Bandits

by Elmore Leonard

  “I told him to get it—I wanted them to see who it was returned the car.”

  Crispin was smoking his cigarette now. “Yes, I forgot for a moment.”

  Franklin looked from one to the other.

  At the colonel saying, “Because you drink too much and then you talk too much. You know nothing of self-discipline. You know how long you would last in the jungle?”

  At Crispin saying, “Tell me about living in the camps, I didn’t hear enough of it last night. Mother of God, telling those whores the history of your military life. You know what they cared about it? Nothing. You know where they want to go? Miami, that’s where.”

  At the colonel saying, “Of course. You invited those whores to come with us. You don’t remember that, do you? You were so drunk.”

  Franklin watched the colonel turn to him again and stare, as if thinking of something to say. But it seemed that all he could think of was, “Well, what do you want?”

  “Should I carry something to the car?”

  “I haven’t packed my clothes yet.”

  Franklin, standing at the side of the desk, looked down and touched one of the bank sacks with his foot. “What about—should I take these?”

  The colonel was watching him. He said, “Why? You think we have the money in those?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Crispin said, walking back across the room.

  As he went into the bedroom, leaving them, Franklin said, “But I don’t think so. I think you keep it in your new car.”

  The colonel put his hands on his hips, above his tight shiny red underwear. “Oh, you do, uh? You’re a pretty smart guy, Franklin. How did you become smart, from the missionaries, uh?” The colonel said over his shoulder into the bedroom, raising his voice, “Franklin says he thinks the money is in the car.”

  Franklin heard water running in the bathroom and Crispin’s voice say, “Ask him how he knows that.”

  “How do you know that, Franklin?”

  “I know you wouldn’t keep it here.”

  “But we keep it in the car, with no one to watch it?”

  “I think you have something watching it.”

  The colonel said over his shoulder, “He says he thinks we have something watching it.”

  Crispin’s voice said, “What?” Franklin waited as the colonel repeated what he had said and then heard Crispin’s voice say, “How does he know that?”

  They’re fools, Franklin thought. They don’t know it or will ever know it.

  The colonel, still with his hands on his hips in his foolish underwear, asked him, “How do you know that?”

  “What difference does it make?” Franklin said. “I quit working for you.”

  Franklin saw the colonel’s face change, become cold and made of stone, in the moment before he turned to his flight bag on the chair by the desk. Now he heard the colonel’s voice, also cold, ask him, “What did you say? You what?”

  Franklin brought his Beretta out of the flight bag and saw the colonel’s expression change again, the eyes coming all the way open, as he aimed the 9-millimeter pistol at the center of the colonel’s chest. “I said I quit,” Franklin said, and shot him and watched him stumble back and throw out his arms as he fell to the floor. Franklin stood over the colonel, said, “Good-bye,” and shot him again and saw his body jump. He heard Crispin before he saw him appear in the doorway with the towel around him, also with eyes open wide. Franklin said, “Crispin, I quit,” and shot him in the chest and then had to step into the bedroom to say good-bye and shoot him again.

  The car keys were on the dresser.

  Roy had positioned himself where he could glance through the glass door into the lobby and see the elevator, turn his head only about 45 degrees and be looking up through the courtyard to the fifth-floor railing that was like a waist-high fence all the way around. He was looking up there now, ever since hearing that faint but distinct pop and then nothing and then pop and then two more, spaced, from off somewhere. They weren’t loud ones, but he had heard those hard little sounds from off somewhere before and believed they had come from high up; though the sounds could have come from the street and down into the courtyard from above. None of the hotel guests having breakfast here had looked up or seemed to be wondering or talking about it.

  There was a colored maid up on the fifth floor—he believed she was colored—standing by her cart and looking back toward the elevator. Roy watched her. If the gunshots came from up there she would have heard them. But now she seemed to have lost interest in whatever she was watching or waiting for, moving off with her cart, away from the elevator and that alcove where 501 was located. There wasn’t another soul up there. No doors opening, people sticking their heads out to see what that was.

  They might’ve caught the nigger Indin lifting the car keys, but they weren’t going to shoot him for it.

  The sounds could’ve come from outside the hotel. Roy accepted the possibility, but didn’t believe it. Now some of the guests, he noticed, were looking up too, because he was. He needed a better place to watch from. He could go up to the room they’d taken, 509, stand in there with the door open. Shit, but he’d have to get a key.

  Franklin saw the maid at the end of the hall as he waited for the elevator. He didn’t go near the railing to look down, see if anybody was looking up; he didn’t hear any noises or voices. The elevator arrived and he rode it down to the lobby and stepped off. He saw a man and woman standing by suitcases on the floor, talking to the doorman. Franklin walked over to the glass door to look into the courtyard. Everyone at the tables seemed busy having breakfast. He looked toward the registration desk, turned, and kept moving when he saw the guy waiting for the hotel clerk, the clerk talking on the telephone, the guy with his hands flat on the counter. It was the guy who had been with Jack Delaney. The tough guy with dark straight hair Franklin believed was police, sure of it from the way the guy spoke. Franklin hurried and didn’t look back, hoping the guy didn’t see him. He didn’t want that guy to follow him over to the garage. He could have trouble with that one and he didn’t want to shoot anybody else. Though he would if he had to.

  They waited in the front seat of Lucy’s car, both watching the square of daylight beyond the ramp. She said, “I might’ve mentioned it a few times before, but I don’t see what this is going to get us.”

  “We’re making Roy happy,” Jack said. “He wakes up growling, but he has cop instincts. What seems to be, isn’t always the case. Or the other way around.”

  “No one in his right mind is going to leave two million dollars in a car in a public garage. Even with the car locked.”

  “I told him that.”

  “Then we’ll have to get the keys back to them.”

  “We won’t worry about that—we can throw ’em in the lobby. I always thought I was patient, but I don’t think I am.”

  “I thought you were, too.”

  “We’ll just get started and I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. Once I was in a hotel room, guy and his wife lying there asleep, when all of a sudden I had to go. I hadn’t even picked up anything yet. I went all the way downstairs. . . . But that was it, I was through for the night.” He touched the front of his jacket. “You know what I did? Left the gun under the seat of my car. I better get it.”

  Lucy watched him open the door. “You won’t need it for a while, will you?” Her gaze moved back to the garage opening, the square of daylight, and she said, “Jack, there he is.”

  Franklin came along the driveway past the first aisle of cars, past the second aisle of cars. . . . He saw Jack Delaney’s old car, the door open, at the end of the next aisle and the woman’s blue car in the aisle behind it. He saw Jack Delaney appear then, rising next to his car, looking this way, and raising his hand. Franklin didn’t wave back to him. He turned into the aisle where the new cream-colored Mercedes was parked and walked toward it, not looking at Jack Delaney now, but knowing he wouldn’t have time
to get in the car and drive off. Jack Delaney would be in front of the car. He didn’t want to hit him with the car, but he would do it rather than shoot him. He looked back again, quickly, and saw it would be difficult even if he tried. Jack Delaney was coming with a gun in his hand.

  “Franklin—wait up!”

  The guy had his flight bag in one hand and was unlocking the car door with the other. He had it open and was getting in by the time Jack reached him.

  “Wait a minute, will you?”

  Franklin hesitated and then came out, leaving the flight bag on the seat, raising his hands as high as his shoulders.

  Jack pushed the door closed, out of the way. “Franklin, what’re you doing?”

  “I was going.”

  “With them? After what I told you?”

  “No, not with them. I have to go be on the boat.”

  “You’re stealing the guy’s car? What’re you gonna do with it?”

  “Leave it there—I don’t know.”

  “Wait a minute—what’d you tell those guys?”

  “I told them I quit and said good-bye.”

  “Yeah? And what’d they say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Franklin, Jesus Christ . . .”

  Lucy was coming. He could hear her leather sandals slapping on the cement, coming in a hurry. He glanced around. “Franklin’s gonna swipe their car. You believe it?”

  “We haven’t met,” Lucy said, looking at Franklin as she came past Jack, between the Mercedes and the car parked next to it, offering Franklin her hand. He brought his hands down slowly and Lucy took one of them in both of hers. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Franklin. I had a friend who was Miskito we treated at Sagrada Familia. You know the hospital for lepers? He stayed with us a long time. His name was Armstrong Diego. Did you happen to know him?”

  Jack watched Franklin shake his head. The guy seemed a little awed or surprised.

  “Colonel Dagoberto Godoy’s men killed Diego,” Lucy said, “and some of the other patients, with machetes.”

  “We’re standing here talking,” Jack said. “Franklin, what was the colonel doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “They laying there, that’s all.”

  “All right, Franklin, is the money in the car? . . . You’re taking everything, aren’t you?” Franklin seemed more resigned than cornered. Jack watched him nod his head, twice. Just like that. Ask him a question, you got an answer. Jack said, “You are?” And saw him nod again, twice. “I have to give you credit, Franklin, you’re a pretty cool guy.” Jack brought up the Beretta and held it level with the man’s Creole Indian face. “Now you give us the keys. Hand ’em to Lucy.”

  Franklin’s eyes didn’t move from the gun barrel. He gave Lucy the keys without looking at her, letting her take them out of his hand. Jack didn’t look at her either, paying close attention to the man’s eyes, his solemn expression, until he saw Lucy beyond Franklin at the car’s rear deck. Lucy was looking at the ring of keys, selecting one.

  Franklin said to him, “If she opens it . . .”

  “What?”

  “She’s going to be dead.”

  Jack said, “So will you if you move.”

  Lucy’s voice said, “He has enough keys.”

  “She won’t be dead from me,” Franklin said, “but she’ll be dead.”

  They stared eye to eye, Jack trying to hold the pistol steady. “I mean it. Don’t move.”

  But Franklin was turning as Jack said it and now he yelled at him, “Franklin, goddamn it!” Aiming the automatic at the man’s back and seeing Lucy, bent over, looking up, straightening as Franklin reached her, Franklin saying something to her and taking her by the arm. Jack saw her eyes, her startled look. He moved past the side of the car to the rear deck. Franklin was taking the keys from her. She was giving him the keys, glancing at Jack now as he reached the back end of the car and saw Franklin slipping a key into the lock.

  She said, “Jack. Don’t touch him.”

  Franklin, on his knees, placed the palm of his hand on the down-curve of the trunk lid, turned the key with the other hand, and let the trunk come open gradually, a few inches. He hunched in close to look in.

  Lucy said, barely above a whisper, “It could be wired to explode.”

  “How does he know?”

  “He thinks it is,” Lucy said. “They’ve done it before. There was a priest in Jinotega, he opened his trunk and was blown to bits.”

  “He was gonna let you open it.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  They watched Franklin raise the lid slowly, holding it, letting it come up a little more, feeling the tension of the mechanism. With the trunk open about eight inches he put his arm in to the shoulder, his face in profile against the cream-colored sheet metal, composed, feeling without seeing, his fingers working in there. He began to straighten then, getting his feet under him, raising the trunk lid with his shoulder as he stood up and turned to show them what he was holding, a hand-grenade, with one end of a straightened coat hanger hooked to its ring.

  “MK-two,” Franklin said, “they call a pineapple.” He looked at Jack, offering him the grenade, and grinned. “You don’t want it? Okay.” He slipped it into his coat pocket.

  Jack said, “You’re a kidder, aren’t you, Franklin?” He didn’t know what else to say to him: the guy standing there with a grenade in his pocket; the guy could’ve let Lucy blow herself up. She was saying that to him now . . .

  “Why did you stop me?”

  Franklin, still grinning a little, a trace of it left, shook his head, Jack watching him. The guy didn’t know what to say either, turning to the open trunk to raise the lid all the way up. Lucy looked in. She said, “Jack?” He moved closer and saw two full-size aluminum suitcases inside lying flat, side by side.

  27

  * * *

  ROY GOT OFF THE ELEVATOR and stood looking at 501 in the alcove. He stared hard, but the door wouldn’t tell him a goddamn thing. So he followed the open hallway around to the other side of the courtyard, came to 509, and heard the phone ringing inside. Then he couldn’t get the goddamn key to turn. The phone kept ringing in there. Roy hit the door with the heel of his hand, kicked it, yanked the knob toward him as he turned the key, and the door gave up and clicked open. He left it like that, got to the bedside table, and picked up the phone.

  “Who’s this?”

  Cullen’s voice said, “Roy? It’s me. You all are still there, huh?”

  “I think so,” Roy said. “Lemme look. Yeah, we’re still here.” He brought the phone away from the table, as far as the cord would let him—just enough—so he could look out the door toward the elevator.

  “Nothing doing yet?”

  “Naw, we’re just sitting here fucking the dog, Cully. I expect same as you, huh? How’s adorable Darla?”

  “She’s fine as can be.”

  “You wash yourself good after, you hear?”

  “I was thinking,” Cullen’s voice said, “if I asked a doctor what he thought . . .”

  Roy watched the maid appear with her cartload of towels and stuff, over there on the other side.

  “You know, if I should take part in any kind of activity where I’m liable to become too excited or you get that ass-clutching feeling, man, you don’t know what’s gonna happen . . .”

  The maid was creeping along toward the elevator, like she was sneaking up on it. Her head turned now, looking into the alcove at 501. The maid standing there, waiting.

  “You know what I mean, Roy? I’m pretty sure he’d tell me I shouldn’t ought to do it, with my history. Considering, you know, the old ticker isn’t what it used to be. See, but I don’t want to let you all down. . . . Roy?”

  That maid wasn’t moving from 501.

  Roy said, “If you’re gonna die, Cully, you may as well do it right there.” He put the receiver on the phone, still watching the maid, laid it on the foot of the bed and left the ro
om.

  * * *

  One of the aluminum cases lay flat on the bar in Lucy’s mother’s sun parlor. Jack touched the polished metal. He picked up his drink, his third vodka since arriving with Lucy, the first two finished off while she counted the money and they had the stand-up talk, argued, and finally reached an understanding. Now he was alone in the room. Very likely for the last time.

  He’d left his car in the hotel garage for Roy. Later told himself it was the wrong time to be thoughtful; but now realized it didn’t matter. Roy would be here soon, whether he drove or took the streetcar.

  They had opened both aluminum cases still lying in the trunk of the colonel’s new car. In each one a white T-shirt covered the stacks of currency: sleeveless T-shirts made of a thick, layered material Franklin believed was called soft body armor, bulletproof, that some of the contra officers wore. Jack remembered wanting to get out of there. The feeling, waiting for the colonel to appear. Wanting to know why they were standing there talking and then realizing, as Franklin pulled out one of the cases and handed it to Lucy, it was their deal. It was between the two of them and no one else; half to the Miskitos and half to the lepers. Jack wondering if it made sense. Still wondering, after all this, who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

  He heard Lucy’s steps on the hardwood floor of the hall before she appeared in the doorway.

  “Roy’s here.”

  She turned and he heard her steps again, fading.

  The house was quiet. He stood listening. She wasn’t coming right back with him. As Roy walked in he probably asked what happened and she was telling him. Or as they came along the hall, Roy listening, stopping . . . Jack poured a scotch and moved toward the door with it. Hand it to Roy as soon as he came in. Take off his edge—if he had that dead look in his eyes. It was one of those situations, if Jack didn’t know what was going to happen, he’d better locate something to use. His gun was lying on the bar. Roy would think it was funny if he tried to threaten him with it. There was a brass candlestick on the phone table that looked pretty good. . . . He heard them in the hall, their steps, and then heard Roy’s voice. “What?” That one word. No doubt about it, Lucy was telling him . . . talking to him as they came in the room. Jack tried to hand him the scotch.