Free Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake Page A

had expensive tastes.
    It wouldn’t be so bad if he had some private scores going, but it had been almost a year since he’d been involved in a non-political robbery, and the money from that last caper was just about gone. He needed something soon, or he’d be eating that black bread without the caviar.
    They were heading up Central Park West when Phil said, ‘Do I hear a phone? I keep thinking I hear a phone.’
    Van said, ‘Jack stole their phone.’
    Herman could see Phil frowning as he drove. ‘He stole their phone? Why? Just to be mean?’
    â€˜I need an extension for my bedroom,’ Jack said. ‘Lemme see if I can get it to be quiet.’ He took it out of the bag and held it in his lap, and it didn’t tinkle as much after that.
    Jack having moved the phone had dislodged some of the crumpled paper, and Herman could see green down in there. A hundred dollars, he thought, for expenses. But there was no point in it; a hundred dollars wouldn’t come near his expenses.
    They let him off across the street from his building. They headed on uptown, and Herman sprinted across the street and inside. He went around to the service elevator, rode it up to his floor, and pushed the 1 button to send it back down again when he got off. He entered his kitchen and Mrs. Olaffson said, ‘Everything’s all right.’
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜They’re getting drunk.’
    â€˜Very good. You can serve any time.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    He walked through the apartment to the living room and noted the shifts that had taken place in his absence. Several of them, but primarily involving George and Linda Lachine. George and Susan were sitting together now, George with a rather fatuous smile on his face while Susan talked to him, and Linda was standing over on the opposite side of the room, trying to look as though she were admiring the W. C. Fields print.
    Rastus and Diane were still together, Rastus now with his hand on Diane’s leg. The tinkling telephone and the reminder of his money worries had put Herman in a bad mood and left him feeling unable to cope with the complexities that Rastus would have to offer. So it was heterosexual time; why not?
    First he had to make some general comments to the general group, who greeted his return with comments about how long he’d been away. ‘You know those people,’ he said with a dismissing wave of the hand. ‘They can’t do anything on their own, not a thing.’
    â€˜Problems?’ Foster asked. He had come with Diane but seemed uninterested in leaving with her.
    â€˜Nothing they can’t handle by themselves,’ he said and gave everybody a brisk grin as he rounded the coffee table and headed for Linda.
    But he didn’t get there. Mrs. Olaffson appeared again, in a rerun, complete with the same dialogue: ‘Telephone, sir.’
    Herman looked at her, for just a second too bewildered to speak. He couldn’t say, ‘My call from the Coast?’ because that was all over now. He very nearly said, ‘We’ve done that bit,’ but stopped himself in time. Finally, out of desperation, he said, ‘Who is it?’
    â€˜He just said it was a friend, sir.’
    â€˜Listen,’ Rastus drawled in that Southern-cracker voice he liked to use when irritated, ‘ain’t we never gonna eat?’
    â€˜All right,’ Herman said. To Rastus, to Mrs. Olaffson, to everybody. ‘I’ll make this one fast,’ he promised grimly, strode from the room, went down the hall, and bashed his nose painfully when he turned the knob on the study door without stopping and the door turned out still to be locked. ‘God damn! ’ he said, his eyes tearing and his nose smarting. Holding his nose – he reminded himself of that usher – he trotted around through the kitchen and into the study that way. Dropping into the director’s chair, he picked up the receiver