The Switch

by Elmore Leonard

  “Say call him, let his wife tell him,” Ordell said, thinking about it. “He makes the transfer tomorrow. I call the bank, see the money was deposited—”

  “We drop the lady home—” Louis said.

  Ordell’s gaze came alive and flicked at Louis. “With the police waiting.”

  “Okay, we put her on a bus.”

  “The police still waiting, wanting to know who put the man in the closet. Man with about fifteen stitches in his head.”

  “What she gonna tell them,” Louis said, “she was kidnapped?” Christ, he said it again. “She doesn’t know anything, because if she gets her husband involved they start asking him questions—all that money, huh?—dig into his business, his books. Before she knows it he’s in Lewisburg, man, conspiring to defraud the United States government.”

  “Hey, it’s interesting,” Ordell said. “You know it? He’s down there with the foxy chick his wife don’t know nothing about. His wife’s up here sitting on Richard’s mother’s bed, he thinks she’s home making cookies. Yeah, it’s interesting.”

  The Sony TV Frank had won and kept in the bedroom was now in this room. It sat on the vanity that had round corners and was made of lacquered blond wood, the back of the set reflecting in three panels of mirrors. She thought of Frank and his golf trophy. Because the vanity reminded her of the 1930s and the Empire State Building.

  Mickey remembered snapshots of her mother taken in the ‘30s . . . her mother and her mother’s two younger sisters, her grandmother . . . looking at the album every summer in the house at Gratiot Beach, the home on Lake Huron they called “the cottage” where there had been a vanity like this one in her grandmother’s room. She remembered the sachet odor from that time, looking at her grandmother’s “things,” linens and silks (what were they, scarves, tablecloths?) folded in tissue paper and stored in a fat leather trunk, a treasure chest in an upstairs room where a pair of dormer windows looked out past a sweep of lawn to the beach and the lake that was like an ocean.

  The dormer windows in this room were covered with a sheet of plywood, nailed tight to the frame with headless nails. In case she might try to rip the board off with her fingernails and jump out the window. Mickey had no idea where she was: within a half hour of Birmingham or Bloomfield Village, but in which direction? In a small, two-story house, blind behind the plywood to what might be a familiar view outside. Though she doubted it.

  The little ruffle-shade lamp—the only light in the room except for a fixture in the ceiling—could be her grandmother’s, but not the chenille bedspread with the peacock design in blue, purple and red. There was a print on the wall of a blond Christ Child, a scrubbed, well-behaved looking boy. The Sony, she noticed, was plugged in. They were considerate—a white man and a black man and a third one who had body odor, God, who stunk. Someone else recently had had b.o. A lot of people did. Why didn’t they smell themselves? She’d have it too if they kept her in here very long. It was warm in the room. She had a nearly flat package of cigarettes, a lighter. Knock if she had to pee and put her mask on. It would be something to do. She wondered if they’d talk to her. Maybe they had the wrong person. Who was being kidnapped these days? People in Italy who had money. And the kidnappers got away with it. What was the last one here, in this country? A girl in a box underground who breathed through a tube. No, a more recent one. A woman tied to a tree in the woods, found after a couple of days. Both of them found alive, she was quite sure, and the kidnappers arrested.

  Why would anybody—if you were going to kidnap somebody, why not pick . . . she’d never had her picture in the paper. Oh God, yes she did. But they couldn’t have seen it and then planned it so fast. They must’ve seen Frank’s name. Frank A. Dawson Homes, Grandview Estates. But even then, what did they cost? Grandview Estates wasn’t money. What about the really wealthy people in Detroit? Somebody must’ve made a mistake.

  God, kidnapped—

  She couldn’t believe it. She’d turn on the 6 o’clock news and there it would be. Friend of family describes wife’s . . . mother’s abduction. Friend of family.

  Prominent industrialist trying to fool around with and get in the pants of friend’s wife describes daylight abduction. Husband away on business not immediately notified.

  When would they get in touch with him?

  Local and county police have begun a thorough investigation . . .

  The one who came to the door had smelled of perspiration. The policeman in the two-tone blue uniform, in the unmarked car. The same one, here.

  It was planned. Of course it was planned. They had been watching her, waiting for the right time. And Marshall, the big jerk, had strolled in and gotten whacked on the head.

  It was 10 to 5. The earliest news was on Channel 4 at 5:30. She was dying to hear how the friend of the family would explain what he was doing in the house between 12:30 and 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

  “I just happened to be driving by and saw something suspicious,” said Marshall Taylor, president of Taylor Industries, five-handicap golfer and country club lover.

  Mickey sat down on the bed. A little self-analysis. How did she feel about all this?

  Surprisingly, she felt fine. She felt—what else? Excited. More than that. Afraid? Yes, she was afraid. But she wasn’t scared to death or petrified. Just the opposite, she felt alive. She was excited but calm. She had time to take what was happening to her and study it. She could perch up there wherever she perched and look at the whole scene, calmly watch what was going on and direct herself if she wanted to—yes, exactly—and give herself lines and use them. Say what she wanted. She didn’t have to worry about a nice mom image. No points for nice moms here. She could be herself.

  That was interesting. Mickey looked over at the triple mirror, at her reflection in the large center panel. She said, “Who are you?” She studied herself and said, “If you don’t know, you’re gonna find out, aren’t you?”

  She liked the feeling, being excited and calm at the same time.

  11

  * * *

  SATURDAY, two days before they brought her, Richard had drilled holes in the doors at eye level and hung little framed silhouettes over the holes: a girl on the bathroom door and a boy on the bedroom door. He could move aside the silhouette, hung on a nail, press his eye to the hole that wasn’t any bigger than a shirt button and see fine into either room.

  The trouble was, the woman only had the clothes she was wearing, so there was no reason for her to take them off. There was nothing else for her to put on unless—Richard was thinking—he offered her one of his mother’s nightgowns or a robe. All his mother’s stuff was still in the drawers and closet and that might be a way to catch the woman naked.

  Richard pressed his eye against the bedroom peep-hole and watched her pacing around, folding her arms and unfolding them, looking at things. She’d sit on the bed and then get up and pace some more and then sit in the rocking chair and rock fast at first, then slow it down and would seem calm. She was usually pretty calm. He wondered why she didn’t turn on the TV. Richard would say to himself, Come on, take off your clothes and let’s see what you got. He pretended he was inspecting a woman for breeding purposes. He’d look her over and decide if he wanted her to have his kid or not.

  Maybe if it got hot enough in there she’d strip. Once, she reached in her shirt and scratched her left tit and adjusted her bra. That was as good as the show got, so far. He wondered why she never had to go pee. Maybe if he gave her a pitcher of ice water—

  Finally, a little after five o’clock, she came toward the door. Richard moved the silhouette over the peep hole and stepped back. There was a knock on the door. Richard said, “Yeah?”

  “I want to go to the bathroom.”

  Hot dog, Richard thought. He said, “You got your mask?”

  “Oh—” Then after a moment, “Yes, I’ve got it.”

  “Put it on.”

  “How’m I gonna . . . do what I have to do if I can’t see?”


  “I’ll help you.” Richard grinned.

  “Forget it.”

  “Just till you get in the bathroom.” Silence. “You still want to go?”

  “Yes, please. Open the door.”

  “Wait a minute.” Shit, Richard had to get his mask. He came out of the war room wearing the rubber Frankenstein Monster face, his white T-shirt and his uniform pants. He wanted her to see him, but didn’t know how he was going to work it. The monster face, the coon, Ordell, said was just in case. Like if she pulled her mask off.

  She had it on, standing there waiting. She pulled back a little when Richard took her by the arm, then went with him the three steps to the bathroom. Richard said, “Here you go. When the door’s closed you can take your mask off and do your business.”

  “Thanks,” the woman said, not sounding as though she meant it.

  Richard moved the girl silhouette aside and pressed his monster face to the peep hole. Now maybe he’d see something.

  She looked at herself in the mirror first. Then ran the water and washed her face and hands, Richard thinking, Do that after. She was looking in the mirror again, running a finger over her front teeth. Come on, Richard urged. She turned to the toilet. Now. Undid her belt and the top button of the slacks, unzipped the fly. Right now. Pushed her panties down with her slacks and sat down all in one motion, her shirttail dropping down, covering her and, shit, all Richard got to see was a flash of her left bum. Goddarn it, her secret thing, her little nest right there and the goddarn shirttail was in the way. She was peeing now, he could hear her, then reaching around to flush the toilet—

  Louis said, “What in the hell you doing?”

  Richard got the silhouette in place as he turned and faced Louis in his monster mask. Louis squinted at him, then brushed past him to the door, lifted the silhouette aside and pressed his face close to the door. When he turned to Richard he said, “Jesus Christ—”

  Richard said, “It’s my house, ain’t it?”

  Mickey could hear them on the other side of the door—not words but voices, kept low. The one who smelled had brought her in here. Now one of the others was with him. She stepped close to the door, about to press her ear to the panel to listen, and saw the drilled hole—freshly drilled, particles of unpainted wood sticking out from the round edge close to her eye. But she couldn’t see through the hole. And she couldn’t hear them now. There were footsteps on the stairs, going down.

  When she knocked and the one who smelled let her out, taking her arm again, she returned obediently, in silence, to the bedroom, entered, heard the door close and took off her mask.

  There was a hole in the bedroom door.

  She saw it and looked away, walked over to the Sony and turned it on. Mike Douglas was talking to someone. What was his name? Always wore the dark T-shirt, long hair combed back—Carlson. George Carlin. She liked him. Frank had said, Who? He’d never heard of him. She sat on the bed and went through her purse, feeling the one who smelled watching her. The heavy policeman in the funny uniform. Except he wasn’t funny. This wasn’t funny. Now what was she feeling?

  She was mad. She was mad as hell. The fat smelly son of a bitch. She remembered Peter Finch, the nutty newscaster in the movie, in his raincoat. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” She groped inside her purse, feeling for something long and thin with a pointed tip—like a knitting needle—but knowing she carried nothing long and thin. Lipstick. An eyeliner brush. No pencil, not even for eyebrows. A cigarette.

  There were four cigarettes left in the pack of True greens. She said to herself, Don’t think. Light it.

  She stood up, walked over to the Sony, switched to Channel 2—to a police car moving, just what she needed—and back to 4. She snapped her lighter and lit the cigarette, moved back to the bed, lingered, moved past the bed to the closet, then to the blond dresser against the front wall, next to the door. He wouldn’t be able to see her now.

  Mickey reached out, inching the cigarette along the door panel, brought it almost to the hole and stopped. Then inched it again, close—and jabbed into the hole, losing part of the burning ember but feeling the cigarette go in cleanly and hearing, instantly, the scream on the other side of the door. Surprise, pain—Mickey wasn’t sure. She moved close to the hole, withdrawing the broken cigarette, and said, “How do you like that, officer? You want to look in my basement?”

  Almost at once she thought, You shouldn’t have said that.

  But it was done. She ripped the black tape from one of the eyes in the mask and pressed it over the peephole.

  “This guy, I don’t know, he thinks he’s in the fucking Gestapo or something,” Louis said, “looking through the hole when she’s in there. Guy watches her take a leak.”

  “Yeah, maybe he’s playing that,” Ordell said. “Or see, Richard ain’t getting much, he prob’ly forgot what a pussy look like. Wanted to refresh his memory.”

  “There’s something wrong with him,” Louis said.

  “Sure there is,” Ordell said. “His head got turned around or something or his mama dropped him out the window when he was a little baby.”

  “She probably threw him out when he tried to rape her,” Louis said.

  “Naw, he’s harmless. He got all that shit up there, all the guns, but it’s all he’s playing pretend, thinking he’s a big Nazi motherfucker, but it all stays there in his head,” Ordell said.

  Yeah, well they could beat it to death, they were stuck with the guy. Forget it. Louis said, “When you stop home, remember to bring some tapes.”

  “I will.”

  “The Lonnie Liston Smith. You know what he’s got here, his records? He’s got Rosetta Tharpe.”

  “He likes gospel,” Ordell said.

  “He’s got James Cleveland. He’s got Rosie Wallace, man, and the First Church of Love Choir. If we’re gonna be here awhile—You get the phone number yet?”

  “I’m still waiting on Mr. Walker.” Ordell was looking at Richard’s big RCA black-and-white TV that was a piece of furniture with a pink and white bucking bronco statuette on it. “Here it is,” Ordell said. “News is on.” He sat up in the maroon chair and leaned on his knees. Then sat back again. They were anxious, both of them, but didn’t want to show it.

  There was a wreck on the Lodge Freeway. A tank truck had jackknifed and exploded. The driver had been rushed to the Ann Arbor Burn Center and northbound traffic had been backed up for hours.

  There was something about a farmer having to shoot his dairy herd because of PBB poisoning . . . and pregnant mothers being interviewed, worrying about their milk . . . something on about PBB every evening but neither Louis nor Ordell knew what it was.

  The sports editor, trying to sound like W. C. Fields, said the Tigers gave the Sox the Bird Sunday, Fidrych holding the Beantowners to five scattered hits.

  Louis said, “Why don’t they just say it, without all that cute shit?”

  Sonny Eliot jumped around his weather map with his magic marker and his snappy weather reports. “High of ninety tomorrow, that’s as welcome as a blowtorch in a firecracker factory, and no relief in sight.” They waited through it in silence.

  Coming up after about eight commercials would be Channel 4’s latest crime report. Louis thought, Here we go. He noticed Ordell sitting forward again.

  There was a quick run-through of current crime headlines with brief stories: Teens rob, shoot disabled freeway driver, proclaim, “We own the city” . . . Two stand trial in death of bartender . . . Witnesses finger more teen gang leaders . . . Gunmen shoot up Boys Home, staffer fired . . . Mayor Coleman Young says press too critical . . .

  Louis seemed puzzled. “What’s all this with the kids?”

  Now a TV reporter with a swirly hairdo was interviewing members of a teenaged gang, the Errol Flynns. Louis saw a bunch of skinny black kids standing around in their fifty-dollar Borsalinos like cowboys, grinning at the camera. Ordell grinned with them, saying look at them little Earl Flynns, hey, bullshittin�
�� the man. Gonna eat him up. There were interviews with black neighborhood residents who said the police had to start hooking the kids up and throwing them in the clink . . .

  In the clink? Louis thought.

  . . . so the other kids would see them doing hard time and quit taking off the grocery stores and the old peoples’ social security money so they could buy those Bosalinis and support their scag jones.

  Louis said, “What’s he talking about?”

  “It’s cool,” Ordell said. “Listen to the man.”

  “Why don’t they get to it?” Louis said.

  There were more commercials, a preview of the top national and international news stories, but no more crime. Nothing about a suburban woman being kidnapped or abducted. Nothing about two dudes in Halloween masks breaking into a Bloomfield Village home. Nothing about a big dude holding two martinis getting hit in the head.

  Ordell said, “You think the man’s still in the closet?”

  “You hit him,” Louis said.

  “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

  “You hope you didn’t.”

  They watched TV commercials and didn’t say anything for at least two minutes, until the world news was coming on with John Chancellor.

  Louis said, “I think somebody better get in his sporty uniform and go out there and investigate an alleged assault with the intent to put a guy to sleep and hope to Christ it hasn’t turned out to be murder.”

  12

  * * *

  “WHAT IS IT?” Mickey asked.

  “Chicken and noodles cooked in chicken soup with onions and some other things, a biscuit in it. You’ll see a biscuit in there, but I don’t think it’ll kill you,” Louis said, standing in the doorway with the tray. “You got your mask on? I can’t tell.”