Cocktail Talk: Bank Shot
It’s weird, but I don’t think I’ve had a Cocktail Talk post featuring a quote or quotes from a Donald E. Westlake book. Or, I just can’t track one down. Or maybe it’s not so weird — I haven’t read a ton of Westlake, but it feels like I’ve enjoyed enough books here and there. And now I’m meandering. Bank Shot is a caper book, one of like 100 books by Westlake (oh, he also wrote the screenplay for The Grifters, which is rad), and probably the only book where the not-always-so-smooth criminals rob a bank by actually stealing the whole bank building. It also was the basis for a movie. They also do a lot of their planning in the back of a bar, which is if not the safest at least the most congenial spot I can think of to plan a robbery. And you can have a drink while planning. They drink a fair amount in Bank Shot, too, and now I have drawn everything full circle, which means it’s time for the quotes:
Victor said, “I’m drinking tonight.” He sounded very pleased. Dortmunder ducked his head a little more and looked at Victor under his fingers. He was smiling, of course, and holding up a tall glass. It was pink. Dortmunder said, “Oh, yeah?” “A slow-gin fizz,” Victor said.
He had planned his menu with the greatest of care. The cocktails to begin had been Negronis, the power of the gin obscured by the gentleness of vermouth and Campari.
—Bank Shot, Donald E. Westlake
