Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight

Her dad, reading the paper, said, "They're finally offering a reward, ten grand for information leading to the arrest…"

The doorbell rang.

"That's on each one. Somebody could make thirty grand."

Karen got up. Leaving the room she heard her dad say, "He's late," and something about missing his program. It was eight-fifty in the evening of the third day following the escape.

She opened the door for Ray Nicolet, smiling at her in the porch light.

He said he couldn't find the house, all the trees and vegetation, and came in saying, "It's like a jungle out there."

"It is a jungle," Karen said.

"I asked my dad if he remembers what the house looks like. He said, Teah, it's white."

"He needs a gardener."

"He has gardeners, he likes the seclusion. When my mom was alive you could see the house from the street. She was outside every day trimming, weeding."

"So, you having a nice visit?"

"He took the week off so we'd have time together. So far he's played golf every day. He watches Jeopardy during dinner and English murder mysteries after. Inspector Morse, Wexford…

You never see a MAC-10 or blood on the walls." She told Ray this bringing him through the dark house to a screened sitting room of chairs and sofas slip covered in green and red hibiscus patterns.

Her dad sat in soft lamplight with the paper. Outside, beyond the garden and a sweep of lawn, was the fifth fairway of the Leucadendra Country Club. Karen said, "Dad? Ray Nicolet?"

Watching them shake hands she said, "Ray's with the Violent Crimes Task Force, working on the prison break."

"I see that," her dad said, and Ray turned to Karen holding his jacket open to show the task force inscription on his T-shirt in red, her dad saying, "In case no one knows what he does."

Ray said, "The reason I'm late-" Got that far as her dad said, "Ray, answer a question for me."

Karen felt her body tense; but then decided it was okay. Her dad had the paper open looking for a story; he wasn't going to ask Ray about his personal life, his marriage, separation, was he still living at home, any of that.

"Here it is. It says in the headline, "I slept with a murT derer," says shaken Miami woman." She lives in Little Havana.

The guy comes to her door, says he's a rafter, just made it here from Cuba and doesn't know anybody or have a place to stay.

She fixes him pork chops and rice, the next thing you know they're making love on the sofa. She says he was very gentle."

"I spoke to her," Ray said.

"The guy told her he missed his little girl and she felt sorry for him."

Her dad said, "That's how you score now?" He looked at the paper again.

"Listen to this.

"Afterward, she went to sleep in the bedroom with her children." She says, quote, "I don't allow any man other than my husband in our bed."

The husband's out of town, working. The next morning she fixes the guy Kellogg's Corn Flakes for breakfast and sends one of the kids to the store to get him a can of Colgate shaving cream, regular scent."

"You see it," Karen said, "as a testimonial, an ad. Escaped con swears by Colgate shaving cream."

"Regular scent," her dad said.

"No, I was wondering how they know this guy's Chirino."

"From her description of him," Ray said, "down to his tattoos, a bee on each forearm. Stings like a bee-the guy was a fighter before he went up. The woman also said he stole her husband's gun, a twenty-two pistol, and some of his clothes." Ray said, "But listen, I have to tell you die latest."

"Wait." Karen's dad held up his hand.

"The woman's married.

She goes to bed with this guy because he misses his little girl and then tells the world about it. But you don't reveal her name, you protect her. It sounds like you're saying it's okay as long as her husband doesn't find out about it. Like the guy who cheats on his wife saying what she doesn't know won't hurt her."

Her dad picked up his drink and Karen said, "Why don't we let Ray tell us what's going on, okay?"

"I'm pretty sure it'll be on the news tonight," Ray said.

"We got one of them."

Her dad put his drink down.

"No kidding. Where was this?"

"Out in West Dade, near the turnpike."

"As soon as I saw you offering a reward…"

Karen said, "Dad."

"… I said to myself, those guys are done, it's over."

Karen said, "Dad."

He looked up at her.

She said to Ray, "Was it Foley?"

They'd had to run almost five miles along the cane before they came to the gas station on 27, climbed in the back of an empty truck, a big semi-trailer, and came all the way here that night to find this place called el Hueco, the Hole: hidden away in the weeds, a camp of vagrants, men who lived in shacks made from things thrown away, sheets of plywood, corrugated metal, old doors, seats from cars-all the men here Cuban; there were no women. Chino said he was from a raft that broke up but came ashore, thanks to Holy Mary Mother of God. He said he didn't know the other one who came-wearing the same clothes he did-and tried not to be seen with Lulu, ing him, "Don't follow me anymore. Stay away." By the third day the two of them worth twenty thousand dollars to any vagrant who could read a newspaper and think yes, maybe, why not, and walk one mile to the highway police.

It was Lulu who came to him this morning with the newspaper and accused him of being with the woman, showing him in the paper where the woman said she slept with a murderer. Chino said yes, of course, he went to find a woman; it had been eight years since he was with one. And Lulu said, "You've been with me." Hurt. But also with the anger beyond reason of a jealous woman. Perhaps the same way he was when he shot his roommate nine times in the head with a machine gun. Chino gave Lulu a shirt and a pair of pants from the woman's house and told him he'd see him later, when it was dark. Now he went to talk to a man who prepared cafe Cubano and smoked Cohiba panatelas listening to Radio Mambi on his ghetto box; a man named Santiago who trained fighting cocks, the roosters with their thighs shaved he kept behind chicken wire in cages; a man who had been here since Mariel, the boat lift and knew this world. Chino said to him, "You know the one you've seen speaking to me? He's a homosexual."

"I believe it," Santiago said.

"I know he's also a murderer and wants to kill me for a personal reason. But I can't go to the police, they know me from another time.

But if you go and tell them where to find the homosexual, they'll give you ten thousand dollars. Do you understand what Fin telling you?"

"Clearly," Santiago said.

"Our phone number and the address of the command post on NW 27th were in the paper, so the guy knew where to come."

Ray Nicolet sat at one end of the sofa now, close to Karen's dad. Ray would look up at Karen, standing-she wouldn't sit down-in her jeans and shirt hanging out, and then look at her old man sipping his drink as Ray told them:

"The guy, his name's Santiago, walks in with a dead cigar in his mouth and says he can give us two of the escaped convicts, they're hiding out in this squatters' camp way the other side of the airport. I'd been there before, raiding cockfights; it's like a junkyard with banana trees. We showed him a mess of pictures.

He points to Chirino and Linares and goes, "Him and him. When do I get my twenty-thousand dollars?" We told him to sit tight, we'd be right back. By six-thirty we're out there, FDLE, FBI, Metro-Dade, local cops; there were even guys from Fish and Game. Once we were in position, helicopters came in and lit up the camp like a football field. You heard roosters, you heard these people yelling in Spanish scared to death, they're coming out of the shanties with their hands up. The order was, you see anybody run, give them a warning, and if they don't stop on a dime, shoot. Linares ran right into a Metro-Dade cop, kept running and was popped four times. We looked all over for Chirino, under every rock, you might say, but he wasn't there.