Swag

by Elmore Leonard

  Sportree grinned. “How you know it’s not in the bank?”

  “Shit,” Frank said. “Where is it, under the bed?”

  Sportree’s finger caressed the little bebop growth on his chin, thinking, making up his mind. He looked over at Leon Woody.

  “You can understand they want to see it.”

  Leon didn’t say anything.

  “Well, we might as well drive out there, make them happy. All right with you?”

  “They own as much of it we do,” Leon said. “I feel better, though, we wait till it gets a little dark. People won’t see us walking in and out of places.”

  Sportree looked over at Frank. “We can relax here awhile, have something to eat—”

  “Where we going?” Stick asked.

  Sportree grinned. “We all going together, man. You’ll see.”

  27

  IN THE PARKING LOT, WALKING past the cars, Frank and Stick were following Leon Woody. Stick thought Sportree was right behind them. But when he glanced around, Sportree wasn’t there, he hadn’t turned the corner.

  Leon was walking toward his light-blue Continental. Frank said, “Hey, Leon, I’ll drive.”

  Leon looked around. “How you going to drive, man, you don’t know where we going?”

  “You tell me,” Frank said.

  Stick was thinking, Shit. He wanted Sportree to be here.

  But it was all right. Sportree came around the corner, some kind of coat or jacket over his arm. Leon waited for him. He said then, “Frank say he want to drive.”

  Sportree looked happy, going out for the evening to have a good time. He said, “Shit, Leon drive. Then we come back, have a drink, get your car. Frank, you ride up with Leon, me and the Stick here will sit in the back.”

  Stick saw it, Sportree and Leon looking at each other, quick little look in the dreamy African eyes, telling each other something. They never let down, Stick thought.

  They went out North Woodward as far as Norwalk Freight Lines, past the semis lined up in the dim-lighted yard, and U-turned around the island and came back south a few blocks to the Ritz Motel, VACANCY in orange on the big, bright-lighted Las Vegas sign. There were heavy-duty truck cabs in there, Macks and Peterbilts, and a couple of vans and a few new-model cars with Michigan plates. The swimming pool was lighted and empty in the half rectangle; most of the units were dark. Leon Woody let the Continental glide quietly into a parking space in the far corner of the rectangle, in front of Number 24, away from the motel office. Leon cut the ignition.

  Sportree said, “Hey, shit, listen.” And Leon turned the key back on so Sportree could hear the radio.

  Leon got out, taking the motel key out of his pocket. Frank got out. Stick waited in the back seat with Sportree.

  “ ‘Feel Like Making Love,’ ” Sportree said. “Bob James, hey, shit. Idris, listen to Idris, uh?” Sportree sat there listening. Stick sat there. Sportree wouldn’t get out of the car. It was pretty good, it melted over Stick with a nice beat, but it wasn’t Merle Haggard and Stick wasn’t sure how long he could sit there.

  Sportree said, “That’s a number, you know it? Man used to arrange for Aretha.” He opened the door and finally got out of the car, then reached into the front for the key and turned off the ignition.

  Stick waited.

  Sportree looked back at him. “You coming? You don’t seem too anxious.”

  Stick said, “What? I dropped my cigarettes.”

  When Sportree turned, Stick reached under the seat. Jesus, where was it? His hand touched the grip and he got it out, stuck it in the waist of his pants, and pulled the jacket down over it.

  They went inside, into Number 24, a big room with a double bed and two twins and a refrigerator that had a cooking range and sink on top. Stick knew it wasn’t going to take too much time. There wasn’t anything to talk about, nothing to look at, no faking anything. No, it’d be done quick. Sportree had the poplin jacket over his arm. He looked around, as if picking a place to sit down, but he didn’t. Frank was standing there, too, waiting for it. Leon Woody went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Stick said to himself, Here it is.

  In the bathroom, Leon Woody took a Colt .45 automatic out of the medicine cabinet and wrapped a towel around it loosely. He flushed the toilet.

  Stick was ready. When he saw Leon come out with the towel wrapped around his hand, around something in his hand, Stick pulled the Luger, pointed it at him, at the white, surprised look in Leon’s eyes, and shot him in the face. Stick turned the Luger on Sportree and shot him twice in the body, dead center, above the jacket falling away and the revolver in Sportree’s hand. Sportree made a grunting sound, the wind going out of him, and fell back against a chair, turning it over and going down as he hit the wall.

  Stick said to himself, I don’t believe it. You’ve killed four colored guys.

  “Jesus Christ,” Frank said. “Holy Christ Almighty.”

  Stick got down on one knee over Sportree and took the car keys and another ring of keys from his side pocket. Frank was saying, Jesus Christ.

  “We’ll leave them,” Stick said, “we might as well. And take Leon’s car.”

  “We got to get our car,” Frank said.

  “You bet we do,” Stick said, “and that ain’t all. It’s got to be in his apartment someplace.”

  Marlys was in the bedroom with the air conditioning going, lying on top of the bed in a short little slip she used for a nightgown, reading Viva and listening to Stevie coming out of the bedroom speaker. She heard the door to the apartment open and close and looked over the top of the magazine, waiting.

  “Hey, I’m in here. Where you been?”

  She was looking at the magazine again when Stick came in, the Luger in his hand, not pointing it, holding it at his side. He saw her slender dark legs extending from the slip, her ankles crossed.

  “Hey—”

  Marlys jumped and sat up quickly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  “What you want?” Not about to take anything from him.

  “A doll box,” Stick said.

  “Where’s Sportree? You come walking in here—what kind of shit is this?”

  They heard Frank call from the other room, “I found it. Come on.” He appeared in the bedroom doorway with the Little Curly Laurie Walker box under his arm and smiled at the girl. “Hi, Marlys.”

  “I think you better put that back and talk to Sportree,” Marlys said. “I mean if you have any sense at all.”

  “I think he’d want us to have it,” Frank said.

  Marlys frowned at him. “What you talking about?”

  “You’re going to find out anyway,” Frank said. “He died. And you know something? You could, too.”

  They didn’t say anything walking out to the parking lot or while Frank dropped the doll box in the trunk of the T-bird—not until they were driving away from the place, in the night traffic on Eight Mile.

  Stick said, “Slow down.”

  Frank said, “Jesus, the steering wheel of Leon’s car, you had your hands all over it.”

  “I wiped it off,” Stick said, “the keys just in case, the door handles, different places we might have touched.”

  Frank kept watching the rearview mirror. He said, “I’m trying to see how we could’ve messed up. What do you think?”

  “I think we’re halfway home,” Stick said. “But we got to make one stop.”

  “You think she’ll do it?”

  “She said she would.”

  “I don’t know—bringing her in.”

  “You got somebody else in mind?” Stick looked over at him. “I think we’re lucky the way it’s working out. She’s a good one, which is pretty nice, since we sure as shit can’t take it home and that hotdog cop drops in to visit again. I don’t see any other way.”

  28

  STICK WAS AT THE FRANK Murphy Hall of Justice, fifth floor, before nine the next morning, and found out examinations would be held in Judge Robert J. Columbo
’s courtroom. He told the clerk who he was and sat in the seats with the waiters and spectators two and a half hours, listening to examinations: a rape, a complicated dope-related shooting, and a felonious assault, watching the little fat black prosecutor, whom he remembered from the time before. The judge didn’t say much; he seemed patient, sitting back in his chair against the light wood paneling, but would interrupt in a relaxed way when the defense attorneys took too much time, and he kept it moving.

  When the judge took the envelope from the clerk and called Stick’s number, he walked in through the gate and was sworn in, gave his name, sat down at the table facing the witness stand, and didn’t say a word after that.

  The young guy, the cop, took the stand, told about arresting Ernest Stickley, Jr., in the storeroom of the J. L. Hudson Company toy department, and identified Stick as the one. There was no mention of the holdup. After Cal Brown had testified, was questioned, and stepped down, the little prosecutor talked to the judge for several minutes in conference, then turned and walked away from the bench shaking his head, knowing it was going to happen, but making a show of being surprised after His Honor asked him if he actually wanted to bring this one to trial; he had said yes, and His Honor had said he didn’t. He dismissed the charge and called a noon recess.

  Frank was there in the audience, getting up now with the rest of the people, starting to move toward the door. Stick was coming through the gate to join the crowd. Frank was grinning as he caught Stick’s eye, and Stick grinned.

  Cal Brown was waiting. He held the gate as Stick swung it open and said, “Be good now.” He was grinning, too. Everybody seemed happy.

  Cal watched them move out through the courtroom doorway, seeing their Caucasian heads among the pimp hats and naturals.

  The little prosecutor came over to watch, too. He said, “Now, about the real business.”

  Cal said, “Their place was searched while they were here. I was hoping we’d come up with a P-38, like the one caused the death of the brothers and was stolen from that guy’s house in Bloomfield, and of course I was hoping we’d find the eighty-seven. Nothing.”

  “What if they run out on you?”

  “We got somebody watching their place. The two guys’ clothes, the money still there in the Oxydol box and about a grand in an old beat-up suitcase—they run, they’re going home first.”

  “You hope.”

  “That’s all I got is hope,” Cal said, “that somebody fucks up.”

  Stick called Arlene from a phone booth on the first floor of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. When she answered he said, “I’m out. No shit, it’s all done, no trial. . . . Okay, call Delta, it’ll have to be that five-something flight, five forty-five, I think, nonstop to Miami. Make the three reservations—your name, Mr. E. Stickley, Mr. F. Ryan. . . . Sure, you can use real names, we haven’t done anything. . . . No, you won’t have any trouble this time of year. Find out how much and take enough out of the box to cover it and fifty or a hundred for yourself, for magazines and gum and. . . . Right. Take a cab out to Metro. Pick up, pay for all three tickets but only pick up your own. Leave the other two at the Delta counter with our name on it. You got a suitcase that’ll hold it? . . . Good, put it all in the suitcase, nothing else in with it, and burn the box. . . . In the bathtub, I don’t know, someplace you won’t burn the goddamn motel down. Then, listen, check the suitcase through with your own stuff. Don’t carry it on, you know, they look at everything. . . . That’s right. . . . No, we’ll see you in the Miami airport. You get there, check the suitcase in one of those boxes, you know, and meet us in the bar in the Miami airport near the Delta counter. It’s way down at one end. At Metro, waiting for the plane, you see us, don’t say anything or act like you recognize us at all. . . . No, shit no, we won’t be sitting together. . . . I know. . . . Listen, I can understand, I’m a little nervous, too, but don’t worry. There isn’t anything to worry about. . . . Right, a few more hours it’ll be over. . . . I do, too. . . . You’ll hear me say it plenty. . . . All right. Arlene? I love you. . . . ’Bye.”

  Frank dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “It took you long enough.”

  “I wanted to go over it again.”

  “She got it cold?”

  “I don’t see how we can miss,” Stick said.

  “I don’t know, I think maybe we ought to put it in the car and just go.”

  “How far?” Stick said.

  Burning the doll box made a mess, left a tubful of black ashes that dissolved under the shower spray but left a dark, smeary-looking stain in the tub. Arlene wished she had some Ajax. The bath soap just seemed to smear it around more. The maid would probably think she’d been awfully dirty, greasing a car or something.

  The money—God, eighty-seven thousand dollars and a little more, in all kinds of bills—was stacked neatly in the small light-blue suitcase, with a few inches to spare. She thought about laying one of her photograph albums on top—it would fit perfectly—but she remembered what Stick had said. Just the money. So she’d have to jam her albums and manila envelopes of photographs in with her clothes.

  You don’t need them anymore, she thought.

  Or the silver costume.

  The pictures would be fun to look at later, years later. Here’s Mommy when she was a model. Here’s Mommy at the Indy Nationals. Cute?

  The NHRA Grand Nationals were going to be in Los Angeles this year. September 5–6–7. She could picture it on posters and in ads that ran in hot-rod magazines. They’d get some other girl. In Los Angeles that probably wouldn’t be hard at all.

  The silver costume didn’t take up any room; it didn’t even have to be folded, it was so skimpy. The boots were soft and rolled up and could be stuck down in the corners.

  The life-size cutout—smiling at her—God, what was she going to do with it?

  She had made Stick bring it along with all her stuff. He’d said, Why? What did she need it for? She remembered she had been surprised at him asking and had said she just wanted it, that’s all.

  She would have to leave it now and she wondered what they’d do with it and if they’d be mad. Well, they could just throw it out. She saw her life-size reinforced cardboard image cracked and folded in a trash can, her face looking out. She was glad she was getting out of here. She hated being alone and thinking so much. God, how did a person stop thinking when they wanted to?

  Arlene finished packing, called a cab, and paid the motel bill. When the cab came she walked out with her purse, following the driver carrying the two suitcases, and closed the door on the smiling life-size cutout in the silver costume.

  The lady, the manager of the Villa Monterey, said she wished she could take a vacation sometime. Frank said well, they’d been working pretty hard and needed a chance to take it easy and recharge the old batteries. The lady, the manager, said she’d have thought they got enough rest sitting around the pool every day. Sitting, yes, Frank said, but they were always thinking, and thinking was hard work. He paid her four-fifty in advance for the next month, September, and she smiled and said she hoped they had a nice time.

  Stick, waiting there, was glad she wasn’t a talker. He was starting to get awful antsy.

  Cal Brown had volunteered and taken over the watch. Surveillance of suspects.

  He was parked across from the Villa Monterey and down a hundred feet in a dark-brown Chrysler Cordoba they had taken off a smack dealer the week before. Cal was in love with the car, his first time in it, and he was trying to think of ways to keep it for his own personal-official use.

  He watched them come out of the Villa Monterey with their suitcases and open the trunk of the white T-bird. The one guy, Stickley, with a cardboard suitcase, looked like he was going somewhere to pick sugar beets. The other one, Ryan, had on a suit that glistened in the afternoon sun.

  Well now, Cal Brown said to himself. Hit them now or wait? He had warrants in his pocket for search or arrest, with the dates left blank.

  Is the eighty-seven in the
suitcase?

  No. Probably not.

  So why hit them now?

  Are they going to pick it up and keep going?

  Probably. Yes.

  Might you need more help than just yourself, rather than maybe blow it and get your head cut off, not to mention other parts?

  Bet your ass.

  But he did not turn on the newly installed radio until he had followed the white T-bird for fifteen minutes and finally they hit the Southfield Freeway, going south.

  He said into the mike, after describing the cars and their location, “Get me some very quiet state police backup. Give them my code and let me have theirs. We could be heading for the Ohio line, but I got a feeling we’re going to turn off on Ninety-four.”

  That’s what they did, south of the Veterans Hospital, took the off-ramp down through the tight curve to the right, past the sign that said AIRPORT. It was about twenty minutes from here, out the old Willow Run Expressway.

  Cal got on the mike again. “We’ll need two men at each terminal, International, North Terminal, and West. Give them descriptions. They’re to watch for the suspects and keep them under surveillance, but are not to collar them unless they attempt to put their luggage on a flight. I’m going to be right behind them—but just in case.”

  The T-bird crept along in the dimness of the cement structure, past the lines of cars that seemed to extend without end, up one lane and down another, from the first to the third level.

  Stick was driving. He said, “Come on, let’s go up on the roof.”

  Frank said, “I don’t want to park it on the roof. Twice I parked up there, I come back, my wheel covers’re gone.”

  “They can take the wheel covers anyplace you park,” Stick said. “Right in front, in the no-parking zone, they can take your fucking wheel covers.”

  “There’s more chance up there,” Frank said. “Sitting up there away from everything a couple of weeks.”