Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight

"I can't help it," Buddy said.

"I hear the Snoop call you White Boy, I'm trying to figure out why you let him."

"It's what they call me at Kronk, from when I trained there."

"You used to fight, huh?"

"Right here and out at the Palace."

"You any good?"

"You want to find out?"

Buddy said, "You ever done time?"

"He's asking do you gouge eyes," Maurice said.

"Do you bite off ears. White Boy's got his own moves. But that's enough of that shit. Look," Maurice said, taking Foley by the arm and moving off a few steps to stand with their backs to the table.

"What you worried about Glenn for? What's he know?"

"I thought everything," Foley said, watching the fighters jabbing and juking each other, one of them patient the way he moved in, the other taking wild swings and missing.

"Glenn knows everything we suppose to do tomorrow," Maurice said.

"Snatch the man he comes out of his club, drive home with him. Glenn could tell somebody that, yeah, but it don't mean shit. You understand? I changed the plan. Glenn don't know it, 'cause while we waiting for you he left. For whatever reason it don't matter. It ain't happening tomorrow."

Foley, watching the fighter, said, "This fight isn't going four rounds."

Maurice glanced over.

"Ain't even going two."

"You're not saying it's fixed."

"Don't have to fix nothing to know who's gonna win. It's in the matchmaking, how you match 'em up, who you bring in to fight the home boy. You understand?"

Foley kept his gaze on the ring.

"If it isn't happening tomorrow, when is it?"

"Tonight," Maurice said.

"Soon as we leave here. Stop home to pick up what we need and go do it."

Foley said, "Give me a minute," and motioned to Buddy as he turned to the table. Behind him, he heard Maurice say:

"You got two minutes, that's all. Make up your mind."

Foley turned back to him to stand in close.

"I wasn't asking permission. Buddy and Fre going up to the bar. We're gonna take however long it takes. We may keep walking. We do come back, it's understood this deal cuts fifty fifty half for us. How you cut your half is up to you."

"We can talk about it," Maurice said.

"No, that's the way it's gonna be, Snoop."

Foley walked away and Buddy followed him to the bar, this dark area away from the ring lights.

"He wants to do it tonight."

"What's the difference, tonight or tomorrow?"

"Glenn. He could be setting us up."

"Glenn's always a risk," Buddy said.

"We've come this far."

Aren told her dad she couldn't sleep. He said, "Is that right? I was doing pretty good myself, till the phone rang. There was nothing on the news about my little girl, so I guess I dozed off.

Now I see I've missed Letterman. What's going on?"

She told about tracking down Glenn Michaels and getting him to tell what he was up to, her dad saying, "That's some deal you offered him.

You let him go?"

"I bring Glenn to the First Precinct for stealing a car in Florida,"

Karen said, "have to explain to a lieutenant or a sergeant what I'm doing here? He could look at me and think-I don't know what, but probably think he should take over. You know what I mean? Not only he's never seen me before, I'm a girl waving a marshal's star at him, a fed trying to tell a street cop about a planned home invasion. He'd have to check me out. There'd be nothing to charge the other guys with; all I've got is a stolen car. So I let him go and called Raymond Cruz."

"The one you saw the other day."

"Yeah, and told him the whole story. I was concerned with jurisdiction. If these guys are breaking into a home in Bloomfield Hills, Oakland County, should I get in touch with the police out there, the sheriff's department or what? I didn't see anything federal about it, so why would I call the FBI. Right?"

"Sounds logical."

"I told you Raymond's an inspector, he's over crimes persons, crimes property and sex crimes."

"I recall that."

"He also heads the Violent Crimes Task Force and they're hooked into all the local police around, the county sheriffs and the Bureau. The Bureau's involved, also aTF., because in almost all of the home invasions they're busting into dope houses after cash and guns. That's all, in and out."

"But this one's different," her dad said.

"As far as we know or can assume, yeah. This guy Ripley's home in Bloomfield Hills isn't likely to be a dope house, even if he has done time. You remember Ripley?"

"Dick the Ripper, the inside trader. Yeah, I think he's the land would have cash in his house."

"Anyway, Raymond said it wouldn't matter where the home was, the crime would come under the jurisdiction of the task force, and the feds would be involved because of the kidnapping in the plan."

"What kidnapping?"

"They pick up Ripley tomorrow coming out of the Detroit Athletic Club-it's downtown, right around here. One of them gets in the car with him and the rest of the guys follow. That's kidnapping."

"Would the cops alert Ripley? Tell him it's gonna happen?"

"Raymond said no, it could blow their surveillance. He said something like this, you had to make a judgment call. The ideal way, let the guys pick up Ripley and go through with the robbery, and then take them coming out of the house. But if you have reason to believe Ripley's life might be in danger, you'd have to move before that. I told Raymond it looked like these were the same guys who hit a house last night and killed three people. He said then they'd have to take them before they got to Ripley's home and he's brought inside."

"But get them for the kidnapping," her dad said, "as soon as Ripley's abducted."

"Right, and they can take them state or federal, either way.

But this involves another judgment call. If these guys are too dangerous to let one of them get in the car with Ripley, then you don't have a kidnapping case. All you've got are some guys in probably a stolen car and probably with guns. But to get them even two years on a gun charge it has to be during the commission of a felony. So, do you let them go through with the kidnapping or not?"

Her dad said, "What if Ripley, for some reason, doesn't go to the club tomorrow? Or these guys decide to go directly to the house?"

"Tomorrow morning they'll scout the house, the neighborhood, and set up a surveillance, be ready for a change in the plan."

"And what will you be doing?"

"Raymond said I can ride with him tomorrow if I want. Be on the scene."

"But stay in the background?"

"Why do you say that?"

"When they're putting the cuffs on Olufsson, you want him to see you?"

"You're a riot."

"I mean Foley. I get him mixed up with that guy in Stockholm."

"Foley might not be involved."

"You hope."

"No, Glenn said Foley didn't show up for the meeting tonight, at the fights."

"How were they?"

"I didn't stay. I went back in to get a look at Snoopy Miller, so I could ID him, and left."

"Foley could still be there tomorrow."

"I don't know," Karen said, "he might."

"But you don't have to be there."

Karen said, "No," and paused.

"What would you do?"

"It wouldn't bother me any to see him busted. I look at his picture in the paper, I can't say I'm impressed."

"Yeah, but he doesn't look like that. It's an old mug shot."

"Well, does seeing, him cleaned up wearing a suit," her dad said,

"change the fact he's a loser? A guy who's wasted his entire life?

Yeah, I'd be there. I'd personally cuff his hands behind his back. And I'd make sure he hit his head getting in the police car."

"Thanks a lot.

"You asked."

Moselle watched from an upstairs window. She saw the Lincoln Town Car turn into the drive and pull up far enough for another car-an Olds, it looked like-to pull in behind it. The street had been plowed and cars left at the curb were buried in snow. She saw Maurice and White Boy come out of the Lincoln, and two white guys who looked like cops come out of the Olds. Where was Kenneth? Where was this Glenn?