Fence (criminal) - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Novelist Donald E. Westlake, who wrote scores of books in which the caper heist is the central plot and who featured the popular fictional character John Dortmunder, a professional planner of thefts, did somewhat glamorize theft as a way of life. In Westlake's comedic novels, the fence is portrayed in extremely negative lights. Dortmunder's usual fence, Arnie Albright, "was a fellow with a distinct personality problem." He is so repellent that his own family members raise enough money for a "personality intervention" to take place at a Club Med resort in the Caribbean area. Arnie's cousin, Archie, explains that they want to cure him of "his obnoxiousness."

In a non-series novel, Westlake writes of another, even more repulsive character:

As fences go, Jersey Josh Kuskiosko was no more scuzzy than the average. As human beings go, of course, Jersey Josh was just about at the bottom of the barrel, down there in the muck and the filth and the fetid stink where thoughts just naturally arise of retroactive abortion. But as far as fences are concerned, he wasn't bad.