52 Pickup

by Elmore Leonard

"Okay, tell him to come see me."

  Janet said, "Mr. Mitchell will be back in a minute. Go right in." John Koliba looked like he didn't know what was going on. He'd never been in Mr. Mitchell's office before. He came in wiping his hands on his gray work pants, looking around the office at the dark paneling and the hunting dog prints, the green-and-white-striped draperies, green carpeting, the TV set on a darkwood cabinet, big seven-foot desk and black-and-white Naugahyde chairs. She hadn't said to sit down so he stood there until Mr. Mitchell came in from the conference room next door. He was carrying some papers, studying them, and didn't look up until he dropped the papers on his desk.

  "Have a seat."

  "Vic said you wanted to see me."

  "John, sit down, will you please?" Mitchell waited until Koliba was looking up at him with a serious, intent expression, sitting forward with his elbows on the chair arms, heavy shoulders hunched, his hands folded over the beer belly stretching his T-shirt into a tight mound.

  "How's it going, John?"

  Koliba shrugged. "Pretty good, I got no complaints."

  "I have," Mitchell said. "I got a problem."

  "Yeah? What is it?"

  "I'm going to ask you a simple, direct question, John. You ready?"

  "Sure, go ahead."

  "Are you pulling a slowdown on me?"

  "A slowdown--there ain't any slowdown I know of. We had some breakdowns, we have been having some problems, but you think it's on purpose, no sir. Or if it is I had nothing to do with it."

  Mitchell took his time. He said quietly, "All right, John, now we both know where we're at. You know I'm aware what you've been doing. And I know you're going to sit there and give me a bunch of shit."

  Koliba straightened, pushing his shoulders back. "I'm telling you I never fooled with the machines. You don't believe what I'm saying, then you're calling me a liar. Is that right?"

  "That's right, John," Mitchell said. "You're a fucking liar. You want a drink?"

  "Listen now, nobody calls me a liar."

  "I just did, John. You want a drink or not?"

  "You start accusing me, calling me a liar--let's see you prove I done anything."

  Mitchell walked over to the darkwood cabinet, took out two glasses and a fifth of Jack Daniels that he held up, showing it to Koliba.

  "I don't like somebody calling me a liar I don't care who it is."

  Mitchell poured whiskey into the two glasses, walked over and handed one to Koliba, who took it, but kept watching Mitchell. He watched him walk slowly around his desk. He watched him sit down and lean back in the chair and then take a drink.

  After a moment Koliba raised his glass and swallowed about an ounce of the whiskey.

  "John," Mitchell said, "I don't need a slowdown." He picked up a ledger sheet and extended it toward Koliba. "You want to look at this week's P and L statement? That's profit and loss. Here . . . current sales analysis chart. Computer printout shows labor costs the past two weeks are up to eighteen percent of our gross sales volume. To make a profit we have to hold that figure at twelve. John, we go up six points we got a one percent loss. We're selling, but we're losing money. Here . . . sales department report. Competitor comes up with a lower price and we lose an account we've had for three years. But we can't cut our price because we're as low as we can get. This one . . . compensation rates are going up again. The government's increasing F.I.C.A. rates. And I got to make all this look good on a balance sheet. John . . . I'll tell you, I don't need a fucking slowdown."

  Mitchell paused, watching Koliba.

  "You been here two and a half years, John. You were at Ford Rouge, how long?"

  "Six years," Koliba said. "Then over Timken three years."

  Mitchell nodded. "You know I was on the line at Dodge twelve years."

  "No, I didn't know that."

  "Twelve years. I've had some luck, John, but I've also worked my ass off. And the harder I work the luckier I get. I don't expect any gifts or favors. Nothing is free. But I also don't expect any shit from anybody. No, I take that back. I do expect it. What I mean is, when it comes it doesn't come as a surprise. I watch where I'm walking and I don't step in it if I can help it. Why should anybody take any shit if they can help it? John, you agree with that?"

  "Certainly. I don't take any shit I can help it."

  "Right," Mitchell said. "Who needs it."

  "Guy tries to give me some shit," Koliba said, "I let him know about it."

  "Why put up with something you don't have to," Mitchell said. "Like this plant. I see it's losing money I shut it down, sell the equipment. Maybe take a bath. But, John, I'd rather lose it quick and forget it than piss it away while the goddamn business goes down the drain. You see what I mean? I own the joint, so I can do anything I want with it, can't I?"

  "Sure," Koliba said. "I guess so."

  "I can lock the door tomorrow I want to, right?"

  "Yeah. Hell, you own the place."

  "Hey, John," Mitchell said. "That's exactly what I'm going to do if one more machine breaks down. Close the place."

  "Listen, I said before, I don't know anything about any slowdown."

  "John, I believe you, because I see I can talk to you. You were a shift leader, and you got to have a feeling of responsibility to be a shift leader."

  "Sure, I always want to see the job's done right."

  "You see my position," Mitchell said. "I can't go out in the shop and make a speech to everybody. I got to rely on key people like yourself, people who see a future here and advancement . . . more money."

  Koliba waited, thinking about it. "Well, I guess maybe we could watch it a little closer," he said. "You know, stay more on the ball so to speak."

  "That's the way I see it, John," Mitchell said. "I've learned it's always better to stay on the ball than it is to fall off and bust your ass."

  Mitchell swiveled his chair around to put his feet on the corner of the desk. The envelope marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, the single sheet of typed instructions and the locker key, lay on the blotter close to his leg. He stared out the window at the pale-gray afternoon sky, taking a rest now, a breather. He felt good. He felt his confidence coming back and, with it, the beginning of an urge to get up and do something. That was the essence of the good feeling: to be able to remain calm and relax while he was keyed up and confident. Never panic. Never run. Face whatever had to be faced. Be practical, reasonable, up to a point. And if reason doesn't work, get up and kick it in the teeth. Whatever the problem is. He smoked a cigarette, taking his time, looking at the dull afternoon sky that didn't bother him at all now.

  When he finished the cigarette he took a sheet of letterhead and a 10 x 12 manila envelope from a desk drawer and buzzed his secretary on the intercom.

  Janet waited while he wrote something, slowly, deliberately, on the sheet of paper, folded it once and slid it into the manila envelope that was fat and rounded, bulging with something inside.

  "Give this to Dick or somebody," Mitchell said. "And this key. Tell him to run it out to Metro and put it in locker two-fifty-eight. Number's on the key. Hey, and tell him to be sure and put the key in with it."

  "If the key's inside," Janet said, "how's anyone going to open the locker?"

  "I just do what I'm told," Mitchell said.

  She gave him a funny look. "What?"

  "It's not our problem, Janet, so we're not going to worry about it."

  His secretary took the envelope and went out, not saying any more.

  Bobby Shy shot snooker on the mezzanine floor of Detroit Metropolitan Airport until the place closed. He went into the men's, paid a dime for a stall and sniffed a two-and-two, scooping the coke out of the Baggy with a silver Little Orphan Annie spoon. Man, almost immediately it was a better, brighter world. He bought the current issue of a magazine dedicated to "Sophisticated Men About Town" and studied the breasts and beaver shots for about a half hour, read an article that tested his sex I.Q., but didn't bother to total his answers to see how he
scored. At ten past one in the morning he went to locker number 258 across from the Delta counter that was empty now, used the duplicate key Alan had given him, opened the locker and took out the plain manila envelope.

  There was no one near him; no one in sight as far down as the Eastern counter; no one who could possibly reach him before he made it down the central arcade to the men's room and went inside.

  "Mail's here," Bobby Shy said. He flipped the envelope with a backhand motion, watched it hit the tile and slide beneath the door of the third stall. He turned around and walked out.

  Leo Frank, sitting on the toilet, picked up the envelope. It felt good and thick. The switchblade was already open in his hand, ready to cut the envelope and everything in it to shreds if anyone came banging in and tried to open his stall or ordered him to come out. Cut it quick and flush it down the toilet. They were good toilets with a high-speed force flush; you could keep flushing them without waiting for the tank to fill up.

  Leo looked at his watch. Ten minutes later he stood up, shoved the envelope into his waist beneath his snappy double-knit, eight-button, checkered blazer and walked out.

  The white Thunderbird was where it was supposed to be, on the arrival ramp across from the American sign.

  Alan moved over as Leo got in behind the wheel and tossed him the envelope.

  "Shake hands with ten grand," Leo said. "Twenties and fifties fill up the space, don't they?"

  Alan's fingers felt the envelope as the Thunderbird curved down the ramp and straightened out on William Rogell Drive.

  Leo said, "Open it, man. What're you waiting for?"

  Alan didn't say anything. His fingers worked along the edges of the envelope and moved up to the clasp. His fingers said something was not right. They said somebody was trying to pull some shit and they didn't like the feel of it at all.

  The Thunderbird turned right beyond the underpass and merged with the headlights going east toward Detroit.

  Alan snapped open the glove box. In the framed square of light, hunched over, he pulled a folded copy of The Wall Street Journal out of the envelope. With the paper, resting on it, was the sheet of letterhead. Alan unfolded the sheet and read the three-word Magic Marker message in capital letters. bag your ass.

  He said, very quietly, shaking his head, "Leo, honest to Christ, I don't know what this fucking world is coming to. You honestly, sincerely tell the guy how it is and the mother doesn't believe you."

  Chapter 7

  AT TEN AFTER NINE Mitchell called his wife. He was still at the plant and had not seen her or spoken to her in four days.

  "I want to make sure you were home," he said, "or if you're going to be home this evening. I want to stop by and get some clothes."

  She said, "Are you moving out?"

  "Well, I thought under the circumstances. It might be easier. Give you some time to think."

  Barbara's voice said, "What am I supposed to think about?"

  "All right, give us both time to get our thoughts together. Are you going to be home?"

  "I'll be here."

  "I was wondering--" He paused. "You didn't get anything in the mail? Some pictures?"

  "Pictures? Of what?"

  "Never mind. I'll be leaving in a few minutes," Mitchell said. "I'll see you about ten."

  "I can hardly wait," Barbara said, and hung up.

  Shit. For the past few days he had felt pretty good, but now he was tired again and wondered if he should go home. Maybe wait a while. And then said to himself, You started it. Let her have her turn.

  Going out through the plant, past the rows of machines, he saw John Koliba in the Quality Control room. Mitchell paused, went over and stuck his head in the door.

  "Second shift agreeing with you?"

  "Yes, I don't mind working nights," Koliba said.

  "It's where we need you, John. Keep the goddamn place from falling apart. Any problems?"

  "Not a thing." Koliba held up a small metal part that fit in the palm of his hand. "We been running switch actuator housings since three-thirty. Every one's up to spec."

  Mitchell didn't smile, but he felt better again. He said, "That's the eye, John," and continued on through the plant and out the rear door.

  There were two spots above the door on the wall of the plant and light poles at the far end of the yard where a cyclone fence enclosed the plant property: bleak lights that laid a soft reflection over the rows of cars in the parking area. Mitchell unlocked the Grand Prix and opened the door. He was sliding in behind the wheel before he realized the interior light did not go on--though the goddamn buzzing noise sounded as he turned the key and kept buzzing until he slammed the door closed.

  Beginning to back out he turned to look past his shoulder. The face with the stocking over it was staring at him from less than three feet away. When the .38 Special appeared the stocking face leaned in somewhat closer and the barrel of the revolver touched his right shoulder.

  Bobby Shy said, "Keep your head on, man. Everything will be cool. Go west to Seventy-five. We going downtown."

  On Metropolitan Parkway, Mitchell reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. Bobby Shy said, "That's fine. Look all you want, you know I'm still here with my eyes stuck to the back of your head. Hey man, and no smoking. Don't reach inside your clothes for nothing, not even to scratch yourself. You listening to me?" But Mitchell didn't answer or speak until they had turned onto Interstate 75 and were moving south in the light freeway traffic.

  "My wife didn't get any pictures yet."

  "We didn't send any," Bobby Shy said. "It was an idea, you know? I told them shit, guys fool around all the time. Names you read about. Man could be President of the United States, fucking somebody, nobody gives a shit. So the man's getting something on the side, everybody say he probably needs it, don't get enough at home. No, it was an idea is all. So we scratch it and make you another offer."

  "Why don't you do yourselves a favor," Mitchell said. "Get into some other business. I don't think you guys could sell water to somebody on fire."

  Bobby Shy laughed. "Try us one more time. I think you going to dig this trip."

  "Tell me what you've got," Mitchell said.

  "You got to see it."

  "Another movie?"

  "Only better. More excitement in it."

  "I should've brought some friends," Mitchell said. "Or some guys from the plant. We don't like the movie we make you eat it."

  Bobby Shy laughed again. "Hey, I know you not going to like it. That's why you don't want to have anybody with you. I mean you wouldn't want to have anybody in the whole fucking world to see this flick but you, man, and that is absolutely word of honor, no bullshit."

  They turned east onto Jefferson and after a few minutes, passing the Uniroyal plant and the Belle Isle Bridge and the Naval Armory, Bobby Shy hunched forward to study the street, a continuous row of dark storefronts.

  "All right, pull in, anywhere this block."

  "It's no parking along here," Mitchell said.

  "Man, stop the fucking car, will you, please. Go in that gas station, it's closed."

  Get a ticket now, Mitchell thought. That would be something. What're you doing around here? Well, you see this guy with the gun's taking me to see a movie. Oh, you're going to see a movie. Yeah. Well, where is this movie?

  "Cross the street," Bobby Shy said.

  They crossed Jefferson toward a theater marquee, Mitchell thinking of the policeman and then of his lawyer, Jim O'Boyle. I saw another movie, Jim. This time in a theater. A closed theater. In a closed theater, uh? It sure looked closed, with its bare marquee and dark foyer that was like the boarded entrance to a mine tunnel. A car passed on Jefferson, a faint sound behind him that faded to silence.

  "Go on in," Bobby Shy said.

  Mitchell tried one of the doors--the handles showing between the protective sheets of plywood--then the other door and stepped inside, into a deeper darkness.

  "This way," a voice said. Not a voice he had heard befo
re, or a face to go with the voice, only a small flashlight beam at knee height, pointing to the foot "You come through here." The light began to recede.

  Mitchell followed it into the theater, past an empty candy counter to the right-side aisle. The voice told him to hold it there, facing in toward the seats.

  Then the black man with the stocking must have taken the flashlight, because as the beam made a spot down the aisle in front of him, it was the black man's voice, close behind him, that said, "Where you like to sit, man? Take a seat."

  Mitchell wondered if one place was better to sit than another. If it made any difference. If he was going to sit here or if he was going to do something. He walked about a third of the way down the aisle and into a row, taking the second seat. Behind him, maybe two rows, he heard a seat go down, hitting hard.

  "I'm right here, baby, case you 'fraid of the dark."

  A voice from above them, a familiar voice, coming from the projection room, said, "Can you hear me all right?"

  "We hear you," the black man said.

  Mitchell looked around. The black man was seated, head and shoulders without features. High on the back wall two squares of light showed the projection room.

  "Turn the fuck around," the black man said. "You make me nervous."

  For several minutes there was dead silence in the theater. Mitchell sat in darkness that had no form and reached to nothing, wondering what he was doing here, wondering if he could get up and walk out. He said to himself, They won't shoot you. They get nothing by killing you. But he was here now and he knew they would keep him here if he tried to leave. Probably. Unless he hit the guy first. The black guy. If he could get to him and belt him.

  But Mitchell didn't move. In the moment he might have, if he was ever going to try it, a bright square of light appeared on the screen and he could see the rows of empty seats now in front of him and the pale, high walls of the theater.

  "Titles would go here," the familiar lazy-sounding voice said. "And credits. Slick pictures presents . . . Tit in the Wringer. Or, how Harry Mitchell agreed to pay one hundred and five thousand a year and found happiness. Note, I said a hundred and five a year. Not just the first year, not just the second. No, every year of your life. But wait . . . here's the star of our picture, little Cynthia Fisher, not having any idea what the fuck is going on."