And the revelation that it was taken by an intended mark who turned the tables on Kevin is just too irresistible to his cronies. So, finding himself a laughingstock, Kevin sets out to get the ring, and to rob Max of everything that isn't nailed down in the process. Dortmunder is the thief as working stiff, the guy whose great plans never quite work out, and whose foolproof jobs are the gateway to increasingly complicated capers. Many have tried. You'd need an absolute master of offhand comic timing, of jokes that just slide by, someone who can deliver gags so that they land between the deadpan and the winking, someone who knows the difference between saying funny things and saying things funny, to fully capture Westlake's tone.
Most comedies build to a big climax.
Dortmunder stories are more like the sounds you might get out of someone who's collected a bunch of party noisemakers and starts testing them out one after the other, repeating the same patterns and always adding a new one at the end. It's as if he's mistaken a bunch of tall tales for an adventure yarn and never makes the necessary adjustment for a rising and falling pace instead of a continuously escalating one. He's not enough of a schlub to be the perfect Dortmunder. He's ingratiating without trying to be adorable. But when he works up a full head of steam, as when he's cursing out Kevin while testifying to a Senate committee, it's hard not to laugh at him.