Jimmy the Kid

"Oh, yeah?" He sounded neither interested nor suspicious. What a simple, honest, trusting man, May thought, looking at him, feeling for him again the same tenderness as when they'd first met, the time she caught him shoplifting in Bohack's. That time, he hadn't run or lied or complained or caused any trouble at all; he'd just stood there, looking so defeated she hadn't had the heart to turn him in. She'd even helped him stuff the sliced cheese and the packaged baloney back into his armpits, and had said, "Look, why not hit the Grand Union from now on?" And he'd said, "I always liked the Bohack coffee." It was the first thing he'd ever said to her.

She cleared her throat; she was feeling misty and emotional, and that would never do. Much as she hated the role, what she had to do now was start manipulating her man; it was, after all, for his own good. So she said, "She told me, Murch's Mom told me, that Andy Kelp is still trying to organize that kidnapping idea."

Dortmunder paused with a spoonful of Jell-O, gave a disgusted look, and went back to his eating.

"He wanted Stan to drive," May said, "but Stan wouldn't go into it without you."

"Good," Dortmunder said.

"I'm worried about Kelp," May said. "You know what he's like, John."

"He's a jinx," Dortmunder said. "He's also an ingrate, and besides that he's a bigmouth. Let's not spoil a nice dinner with talk about Kelp."

"I'm just afraid of the kind of woman he'll get," May said. "You know, to take care of the child."

Dortmunder frowned. "What child?"

"The one they kidnap."

Dortmunder shook his head. "He'll never get it off the ground. Andy Kelp couldn't steal third in the Little League."

"Well, that would make it even worse," May said. "He's really determined to do it, you know. He'll get the wrong people, some awful woman who doesn't care about children, and some barfly to do the driving, and they'll just get themselves in trouble."

"Good," Dortmunder said.

"But what if the child gets hurt? What if the police surround the hideout, what if there's a shoot-out?"

"A shoot-out? With Kelp? He's so gun-shy, he goes out to the track, he surrenders at the beginning of every race."

"But what about the other people with him? There's no telling who he'll wind up with."

Dortmunder looked pained, and May remembered that he and Kelp really were old friends; so maybe there was a chance, after all. But then Dortmunder's expression became mulish, and he said, "Just so he doesn't wind up with me. He's jinxed me long enough."

May cast around for another argument, considered a specific mention of the friendship between Dortmunder and Kelp, and finally decided not to do that. If she did, he might just be angry enough now to deny the friendship, and then later on he'd think he had to stand by the denial. Better to let the dust settle for a minute.

They were finishing the Jell-O when she started again, coming in from another direction entirely, saying, "I read that book again. It isn't bad, you know."

He looked at her. "What book?"

"The one Kelp showed us. The one about the kidnap. ping."

He straightened and looked around the room, frowning. "I thought I threw that out," he said.

"I got another copy." She'd gotten it from Kelp, but she didn't think she should mention that.

He turned his frown toward her. "What for?"

"I wanted to read it again. I wanted to see if maybe Kelp had a good idea after all."

"Kelp with a good idea." He finished his Jell-O and reached for his coffee.

"Well, he was smart to bring it around to you," she said. "He wouldn't be able to do it right without you."

"Kelp brings a plan to me."

"To make it work," she said. "Don't you see? There's a plan there, but you have to convert it to the real world, to the people you've got and the places you'll be and all the rest of it. You'd be the aw-tour."

He cocked his head and studied her. "I'd be the what?"

"I read an article in a magazine," she said. "It was about a theory about movies."

"A theory about movies."

"It's called the aw-tour theory. That's French, it means writer."

He spread his hands. "What the hell have I got to do with the movies?"

"Don't shout at me, John, I'm trying to tell you. The idea is-"

"I'm not shouting," he said. He was getting grumpy.

"All right, you're not shouting. Anyway, the idea is, in movies the writer isn't really the writer. The real writer is the director, because he takes what the writer did and he puts it together with the actors and the places where they make the movie and all the things like that."

"The writer isn't the writer," Dortmunder said.

"That's the theory."

"Some theory."

"So they call the director the aw-tour,' she explained, "because that's French for writer."

"I don't know what we're talking about," Dortmunder said, "but I think I'm getting caught up in it. Why do they do it in French?"

"I don't know. Maybe because it's more classy. Like chifferobe."

"Like what?"