Gold Coast

by Elmore Leonard

  “Join a union,” Vivian said. “What’re you complaining to me for? You got eighteen thousand dollars there, back pay for your six months.”

  “The way I see it, chopping weeds at Butler is worth more than that,” Roland said. “Way more.”

  3

  * * *

  DURING THE TIME Maguire was being held in the Wayne County Jail, downtown Detroit, he’d say to himself, If I get out of this—sometimes even beginning, Please, God, if I get out of this I’ll change, I’ll get a regular job, I’ll stay away from people like the Patterson brothers and never fuck up again as long as I live. At least not this bad.

  Sitting there in his cell facing something like 15 to 25, Jesus, the scaredest he’d ever been in his life.

  While over at the prosecutor’s office they could push computer buttons and Maguire would appear in lights on the desk-set screen.

  CALVIN A. MAGUIRE, Male Caucasian, a date of birth that made him thirty-six, tattoo on his upper left bicep, Cal, in blue and red, a list of arrests going back eleven years, one in Florida, but no convictions.

  An assistant Wayne County prosecutor looked at the screen, frowning. No convictions? The guy had stolen automobiles, broken into homes, business establishments, once attempted to shoot a man, apprehended with a concealed weapon, one willful destruction . . . and no convictions? Well, they had the guy this time. Two eyeball witnesses who’d picked him out of a line-up, two positive IDs, man. Calvin Maguire was going away.

  The prosecutor’s office also had an impressive computerized light show on the Patterson brothers: Andre Patterson and Grover “Cochise” Patterson, both male Negroes, both with previous convictions going back to ages thirteen and fourteen, and both picked out of line-ups by the same two tight-jawed no-bullshit witnesses. Bye-bye Maguire and the Patterson brothers. The assistant prosecutor was going to trial happy. He didn’t see how he could lose.

  Andre Patterson had come to Maguire with the deal. This man was going to pay them fifteen hundred each to go and take a hit at the Deep Run Country Club out north of Detroit. Mess the place up, but mostly mess up their minds, the people out there. Maguire didn’t get it. A man was paying them to hit a place?

  Paying them and furnishing clean weapons. The man had some reason he didn’t like the place, or he wanted to pay them back for something, not anybody in particular, the whole place. Maguire said, At a club they sign for everything; there’s no money at a club. Andre Patterson said, But the rich people who go there have money; put it in their locker, go out and play golf. See, they could keep whatever they took. The man didn’t want a cut; it wasn’t that kind of deal.

  Maguire was uncertain. What’s the matter with your buddies Ordell and Louis? Why me? And Andre answering that those two were away for a while. No, you my man, only man I know can do it cool, without a nosefull. Maguire told Andre he was doing fine without the thrills; he had a job he thought he’d stick with at least until the end of the year, then take off.

  Andre Patterson saying, Yeah, making the cocktails for the salesmen flashing around the hotel, listening to all the big deals, the cocktail music coming out the wall, standing at attention in your little red jacket, man, hair combed nice, yes sir, what would you like? And for the young lady?

  Maguire thinking of a snowbanked Durant Mall in Aspen, deep powder on the high slopes, the rich ladies in their snow-bunny outfits. Then thinking of the Pier House in Key West, sitting out on the deck with a white rum and lemon, six in the evening. Places out of the past. Thinking of fifteen hundred bucks and what they could scrounge out of the lockers, maybe two three hundred more each. Thinking of islands and palm trees . . . get out of the cold, the slush, try the Mediterranean for a change, Spain, the south of France. Fifteen hundred guaranteed. Maguire liked to be outdoors. He liked to work outdoors, if he had to work. What was he doing in Detroit? Like a guilt trip, always coming back to Detroit, visit his mom and tell her yeah, everything was great. Listen to her describe her poor circulation and Detroit Edison rates and finally saying, Hey, thanks very much for everything, accepting the hundred dollar bill she always offered and getting out of there.

  Andre Patterson saying, No security people. Walk in, pick up the wallets, watches. All right, everybody take off your clothes, get in the shower. Carry their clothes outside and throw ’em in the bushes—they all running around the club nekked.

  Maybe wear ski masks, something like that?

  Andre saying, Wear a tuxedo you want to. We going to the club, man.

  That would be funny, tuxedos. It was good to keep it light, have a couple of drinks, smoke a joint before going in . . . lock the outside door after you . . . little details to think about. Watch the door that went from the locker room to the grill—

  Maguire said, “I haven’t done this in a couple years. I mean I haven’t ever actually done it, Christ, gone into a country club.”

  Andre said, “Who has?”

  * * *

  They went in on a Wednesday, August 16, four o’clock in the afternoon, when all the doctors and sales reps would be out there playing golf, rolling Indian dice for drinks, talking their locker room talk with all the obscene words they couldn’t say at the office.

  They parked the van Cochise had picked up and went in a side door that led directly into the men’s locker room—without the ski masks, too hot—Andre Patterson wearing a knit cap and faking some kind of Jamaican-Caribbean British-nigger accent, Cochise wearing a red and white polka-dot headband that bunched up his Afro like black broccoli. Maguire had quit his job at the hotel cocktail lounge, had a photograph taken for his passport application, then let his dark, black-Irish beard grow for three days. Once in the locker room he picked up a green Deep Run golf cap and set it on low over his sunglasses. He and Andre carried 9mm Berettas, brand new; wild-ass Cochise went in with a sawed-off double-barreled Marlin to scare the shit out of the members, get their attention quick and make them behave.

  Maguire was nervous going in, Christ yes, but he wasn’t too worried about the Patterson brothers overreacting, becoming vicious. There was a moment right in the beginning when they either grabbed control of the situation and it went smoothly, or they didn’t grab control and it could turn into a fuck-up with a lot of yelling and jabbing. That moment of surprise—

  The golf club members talking loud, their voices coming from the shower and the rows of lockers, middle-aged men in their underwear and towels, shuffling around in paper slippers . . . looking up and seeing, Christ, a wildman, a Mau-Mau, twin blunt holes of a Marlin pointing at them, Oh, my God! Sharp little startled sounds, seeing two mean-looking black guys with guns—

  Then silence.

  God Almighty, was it a revolution or a holdup? Hoping all they wanted was money. Andre Patterson telling the members in Jamaican to be cool, mon, and go in the shower room. Herding those wide-eyed, slow-moving white bodies in there, guns touching naked flesh—go on, mon, move your chickenfat ass—like a scene in a high-class concentration camp, moving them into the gas chamber. Getting the shit-scared locker room attendant to start opening up the lockers. Cochise going through the shoeshine room and the service bar into the ladies locker room—yeah, let’s get everybody in here—the three of them actually grinning. Sure, because they knew they had it in their hands now. Unbelievable, Maguire thought, relaxing a little, already seeing himself and the Patterson brothers talking about it after, laughing, giggling at the scene, retelling parts of it one or the other might have missed.

  Maguire dumping the clubs out of the golf bag, hanging it over his shoulder and throwing in all the wallets and watches, silver money clips with the club crest, a few pinkie rings, electric razors, hair-blower for Cochise—all the stuff he got out of the lockers. Unbelievable, the doctors and sales reps contributing something over twenty-five hundred in cash, like eight-fifty apiece.

  Still talking about it the next day at Andre’s, eating Chinese food, reading about it in the paper, ARMED TRIO ROBS COUNTRY CLUB. Bet to it, cleaned it out. All
those chickenfat doctors out on the links, a man lining up a putt not knowing at that moment he was getting robbed.

  They had fun talking about it. Maguire borrowed Andre’s car, picked up his photos and a passport application at the post office, brought back some more scotch, shaved, cleaned up, and they went over the scenes again, waiting now for the man to send them the fifteen hundred each.

  Talking about Cochise bringing the five women in through the service bar from the ladies locker room on the other side. Four ladies going to fat, holding their towels up around their titties. One not too bad, nice blonde, quiet, fairly calm, Maguire might’ve set up for a drink at some other time. Cochise pulling the towel off the last one, hearing her squeal as he poked her in the ass with the cut-down Marlin.

  That was the highlight, making them all drop their towels or take off their extra-size undies once they were in the shower with the men. The men standing there trying to hold in their stomachs, looking at the bare-naked ladies, at their big titties and bushes. So that’s what so-and-so looks like without any clothes on, Jesus. Looking, making little mental notes. Couple of the women sneaking glances at the guy’s shriveled-up joints. The shower room full of bellies and dimpled asses that looked like they’d been kept in a dark cave for years.

  Andre Patterson saying, “I advise you all to go join Vic Tanney quick as you can, else you gonna die soon.” Then saying to a little guy with muscles in his arms and shoulders, who kept staring at Andre, not interested in the naked ladies, “Don’t do what you’re thinking, man, or you gonna die right now.”

  See, relaxed but very alert.

  Cochise bringing in the two waitresses and the bartender, making them take their uniforms off and get in with the naked club members. Andre saying, Hey, I can’t tell the rich folks from the help. Funny guys, half-stoned but they knew what they were doing.

  Maguire saying, “Something like that, you could sell tickets to, you know it? I mean there some people would pay to see a show like that, fucking X-rated stick-up.”

  Maguire picking out a set of woods for himself, Andre taking a whole big bag of clubs that must’ve been worth eight hundred dollars, he said for playing at Palmer Park. Hey, shit, can you see it?

  Sometime during the evening of the day after, Cochise went out to pick up some grass, trade in some of the country club items maybe.

  He came back with about eighteen members of the Detroit Police Department, Christ, through the door with guns and kneeling on them before they knew what was happening.

  So there was the robbery armed, something like 15 to 25 or possibly life, and a felony-firearm charge that carried a mandatory two years. More than enough to start Maguire praying and making promises in the Wayne County jail. In there from the middle of August to the end of November, with no way in the world of making the bond set at fifty thousand dollars or two sureties. Maguire saw Andre and Cochise once at 1300 Beaubien, police headquarters across the street, while they were waiting to appear in a line-up, and asked him, For Christ sake, the man got us into this, he’s gonna put up the bond, right? No, the man couldn’t get involved just yet. The man was under suspicion, using the bonding company to front him on some kind of deal in Las Vegas, so the man couldn’t be seen to be paying the bonding company at this time. But hang on.

  Hang onto what, for Christ sake? Hang on in the bus going to Jackson.

  Maguire didn’t think much of his court-appointed lawyer because the lawyer didn’t think much of him. Maguire could feel it, the guy was going through the motions. The court was paying the lawyer, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass who won.

  Maguire said, “What’ve they got on me? Some circumstantial evidence, that’s all.”

  “Your photograph in Andre Patterson’s car,” the lawyer said. “The golf clubs in the trunk.”

  “I happened to leave my picture in the car”—shit—“that was the next day. Other people were in that car the next day. Andre’s wife, she went out to get some Chinese food. Was she arrested?”

  “You were ID-ed positively in a line-up by one of the victims,” the lawyer said. “Possibly identified by four more. They saw you there. Now I’m representing you, not the jigs. You want to agree to testify against the jigs, maybe I can get you a deal.”

  “You can get fucked, too,” Maguire told his court-appointed lawyer. What a rotten guy.

  Something happened, several things, Maguire didn’t understand.

  The morning of the trial a different lawyer appeared in court to defend all three of them, a sharp young guy by the name of Marshall Fine, with styled hair and a pinched-in three-piece suit.

  What’s this?

  Nice moves, very stylish; made the prosecutor look like a high-school football coach. Sent from the man? Andre nodding, pleased. Fine of fine and dandy, man. From the company does the man’s legal business. Yeah, but the guy seemed so young. Was he practicing on them, or what? Maguire wasn’t sure he liked it—putting his life in the hands of a young Jewish lawyer who looked about eighteen years old. He hoped to Christ the guy was an authentic hotshot young Jewish lawyer and not just somebody’s nephew.

  Marshall Fine didn’t say much that morning, accepting the jurors one right after the other, very calm, courteous, but maybe wanting to get it over with. In the afternoon, first thing, the prosecutor put a witness on the stand. Oh shit, the little guy from the shower room with the muscles in his arms and shoulders—the guy describing what happened and saying yes, he saw the three in the courtroom, the white guy there and the two colored guys.

  Marshall Fine got up and asked the club member where he was standing, in front or behind the others, what exactly took place during the incident and, in all that confusion, he couldn’t be absolutely certain of his identification, could he?

  Yes, the club member said, he could definitely be certain. He not only saw them in the locker room, he saw the white guy’s picture a few days later when the police officer showed it to him.

  Marshall Fine asked the club member what picture. Maguire noticed the prosecutor paying very close attention, frowning.

  The club member said he was told the picture was found in their car.

  Pictures of all three defendants?

  No, just the white guy, the club member said. The officer showed it to him when he came down to 1300 Beaubien to look at the suspects.

  Marshall Fine said, to no one in particular, “While Mr. Maguire was being held in custody.” Then to the judge, “Your Honor, I’d like to request, if I may, the jury be excused. We seem to have a legal point to discuss.”

  Twenty minutes later Maguire was free. He couldn’t believe it.

  Marshall explained it to him in the hall, with all the people standing around outside the courtrooms, and Maguire had trouble concentrating. Free, just like that.

  “What it amounts to, the cops fucked up. Once you’re in jail they can’t show anybody your picture unless your lawyer’s present.”

  “They can’t?”

  “See, it used to be the cops would tell the victim, or a witness, they got the guy and then show the guy’s picture. Then, when the witness sees the guy in the line-up, naturally he’s gonna pick him out, the same guy, of course.”

  Maguire nodding—

  “The prosecutor raised the point, this impermissible taint, what it’s called in law, was irrelevant because there was an independent basis for the identification. I said what independent basis? Like knowing you from someplace else. I pointed out there was absolutely no independent corroboration that would provide a sufficiently acceptable alternative identification that comports with due process. And the judge agreed. It was that simple.”

  “Oh,” Maguire said.

  “So, good luck. Get your ass out of here.” Young Marshall Fine turned to go back into the courtroom, then stopped. “I almost forgot. You need a job? What’re you gonna do now?”

  There it was. “I got some money coming in,” Maguire said.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the lawyer
said. “I guess I’m only into rehabilitation, small favors, maybe something we might be able to do for you. Were you working?”

  “I was a bartender, but I quit.”

  “I could get you something like that. How about Miami Beach?”

  “Well”—seeing the black people standing around, all the victims, witnesses, relatives of defendants—“I used to live in Florida about ten years ago.” Thinking in that moment, the Mediterranean, Florida, what’s the difference? Seeing himself going to the cops to get his passport pictures back? No way. “Yeah, Florida sounds like a good idea.”

  “Get you into one of the hotels, bartender—what do you want to do?”

  Thinking of the ocean, the sun, being outside, getting a tan—

  “When I was there before I worked with dolphins. Maybe something like that’d be good.” He felt funny talking to a guy younger than he was about a job.

  “Dolphins,” Marshall said.

  “Porpoise. You know, they call them porpoise but they’re really dolphins. Not the fish, they’re mammals.”

  “Yeah, dolphins,” Marshall said. He was nodding, thinking of something. “I believe we’ve got a client—yeah, I’m sure we have—they’ve got an interest in one of those places. You mean like Sea World, they put on the porpoise show, a guy rides a killer whale, Shamu?”

  “Yeah, only the place I worked,” Maguire said, “it was more a training school. Down in the Keys, with these pens right out in the ocean. They put on a show, but not with all the bullshit, the porpoise playing baseball and, you know, coming out of the water to ring a bell and the American flag goes up—not any of that kind of shit.”

  “But you’ve had experience.”

  “I worked there almost a year, down on Marathon. The pay wasn’t anything, but I liked being outside.” He thought about the fifteen hundred again. “What about this money somebody owes me?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about it.” The young hotshot lawyer did seem to want to help though. “You must’ve made some kind of an arrangement.”