"Donald E Westlake - Bank Shot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

"Not at all," Dortmunder said.

She left the room, and Dortmunder sat back on the sofa and smiled lazily at

the world outside the picture window. A man had to stay alive somehow while

waiting for a big score to develop, and there was nothing better for that than an

encyclopedia con. In the spring and fall, that is; winter was too cold for house-

to-house work and summer was too hot. But given the right time of year, the old

encyclopedia scam was unbeatable. It kept you in the fresh air and in nice neigh-

borhoods, it gave you a chance to stretch your legs in comfortable living rooms

and chat with mostly pleasant suburban ladies, and it bought the groceries.

Figure ten or fifteen minutes per prospect, though the losers usually didn't take

that long. If only one out of five bit, that was ten bucks an hour. On a six-hour

day and a five-day week, that was three hundred a week, which was more than

enough for a man of simple tastes to live on, even in New York.

And the ten-dollar bite was just the perfect size. Anything smaller than that,

the effort wouldn't be worth the return. And if you went up above ten dollars,

you got into the area where the housewives either wanted to talk it over with

their husbands first or wanted to write you checks; and Dortmunder wasn't

about to go cash a check made out to an encyclopedia company. The few

checks he got at the ten-dollar level he simply threw away at the end of the

day's business.

It was now nearly four in the afternoon. He figured he'd make this the last

customer of the day, go find the nearest Long Island Railroad station, and head

on back into the city. May would be home from Bohack's by the time he got

there.

Should he start packing the promo material back in his attachщ case? No,