Out of Sight

by Elmore Leonard

  • • •

  COMING INTO THE ROOM KAREN SAID, “THREE DAYS OF THE Condor, I love that movie. Do you know the title of the book it was based on?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Six Days of the Condor. I spoke to Regina Mary. She has a very quiet voice—like this, barely above a whisper. ‘Yes? May I help you?’ E-nun-ciating, so I think she was definitely a little ripped. I took a shot, I said, ‘Regina, this is Karen, Buddy’s friend in Miami?’ I said, ‘He told me where he’ll be staying and I wrote down the address, but now I can’t find it.’ I think it confused her. She said, ‘Oh,’ in that voice, ‘I don’t have any idea.’ And I thought, well, that’s it. But then she said”—Karen dropped her voice, getting a hushed tone—“’He called just a while ago to let me know he’s all right.’ I couldn’t believe it. I said he only left last night and he’s there already? She said, ‘Oh, no, he’s in Lexington, Kentucky.’” Karen said to her dad, “Are you ready? And then she said, ‘He won’t be in Detroit till tomorrow.’”

  Her dad was smiling at her. “Beautiful.”

  “I said, ‘Buddy’s awfully thoughtful, isn’t he, to call you.’ And you know what she said? ‘He’d better, if he wants to save his immortal soul.’ What do you suppose that means?”

  “Like she’s his ticket to heaven,” her dad said, “so he’d better keep in touch. Regina may be out of the habit, but still has a lot of old-time nun left in her. What else did she say?”

  “That was about it. I asked if the next time Buddy calls she could find out where he’s staying, maybe get the phone number. She said it wasn’t necessary for her to know that, he was on his honor to report to her.”

  “Well, nuns weren’t all sweethearts,” her dad said. “Regina sounds like the kind, they’d make you hold your hand out and then whack it with a ruler. Hurt like hell.”

  Karen sipped her drink, quiet for several moments.

  “You have to tell Burdon,” her dad said, “and you’d rather not. Am I right?”

  Karen looked up. She said, “The FBI has warrants right now for over six thousand fugitives. What do they need two more for?”

  Her dad said, “You’re kidding.”

  Karen sipped her drink.

  Her dad said, “Aren’t you?”

  • • •

  SUNDAY, IT WAS HALFTIME AT THE SUPER BOWL BY THE TIME time time Karen got home. She saw her dad trying to act like it didn’t bother him.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. What’s the score?”

  Her dad, with his beer and a bowl of peanuts, said, “Thirteen to seven, Dallas. It’s still a game, but not as close as it looks. The Cowboys had to kick a couple of field goals when they should’ve gone in.”

  “So they can’t be acting too arrogant.”

  “Give ’em time.”

  Karen said, “I went to see Burdon.”

  Her dad turned his head to look at her now.

  “He wasn’t watching the game?”

  “He wanted to, but had to get rid of me first.” Karen started out of the room and stopped. “Thirteen to seven, that’s a total of only twenty so far. What’s your bet, sixty?”

  “Sixty-one, based on a final score of forty-four to seventeen, the Cowboys in control all the way.”

  “So they’ll have to score thirty-one points for you in the second half.”

  “I’m not worried,” her dad said. “Last year, the 49ers and the San Diego Chargers scored a total of seventy-five points. The year before, Dallas over Buffalo, they scored a total of sixty-nine. Where you going?”

  “Get a beer. I’ll be right back.”

  It gave her dad time to think about their bet. The sports book money line had the Dallas Cowboys favored over the Pittsburgh Steelers by 13Þ. They both wanted the Steelers to win, so they were betting on the total number of points scored, whoever came closer, Karen with 45—she had to be dreaming—her dad 61. If Karen won, she could pick out a pair of shoes at Joan & David. If her dad won, she had to come here for a week and cook dinner, all his favorites—pot roast, Swiss steak, chicken paprikash. Her dad told everybody he knew Karen cooked like a grandmother.

  She came back with a long-neck Bud.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, it’s still the half. The experts are telling us what we just saw.” He waited for Karen to sit down on the sofa and then offered the peanuts. “So you broke down and told Burdon they’re in Detroit.”

  “Yeah, and he said, ‘You mean it’s possible Buddy is.’ He’s sure they’ve split up. Burdon’s theory, Buddy knows Detroit, he used to live there, so he could’ve gone back to hide out. But look at Foley’s record, the banks he’s robbed by his own admission are all in the South, the Southwest and California.”

  “Burdon,” her dad said, “is trying to watch the game while you’re talking?”

  “Standing at the door, he wouldn’t let me in the house. We could hear the game . . . I asked if he’d send me to Detroit. Absolutely not. Out of the question. For what? He’s already put out an all-points, the Detroit office knows who to look for. I said all I want to do is give them a hand. I know the guys we’re looking for better than anyone on the investigation. You could pass them on the street and not know them, but I would. All you have to do is tell your office I’m coming.”

  “Meanwhile,” her dad said, “dying to get back to the game . . .”

  “Right, he said okay to get rid of me. I leave in the morning, probably stay at the Westin.”

  Her dad was frowning a little, shaking his head. “You report to the FBI office up there, you know how they’ll treat you. A girl walks in—she’s gonna tell them how to find a couple of fugitives?”

  “If I walk in,” Karen said. “I’ve been there, remember? Twice I had to pick up prisoners.”

  “So they know you.”

  “Not the Bureau guys,” Karen said, “the Detroit cops. I have a friend now in Major Crimes, an inspector, I know will help me out.”

  “Married?”

  “They’re all married.”

  • • •

  THEY WATCHED MOST OF THE SUPER BOWL AT GALLIGAN’S, A BAR on Jefferson that was a block from the Omni, where they were staying.

  Foley had turned the game on in his room, Buddy brought a bottle of Jim Beam and they watched the first quarter from the chair and the bed until Foley said they should go to a bar, see the game with a crowd of people making some noise. So they walked to Galligan’s, Foley hunching his shoulders in his new overcoat, and joined four other guys from out of town, stuck here over the weekend, and a woman who said she lived in Greektown but didn’t look at all Greek. Blond, somewhere in her fifties. She said her name but Foley forgot it right away and she left at the half saying she had an appointment.

  The only reason Foley and Buddy liked the Steelers was that they didn’t like the showboating Cowboys, though they had little to strut about today. It wasn’t much of a game. Final score, 27­17, Dallas.

  Foley left the table to talk to the bartender.

  Buddy ordered a couple more Jim Beams with a splash, for the road.

  Foley came back and sat down.

  “They have fights at Cobo Hall sometimes, the Palace, he says where the Pistons play, and the State Theater on Woodward Avenue. He says you can walk from here. He’s never heard of Maurice Snoopy Miller. I asked him how come they don’t have fights at Joe Louis Arena. He said they do, it’s where the Wings play hockey. Then he said yeah, they’ve had title fights at the Joe, but no regular program. That’s what they call it, the Joe.”

  “You know Louis is from here,” Buddy said, “the old Brown Bomber. They have like a statue—it’s just his right arm and the fist—out there on Jefferson.”

  “The Brown Bomber,” Foley said, “it sounds racist. You have to be careful these days, you can sound like a racist without even trying. Anyway, the guy said if Snoopy Miller’s in the fight game we might find him at the Kronk gym, it’s where Thomas Hearns trained. I saw the Hit Man get the decision ove
r Benitez in New Orleans, I happened to be home. I asked him where the Kronk gym was, he said he didn’t know. Somewhere on the west side.”

  “I was an eastsider,” Buddy said, turning to the window. “Look out there. You ever see so much glass in your life? All those buildings over there, like giant tubes of glass. The tallest one’s the hotel, the Westin. There’s a restaurant and cocktail lounge on top, something like seventy floors up, turns around real slow—you don’t even feel it. You’re looking out at the Motor City, have another drink, you’re looking across the river at Canada. You want, we could go up there, get a good look at the city.”

  “From what I’ve seen,” Foley said, “it looks deserted, like everybody left town.”

  “It’s Sunday, Jack, everybody’s home watching the game. You want to go over to the Westin, see what’s there? Maybe go up to the top?”

  “If we didn’t have to go outside.”

  “It’s not that cold. You know what you do? Relax your body. Don’t hunch up, swing your arms, keep your blood moving and it doesn’t seem as cold.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I think it was my sister. She knows things like that.”

  “Living in sunny California. That’s where we oughta be, ‘stead of here at the fucking North Pole.”

  “Wait a minute,” Buddy said, “we don’t have to go outside. That glass thing that goes across Jefferson, it’s like a bridge you walk across from our hotel to the RenCen.”

  “What’s the RenCen?”

  “The Renaissance Center, those glass tubes over there. Tell me what you want to do.”

  “I don’t know,” Foley said. “What do you do in Detroit on a Sunday when you can’t think of anything and the banks are closed?” Foley sipped his drink. “I know where I want to go tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “The Kronk gym.”

  SIXTEEN

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING MAURICE SAID TO GLENN WAS, “UH-UNH, you don’t call me Snoopy. I don’t answer to that Snoopy shit no more.” Later on in the car he said, “I let White Boy call me Maury sometime if I’m in the mood. White Boy Bob’s my all-around man, my bodyguard when I feel I need one, and my driver.”

  Right now he was driving the ’94 Lincoln Town Car Glenn had brought from Florida and Maurice had fixed up with a Michigan license plate and what he said were clean papers, Glenn not sure now if it was his car or belonged to this dude wearing a lavender do-rag bandanna, this ex-con who used to be known as Snoopy.

  White Boy didn’t seem to pay any attention to Maurice and Glenn in the backseat talking about him. Driving out to the suburbs on a cold, sunless afternoon, all the way out Woodward Avenue from downtown to show Glenn Mr. Ripley’s house in Bloomfield Hills.

  “White Boy,” Maurice said, “never made it as a pro, even though he can be a mean and vicious motherfucker. See, but if a fighter works in and gives him a good shot, White Boy’s eyes cross and he don’t know where he’s at. I’m talking about in the ring, you understand, where you have to go by the rules. You mess with him on the street it’s a whole different situation. Look at him, the shoulders, a size twenty neck on him. White Boy Bob stands six-four and goes two-fifty, can put his fist through a plaster wall. I’ve seen it.” Maurice said, “White Boy,” raising his voice, “tell Glenn the reason you went down on that burglary that time.”

  Glenn saw White Boy Bob look up at the mirror.

  “I left my wallet in the house I robbed.”

  Glenn saw him grinning now in the mirror.

  “Come out of his pocket,” Maurice said, “as he’s climbing through the window. Takes the TV, the VCR, some other shit and leaves his wallet on the floor. The police come by to see him. ‘You lose this, Bob?’ White Boy goes, ‘Yeah, I guess I did,’ not thinking where he might’ve left it. Got sent to Huron Valley.” Maurice raised his voice again. “What was it, two years you done that time?”

  “Twenty-two months.”

  Glenn watched him looking at the mirror and Maurice said, “Watch the road, Boy.” He said to Glenn, “I like this Town Car. We can cruise the man’s neighborhood without getting the police or the private security people on our ass. Understand what I’m saying?”

  Glenn said, “Sure, right, they see Bigfoot driving around a black guy wearing shades and a lavender fucking bandanna, no, they won’t think anything of it.”

  Maurice said, “It’s lilac, man, the color, and the style’s made known by Deion and other defensive backs in the pros. I could be one of them living out here with doctors of my race and basketball players. Man, all you need is money. Here, this road we coming to . . . What is it, White Boy?”

  “Big Beaver,” White Boy said, grinning at the mirror.

  “White Boy can’t get over a road name Big Beaver. Okay, we come about fifteen miles from that whorehouse motel you staying at downtown. Now we in Bloomfield Hills. We go left a ways and then right. They no hills to speak of, huh, but lots of trees. Remember Lompoc, we had that nice view of trees and the warden had ’em all cut down?”

  “Eucalyptus,” Glenn said.

  “New warden,” Maurice said. “Cut down the trees and kept the yard closed till noon every day. I worked nights, see, in the bakery? Use to come off and do my training. So I couldn’t do it no more, work on my legs. You don’t have legs, you got no business in the ring.”

  White Boy said, “I let Maury hit me in the gut as hard as he can.”

  Maurice said, “Watch the road, Boy. Slow down, I think it’s the next street . . . Yeah, Vaughan Road, nothing but money. Here come Mr. Ripley’s house up on the left. Yeah, the brick wall . . . There’s his drive, right there.”

  Glenn turned his head to look out the back window and caught sight of a slate roof, glimpses of a Tudor-style country house through the trees, a huge place, Glenn saying, “He went by too fast.”

  Maurice told White Boy to turn around, in that drive there, and go slow so Glenn could see the house. “Okay, now creep. Big place, huh? We come by and see people trimming, cutting the lawn, so I send White Boy to go find the boss of the crew, ask was there any work for him. The boss say no, so White Boy goes around to where this houseman is washing a car, in back, and ask can he have a drink of water from the hose. The houseman’s white too, see. They get talking, White Boy ask him they any trouble with prowlers around here, car thieves and such. The houseman say they got a system, the man’s sleeping and hears a sound he don’t like? He press a button and every light inside and outside the house comes on. He wants to, he can press the button again, all the lights outside the house start flashing, a siren goes off and the police get a call, like a signal. The man has everything but U.S. Marines run out the garage at you. I’m thinking, we don’t need none of that shit. I make up my mind, if this Ripley place is worth going into, they’s only one way to do it. Which I believed from the time you first told me about Ripley was how to do it anyway.”

  “How?” Glenn said.

  “I’ll show you, soon as I get two more people I’m gonna need. Couple of young gym rats I know, hang out at the Kronk. Give ’em a hundred each they go anywhere I say.”

  “Wait just a fucking minute,” Glenn said. “I’m letting you in on this, not all your friends.”

  “You let me in on what?” Maurice said. “You come this time and tell me, finally, the whole story, how this man has all kind of money in there, stones, gold; but that was five years ago the man told you. What’s he got in there now? You tell me you gonna bring some people, couple old cons know what they doing. Then you say you change your mind, you ain’t bringing these people.”

  “And you told me,” Glenn said, “you know how to break and enter, only your expert here leaves his fucking wallet in the house.”

  “You learn from doing,” Maurice said. “You learn where the money’s at, then you do it. You don’t go in a house and toss it looking for valuables, slit open the mattress, that kind of shit. They young fellas do that call the Head Bangers, go in and bea
t up on old ladies for money they save in a coffee can. No—the way to do it, you go in where you know they’s money from illegal trade and the man ain’t gonna tell on you. Like Mr. Ripley, you say made his from illegal trade. But what he told you, not only was it some time ago, it might’ve been bullshit. Understand? The one thing visible this Ripley deal has going for it, I mean we’re sure of, is that big fucking house you have to be rich to live in.”