Elmore Leonard: Out of Sight

"You're gonna ruin your eyes," Foley said, "trying to read that inspirational shit in the dark. Leave, okay? I need to speak to my Redeemer in private."

Once the Elf was out the door Foley turned the lights off and went along the row of windows pulling old brown-stained shades down halfway, keeping it just light enough in here to see the shapes of the pews. He walked around to the other side of the chapel now and stepped through an opening to the wing they were adding on, the structure framed in and smelling of new wood, big open spaces where windows would be hung.

He looked around at the mess of scrap lumber the prison carpenters, not giving a shit, had wasted. A piece of two-by four caught his eye.

Foley had thought of using pipe for what he'd have to do-there was enough of it around-but he liked the way this piece of scrap wood was split and tapered to a thin end, like a baseball bat.

He picked it up, took a swing and imagined a screaming line drive sailing out to the athletic field where half the population-he could see them through the window openings five six hundred cons slouched around with nothing to do, not enough jobs here to keep them busy. It was going dark now, the sky showing a few last streaks of red, and there it was, the whistle: everybody back to the dorms for evening count. It would take a half hour, then another fifteen minutes to do a recount before they'd know for sure six inmates were missing. By the time they got out the dogs, Chino and his boys would be running through sugar cane.

Strung-out lines of inmates were coming from the athletic field now, passing through a gate to the prison compound.

Foley watched them thinking, You're on the clock now, boy.

In the chapel again he placed his baseball bat in one of the pews, on the seat, and took off his denim jacket to lay over it.

Chino would be down there in the muck telling his boys to be patient, making sure it was dark before they came out.

Foley turned, hearing the chapel door open. He watched the Pup come in and glance around before closing the door. No weapon on him, just his radio and flashlight, the peak of his cap down on his eyes, the man anxious. His hand went to the light switch on the wall by the door and Foley said, "Leave it off."

The Pup looked at him and Foley put his finger to his lips. It was happening now and he took his time.

"They're right underneath you, Pup. They dug a tunnel."

Now the guard was unhooking the radio from his belt.

Foley said, "Wait. Not just yet."

Two AREN LEFT WEST Palm at five, drove into the sunset past miles and miles of cane and had her headlights on by the time she turned into the parking area and sat facing the prison. Her high beams showed a strip of grass, a sidewalk, another strip of grass, the fence strung with sound detectors and razor wire, dark figures in white T-shirts inside the fence, brick dorms that looked like barracks, picnic tables and a few gazebos used on visiting days.

Lights were coming on, spots mounted high that showed the compound with its walks and lawns; at night it didn't look all that bad. She lit a cigarette and dialed a number on her car phone.

"Hi. Karen Sisco again. Did Ray ever get back?… I tried, yeah. He calls in, tell him I won't be able to meet him until about seven.

Okay?"

She watched prisoners massing at the gate from the athletic field, straggling through and then spreading out, moving toward their dorms in the spotlight beams. She picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Dad? Karen. Will you do me a big favor?"

"Do I have to get up? I just made myself a drink."

"I'm out at Glades. I'm supposed to meet Ray Nicolet at six and I can't get hold of him."

"Which one is that, the fed, the aTF. guy?"

"He was. Ray's with the state now, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, he switched over."

"He's still married though, huh?"

"Technically. They're separated."

"Oh, he's moved out?"

"He's about to."

"Then they're not separated, are they?"

"Will you try calling him, please? He's on the street. Tell him I'm gonna be late?" She gave her dad Ray's beeper number.

"What're you doing at Glades?"

"Serving process, a Summons and Complaint. Drive all the way out here …" Headlights hit Karen's rearview mirror, a car pulling into the row behind her. The lights went off, then came on again and Karen adjusted the mirror to deflect the glare.

"I have to drive all the way out here because some con doing mandatory life doesn't like macaroni and cheese. He files suit, says he has no choice in what they serve and it violates his civil rights."

Her dad said, "What'd I tell you? Most of the time you'd be serving papers or working security, hanging around courtrooms, driving prisoners to hearings…"

"You want me to say you were right?"

"It wouldn't hurt you."

"I'm giving the West Palm office a year. They don't put me back on warrants, I quit."

"My daughter the tough babe. You know you can always step in here, work with me full time. I just got a case you'd love, the rights of the victim at stake."

"Dad…"

"Guy pulls a home invasion, beats up an old lady and takes her life savings she has hidden away, eighty-seven thousand, cash. They get the guy and his lawyer cuts a deal with the state attorney, two to five and the guy will come out and make full restitution. He does fifteen months, gets his release and disappears. The old lady's son hires me to find him."

Karen said, "You do, then what? The guy pulls armed robberies to pay her back?"

"See? You like it, you're thinking. Actually, the old lady's son would settle for beating the shit out of the guy."

"I have to go," Karen said.

"When am I gonna see you?"

"I'll come Sunday and watch the game with you, if you'll call Ray."

"You get dressed up for this guy?"

"I'm wearing the Chanel suit-not the new one, the one you gave me for Christmas a year ago. I happen to be wearing it."

"With the short skirt. You want him to leave home tomorrow, huh?"

"I'll see you," Karen said and hung up.

Her dad, seventy, semi-retired after forty years in the business, ran Marshall Sisco Investigations, Inc. in Coral Gables. Karen Sisco, twenty-nine, was a deputy United States marshal, recently transferred from Miami to the West Palm Beach office. She had worked surveillance jobs for her dad while in college, the University of Miami, decided she might like federal law enforcement and transferred to Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton to take their criminal justice program. Different federal agents would come to the school to give talks and recruit, FBI, DEAKaren was smoking grass at the time, so she didn't consider Drug Enforcement an option. She thought about Secret Service, but the agents she met were so fucking secretive-ask a question and they'd go,

"You'll have to check with Washington on that."

She got to know a couple of marshals, nice guys, they didn't take themselves as seriously as the Bureau guys she met. So Karen went with the Marshals Service and her dad told her she was crazy, have to put up with all that bureaucratic bullshit.

Karen was five-nine in the medium heels she wore with her black Chanel suit. Her marshal's star and ID were in her handbag, on the seat with the court papers. Her pistol, a Sig Sauer.38, was in the trunk with her ballistic vest, her marshal's jacket, several pairs of handcuffs, leg irons with chains, an expandable baton, Mace, and a Remington pump-action shotgun. She had locked the pistol in the trunk so she wouldn't have to check it inside the prison. The Sig Sauer was her favorite, her evening-wear piece; she didn't want to have to worry about some guard fooling with it.

Okay, she was ready. Karen took a final draw on the cigarette and dropped it out the window. She straightened the rearview mirror to look at herself and right away turned her face from the glare: the headlights of the car behind her still on high beam.