Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder has inspired a tiny bit of fanfiction

Westlake Fans...should I continue this? Saddened by death of the brilliant author of  "The Hot Rock" "Bank Shot" "Jimmy The Kid" "Why Me" "Nobody's Perfect" "Good Behavior" "Drowned Hopes" and other hilarious stories of the inept Dortmunder felons, I had hoped, like Ace Atkins has done for the "Spenser" series (Since Robert B. Parker died) there would be a seamless continuation...but there is none, nor any Westlake fanfiction at fanfiction.net.

So I am working on this...leave a note, or send me an e-mail at errant_kitten@yahoo.com

here's what I got
FATHER OF DORTMUNDER

SAM’S SEARCH FOR FAMILY

Sam Dorsey smiled, enjoying the effects of his gorgeous upper plate on the young nun. So nice they don’t make the sisters wear that dreary habit anymore.

 

“Yes, I love your inspirational videos” Sister Sioux-Heart said. “We consider them a-a sort of shameful pleasure here at the convent…not Catholic, you know.” She paused. “But, Mr. Dorsey, you say—“

 

“No, I’m Leader Sam.” He smiled again. It would be probably unethical to hit the kid up for a contribution, she was running her own show here. “Please, Mister Dorsey is my—“

 

But of course “Mister Dorsey is my father” wasn’t true. Sam had shortened his name from Dortmunder to Dorsey after Riding the Spiritual Saddle for the first time. Sam’s father, the hardworking immigrant, Karl Dortmunder, had been saddened, but, as we all know, that was Karl’s issue, not Sam’s.

 

“Of course, uh, Leader Sam.” Sister Sioux-Heart. “But you say you left a SON here?” She paused, and sipped herbal tea. “Back when-when this—we had an orphanage.”

 

Sister Sioux-Heart wrinkled her nose. Sam did the same. This, the Judas Forgiven Divine Light  convent had once been called the Bleeding Heart Sisters of Eternal Misery., and it must’ve been a poor hothouse to grow young vines.

 

Sister Sioux-Heart would never have become a nun under the old regimes; but as a former political and economic lesbian (the sex was icky) the progressive convent seemed to beckon!

 

The Leader Sam nodded his head, looking somewhat abashed. (Sam knew that he had adorable eyelashes, like a girls, and when he was looking ashamed, the ladies in the congregation went out of their minds.)

 

“I’m afraid that I was a bit of a goer when I was young.” Sam paused meditatively, to let the full weight of his contrition properly impress the gazing postulant. “I had a little heroin problem, and my wife died of the same illness, just after John’s birth. My son.”

 

Sister Sioux-Heart picked up a file—an icky paper file, she’d had to go down to the basement, how did people LIVE before Microsoft Word? She handed it to the Leader  Sam, who she was feeling extremely drawn to, despite his being at least sixty years old.

 

“I’m sorry, this is all we had. I think John might have had what psychologists call now oppositional defiance disorder—he was very hard to reach, from what I’ve read here.”

 

“John was disobedient?” Leader Sam asked. “That’s probably because of some abandonment grief—“

 

“No, not really disobedient, John just didn’t want to do much. He liked sleeping late and other non-participatory activities. He was interested in horses.”

 

“Oh, he was an equestrian?”

 

“No, he enjoyed betting at the racetracks, it says here. John was an odd boy.”

 

Sister Sioux-Heart sipped her tea. “He disappeared from the orphanage one spring day just after his fifteenth birthday, John did, but the police were unable to track him as a runaway, because—oddly enough—the First Dead Indian,Illinois National suffered a burglary the same night!”

 

INTERVIEWS AT THE O.J.

 

Dortmunder opened the door of the back room at the OJ Bar and Grill with his elbow, holding two glasses of bourbon and holding bottle of Amsterdam Liquor Store Bourbon (“Our Own Brand”) under his left arm.

 

Dizzied enough by an overheard conversation from the O.J. regulars concerning whether or not Yin and Yang were related by blood to Carl Jung, Dortmunder nearly dropped the bottle when he saw the dummy.

 

“John!” Andy Kelp waved Dortmunder over. “Come on, take a seat. You remember Three Finger Gillie, don’t you?” Beside Kelp was indeed, Martin “Three Finger” Gillie, a former artist who had served time up at Dannemora with Dortmunder.Things were still a bit tense between Three Finger and Dortmunder because of an incident during Three Finger’s art career, but obviously, Gillie had moved on to something new.

 

Sitting in Three Finger’s lap was a cheap Charlie McCarthy plastic ventriloquist doll, and before Dortmunder could go much further, the doll’s lower jaw flapped, and Three Finger’s teeth gritted, and out came “Thitown vha dig talooka an’ tut doth hands on the table.”

 

“What?” Dortmunder gazed.

 

“What are you deaf? Charlie said ‘“Siddown ya big palooka, and put both hands on the table.” Three Finger looked terribly irritated. He turned to Kelp “You’re not supposed to close your lips when you throw your voice, but my instructor said if you THINK “B” when you use “D” the audience will think “B” too.”

 

Dortmunder sat down, warily, and handed Kelp a glass and the bottle. Pouring, Kelp explained sunnily. “Three Finger is learning ventriloquism, and the dummy—“

 

“Don ‘t call him that.” Three Finger growled.

 

“When Charlie McCarthy says, f’rinstance, “Boy” Three Finger can’t close his lips, because he has to look like he’s not talking. So he says “Doy” but it sounds like the du-Charlie is saying  “Boy”. And when Three Finger said “Thit-down” he meant “Sit-down”, and you’ll think Charlie is speaking and Three Finger’s just sitting there, like Edgar Bergen, you know?”

 

“Andy.” Dortmunder said carefully, as he reached to get the bottle back, “I came here because you said you had a possible job. Not for—“ Dortmunder gestured futilely at Three Finger and Charlie McCarthy-“whatever this is.”

 

“What? I can’t practice my art?” Three Finger said. The dummy agreed. “Dort-nunder ith a poor thport. Whatth wrong vith thith guy?”