Free Thieves Dozen by Donald E. Westlake

one of the other robbers said, “The rest of the hostages got away, that’s how come.”
    Wide-eyed, Dortmunder spoke without thinking: “The tunnel!”
    All of a sudden, it got very quiet in the bank. The robbers were now looking at him like cats looking at a fish with no window in the way. “The tunnel?” repeated the boss robber slowly. “You
know
about the tunnel?”
    “Well, kind of,” Dortmunder admitted. “I mean, the guys digging it, they got there just before you came and took me away.”
    “And you never mentioned it.”
    “Well,” Dortmunder said, very uncomfortable, “I didn’t feel like I should.”
    The red-eyed maniac lunged forward, waving that submachine gun again, yelling, “
You’re
the guy with the tunnel! It’s your tunnel!” And he pointed the shaking barrel of the Uzi at Dortmunder’s nose.
    “Easy, easy!” the boss robber yelled. “This is our only hostage; don’t use him up!”
    The red-eyed maniac reluctantly lowered the Uzi, but he turned to the others and announced, “
Nobody’s
gonna forget when I shot up the switchboard. Nobody’s
ever
gonna forget that. He wasn’t
here
!”
    All of the robbers thought that over. Meantime, Dortmunder was thinking about his own position. He might be a hostage, but he wasn’t your normal hostage, because he was also a guy who had just dug a tunnel to a bank vault, and there were maybe 30 eyeball witnesses who could identify him. So it wasn’t enough to get away from these bank robbers; he was also going to have to get away from the police. Several thousand police.
    So did that mean he was locked to these second-rate smash-and-grabbers? Was his own future really dependent on
their
getting out of this hole? Bad news, if true. Left to their own devices, these people couldn’t escape from a merry-go-round.
    Dortmunder sighed. “OK,” he said. “The first thing we have to do is—”
    “We?” the boss robber said. “Since when are you in this?” “Since you dragged me in,” Dortmunder told him. “And the first thing we have to do is—”
    The red-eyed maniac lunged at him again with the Uzi, shouting, “Don’t you tell us what to do! We know what to do!”
    “I’m your only hostage,” Dortmunder reminded him. “Don’t use me up. Also, now that I’ve seen you people in action, I’m your only hope of getting out of here. So this time, listen to me. The first thing we have to do is close and lock the vault door.”
    One of the robbers gave a scornful laugh. “The hostages are
gone,
” he said. “Didn’t you hear that part? Lock the vault door after the hostages are gone. Isn’t that some kind of old saying?” And he laughed and laughed.
    Dortmunder looked at him. “It’s a two-way tunnel,” he said quietly.
    The robbers stared at him. Then they all turned and ran toward the back of the bank. They
all
did.
    They’re too excitable for this line of work, Dortmunder thought as he walked briskly toward the front of the bank.
Clang
went the vault door, far behind him, and Dortmunder stepped through the broken doorway and out again to the sidewalk, remembering to stick his arms straight up in the air as he did.
    “Hi!” he yelled, sticking his face well out, displaying it for all the sharpshooters to get a really
good
look at. “Hi, it’s me again! Diddums! Welsh!”
    “Diddums!” screamed an enraged voice from deep within the bank. “Come back here!”
    Oh, no. Ignoring that, moving steadily but without panic, arms up, face forward, eyes wide, Dortmunder angled leftward across the sidewalk, shouting, “I’m coming out again! And I’m
escaping
!” And he dropped his arms, tucked his elbows in and ran hell for leather toward those blocking buses.
    Gunfire encouraged him: a sudden burst behind him of
ddrrritt, ddrrritt,
and then
kopp-kopp-kopp,
and then a whole symphony of
fooms
and
thug-thugs
and
padapows.
Dortmunder’s toes, turning into high-tension steel springs, kept him bounding through the air like the