“Yeah! I did, too,” Frank said. “Was that down in Oklahoma you played?”
“Up here. I was born in Norman,” Stick said, “but I guess you know that, uh?”
Frank nodded. “I don’t detect much of an accent, though.”
“I guess I lost most of what I had,” Stick said, “moving around different places. We come up here, our family, my dad worked out at Rouge twenty-three years.”
Frank seemed interested. “We got a lot in common. My old man worked at Ford Highland Park. I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, came to Detroit when I was four, and lived here, I guess, most of my life, except for three years I spent in LA.”
“You married?” Stick asked him.
“Twice. And I got no intention right now of going for thirds. Let’s get back,” Frank said. “I want to ask you, you never stuck up a place? Used a gun?”
Stick waited a moment, like he was trying to see beyond the question, then shook his head. “Not my style. But since we’re opening our souls, how about you?”
“Uh-unh, me neither,” Frank said. “Well, years ago I was into a little burglary, B and E. Me and another guy, we didn’t do too bad. But then he went into numbers or something—he was a black guy—so I quit before I got in too deep. In and out, you might say.”
“You never used a gun during that time?”
“We didn’t have to. We only went into places there wasn’t anybody home.”
“But now you got a sudden interest in guns, it seems.”
“Not a sudden interest.” Frank came around on his stool, giving it a quarter turn. “I’ve been studying the situation for some time now, ever since I got back from LA, reading up on all the different ways people break the law to make money. You know why most people get caught?”
“Because they’re dumb.”
“Right. Or they’re desperate. Like a junkie.”
“Stay away from junkies,” Stick said. “Don’t have any part of them.”
Frank raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You believe that, uh?”
“It’s the first rule of life,” Stick said. He finished his drink, making sure he got it all, shaking the ice in the empty glass. “I’d buy a round,” he said, “but I got eight bucks on me and it’s got to last till I find out where I’m at.”
Frank looked over at the bartender and made a circular motion for a couple of more. He said to Stick, “Don’t worry about it. Listen, I was going to ask you what you had in mind. The cop I talked to said you were unemployed.”
“Not in Florida. I can get all the work I want in Florida. Cement work. I was going back there to see my little girl.”
“I understand you’re divorced, too.”
“Finally. Listen to this, you want to hear something? We’re living in Florida, my wife starts bitching about the hot weather, how she doesn’t see her old friends anymore, how her mom’s driving her crazy? Her mom lives down there. Wonderful woman, old lady’s never smiled in her life. She’s watching television, that commercial used to be on a couple years ago about brotherhood, working together and all? It shows all these people standing in a field singing that song—I can’t think of how it goes now. All these people singing, and in there you start to recognize some celebrities, Johnny Carson . . . lot of different ones. Her mom squints at the TV set and says, ‘Is that niggers?’ I’m taking her to the eye doctor’s, the car radio’s on. Every Friday I’d take her to the eye doctor’s. She listens to this group playing some rock thing and says, ‘Is that niggers?’ We come back up here, sell this house we got that’s right off the Intercoastal—come back, my wife’s still bitching. Now it’s the cold weather, busing, the colored situation, shit, you name it. We’re arguing all the time, so finally we separate. Not legally, but we separate. Now what does she do? She goes back to Florida and moves in with her mom. Divorce was final last month.”
“Listen, I believe it,” Frank said. “Man, every word.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen there,” Stick said, “but I like to see my little girl once in a while.”
“Fortunately,” Frank said, “neither of my wives had any children. Or any of my acquaintances, I mean that I know of.”
Their drinks came and Frank stirred his, watching the clear liquid turn milky as it mixed with the ice cubes. Stick waited for whatever was next and Frank said, “It’s funny you mentioned staying away from junkies as a rule. That’s one of my rules. Don’t have anything to do with them. Don’t even go to a place where they’re liable to hang out.”
“You never get in trouble doing that,” Stick said.
“I got some other rules, too,” Frank said. “In fact, I’ve got ten rules. I mean, written down.”
“What? How to live a happy life?”
“Sort of. How to be a success in a particular undertaking. Which could certainly lead to a happy life.”
“You going to tell me,” Stick said, “or I got to ask you what they are?”
The bartender rang up their tab and put it on the bar. Frank waited until he moved away.
“I told you I’ve been studying, well, different ways of making money. I’m not talking about anything tricky like embezzlement, you know, or checks. I’ve hung a little paper, not much, there’s no excitement in it. Christ, it’s like work. No, I’m talking about going out and picking up some dough. You know how many ways you can do that?”
“I don’t know—auto theft, B and E, burglary, strongarm—” Stick paused. “There’s probably a hundred ways. Some that haven’t even been thought up yet.”
“What you mentioned, you’re talking about things you can take,” Frank said. “Yes, cars, TVs, silverware, fur coats, household shit. But you got to convert it into money, right? You’ve got to sell it to somebody, and he knows you didn’t get the stuff laying around your basement or out in the garage.”
“It’s unavoidable if you got to fence it.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Frank said. “The thing you do first, you eliminate the secondary party. You only take money. And money you can get rid of anywhere. Man, you spend it.”
“So then you’re into mugging, strong-arm, I mentioned that,” Stick paused. “Bank robbery—is that what you want to do, rob a bank?”
Frank looked around and then at Stick again. “I’ll tell you something. Nobody’s going to rob banks as a career and get rich and stay out of jail. Not both. Not with the time locks, the alarm systems. The teller doesn’t even have to press a button. You lift the money out of the drawer and a bell rings at the Holmes Protection Agency. They got the TV cameras. You pull a gun, you’re on instant replay. The odds are lousy, less than fifty-fifty. Like the average take on a bank job in New York City last year was eleven thousand two. Not bad. But those are the guys that got away. Half the clowns didn’t make it.”
Frank paused to draw on his cigarette and take a drink. “Let me ask you something. What do you think pays the most? Wait a minute, let me rephrase it. What do you think is the fastest and, percentagewise, safest way to make the most money?”
“Not the horses,” Stick said. “I used to spend weekends I wasn’t working at Gulfstream or Hialeah.”
“No, not the horses,” Frank said patiently. “Think about it. What’s the fastest and relatively safest way to do it?”
Stick was thoughtful. “Big payoff? Maybe kidnapping.”
Frank was losing some of his patience. “Christ no, not kidnapping. FBI, you don’t have a fucking chance kidnapping.”
“Are we talking about something I never heard of?”
“You heard of it.”
“All right,” Stick said, “you tell me. What’s the best way to make a lot of money fast? Without working, that is.”
Frank held up the palm of his hand, his elbow on the edge of the bar. “You ready for this?”
“I’m ready.”
“Armed robbery.”
“Big fucking deal.”
“Say it again,” Frank said, “and put it in capital letters a
nd underline it. Say it backwards, robbery comma armed. Yes, it can be a very big deal. Listen, last year there were twenty-three thousand and thirty-eight reported robberies in the city of Detroit. Reported. That’s everything. B and E, muggings, banks, everything. Most of them pulled by dummies, junkies, and still a high percentage got away with it.”
“Going in with a gun,” Stick said, “is something else.”
“You bet it is.” Frank leaned in a little closer. “Ernie . . . Ernest—”
“Stick.”
“Stick . . . I’m talking about simple everyday armed robbery. Supermarkets, bars, liquor stores, gas stations, that kind of place. Statistics show—man, I’m not just saying it, the statistics show—armed robbery pays the most for the least amount of risk. Now, you ready for this? I see how two guys who know what they’re doing and ’re businesslike about it”—he paused, grinning a little—“who’re frank with each other and earnest about their work, can pull down three to five grand a week.”
“You can also pull ten to a quarter in Jackson,” Stick said.
“Listen,” Frank said, his voice low and very serious, “I read a true story about two guys who actually did it. Two, three hits a week, they had to keep getting a bigger safe-deposit box. Lived well, I mean well, had all the clothes, broads they wanted, everything. It was written by this psychologist or sociologist, you know? who actually interviewed them.”
“They told him anything he wanted to know?”
“They trusted him.”
“Where was this, where he talked to them?”
“Well, at the time they were in Lucasville, Southern Ohio Correctional, but they went three and a half, four years straight, without ever being arrested. Oh, they were picked up a couple of times, on suspicion, but not for anything nailed down. See, any business will fail if you fuck up. I agree the end result is slightly different here. You don’t just go broke, you’re liable to give up a few years of your life, confined, you might say. But I don’t see any reason to get caught. And that’s where my ten rules for success and happiness come in. I see this strictly as a business venture. What I’m wondering now, if you’re the business partner I’m looking for.”
3
FRANK RYAN’S TEN RULES FOR success and happiness were written in blue ink on ten different cocktail napkins from the Club Bouzouki, the Lafayette Bar, Edjo’s, and a place called The Lindell AC. Some of the rules, especially the last few, were on torn napkins with crossed-out words and were hard to read. The napkins said:
1. ALWAYS BE POLITE ON THE JOB. SAY PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
2. NEVER SAY MORE THAN IS NECESSARY.
3. NEVER CALL YOUR PARTNER BY NAME—UNLESS YOU USE A MADE-UP NAME.
4. DRESS WELL. NEVER LOOK SUSPICIOUS OR LIKE A BUM.
5. NEVER USE YOUR OWN CAR. (DETAILS TO COME.)
6. NEVER COUNT THE TAKE IN THE CAR.
7. NEVER FLASH MONEY IN A BAR OR WITH WOMEN.
8. NEVER GO BACK TO AN OLD BAR OR HANGOUT ONCE YOU HAVE MOVED UP.
9. NEVER TELL ANYONE YOUR BUSINESS. NEVER TELL A JUNKIE EVEN YOUR NAME.
10. NEVER ASSOCIATE WITH PEOPLE KNOWN TO BE IN CRIME.
The angle of the venetian blinds gave Stick enough outside light. He sat by the window in his striped undershorts, placing the cocktail napkins on his bare leg as he read them again, one by one, concentrating on making out some of the blotted words. He was smoking a Marlboro and taking sips from a can of Busch Bavarian that sat on the metal radiator cover beneath the window. He didn’t look up until the groaning sound came from the bed and he knew Frank was awake.
“What’s that noise?”
“Air conditioning,” Stick said. “You want a beer?”
“Jesus Christ.” Frank got up on an elbow, looking at the window, squinting. “What time is it?”
“About nine thirty. My watch’s over on the TV.” Stick took a swallow of beer as Frank got his feet on the floor and finally stood up. He was wearing jockey shorts and black socks.
“Where’d you sleep?”
“Right there in bed with you,” Stick said, “but I swear I never touched you.”
He waited until Frank went into the bathroom, then reached over and pulled the cord on the venetian blinds, raising them and flooding part of the room in morning sunlight. He wanted to get Frank’s reaction when he came out and saw the bright pink walls.
He didn’t notice them right away. When he came out, he said, “There’s four cans of beer in the washbasin.”
“Three for you and one for me,” Stick said. “I’ve already had a couple.”
Frank was looking at the pink walls now. “Jesus, where in the hell are we?”
“Zanzibar Motel. You’re about a mile and a half from where you work. You can walk it if you want.”
Frank stooped over a little, squinting, looking across the room at the sunlight filling the window. There wasn’t much to see: empty asphalt pavement, and beyond that, a four-lane highway with a grass median, Telegraph Road. A few cars and a semi went past. They could hear them above the humming sound of the air conditioning.
“Where’s my car?”
“You couldn’t remember where you parked it.”
Frank went into the bathroom and came out with a Busch.
“Then how’d we get here?”
“You remember looking for your car?”
“‘Course I do.” Frank took a drink of beer and let his breath out, feeling a little better.
“You lost your parking ticket,” Stick said.
“I know, that’s why I couldn’t find the car. All those streets over there look alike. At night, shit, you can’t tell.”
“You remember trying to get that waitress to take her clothes off?”
Frank hesitated, then drank some more of the beer. “We had a pretty good time, didn’t we?”
Stick said, “You remember standing in front of the J. L. Hudson Company, in the middle of Woodward Avenue, taking a leak?”
“I really had to go, didn’t I?”
“Eileen sure got a kick out of that.”
Frank looked at him. “Eileen, uh?”
“The one you picked up at the Lafayette Bar. Wasn’t she a size?”
Frank managed to grin and shake his head. “Yeah, she sure was.”
“I was surprised she didn’t get sore, you started calling her Fatty.”
“Just kidding around,” Frank said. He went over to the dresser, opened his wallet, and fingered the bills inside. “Yeah, I guess we had a pretty good time.” Looking at Stick he said, “I must have paid for the cab, uh?”
“Taxicab? We didn’t take any cab anywhere.”
“All right, you win,” Frank said. “How’d we get here?”
“In a 1975 Mercury Montego.” Stick watched Frank look toward the window again. “You remember we’re standing in front of the Sheraton-Cadillac?”
Frank’s expression began to open and show signs of life. “Yeah, they wouldn’t let us in the bar because you didn’t have a coat on.”
“We’re standing out in front,” Stick said, “when the Merc pulls up and the guy gets out, looking around. You remember?”
Frank seemed happier as he began to recall it and could see the Mercury—dark brown, shiny—in front of the hotel and Stick walking over to the guy who got out, and now Frank was grinning. “Yeah, you went up to the guy and said something—”
“I said, ‘Good evening, sir. Are you a guest at the hotel?’ ”
“Right. And he said he’d only be about an hour and handed you the keys.”
“And a dollar tip,” Stick said.
Frank was still grinning. “Sure, I remember it. Where’s the car?”
“Up the street, in the Burger Chef parking lot. You go out, don’t look at it. Don’t even walk past it.” Stick held up the ten cocktail napkins. “You remember these?”
“Sure I remember them. What do you keep asking me that for? I remember everything that happened.” Frank took the napkins over to the dresser, s
pread them out, and stood there idly scratching his jockey shorts as he looked at them.
Stick watched him. After a moment he said, “I been reading your rules for success and happiness. And you know what?”
Frank kept scratching. “What?”
“I think you got an idea.”
Frank looked over now. “Yeah? You think so, uh?”
“I think it might be worth looking into. It’s a wild-ass idea—two guys who don’t know shit going into the armed-robbery business. But you never know, do you?” He watched Frank go into the bathroom again and raised his voice. “I’m thinking maybe it’s the way to make a stake. Be able to put a down payment on something that’ll carry you. Instead of working all your life. That’s what I been doing, working. What have I got? Eight bucks in my pants, nothing, not a cent in the bank.”
“Working is for workingmen,” Frank said, coming out with two cans of Busch. He walked over to Stick and handed him one, raising his own. “To our new business, uh? What do you say?”
“To the new business.” Stick raised his beer and took a sip. “I’ll tell you a secret, buddy, put your mind at rest.”
Frank seemed interested. “What’s that?”
“Last night, you didn’t take a leak in the middle of Woodward Avenue.”
“I didn’t?”
“Uh-unh. I did.”
First they had to find Frank’s car, which wasn’t actually his, it was a demo.
Frank called a friend of his at Red Bowers Chevrolet, a salesman, and got him to drive them downtown to look for it. On the freeway the friend kept asking, “But how can you lose a car? Not have it stolen, lose it. A car.” Frank told him it could happen to anybody. Get turned around, forget exactly where you parked it. “See, this guy here had the ticket, with the address on it and everything, and he lost it.” Stick didn’t say anything. They found the car, paid six and a half to get it out, and Frank bought them a couple of drinks at the Greek place.
After the friend left, Frank said, while they were downtown, they might as well look up Sportree and see about the guns. Right?
Stick hesitated. This was the part he wasn’t sure of.
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