Elmore Leonard: Out of Sight

"I know the difference," Karen said.

"You were in Lompoc USP, the federal penitentiary. I've delivered people there."

"Handcuffed to some moron?"

"We have our own plane. It still isn't any fun."

"The fog'd come in off the ocean," Foley said, "roll in and just sit there in the yard, sometimes past noon. So that's nine years, Angola and Lompoc. Add county time awaiting hearings, and that hole we just left, that's more'n a decade of correctional living. I'm forty-seven years old and I'm not doing any more time."

Karen said, "You're sure about that?"

"If I go back I do a full thirty years, no time off. Could you imagine looking at that?"

"I don't have to," Karen said, "I don't rob banks."

"If it turns out I get shot down like a dog it'll be in the street, not off a goddamn fence."

"You must see yourself as some kind of desperado."

He said, "I don't know," and was quiet for several moments.

I never actually thought of myself that way." He paused again.

"Unless I did without knowing it. Like some of those boys of yesteryear. Clyde Barrow-you ever see pictures of him, the way he wore his hat? You could tell he had that don't-give-as hit air about him."

"I don't recall his hat," Karen said, "but I've seen pictures of him lying dead, shot by Texas Rangers. Did you know he didn't have his shoes on?"

"Is that right?"

"They put a hundred and eighty-seven bullet holes in Clyde, Bonnie Parker and the car they were driving. Bonnie was eating a sandwich."

"You're full of interesting facts, aren't you?"

"It was in May 1934, near Gibsland, Louisiana."

"That's north Lou'siana," Foley said, "a long way from New Orleans, where I was born and raised. Once you leave the Big Easy you may as well be in Arkansas, where Buddy's from originally. He went up to Detroit to work in an auto plant once, but didn't care for it, moved to California. I remember seeing the movie-it was after I got out of Angola and started doing banks on my own. That part where they got shot? Warren Beatty and… I can't think of her name."

"Faye Dunaway. I loved her in Network."

"Yeah, she was good. I liked the guy saying he wasn't gonna take any more shit from anybody."

"Peter Finch," Karen said.

"Yeah, right. Anyway, that scene where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway get shot? I remember thinking at the time, it wouldn't be a bad way to go, if you have to."

"Bleeding on a county road," Karen said.

"It wasn't pretty after," Foley said, "no, but if you were in that car-eating a sandwich-you wouldn't have known what hit you."

"How'd you get the guard uniform?"

"Took it off a hack."

"You killed him?"

"No, hit him over the head-the most ignorant man I ever met in my life." He paused and said, "I should talk, after the stunt I pulled to get sent up this time. I'd just done a Barnett bank in Lake Worth. I'm on a side street waiting to turn left on Dixie Highway… It's a long story. The only reason I was even in Florida I was visiting somebody."

He paused and said, "I better keep quiet."

"You robbed the bank," Karen said, "in your own car?"

"I wasn't that dumb. No, but then I got in a situation with the car..

The dumbest thing I've ever done."

She felt Foley's fingertips moving idly on her thigh, his voice, quiet and close to her, saying, "You're sure easy to talk to. I wonder-say we met under different circumstances and got to talking-I wonder what would happen."

"Nothing," Karen said.

"I mean if you didn't know who I was."

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

"See, that's what I mean you're easy to talk to. There isn't any bullshit, you speak your mind. Here you are locked up in the dark with a guy who's filthy, smells like a sewer, just busted out of prison and you don't even seem like you're scared. Are you?"

"Of course I am."

"You don't act like it."

"What do you want me to do, scream? I don't think it would help much."

Foley let his breath out and she felt it on her neck, almost like a sigh. He said, "I still think if we met under different circumstances, like in a bar…"

Karen said, "You have to be kidding."

After that, for a few miles, neither of them spoke until Foley said,

"Another one Faye Dunaway was in I liked, Three Days of the Condor."

"With Robert Redford," Karen said, "when he was young. I loved it, the lines were so good. Faye Dunaway says-it's the next morning after they've slept together, even though she barely knows him, he asks if she'll do him a favor? And she says, "Have I ever denied you anything?"

" Foley said, "Yeah…" and she waited for him to go on, but now the car was slowing down, coasting, then bumping along the shoulder of the road to a stop.

Karen got ready.

Foley said, "I don't know anymore'n you where we are."

Still out in the country, Karen was sure of that. Maybe halfway to West Palm, or a little more.

She heard the other one, Buddy, outside, say, "You still alive in there?"

The trunk lid raised.

Karen felt Foley's hands on her, then didn't feel them and heard him say, out of the trunk now, "Where in the hell are we?"

And heard Buddy say, "That's the turnpike up there. Glenn's waiting with a car."

Glenn.

Karen said the name to herself and stored it away.

As Foley was saying, "How do we get to it?"

"Over there, through the bushes." Buddy's voice.

"You have to climb up the bank."

And now Foley, sounding closer this time, saving, "Come on out of there."

Karen pushed off, rolled from her right side to her left bringing up the Sig Sauer in both hands to put it on them, both standing in the opening, in the dark but right there, close. She said, "Get your hands up and turn around. Now."

They were moving as she heard Foley say, "Shit," and saw the trunk lid coming down on her as she fired the.38 pointblank, fired again and fired again through the trunk lid slamming shut, locking her in with the deafening sound, again in the close dark.

They had moved so fast in opposite directions she didn't think she'd hit either one. She listened, but didn't hear a sound now, pretty sure they were getting her shotgun from the car and would be right back.

Six UDDY SAID HE forgot she had a piece in there-all that was going on-even saw her throw it back in the trunk when she brought out the shotgun. He said to Foley they may as well leave her, they were leaving the car and had to leave her someplace anyway, what was the difference where?

It was already set in Foley's mind she was going with them.

He wasn't finished talking to her. He wanted to sit down with her in a nice place and talk like regular people. Start over, let her get a look at him cleaned up. Even if he had time he wouldn't be able to explain why he wanted to talk to her some more, that wasn't clear in his mind, so all he said was, "She's going with us."

Buddy gave him a funny look, a frown. He said, "Jesus Christ, what were you doing in there? I can understand you need to get laid, but you have Adele, don't you?"

"Get the shotgun," Foley said, "and her purse. I'd like to know who she is."

"I already looked," Buddy said.

"Her name's Karen Sisco, like the Cisco Kid only spelled different, S-i-s-c-o."

Foley said, "Karen Sisco," nodding a couple of times.

I wonder if she's ever called that, the Sisco Kid."

Headlights would come at them from the direction of West Palm and they'd keep to the narrow space between the car and the concrete abutment of the overpass. A sheriff's office green and-white went screaming past, gum balls flashing, then another one and another, a string of green-and-whites in the space of a minute, going out to chase after escaped convicts.

No time for a car sitting dark under an overpass.