Freaky Deaky

by Elmore Leonard

  "Not yet."

  "I want to know what my horoscope says."

  "I'll get it for you," Donnell said. "Read it with your breakfast. We have to talk about getting the mess cleaned up in back, have it hauled away. You want me to take care of it?"

  "Call somebody."

  "I know some people do that kind of work."

  "That's fine."

  Donnell watched him reach under the bed for his shoes.

  "We have to talk about getting you a new limousine. What kind you want, what you want in it, all that."

  "I want a white one."

  "That's cool. But what we have to do first, Mr. Woody, is see how you want to change your will, now your brother's gone. I thought me and you could rough it out. You understand? Put it all down on a piece of paper and you sign it, you know, just in case you don't talk to your lawyer for a while."

  "I think I either want a white one or a black one."

  Donnell bit on the inside of his mouth till he felt pain and said, "Mr. Woody, you want to look up here a minute? Never mind your shoes, I'll tie your shoes for you. Please look up here."

  Multi-wealthy millionaire motherfucker sitting on the floor like a fat kid, not knowing shit.

  "I believe you forget something you told me yourself last night," Donnell said. "This woman name of Robin Abbott? You remember her, was here Saturday?"

  The man, looking up at him dumb-eyed, said, "Robin . . . ?"

  "Use to show you her goodies."

  "Yeah, Robin."

  "You tell me she went to stir for doing bombs? Now your own brother got kill by one yesterday was put in your limo? Not his, yours?"

  "Mark doesn't have a limo."

  "Listen to me. You understand it could happen again? Bam, you get taken out, you not even looking, don't even hear it. That's why I'm saying you have to get a new will, man, Mr. Woody, in case anything might happen you don't even know about."

  Look at the man looking fish-eyed. What's he see?

  "That's what we gonna do next," Donnell said, "while you having your breakfast. Write down things for your will." Shit. Quick.

  Woody said, "Will you get the paper?"

  Donnell went downstairs. He'd look at the horoscope box in the paper and pick out a good one, read it to the man while he at his Sugar Pops. This is a special day for romance. Love is looking up. The man liked that kind. Or, what Donnell was thinking of doing as he crossed the front hall, make one up. Time to get your financial ass in order. . . . Don't put off making your will. . . . Put in it whoever has been most loyal to you. Whoever cleans up your messes.

  He opened the front door hoping to see the Free Press lying close by. It wasn't on the stoop, it wasn't out on the grass. . . . He'd told the fat-kid delivery boy, Man, if you don't have the arm then walk it up here on your young legs. But the fat kid's daddy waiting out in the car, most likely hating rich people, had told the kid throw it, that's how you deliver papers, throw the motherfucker. The fat kid would obey his daddy and the paper would end up half the time in the bushes.

  The ones to the left of the door. Donnell went to the stone lion on that side and leaned over its back. There was the paper folded tight with a rubber band resting in the shrubs. There was the paper and there was something else looked like a bag underneath it. Donnell stepped around the lion and down off the slate front stoop. It looked like a new bag, not one had been out in the weather. The kind of black canvas bag a workman might have left? Or one of the police yesterday looking around. Donnell saw the bag in that moment as a find, something that could be worth something. He picked up the paper and the bag and went inside, closed the front door and locked it. Put the bag on the hall table with the paper, zipped the bag open, looked inside at the clock, the battery, the five sticks of dynamite and the wires going from here to there and said, "Shit. I'm dead."

  It took a minute for Donnell standing there frozen to tell himself he wasn't dead yet. That the bomb must've been put there during the night and had sat there all this time. It took him that little while to adjust to the situation and tell himself, Be cool. Are you cool? He wasn't running off screaming, that was cool. He was looking right at the bag. He thought, Open the door, throw it outside. But couldn't turn his back to it. It was like if he kept looking at the motherfucker it wouldn't do nothing to him. Except there was a clock in there ticking toward a certain time or there wouldn't be no need for the clock. If he looked at the clock it might tell him what time the bomb was going off. Only the clock wasn't face up. To reach in, touch it, mess with the wires, that wouldn't be cool. Look at a clock the last thing he ever did on earth?

  What did that leave for him to do?

  Donnell wiggled his toes in his hundred-dollar jogging shoes.

  He said, "You got to put it somewhere, man." Thought of outside, thought of down in the basement. He said, "You got to put it somewhere you don't stop and fool with doors." Thought another minute and picked up that bag again, the hardest thing he ever did in his life.

  Donnell walked off with the bag down the hall, hurrying without running, the way those guys in a heel-and-toe walking race move their hips cute back and forth, holding the bag out to the side like it had a mess in it, went through the sunroom and out to the chlorine-smelling swimming pool, took some sidesteps turning, flung that bag away from him out over the water, ran back into the sunroom, hit the floor and covered his head.

  There was no sound. Dead silence.

  Then a ringing sound and Donnell felt his body jump. The sound came again and came again, Donnell hearing it through his shoulders tight against his ears. It came again and he took his arms away, gradually raised his head. It came again and he got to his knees and reached for the phone.

  "Mr. Ricks's residence. . . ."

  Robin sat at her desk in a swivel chair, close to the red explosion on the wall. She recognized Donnell's voice and said into the phone, "Let me speak to him, please."

  Donnell's voice said, "Mr. Ricks can't be disturbed. You want to tell me who's calling?"

  "Tell him it's quite important."

  Robin was giving him her low, slow voice.

  "You can leave a message," Donnell's voice said, "or you can call back later."

  "I want to tell him I'm sorry about his brother."

  "You can leave your name, your phone number."

  Robin stroked her braid.

  "I want to tell him it was an accident."

  There was a silence on the line.

  "What was?"

  "His brother getting blown up. I want to tell him that. Why don't you ask him if he can be disturbed or not?"

  "Don't have to ask him, he's the one told me."

  Robin moved and the swivel chair squeaked.

  "I want to tell him I hope the same thing doesn't happen to him."

  There was a longer silence on the line.

  "I can tell him that," Donnell's voice said.

  "But I want to be sure he understands it. If you tell him, you're taking on quite a responsibility, don't you think?"

  There was a pause and then Donnell's voice said, "How much you looking to get?"

  Now Robin paused. The chair squeaked again.

  "I'd like about a million. Yeah, let's make it an even million. Can you remember to tell him that?"

  "I believe so," Donnell's voice said. "Would that be cash or you take a check?"

  Robin hunched over the desk as she said, "You want to play, is that what you're doing? I'll play with you. In about two minutes, man, you'll hear the way I play. It's going to ring in your fucking ears so you won't forget."

  There was a silence.

  Then heard, "Hold it a minute."

  Robin straightened in the chair. "Hey, what're you doing?" Silence. She looked at her watch. Twenty-five seconds passed.

  Donnell's voice came on the line again. "All right. Tell me how you want this million dollars given to you."

  "Oh, are you back? You ready to talk?"

  His voice said, "Behave, girl. I can han
g up, end this business right now."

  Robin got her low, quiet voice back. "I'll let you know. How's that?"

  "When's this gonna be you talking about?"

  "As soon as he has it."

  "If the man doesn't want to give it to you, what?"

  "Bow your head and think of Mark."

  "Say you gonna kill him, blow him up?"

  Before Robin could answer Donnell's voice said:

  "All right, it's cool. I'll tell the man."

  The line went dead.

  Robin eased back in the chair and didn't move. She wanted to believe she'd handled it okay--at least considering the way Donnell was all of a sudden into it, playing it back, and it threw her timing off. The idea had been to keep him on till she heard the explosion, tell him to have a nice day and hang up.

  She might have to give Skip a different version. Otherwise he'd say she blew it, misjudged the guy. Try to explain that. Well, you see him in his chauffeur suit opening doors, Jesus Christ, you assume he's now a well-behaved brand-new house-nigger version of the old Donnell, right? And Skip would say, Hey, Robin? You decide this dude is born again and you haven't talked to him in like sixteen years?

  Robin began to picture Donnell waiting by the limo, Donnell in his dark shades, the trim black suit. . . . She lit a cigarette, got more comfortable in the creaky chair and began to think, Yeah, but wait. What's wrong with the way it is? Dealing with the old Donnell. Jesus, and began to get excited about the idea. Seeing him as a Panther hiding in the chauffeur suit. Waiting for his chance to score, work some kind of game. The guy would have to be up to something.

  She wondered why she hadn't realized it before. It seemed so obvious now. How could he resist? She thought about it another few moments and said, "Jesus, far out." Because if they were both looking to score and Donnell was inside, alone, and hadn't figured out a move yet . . .

  Robin had an urge to call him back. "Hi, it's me. I was just wondering, you want to get in on it?"

  But then looked at her watch. Shit, it was bomb time. Any moment now, kaboom, and the lion goes flying, disappears, the door blows in, windows shatter. . . .

  And who sees it? Back when blowing up the establishment was popular, they'd set the charge on a timer, come back to park about a block away, smoke joints and at least hear it go off. She realized she was not working much of a fun factor into this deal. Thinking too much about money. Bad. Becoming way too serious. What she needed was a release, an upper that wasn't dope. A guy who could lighten her mood. Not Skip, he was basically a downer. Someone more spontaneous--as her mind flashed that scene in the powder room--like Donnell. Perfect. Assuming that in the last thirty seconds or so he hadn't opened the front door. It would be just her luck to lose him before they even got started. She began to wonder what Skip would think. She liked Skip, but he always had b.o. Which used to be okay, but not now. Having b.o. was no longer in. She kind of liked the idea of approaching Donnell first. That seemed like the way to go. . . .

  The phone rang.

  Robin waited for two more rings before answering. It was the building manager. He said, "Well, you're finally home. There's a couple police officers here want to talk to you."

  "What about?"

  The manager didn't answer. Robin heard him talking to someone away from the phone. She waited. And now a woman's voice came on.

  "Miss Abbott, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Sergeant Downey, with the Detroit Police? I wonder if we could come up and talk to you for a minute."

  "It doesn't sound like a lot of fun," Robin said. "What's it about?"

  "You may or may not have been a witness to a crime we're investigating. It'll only take about two minutes."

  "It's not something I did?" Robin said.

  The lady cop sort of laughed. "No, we're sure of that."

  "How many are you? I only have three chairs."

  "We won't even have to sit down," the lady cop's voice said. "Just myself and Sergeant Mankowski."

  Donnell made himself stand at the side of the pool. The bag was floating still, as it was before, when he'd come off the phone to take a look. The stuff from inside the bag was at the bottom of the deep end by the diving board, in nine feet of water. Dark objects down there. The wires still seemed attached to the objects.

  Donnell walked through the house to its other end and into the kitchen, where the man was watching "Leave It to Beaver" on the TV while he had his breakfast. It looked like Post Alpha-Bits this morning. The man liked a sweet cereal to start the day, then get all the sugar he needed in his booze. The horoscope page of the paper was folded open next to his bowl. The man glanced up, anxious.

  "Listen to this. It says, 'You have a sense of inner and outer harmony. This would be a perfect day to start taking singing lessons; you may have talent.' What do you think?"

  "Yeah, well, if we have time," Donnell said. "We got us a couple more pressing matters come up. First thing, we have to find somebody knows how to take a bomb out of the swimming pool."

  That got the man's dumb eyes focused on him.

  "How did a bomb get in the swimming pool?"

  "Let's come back to it," Donnell said. "We also have a matter, this lady called. Say she gonna blow you up if you don't give her some money."

  Donnell waited for the man's mind to work and put this and that together. Like he fooled with the Alpha-Bits floating in his milk sometimes, trying to make a word out of the letters.

  "The lady that called put the bomb in the swimming pool?"

  "I 'magine she's the one."

  "Is it gonna go off?"

  "I don't know. That's why I say we have to get us a bomb man."

  "Call the police, they'll take care of it."

  "I'm afraid of what she'd do. You know, like she might be a crazy woman and it would set her off."

  Right then Beaver's mama on the TV, a cute woman, began fussing at Mr. Beaver, giving him some shit. Doing it just at the right time.

  The man shook his head, didn't know what to think. Had an idea then and said, "Was it Robin that called?"

  "I suspect, but I don't know her voice."

  "How much does she want?"

  Here we go.

  "Say she like two million, cash money, no checks. Get it from the bank and have it ready."

  Look at the man blink his eyes.

  "Yeah, she say to have it ready. You know, like in a box? See, then when she phones again, to tell us the time and place she wants it? You suppose to give it to me and I deliver it."

  Chapter 19.

  What happened: when Wendell didn't show up, Maureen called Homicide from the manager's ground-floor apartment. The manager, a sour old man, stood at a window watching for Robin, bifocals gleaming when he turned his head, more interested in Maureen. Chris was reading the Bureau report on Robin Abbott, times and places in it familiar. He heard Maureen say, irritated, "Thanks for telling me. You know how long I've been waiting here?" She hung up, saying to Chris, "Wendell's got a body in an alley: female, black." Chris said, "And you have me." Maureen said, "Oh, no. You're staying here." Chris said to the manager, "Try Miss Abbott again, okay?" The manager said, "She isn't back yet. I'd have seen her." Chris said, "But will you try?" And said to Maureen, the manager busy now, "You talk to her, I look around. You need me." Maureen said, "You don't have your badge or I.D. What do you show her?" As the manager was saying, "Well, you're finally home. . . ."

  Going up the stairs behind Maureen's nice firm athletic calves he said, "Robin I see was at U of M the same time I was, before I went in the army. Right up from where I lived on State Street, by the Michigan Union, there was always something going on, some kind of demonstration. Nice little girls screaming at the cops, calling 'em pigs." He shut up as they reached the second floor.

  Robin Abbott stood waiting for them, the door to her apartment open. She wore tinted glasses, her hair in a fat braid, shirt hanging out over jeans, barefoot, trying to look young and girlish and not doing a bad job. Chris checked her out over Maur
een's shoulder, letting Maureen lead the way and introduce them. "Hi, I'm Sergeant Downey"--showing her I.D.--"and this is Sergeant Mankowski." Chris had his wallet out. He flipped it open and closed, staying pretty much behind Maureen.

  Miss Abbott brought them in, saying, "Well, what can I do for you?" in a quiet, low voice, then lightened the tone as she said, "I don't recall witnessing any crimes lately."

  Chris thought of saying he was glad she qualified that. Miss Abbott had been arrested in '78 after jumping a bond set years before, convicted and sent away in '79. Maureen had the Bureau printout in her bag; he'd get a copy of it to go over in detail. He wondered what the round red design was supposed to be, painted on the wall. The rest of the room was a mess. Miss Abbott sure had a lot of books and magazines, and what looked like old newspapers, piles of them on a bookshelf. Chris wandered over there as Miss Abbott asked if they'd like coffee or a soft drink, Miss Abbott showing what a nice person she was. Maureen said thanks, but they didn't want to take up too much of her time. Just a few questions, if Miss Abbott wouldn't mind. Miss Abbott said, Of course; what would they like to know? See? Cooperative as well as nice. Maureen became official then, saying, "We understand you were at a party at the home of Mr. Woodrow Ricks last Saturday evening?" Chris, looking at books, heard Miss Abbott trying hard to be of help, saying, "Was it Saturday? Yeah, I think so."

  As Maureen said, "You think it was Saturday or you think you were there?" and Miss Abbott laughed and said, "Both," Chris let his gaze move to the desk close by, the surface nearly covered with typed pages, file folders, mail, magazines, notebooks. . . .

  He saw a notebook with a red cover lying on top. It had MAY-AUGUST '70 written on it big in black Magic Marker.

  Miss Abbott came over to the desk for a cigarette and Chris looked at the books again. She had an assortment of paperback novels, several of each title--Gold Fire, Diamond Fire, Silver Fire, Emerald Fire--all by the same author, Nicole Robinette. Maureen was asking about the people who were at the party. Miss Abbott said she didn't think she could be of much help there; she wasn't introduced to anyone.

  She had Bukowski on the shelf. She had Genet, Ginsberg. She had Abbie Hoffman's Woodstock Nation and Revolution for the Hell of It. Maureen was asking Miss Abbott if she went swimming with the others. She had Soledad Brother. She had Sisterhood Is Powerful, The Politics of Protest.