelp was pressing the button for Dortmunder and May’s apartment. Murch’s Mom said, “You know the kind of fare I’ll get? You know the way it’s been lately? Park Slope , that’s what I’ll get, into darkest Brooklyn for a two-bit tip and no customers and drive back to Manhattan empty. That’s what I get.”
    The door buzzed and Kelp pushed it open. He said, “Mrs. Murch, your days of driving a taxicab are over.”
    â€œI’ve had traffic cops say the same thing.” She really wasn’t in a wonderful mood at all.
    The staircase was narrow; they had to go up one at a time. Kelp let Murch’s Mom go first, and naturally her son had to follow, so Kelp went up last. He called past Murch, “Did you read the book, Mrs. Murch?”
    â€œI read it.” She was stumping up the stairs as though stair-climbing was the punishment for a crime she hadn’t committed.
    â€œWha’d you think?”
    She shrugged. Grudging it, she said, “Make a nice movie.”
    â€œMake a nice bundle ,” Kelp told her.
    Murch said, “The part where they put the car in the truck. That was okay.”
    Kelp was feeling the awkwardness of a guy bringing his new girl friend around to meet the fellas at the bowling alley. He called up the stairs to Murch’s Mom’s back, “I thought it had like a kind of realism to it.”
    She didn’t say anything. Murch said, “And they got away with it at the end. That was