• Complain

Donald Westlake - What's So Funny?

Here you can read online Donald Westlake - What's So Funny? full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2007, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Donald Westlake What's So Funny?

What's So Funny?: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "What's So Funny?" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

In his classic caper novels, Donald E. Westlake turns the world of crime and criminals upside down. The bad get better, the good slide a bit, and Lord help anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and the current object of his intentions. Now Westlakes seasoned but often scoreless crook must take on an impossible crime, one he doesnt want and doesnt believe in. But a little blackmail goes a long way in WHATS SO FUNNY? All it takes is a few underhanded moves by a tough ex-cop named Eppick to pull Dortmunder into a game he never wanted to play. With no choice, he musters his always-game gang and they set out on a perilous treasure hunt for a long-lost gold and jewel-studded chess set once intended as a birthday gift for the last Romanov czar, which unfortunately reached Russia after that party was over. From the moment Dortmunder reaches for his first pawn, he faces insurmountable odds. The purloined past of this precious set is destined to confound any strategy he finds on the board. Success is not inevitable with John Dortmunder leading the attack, but hes nothing if not persistent, and some gambit or other might just stumble into a winning move.

Donald Westlake: author's other books


Who wrote What's So Funny?? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

What's So Funny? — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "What's So Funny?" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
WHATS SO FUNNY By Donald E Westlake A book in the Dortmunder series For - photo 1

WHAT'S SO FUNNY?

By

Donald E. Westlake

A book in the Dortmunder series

For Larry Kirshbaum welcome aboard

PART ONE

Knight's Errand

1

WHEN JOHN DORTMUNDER, relieved, walked out of Pointers and back to the main sales floor of the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue a little after ten that Wednesday evening in November, the silence was unbelievable, particularly in contrast with the racket that had been going on when he'd left. But now, no. Not a word, not a peep, not a word. The regulars all hunched at the bar were clutching tight to their glasses as they practiced their thousand-yard stare, while the lady irregulars mostly seemed to be thinking about their canning. Even Andy Kelp, who had been sharing a bourbon with Dortmunder down at the far end of the bar while they waited for the rest of their group to arrive, now seemed to have settled deeply into a search for a rhyme for "silver." All in all, it looked as though a whole lot of interior monologue was going on.

It took Dortmunder about one and six-seventeenth seconds to figure out what had changed while he was away. One of the seldom used side booths, the one nearest the street door, was now occupied by a person drinking something out of a tall clear glass, revealing both ice and bubbles within, which meant club soda, which probably meant nonalcoholic. This person, male, about forty-five, who apparently still permitted his grandmother to cut his thick black hair, wore on his lumpy countenance the kind of bland inattention that did not suggest interior monologue but, rather, intense listening.

A cop, therefore, and not only that but a cop dressed in what he no doubt thought of as civilian attire, being a shapeless shiny old black suit jacket, an emerald green polo shirt and shapeless tan khakis. He also seemed to subscribe to the usual cop belief that the male body was supposed to have bulges around the middle, like a sack of potatoes, the better to hang the equipment belt on, so that your average law enforcement officer does present himself to the public as a person with a lot of Idaho inside.

As Dortmunder moved around the corner from the end of the bar and started past the clenched backs of the interior monologists, two things happened which he found disturbing. First, the lumpy features of the cop over there suddenly became even more bland, his eyes even less focused, the movement of his arm bringing club soda to his mouth even more relaxed and even.

It's me! Dortmunder screamed inside, without letting anything he certainly hoped appear on the surface, it's me he's after, it's me he wants, it's me he's got the tag sale duds on for.

And the second thing that happened, Andy Kelp, with such studied nonchalance he looked like a pickpocket on his day off, stood from his barstool, picked up his glass and the bottle! their shared bottle! and turned, meeting no one's eye, to sit in the nearest of the side booths, as though to be more comfortable there. Not only that, but, once seated, he contrived to lift his feet under the table and put them on the bench seat on the other side, so that not only was he more comfortable here, he was alone.

They all know it's me, Dortmunder acknowledged to himself. Even Rollo, the meaty bartender, his back to the room as he taped a home-lettered-on-shirt-cardboard-in-red-Crayola WE DON'T ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS sign to the back-bar mirror, even Rollo, by the unusually cementish appearance of those stocky shoulders, made it clear that he too knew why Cap'n Club Soda was here, which happened to be himself, the individual who had just entered the arena.

Dortmunder's first thought was: escape. But then his second thought was: can't. The only exit was just beyond the cop's black wool left elbow; unachievable, in other words. Maybe he should turn around and go back to Pointers, take a seat there, wait the guy out. No; the cop could just follow him in and start talking.

Then what about hiding out in Setters? No, that wouldn't work either; an irregular would be sure to come in and start yelling and carrying on.

Whatever this is, Dortmunder thought, I gotta go through with it. But not without my drink.

So, with barely any break in stride at all for his own interior monologue, he headed down the bar toward that distant but worth the detour drink. And as he went, the cop signaled to him. Not with any blunt stare or finger-point or hey you, none of that. All he did was pick up his glass, smile in an appreciative way at the club soda inside it, then put the glass back down on the table and look nowhere in particular. That's all he did, but more plainly than an invitation edged in black it said, comon over, siddown, let's get acquainted.

First things first. Dortmunder reached his glass, saw there wasn't enough liquid left in the bottom of it to put out a firefly, drained it and turned hopelessly toward the booths, carrying the empty glass. Along the way, not looking at Kelp, who likewise did not look at him, he paused beside that first table to replenish his glass from their bottle their bottle! then trudged on down the row of booths to stop next to Mr. Doom and mutter, "This seat taken?"

"Rest yourself," the cop said. He had a soft deep voice, a burr with some gravel in it, as though he might sing the Lord's lines in some church choir somewhere.

So Dortmunder slid in across from the cop, keeping his knees away from those alien knees, and put his head back to sluice down a little bourbon. When he lowered glass and head, the cop was sliding a small card across the table toward him, saying, "Let me introduce myself." He didn't exactly smile or grin or anything like that, but you could tell he was pleased with himself.

Dortmunder leaned forward to look down at the card without touching it. A business card, an ivory off-white, with fancy lettering in light blue, it read in the middle:

JOHNNY EPPICK For Hire

and in the lower right corner an address and phone number:

598 E. 3rd St.New York, NY 10009917-555-3585

East Third Street? Over by the river? Who ever had anything to do way over there? That was a part of Manhattan so remote you practically needed a visa to go there, and if you needed a reason to go there, there weren't any.

Also, the phone number was for a cell phone, that was the Manhattan cell phone area code. So this Johnny Eppick could say he was at 598 East Third Street, but if you called that number and he answered, he could be in Omaha, who's to know?

But more important than the address and the phone number was that line under the name: For Hire. Dortmunder frowned at that information some little time and then, head still facing downward, he swiveled his eyes up to look toward Johnny Eppick, if that's who he was, and say, "You're not a cop?"

"Not for seventeen months," Eppick told him, and now he did grin. "Did my twenty, turned in my papers, decided to freelance."

"Huh," Dortmunder said. So apparently, you could take the cop out of the NYPD, but you couldn't take the NYPD out of the cop.

And now this no-longer-cop did a very cop thing: out of an inside pocket of that black suitcoat he took a photo, color, about twice the size of the business card, and slid it forward beside the card to say, "Whadaya thinka that?"

The picture was what looked like an alley somewhere, grungy and neglected like all alleys everywhere, with what looked like the rear entrances to a row of stores in an irregular line of brick buildings. A guy was moving near one of those doors, carrying a computer in both arms. The guy was all dressed in black and was hunched over the computer as though it were pretty heavy.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «What's So Funny?»

Look at similar books to What's So Funny?. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Donald Westlake - The Hot Rock
The Hot Rock
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Drowned Hopes
Drowned Hopes
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Jimmy The Kid
Jimmy The Kid
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Bank Shot
Bank Shot
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Get Real
Get Real
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Thieves' Dozen
Thieves' Dozen
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Bad News
Bad News
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Why Me?
Why Me?
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - Nobody's Perfect
Nobody's Perfect
Donald Westlake
Donald Westlake - The Road To Ruin
The Road To Ruin
Donald Westlake
Reviews about «What's So Funny?»

Discussion, reviews of the book What's So Funny? and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.