Bandits

by Elmore Leonard

  She said, “Roy, sometimes you overdo being yourself.”

  Roy said, “Two days, I can see you’ve enjoyed about all of me you can stand. Only I’m all you got, if you take a minute and look at it. How I ever got talked into this— I must’ve been in a weakened condition. Jack comes up to me, he goes, ‘You never saw one like this before in your life,’ and I’ll give him that; nobody has. But you know in your heart you wouldn’t stand to cop a dime off those guys if I was to drop out. Like you know you aren’t gonna fire that gun in anger or to kill, ’cause aiming at a bull’s-eye and a human being are two entirely different things. That’s something else you’re gonna have to leave to my judgment. I can’t see Jack doing it, or Cullen. I doubt either one of them has the stomach. Jack’s quick with his hands; oh, he’ll pop you before you know it, but he’s never used a gun, I’m sure, on another person.”

  “Have you?”

  “Have I ever shot anybody? Twice I had to and they’re both dead. But have you any idea what’s gonna happen tomorrow?”

  “No more than you,” Lucy said. “All I know is we’re going to do it.”

  “If you have to throw yourself in front of their car,” Roy said. “All right, draw me a picture. They come out of their room tomorrow, go over to the garage, and get in the car, we assume, huh, and drive off. Then what?”

  “They have two cars,” Lucy said. “I think they’ll just leave the Chrysler.”

  “Let’s say they do.”

  “They get in the car and drive off and we follow.”

  “What about the cash—if it isn’t in the room?”

  “You said they went to five banks yesterday and came right back to the hotel. If they withdrew the money it’s either in their room or still in the car.”

  Roy said, “If they withdrew it. You been thinking, haven’t you? But I watched them. They came out of each bank with a full sack. You could tell.”

  “Or they came out with something in the sacks,” Lucy said, “but not necessarily money. What if it was like a dry run today, to see if it’s safe? Nothing happens, they withdraw the money tomorrow and they’re on their way.”

  “That sounds pretty good. You haven’t been just saying your beads, have you? All right, then what? Now we’re coming to the good part. We follow them . . .”

  “And wait for our chance.”

  “How do we know it when we see it?”

  “They’ll have to stop sometime.”

  “Okay, they pull into a rest area to go toy-toy. Or a filling station. We pull up alongside ’em. They see us. The next thing you know that nigger Indin’s coming out of the car with his gun. We know he’s their shooter, don’t we? It’s what he does. Now, are you gonna let the nigger Indin shoot you, or you gonna pop him first, or would you wait for me to do it, knowing if you wait too long you’re dead? Or, you’re in your typical shoot-don’t-shoot situation requiring split-second judgment. Is that a gun in his hand? Bam! No, it was a flashlight, but a man is dead. These are some of the questions you have to ask yourself.” Roy walked over to the dresser, scooped loose change into his hand and picked up his wallet. “Are we gonna drive all the way to Miami in pursuit of our dream? We are, then I have to get a bathing suit and some resort wear. How ’bout you?”

  “You do like the idea,” Lucy said.

  Roy took a poplin jacket from the back of the desk chair. “What idea? That’s the only thing keeps me in this deal—we don’t have enough of a plan to know if it won’t work or even to figure the odds. We’re feeling our way along, is all. We’re still playing—oh, man, isn’t this exciting? This is serious stuff. We even got real guns, with real bullets in ’em.” Roy slipped his jacket on. “I’m going around the corner and have a drink, pick up a few items we might need, check on Cullen. . . . Oh, and lemme have your car keys. I’ll sit in it and watch theirs, just in case—since I’m doing everything anyway. Meantime you and Delaney decide if you can look right at a man and shoot him.”

  “I’ve already thought about it,” Lucy said.

  “Well, then think about him shooting you. If this deal’s worth it. It isn’t to me,” Roy said. “I’ll tell you right now, the time comes I see it’s a no-win deal, I’m out. I am sure not gonna die for a bunch of lepers I don’t even know.”

  They were in Darla’s studio apartment over an antique shop on Conti. She said, “You know how much that’d cost you? All night and all day? I never had an all day.”

  Cullen said, “I don’t care, you name it. You’re the cutest thing I ever saw.”

  “Well, thank you. Usually during the day I relax. Do my hair and my nails . . .”

  “You’re a little lady of leisure.”

  “You kidding? I work my ass off in that place. I have to be there tomorrow at six.”

  “I’ll stay till then. We can send out for Chinese, anything you want.”

  “Roy said—didn’t he mention you just got out of prison or someplace?”

  “Yeah, but I’d as soon not talk about it, ruin this beautiful evening.”

  “I meant, but how could you have any money?”

  “I worked. I worked in the fields for a nickel an hour. I worked in the auto repair shop, got a raise to seven cents. I worked in the print shop for the same wage. I bought a few necessities, I bought home brew now and again and saved what I could. Twenty-seven years, you little honey, it can add up.”

  Darla said, “Well, you did pretty good, didn’t you?”

  “Put on the black stockings again.”

  “I thought you liked me nekked.”

  “Just the stockings and the garters, that’s all.”

  “You think that’ll do it?”

  “I woke up with a hard-on this morning at six thirty-four. It’s in there somewhere.”

  “I hope so, gosh.”

  “Yeah, it’s gonna do it. Hey, anybody comes, don’t answer the door.”

  “Nobody’s gonna come.”

  “They might, you never can tell. Don’t answer the phone, either.”

  “Well, I do get calls, you know. I’m not a hermit.”

  “You sure aren’t. Oh, man, look at that. Come over here and tell me how you got so cute. Huh, how did you?”

  “I just am, I guess.”

  The way Lucy had pictured it until this evening, she would see flashes of action taking place on a country road.

  There are no houses within sight, only a scrub pasture, stands of pine, a ditch full of weeds where the two cars have come to a sudden stop, the blue Mercedes angled in front of the cream-colored Mercedes, dust still hanging in the air, in bright sunlight. She stands in the road, somewhat away from the others, and sees the Indian and the one from Miami brought out first, at gunpoint and with gestures, no words spoken. Now these two leave the scene. They’re taken aside, disarmed, made to lie in the ditch—all that, whatever has to be done—because she sees herself alone with the colonel immediately after he comes out of the car. She waits as he makes his cautious appearance and looks about, bewildered—he can’t believe this is happening—before he sees her standing in the road, alone, watching him. She’s wearing her linen jacket over a prewashed denim shirt, slacks, sunglasses, her dad’s revolver held at her side. Or with the gun in the holster. No, holding the gun, but not pointing it at him. Their eyes meet. The colonel stares, begins to frown. He doesn’t recognize her, because he wouldn’t imagine her being here. Only once have they met face to face, at Sagrada Familia when she was wearing khakis and a white scarf over her hair. He frowns harder as he looks at her and says, “Who are you?” Or, he frowns harder as he looks at her and says, “Tell me who you are . . . please.” A silence comes over the scene, the dust settled now. She gazes at him without expression, removes her sunglasses, and on this day of retribution says quietly, “The sister of the lepers.”

  The shoulder holster was the first to go.

  Then the conveniently desolate country road.

  The holster went back in her straw bag and the road became an interstate hi
ghway with traffic in both directions, cars, motor homes, semitrailers. . . . And now the place where it would happen, at a rest area or a service station or the parking lot of a McDonald’s, she saw in endless variations of several real places. The important part, facing the contra colonel alone, long enough for him to recognize her and realize she was doing this to him and why, could still happen. She would somehow have to make it happen; because the confrontation was more important than any other part of it.

  But now, trying to see it happen closer to reality in time and place, picturing recognizable objects, signs, Exxon, McDonald’s, the image in her mind began to expand, reach beyond the important part, the confrontation.

  Sitting in the hotel room she saw the colonel standing by the car. She’s delivered her line. She’s with Jack and Roy and Cullen as they leave with the money. But now she looks back and sees the colonel still there, standing by his car as they drive off.

  Jack watched Lucy walk past the bed to one of the matching armchairs by the window, the curtains pulled closed; watched her sit down and pick up her cigarettes from the low table between the chairs. A lamp on the table showed the room in soft light. Jack took a moment to look at the room. He liked the feel of it, the mood, faint sounds of music coming from outside. He wasn’t sure about Lucy, though, changing again, silent at a time when he thought she’d be talkative. He wanted to tell her about Franklin, maybe one less to worry about. He was anxious to tell it, still feeling the vodka. Then wondered about Roy, Jesus, if he’d pulled out, and asked her. She drew on her cigarette, taking her time. She said no, he’ll be back . . .

  “But what if he did?”

  “I’d have to give it serious thought,” Jack said. “Is that what’s bothering you?”

  No, something else. She said, “We stop Bertie and take the money. But that isn’t necessarily the end of it.”

  With the quiet delivery—she sounded fine.

  Jack said, “You want to know what happens if he pulls a gun and one of us has to shoot him.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished.

  “No. What happens if we don’t shoot him? If we take the money and leave him standing there?”

  “That’s even better, isn’t it? You don’t want to kill the guy . . . do you?”

  “But it wouldn’t be the end of it.”

  Jack walked over to the other chair. He sat down and took one of her cigarettes.

  “You haven’t thought about that?”

  “The way I’ve pictured it,” Lucy said, “I skip through details, I see us bringing them out of the car, I see Bertie standing in the road. . . . He realizes what’s happening to him. . . . I see it without a beginning or an end. It’s the same way I remember photographs of people he tortured and killed and what I actually saw when he murdered the lepers. Do you understand what I mean? There’s nothing that comes before or after. He kills people or commits acts of terror and leaves. That’s the end of it. Nothing happens to him. All right, I see us stop him and take the money. . . . But that isn’t the end of it. It continues on, and I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  Jack took his time. There were a few different ways to approach this.

  He said, “Well, what’s the first thing you think of? He calls the cops and tells them he’s been robbed—if you don’t mind my using that word, but that’s the way they’d see it and write their report. An armed robbery was committed at such and such a time and place . . .”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “If you don’t get caught you can call it anything you want. But this game’s like any other, you have to play by the rules. An honest criminal, if he’s caught and convicted, will abide by the fact he’s broken the law and is gonna do time. I’ve learned that’s how you get through life without punching walls and hurting yourself; you abide by the facts of the situation, whatever it is. Didn’t you know that? I thought you might’ve come across it in nun training. I knew a very successful burglar in the joint, a safecracker, he even paid his lawyer in advance, kept him on a retainer.”

  Lucy listened, but it seemed with some effort. She said right away, “I’m not going to argue with you about law. We’re not criminals.”

  Jack said, “I don’t like to think so either. In fact I’m convinced we’re on the side of the angels, at least the avenging ones. But if we’re ever brought up, don’t be surprised if it’s in criminal court. I suppose there could be a question of jurisdiction, depending on where it happens. We take these guys off in Mississippi and come back to New Orleans with the cash, that could make it federal, crossing a state line to commit a felony. I don’t know, but what’s the difference, we’d still say, ‘What money? What’re you talking about?’ Whoever happens to ask. I accept the possibility of getting busted without giving it much thought, and not just ’cause it makes me break out in a cold sweat.”

  Lucy said, “Because you don’t think it will happen.”

  “That’s right, and you know why?”

  “Because it’s possible he won’t call the police.”

  Jack smiled at her. “There you are. One reason being, he might be dead. The other, how does he explain what he’s doing way out on the highway with the two million bucks? He’s suppose to be leaving Gulfport on a banana boat. What does he tell his CIA pal, Wally Scales? Well, maybe he says he changed his mind, decided to ship out of Miami instead. Whether the CIA guy believes him or not is something else. But once you get into that area, another question comes up. If Bertie’s gonna keep the money for himself, what does he say happened to it? Unless he plans to disappear.”

  Lucy was shaking her head. “He has an image of himself, he wears medals. The man likes to be seen.”

  “That’s the impression I have. So he’d have to fake something and come up with a story, how he was ripped off. Sandinistas in New Orleans or some other guys, like Jerry Boylan. He stops somewhere this side of Gulfport, shoots a few holes in his new car, and calls Wally. . . . I don’t know. I think he’d have to do something like that. Only now, if he actually does get ripped off and it’s somewhere past Gulfport, he’d have to give it serious thought before he calls Wally. On the other hand, if for some reason he does recognize us, I think the only person he’d call would be you. Then we’d have a problem.”

  Lucy said, “Wait a minute. Why wouldn’t he recognize us? He knows who we are.”

  “Yeah, but he won’t really see us. You know that book you loaned me, Nicaragua, with the pictures of the young hotshot Sandinistas in their baseball caps and sport shirts? They’re all wearing masks, bandanas, or scarves over their faces with eye holes. If you don’t want to be identified, and we definitely do not, then that’s what you have to do.”

  Lucy said, “But I want him to see me. That’s part of it.”

  “Why would you?”

  “He has to realize, he isn’t simply being robbed, that it’s an act of retribution.”

  “If we cover our faces,” Jack said, “it’s a stickup. If we don’t, it’s something else and we’re the good guys.”

  She said, “Look, you can do whatever you want. But he has to know who I am. If he doesn’t, I’ll tell him.”

  “How come you never mentioned this before?”

  “I thought it was understood.”

  “You tell Roy?”

  “Did we talk about it? No.”

  “Roy was gonna look for Mardi Gras masks. He likes the idea of black faces, so the colonel’d think we’re colored guys.”

  She said, “Jack, I’m very serious about this. It’s important to me.”

  “Well, it’s up to you. But if you tell Roy, I’m pretty sure he’ll walk out.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on—what’ve we been talking about? You could get picked up, the only one he identifies. The first question the cops ask is who was with you. Then they tell you what kind of a sentence you’re looking at at some women’s correctional. Then they lighten up, offer you a deal, and ask you again who was with you.”

  “Y
ou think I’d tell?”

  “Roy wouldn’t take the chance.”

  “I’m asking you,” Lucy said. “Do you think I’d tell?”

  “We had all week to talk about it. Now all of a sudden . . . it’s a different kind of thing.”

  She said, “Jack? Do you think I’d tell?”

  She stared at him, waiting, and he said, “I think they could pull your fingernails out, you wouldn’t say a word. But you’d have to convince Roy.”

  “If it should happen,” Lucy said. “But if you trust me, isn’t that enough?”

  Putting him on the spot—sitting here with a blue bandana in his coat pocket and a Beretta automatic shoved into his waist, ready to go. He said, “Maybe it is.” They were this far. He said, “Do you know how you’re gonna get the money down there?”

  “Through the motherhouse,” Lucy said. “Transfer it to the bank in León, where the sisters have an account.”

  “Are you going back?”

  “To Nicaragua? I’m thinking about it.”

  “I didn’t mean back in the order.”

  “I’m not sure what I am, but I’m no longer a Sister of Saint Francis . . .”

  “Of the Stigmata,” Jack said.

  She seemed to smile, remembering. “When I was nineteen I’d say the word stigmata, whisper it, and get the chills and thrills.” Looking at him, but within herself too.

  She said she used to pray for a vision, an honest-to-God mystical experience, and believed, when she was nineteen, it would happen unexpectedly but soon. She said she had never told anyone before, that she used to concentrate, imagine herself weightless and then slowly raise her arms and go up on her toes trying to levitate like Saint Francis and be suspended by divine love. She said she would try to imagine what an ecstatic experience would be like and would think, if it isn’t in the mind then it must be experienced through the senses, the body. Then she would wonder, if it’s physical, would it be anything like physical love, making love to a man? The way she was looking at him now he knew what she was going to say. “But I don’t know what that’s like. It’s something I have to find out.”