Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight

"They might've still been in the building."

"It's possible, but they did get out and the chances are they made it before the two outside guys got to the garage. Burdon called the Broward sheriff's office and they contacted I think Autotrak and they made Buddy's car, an eight-nine Olds registered in California to Orren Bragg. It was too late by then to lay out a grid and have local police cover it. Burdon did send out an all-points, but was sure they'd already switched plates or picked up another car."

"Burdon leave surveillance on the building?"

"Yeah, but took it off this afternoon. I stopped by DEA to look at Glenn Michaels' case file again. They had him on possession with intent but couldn't make it stick. The interesting part of Glenn's statement, he said he went up to Detroit to visit a friend and look into job opportunities-if you can believe that. They wanted to know where he stayed and who the friend was. Glenn said a guy named Maurice Miller, also known as Snoopy, a former prizefighter. I looked him up, Maurice was at Lompoc the same time Glenn was. In fact they walked out of the prison camp together-for some reason I see them holding hands.

They were picked up and sent to USP Lompoc, the max prison, where Glenn met Buddy and Jack Foley. It ties in with Glenn telling me, when we were in the car together, he had a big score lined up. Then from something else he said, it had to be in Detroit. I called Burdon-you know what he said?"

"You'll have to tell me."

"

"What's this have to do with our bank robbers?" He says they're on their way to California because 'they always run to familiar ground to hide out."

" Her dad said, "They do, huh?"

"Buddy's phone bill was in the apartment. It shows he called a number in Los Angeles at least once a week. Guess whose it is."

"His sister."

"How did you know?"

"You said guess, I guessed."

"His sister Regina Mary Bragg, the ex-nun who turned him in. Burdon called her this morning, five a.m. in Los Angeles.

She said her brother was in Florida visiting a friend, but didn't know his name or have a phone number for Buddy. What I want to know," Karen said, "is why he calls his sister every week after she turned him in."

Her dad said, "Well, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge."

"I think he's basically a nice guy, does it out of kindness."

"Or maybe," her dad said, "she has some kind of nervous disorder from years of celibacy and his phone calls keep her stable."

"Foley said she drinks."

Her dad thought about it and said, "But not at five o'clock in the morning, when you say Burdon called her. If she's any kind of alcoholic she'd have been hung over and trying to think straight, careful about what she's saying."

"I guess the time to talk to her," Karen said, nodding, "is when she's into the sauce."

Now her dad was nodding.

"Sometime in the evening, but not too late."

They went to Joe's Stone Crab for dinner.

When they got back Karen stayed in the kitchen to call Regina Mary Bragg. Eight p.m. in Los Angeles.

Her dad went to his chair in the screened-in room to watch television, a cognac next to him on the lamp table. He moved through channels with the remote, looking, until he came to Robert Redford and Max von Sydow in the library of someone's home, the man seated at the desk. Redford is pointing what looks like a Colt.45 at him. But Max, with a Walther PPK, a much more intelligent gun, has the drop on Redford and tells him to put his gun on the desk. It reminded him of Karen having lost the Sig Sauer he gave her three Christmases ago. The day she spent in the hospital he told her if she was a good girl she might get another one for her birthday, in April. She said, "I'll get my gun back when I find Jack Foley. What I need are shoes. But don't get me anything, okay? Really." Which was what she said every year. And every year she would be his little girl again unwrapping presents, eager, taking great pleasure in it, while his pleasure was watching her. Watching Max von Sydow now walk over to the seated man and shoot him in the right temple, to Redford's amazement, and place the Walther in the man's hand. Forty years as a private investigator Marshall Sisco had never carried a gun or kept one in his office or home. None of his investigators did either, or Karen when she worked surveillance jobs for him: the cute girl following slip-and-fall and whiplash cheaters looking for insurance payoffs. They had talked about those times at dinner, Marshall trying to sell his little girl on the idea of returning to private investigating, run the office, make some real money representing big companies being sued-supermarkets and restaurants, hospitals, bike and car manufacturers… She wouldn't have to carry a gun or load her trunk with all that law enforcement stuff. She'd meet lawyers, doctors-nothing wrong with them necessarily if they were divorced. Why settle for some cowboy cop who drank too much and cheated on his wife? That's the way those hotshots were, all of them. Karen was a nice girl, well behaved in her own way; she listened to him at dinner, nodding a few times while picking her crab claws clean, and asked him if he thought Buddy and Foley would stick together.

"Wouldn't they be better off if they split up?" He thought, What're you gonna do? His little girl was preoccupied. She'd mention Buddy, but it was Foley she had on her mind. He said to her yeah, they'd have a better chance of making it if they split up. But if Buddy had something he wanted to do and needed Foley, and since Foley owed him..

Max von Sydow and Bedford are coming out of the house now.

Max turns to Bedford, who has just watched him commit a murder, and says, "Can I drop you?"

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 Begina Mary. She has a very quiet voice-like this, barely above a whisper.

"Yes? May I help you?" E-n'n-cia ting so I think she was definitely a little ripped. I took a shot, I said, "Begina, 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."