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calm than before, and he said, “Here I am.”
    “We’re gonna give them our demands now,” the robber said. “Through you.”
    “That’s fine,” Dortmunder said. “That’s great. Only, you know, how come you don’t do it on the phone? I mean, the way it’s normally—”
    The red-eyed robber, heedless of exposure to the sharpshooters across the street, shouldered furiously past the comparatively calm robber, who tried to restrain him as he yelled at Dortmunder, “You’re rubbing it in, are ya? OK, I made a mistake! I got excited and I shot up the switchboard! You want me to get excited again?”
    “No, no!” Dortmunder cried, trying to hold his hands straight up in the air and defensively in front of his body at the same time. “I forgot! I just forgot!”
    The other robbers all clustered around to grab the red-eyed robber, who seemed to be trying to point his Uzi in Dortmunder’s direction as he yelled, “I did it in front of everybody! I humiliated myself in front of everybody! And now you’re making fun of me!”
    “I
forgot
! I’m sorry!”
    “You can’t forget that! Nobody’s ever gonna forget that!”
    The three remaining robbers dragged the red-eyed robber back away from the doorway, talking to him, trying to soothe him, leaving Dortmunder and the comparatively calm robber to continue their conversation. “I’m sorry,” Dortmunder said. “I just forgot. I’ve been kind of distracted lately. Recently.”
    “You’re playing with fire here, Diddums,” the robber said. “Now tell them they’re gonna get our demands.”
    Dortmunder nodded, and turned his head the other way, and yelled, “They’re gonna tell you their demands now. I mean,
I
’m gonna tell you their demands.
Their
demands. Not
my
demands.
Their
de—”
    “
We’re willing to listen, Diddums, only so long as none of the hostages get hurt.
”
    “That’s good!” Dortmunder agreed, and turned his head the other way to tell the robber, “That’s reasonable, you know, that’s sensible, that’s a very good thing they’re saying.”
    “Shut up,” the robber said.
    “Right,” Dortmunder said.
    The robber said, “First, we want the riflemen off the roofs.” “Oh, so do I,” Dortmunder told him, and turned to shout, “They want the riflemen off the roofs!”
    “
What else?
”
    “What else?”
    “And we want them to unblock that end of the street, the— what is it?—the north end.”
    Dortmunder frowned straight ahead at the buses blocking the intersection. “Isn’t that east?” he asked.
    “Whatever it is,” the robber said, getting impatient. “That end down there to the left.”
    “OK.” Dortmunder turned his head and yelled, “They want you to unblock the east end of the street!” Since his hands were way up in the sky somewhere, he pointed with his chin.
    “
Isn’t that north?
”
    “I knew it was,” the robber said.
    “Yeah, I guess so,” Dortmunder called. “That end down there to the left.”
    “
The right, you mean.
”
    “Yeah, that’s right. Your right, my left.
Their
left.”
    “
What else?
”
    Dortmunder sighed, and turned his head. “What else?”
    The robber glared at him. “I can
hear
the bullhorn, Diddums. I can
hear
him say ‘What else?’ You don’t have to repeat everything he says. No more translations.”
    “Right,” Dortmunder said. “Gotcha. No more translations.” “We’ll want a car,” the robber told him. “A station wagon. We’re gonna take three hostages with us, so we want a big station wagon. And nobody follows us.”
    “Gee,” Dortmunder said dubiously, “are you sure?”
    The robber stared. “Am I
sure?
”
    “Well, you know what they’ll do,” Dortmunder told him, lowering his voice so the other team across the street couldn’t hear him. “What they do in these situations, they fix a little radio transmitter under the car, so then they don’t have to
follow
you, exactly, but they know where you are.”
    Impatient again, the robber