Bandits

by Elmore Leonard

  “He was a major suspect, but never brought to trial,” Roy said. “So you have your doper and you have your shooter.”

  “You see it?” Jack said. “Where the money could be going, associating with guys like that? Right to Miami, fly or drive, either way. You look at it like that”—turning to Lucy—“your dad’s hunch makes a lot of sense.”

  Roy said, “I better check, see if Alvin Cromwell’s got a sheet.”

  “Or a plane,” Jack said, “or a boat.”

  Lucy was looking at him. “You know who he is?”

  “Alvin has a men’s store in Gulfport. I’ll drive over,” he said to Roy, “after you check him out.”

  Cullen said, “Jack, you’re gonna have to go back in the guy’s room, too.”

  “For what?”

  “Why’s he have the money in four different branches? I wondered about that,” Cullen said. “Well, one advantage, if it’s in smaller amounts he can get it out quicker. Along with what you’re talking about. Say he wants to leave in a hurry. What you want to find out, Jack, if he’s moving it around, has any new receipts.”

  “What difference does it make, he moves it from Hibernia to Whitney?” He didn’t like the idea of going back in there.

  “You’re the one brought up Miami,” Cullen said. “What if they don’t put the dough in a suitcase but have it transferred there, bank to bank?”

  “Not if they’re gonna use it illegally.”

  “Jack, these guys own banks—guys in the dope business. You have to go in there and take a look. Also check the guy’s list, how many names are crossed off. If Lucy’s dad tells his friends not to kick in then maybe this’s it, what the guy’s raised so far and there won’t be no more.”

  “Tomorrow,” Jack said. He didn’t like the idea one bit.

  “What I don’t understand,” Cullen said, “we’re sitting here working on a score. . . . This’s the first time I’ve ever done it and nobody’s asked the big question, the most important one of all.”

  “How much does he have?” Lucy said.

  “There, finally.” Cullen gave her a smile. “I’ll tell you right now, the way it’s going the guy’s never gonna make his five.”

  Roy said, “I never expected he would.”

  “Or even come close,” Cullen said. “I’m talking about what he has right now is two million two.”

  There was a silence before Roy said, “What’s wrong with that?”

  Jack said, “Not a thing,” and looked at Lucy.

  Lucy said nothing.

  She reached under the lamp shade to turn off the light, but then paused and looked at Jack, on the sofa. “I’d better wait till they get back.”

  “You want to go up, I’ll let them in.”

  Roy and Cullen had left to get something to eat, Cullen with a craving for fat-boiled shrimp after twenty-seven years of catfish. They’d find a place open on Magazine, come right back and cruise the street, take a walk around the grounds. It was Roy’s idea. He said they’d better all three of them stay here. Watch out for Nicaraguans and a nigger Indin sneaking around in the night.

  “You won’t know where to sleep.”

  “I can stretch out right here’s fine.”

  “There’re seven bedrooms upstairs,” Lucy said, “not counting servants’ quarters, in this huge house. My mother wouldn’t think of moving. She has a cleaning woman come in every day, the gardener twice a week. I asked Dolores what she does all day. She said, ‘Mostly I look after the house.’ I said, ‘What does my mother do?’ She said, ‘Your mother gets herself ready to go out.’ ”

  He watched her pick up her glass and walk over to the bar, slim in her Calvins and black sweater. A different Lucy. But what was it? Something in her eyes. Or something gone from her eyes.

  “How’s your drink?”

  “I’ve had enough,” Jack said. “Thanks.”

  She poured sherry. “Did you notice the Carnival pictures in the hall? That’s my mom.”

  “She looks awfully young to be your mother.”

  “Ball gowns don’t change that much.” Lucy turned with her glass of sherry. “Those pictures were taken about thirty years ago. Mom was Queen of Comus and has never gotten over it. She adorns herself and goes out to be seen. My dad makes money and surrounds himself with possessions. A five-hundred-thousand dollar live oak he’s holding prisoner. He once possessed my mother.”

  The new Lucy leaning hip-cocked against the bar in her black cashmere and Calvins. He could ask her how she’d paid for them . . .

  “Come sit down and tell me what’s wrong.”

  She took her time about it. Sat on the edge of the sofa, sipped her wine, placed the glass on the table before easing back. She was close now but staring off. That was all right, he could look at her profile, the nose and dark lashes, the lower lip he’d like to bite, and wonder about her still, if she’d ever gone to bed with anyone. . . . No lipstick on, not a touch of makeup this evening.

  She said, “I don’t care for your friend Roy.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  “No, it doesn’t matter. But I’m curious, how he can be a friend of yours.”

  “I don’t know. . . . I guess he’s not a very likable person. . . .” Jack paused. Likable person—the guy was out of the Stone Age. “He’s hard to get along with, he’s narrow-minded, has a terrible disposition . . . I don’t know, now that you mention it.”

  “You talk about him, you sound like you’re proud of him.”

  “No, I think it’s amazement more than anything else. You know, that he’s the way he is. I don’t see him that much.”

  “But you like him.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I like him. I accept him. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

  She turned to look at him.

  “I don’t make excuses for him,” Jack said. “I don’t criticize him, either. I wouldn’t dare.”

  She said, “Do you trust him?”

  Jack took a moment. “Roy says he’s gonna do something, you can put your money on it. He’s the kind of guy you want on your side, whether you like him or not.”

  She said, “Because the same kind of guys are on the other side. There’s no difference, is there?”

  He put his hand on her arm, gripped it to feel flesh and bone beneath the soft wool. He said, “I’m an ex-con, you know that. Roy’s an ex-con who used to be a cop. He’s a mean, miserable guy, but he kept me pure for three years. Cullen’s an ex-con who used to rob banks. What are you? Right now at this moment, what are you?”

  She was facing him and her eyes held, but she didn’t answer.

  “Have you changed your skin yet?”

  He gave her time, moving in slowly, closed his eyes as he kissed her and she stayed with him, moving her mouth to fit his mouth, knowing what she was doing. He saw her eyes beneath dark lashes, saw them come open, saw her lips slightly parted.

  “You’re not a nun anymore.”

  “No.”

  He kissed her again the same way, gently, with a tender feeling.

  “You’ve become something else.”

  She said, “A new identity,” and seemed almost to smile, still looking at him. Then touched him, put her hand on his leg as she got up. She said, “I want to show you something,” and walked out of the room.

  He lighted one of her cigarettes.

  She was different. . . . Or maybe she had changed back. Because now, as he thought about it, she seemed more like the one he thought of as Sister Lucy, the way she was last Sunday in the hearse, telling him about Nicaragua, getting into it and making him feel it. Or the way she was that evening when he realized he was being set up and liked it—shit, loved it—and said, “You’re wondering if I might be able to help you,” and she looked at him with those quiet eyes and said, “It crossed my mind.” She was like that Lucy again. Into something, feeling it.

  But she wasn’t making him feel it. Not now.

  He thought, Maybe you�
��re the one that’s different. Become something else. And she’s the same girl who ran off to take care of lepers.

  He believed he might have another vodka, one more, get ready for whatever. But then heard her behind him and looked around to see her in the lamplight holding something against her leg. She sank to her knees almost in front of him, watching him, and placed a nickel-plated revolver on the coffee table.

  She said, “Now I’m part of this.”

  He kept quiet, looking at the gun. It would have to be her dad’s. A .38 with a two-inch barrel. He wondered if it was loaded. He looked at Lucy.

  Staring at him.

  She said, “I learned something from Jerry Boylan. Or some of him rubbed off on me. Not anything he said, but the fact of the man, what he was, and the fact of the way he died.”

  “Did you like him?”

  She paused. “Yes, I liked him.”

  “Did you trust him?”

  “No, but that’s part of it. Why should he want to help us? He had his own cause, and that’s what I learned from him. You have to take sides, Jack. You can’t stand outside and reach in for what you want. You have to commit to something. You and I were talking about what we are. Remember? In the restaurant. While Jerry Boylan was being murdered for what he was.”

  “Do you want to know why he died?” Jack said. “Because he didn’t look behind him. That’s the fact of Jerry Boylan. He wasn’t careful.”

  “But he was there because he believed in something. And it wasn’t just the money.”

  “What did he tell us? If he wasn’t doing this he’d be sweeping rubbish. And if I weren’t here I’d be picking up dead bodies. You’d be giving lepers their medicine and Roy would be making drinks for tourists. . . . But if we’re not in it for the score, what are we? How do you see us?”

  “We don’t need a label, Jack, or initials like the IRA.” Sitting back on her legs, looking up at him. “Or the FDN, the contras. It’s enough to say we’re against that, what they stand for.”

  He looked at the revolver. “And pack a gun.”

  She said, “There’s a big difference between packing a gun and taking up arms in a political, counterrevolutionary cause, and those aren’t just words, it’s the fact of it.” She paused and said, “What happened to doing something for mankind? Remember? You said it yourself. That’s what this is all about.”

  “It sounds good, anyway.”

  “It’s true.”

  “But would you kill for it, Lucy?”

  17

  * * *

  LITTLE ONE CAME OUT of the hotel kitchen to the back hall where Jack was using the pay phone, Little One saying he had a bone to pick with him, saying his good nature was being taken advantage of. Jack raised the palm of his hand to Little One while he said into the phone, “If you could come right away I’d appreciate it.”

  Helene’s voice said, “You’d appreciate it? You’re not talking about just a drink, are you?”

  “We can have dinner after, if you haven’t eaten.”

  “After what? You call up at—what time is it?—almost eight-thirty, and ask me if I’ve eaten yet.”

  “Have you?”

  “I’m not hungry. I had a big lunch.”

  “I was gonna call you earlier, but I had to go to Gulfport.”

  “This guy takes me to Arnaud’s,” Helene’s voice said, “for a job interview. By the time we’re having our coffee he’s telling me how important compatability is and we should stop off at the Royal Sonesta after, continue the interview in a relaxed atmosphere. Which means if I go to bed with the guy I get an office with drapes, carpeting, and a word processor. I said, Gee, what I’ve always wanted, a word processor.”

  “You get the job?”

  “Listen, I was tempted. I have to be out of my apartment in ten days or else buy it; they’re turning the building into a condo. I’m thirty-two years old and I don’t have a job or a place to live.”

  He felt sorry for her feeling sorry for herself, the poor girl. She wasn’t thirty-two, she was thirty-five, at least, married once before he met her, married again for about a year while he was in prison. What had either of them learned?

  “I’ll meet you in the bar. And wear a dress, okay? . . . Helene?”

  “You sound different. You’re the same, but there’s something, I don’t know what it is, different.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Jack said. He told her to hurry and hung up.

  Little One, waiting, said, “Now then.”

  “I didn’t leave the key because I have to use it again. I told you I might. Remember?”

  “And I said to you we was even, I don’t owe Roy nothing and I don’t need no unexpected shit coming down on my life.”

  “Nothing’s gonna happen. There’s no way, I promise.”

  Little One said, “There’s no way you going in the man’s room, neither, long as he’s in there.”

  “I have to work on that. . . . He have his dinner sent up?”

  “Bottle cold wine was all, some shrimp. Man love his shrimp. Say he’s waiting on his car.”

  “He’s being picked up?”

  “No, the man bought a new car, brand new Mercedes. Told me he give ’em cash for it and they had to deliver it to him tonight or no deal. Man likes to talk about himself like that.”

  “He say he was leaving?”

  “Uh-unh, but it look like it.”

  “How about the other two guys?”

  “Haven’t seen ’em. They not staying here, they come by’s all.”

  “Can you find out if the colonel’s checking out?”

  “You don’t think they would look at me strange at the desk? How’m I suppose to ask ’em that?”

  Jack said, “I wouldn’t think a Dale Carnegie graduate’d have any trouble at all.”

  Little One served them drinks in the hotel courtyard, looking over Helene in her black dress with the little thin straps, giving Jack a look then but not saying anything. He walked off.

  And Helene said, “You’re out of your mind.”

  He was thinking this would be the place to begin an evening, let the soft glow and the sound of the fountain and a few drinks set the mood. . . . But he said, “All I’m asking you to do is get him out of the room for ten minutes.”

  “What do I do, pull him out by his hair?”

  “You could, he’s a little guy.”

  “The little guys are the worst; they’re more physical.”

  “You go up to 501.” Jack’s eyes raised. “The top railing, that’s the fifth floor. See the alcove right by the elevator? That’s his suite. You knock on the door. He opens it. You say, ‘Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I have the wrong room.’ ”

  Helene said, “ ‘Oh, gee, I’m sorry?’ ”

  “ ‘I have the wrong room.’ ”

  “You’re practically in the tree. Why don’t you pull your chair out so I can see you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  She said, “You’re hiding, aren’t you?” Picked up her scotch and water and continued to stare at him. “What’re you into, Jack?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “You said you quit.”

  “I did. This’s something else. Okay. You say, ‘Sorry,’ you turn and walk away.”

  “You’re not doing it for fun. I can tell.”

  “You start to walk away, take a couple steps, you turn around . . . You listening?”

  “I turn around.”

  “You say, ‘Oh, if another girl comes, it’s a friend of mine. I told her I’d meet her, but I guess I have the wrong room.’ You understand? Then you say, ‘I’ll watch for her downstairs. But if I happen to miss her, would you tell her I’m down in the courtyard? Or else I’ll be in the bar.’ ”

  “Do I have to say it word for word, Jack, or can I ad lib?”

  “Any way you want, as long as you understand what you’re doing. You can’t just walk away. You have to let him know where you’ll be, so he’ll come looking for you.”

>   “What if he doesn’t?”

  “He will.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “You make him want to. The way you look . . . I don’t mean you roll your eyes, anything like that.”

  “Flash my tongue?”

  “You know what to do. You have guys coming on to you all the time.”

  “But I don’t do anything.”

  “Come on, you could be in the movies, all the different looks you turn on.”

  “The guy’s a Latin?”

  “From Nicaragua.”

  “Is he cute?”

  “He’s a doll, looks like a waiter at Antoine’s. . . . Wears red Jockeys.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He comes down, you’re at this table. He offers to buy you a drink, you say, ‘Oh, no thank you.’ ”

  “Why would I say that?”

  “Why? You don’t know this guy. But he’ll keep after you and finally you say okay, one. You chat about this and that, how’re things in Nicaragua. . . . Oh, try to get into talking about cars. Find out if he just bought a Mercedes, yeah, and how long he’s staying, when he’s checking out. Mention Miami if you can, see what he says.”

  “I thought I was just suppose to keep him busy.”

  “Well, you’ll be talking to the guy. You’re not gonna do card tricks, are you?”

  “I could do a tap routine. On the table.”

  “I only need ten, fifteen minutes. Or till you see me up there. I’ll stand by the rail for a minute. You tell the guy you have to leave or go to the can, whatever you want, and I’ll meet you across the street at the Sonesta, in the bar. . . . Okay?”

  “But what if he doesn’t come down?”

  “I can’t believe it’s you saying that,” Jack said. “With your looks, those big brown eyes . . .”

  “My nose. You always liked my nose.”

  “I love it, I love your nose.”

  “You like my hair like this?”

  “It’s you.” It was. Her frizzed red hair was beginning to look good to him. “Helene, there’s nothing I can think of that could keep the guy from coming after you.”

  She said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  Colonel Dagoberto Godoy opened the door wearing his red Jockeys and a scowl that changed at once.