Lawrence Block: The Girl with the Long Green Heart

“And got out in seven.”

I finished the Scotch. “Seven years and three months. I could have made it a year earlier if I’d put in for parole.”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t want it. Parole is a leash — you get out a little sooner but you have to stay on that leash, you have to report to some son of a bitch once a month, you have to stay in the state, you have to live like a mouse. I stayed very straight inside. I made every day’s worth of good time I could make. I never got in trouble. But I didn’t want parole. I didn’t want any leash on me that could yank me back any time somebody decided I belonged inside again. I’m out now and I’m staying out. Nothing gets me back in again.”

He didn’t say anything. He filled our glasses. I put out my cigarette and got up from the bed and walked over to the window. There were a lot of stars out. I watched them and said, “I guess you made a trip for nothing, Doug.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I’m not interested.”

He got up and came over and stood beside me.

“You didn’t even wait for the pitch.”

“That’s because I know I’m not swinging.”

“It’s a beautiful set-up, Johnny.”

“They always are.”

“This one’s gilt-edged. All triple-A, front to back. The least you ought to do is hear about it.”

“I don’t think I want to.”

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. We both worked on our drinks. He sat down on the chair again and I got back on the bed. When he started in again he came through from a new direction.

“You’re some kind of manager at the bowling alley, Johnny?”

“Assistant manager.”

“Sounds pretty good.”

“Not really.”

“The pay pretty decent?”

“Eighty-five a week. I should get raised to a hundred by the end of the year, and then it levels off.”

“Well, that’s not too bad.”

I didn’t say anything. He looked around at the room, which was not very impressive. I paid eight a week for it and the price fit the accommodations. I said, “But there’s no bars on the windows, and nobody locks me in at night.”

He grinned. “Sorry,” he said. “Listen, I didn’t mean to pry, but I couldn’t help catching the stuff on your dresser. What’s doing, some kind of a course?”

“I’m taking a correspondence course in hotel management.”

“Yeah?” He looked genuinely interested. He was pretty good at it. “Are those things any good?”

“This one isn’t. I did a little studying at Q, hotel management and restaurant operation. I figured I’d follow it up now. The gaff on this deal is only fifty bucks, so I can’t really get burned too badly.”

“You’re interested in that, huh?”

I nodded. “It’s a good life, with the right set-up.”

“You got any plans?”

“Nothing definite. There’s a place west of the city that I like. A roadhouse with rooms upstairs and a couple of cabins in back. The location is perfect, it’s right on a road that gets a lot of traffic and there’s not much competition around. The owner doesn’t know what to do with the place. He’s a lush and he just knows how to sell drinks and how to build himself a case of cirrhosis. With the right kind of operation the place would be a gold mine.”

“You sound as though you’ve thought about it. What would you want to do, manage the place?”

“I’d want to own it.”

“Is it for sale?”

“It would be, if anybody wanted it. Right now it looks like a losing proposition, because it’s not being run the way it should be. A person could swing the deal with ten thou in cash and good terms for the rest. Then you would need another ten to put into the place, and a contingency fund of at least five more. Say twenty-five thousand, thirty at the outside, and a man could have a place that would go like a rocket.”

“Is this place far from here?”

“A few miles. Why?”

“I’d like to have a look at it.”

I looked at him and started to laugh. “Now what the hell,” I said. “You’re hustling me pretty hard, aren’t you, fella?”

“Maybe. Is the place open now? We could take a run over there and grab a drink. My car’s right outside.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

He had a rented Corvair parked two doors down the block on the other side of the street. Bannion’s was about three miles south and west of the town. There were half a dozen cars in the lot when we got there, eight or ten customers inside, all but two of them at the bar. Bannion didn’t have a waitress working. We got our drinks at the bar and took them to a table in the back. We stayed there for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Three of the customers left while we were there. Nobody else came in.

I did most of the talking. The place had tremendous possibilities. Bannion had completely ignored the tourist business, and the only people who rented his rooms were couples looking for a quick roll in the hay. Hot pillow trade was always worthwhile for a place like that, but tourist trade was good, too, especially with all the skiers in the winter and all the vacationers in the summer.

The food potential was good, too. The place needed extensive renovation and remodeling, but the physical plant itself was ideal. I talked a blue streak. Rance couldn’t have cared less, but he knew enough to seem interested and I was interested enough myself to go on talking whether he gave a damn or not.

On the way back to my place he said, “Well, you sold me. You could make a go of it there.”

“More than a go. I could do damned well.”

“And you need how much bread? Twenty-five thousand?”

“Thirty would be better. I could probably do it on twenty-five, but that’s squeezing.”

“Got anything saved?”

“Not much.” I lit a cigarette. “I’m saving money. You saw the room I live in. I make eighty-five a week and take home a little better than seventy after deductions. I live cheap. No car, low rent. I can save half my pay with no trouble at all.”

“And you need twenty-five or thirty.”

“Uh-huh.”

I let it go at that. If I saved twenty-five hundred a year, it would take me almost nine years, counting interest, to save twenty-five thousand dollars. He could manage that kind of arithmetic as well as I could, and I didn’t like to spend too much time thinking about those figures. They didn’t do much for my enthusiasm. They transformed all the plans to the approximate level of prison dreams. When I’m outside I’m going to own eight liquor stores and ten whore-houses and sleep all day. That kind of scene.

He parked the car and came back up to the room with me. He said, “I’d like to outline this grift for you.”

“But I’m not on the grift any more. Why draw me pretty pictures?”

“I looked at your dream. Why not listen to mine?”

“We’d be wasting time. You won’t even tempt me.”

“Can’t I try?”

“I hate like hell to be hustled, Doug.”

“Who doesn’t?” His face relaxed in that easy smile again. “Look at it this way — I made a trip for nothing. That was the chance I took, right? I came unannounced because I wanted to see you. I have this thing hanging fire and I wanted you in it with me.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’d be only perfect for it. But the hell with that for the time being. The point is that I’m here, I made the trip, and if I can’t get you in it with me I could at least get you to give the thing a listen and tell me how you think it would play. You’ve been a lot of years on the long con, Johnny.”

“Too many years.”

“Well, a long time. You were an old hand when I was still heating up zircons and selling them as diamonds to jewelers who didn’t know better. I’m just getting into the big play.”