Elmore Leonard: Freaky Deaky

Skip watched her turn to the desk as she asked the question and pick up a can he thought at first was bug spray.

"I got five grand. That was my price, all hundred dollar bills."

Not looking at him Robin said, "It can be worth a lot more than that."

She was standing at the clean white wall looking at the can, reading the directions.

"Well, sure, it was about ten years ago."

Robin said, "I mean there's a way to do it now with a much higher price tag."

Skip was thinking, Has it been ten years? He said, "It was at least a couple years before we met in L.A."

Robin said, "We come back to that." Staring at him.

"You know why? Because five days later we were picked up.

You said, "I don't know how anybody could've recognized us." Have you thought maybe they didn't? They were told where to find us?"

Skip said, "I thought of that, sure."

"For how long?" Robin said.

"I've been thinking about it for eight years. I made a list of names, anybody who had contact with us then or could've known or found out where we were. I've crossed out names until finally I'm left with two and they were at the top of the list all the time."

Skip watched her turn to the wall and begin to spray, her arm moving up and down and in half circles to form capital letters about a foot high, painting something on that pure white wall in bright red. She stepped aside and Skip was looking at:

"The hell's that suppose to mean?"

He heard Robin say, "Dark hair, brown eyes, nice body. On the staff of the Michigan Daily, sold ad space. How about Mark the mechanical mouth?"

"Mark Ricks," Skip said, "sure, with the bullhorn.

He'd lather up the students, get 'em chanting, the cops'd come storming across the quad and Mark'd split for the Del Rio bar. Man, you're bringing it all back.

"Two four six eight, organize and smash the state."

" Robin was spray-painting again, making waves, so Skip waited, thinking back. He could see a guy with dark hair and an Indian kind of headband on that corner by the Undergrad Library, the Ugli, yelling through his bullhorn, a guy with him beating on a tom-tom. Skip said,

"

"One two three four, Vietnam's the bosses' war." With his mom paying his way through school, huh?"

Robin's voice said, "He carried Chairman Mao's red book in the glove box of his red Porsche."

She was looking this way now and Skip saw she had painted another name under Mark: big

"Shit, I remember him," Skip said.

"Mark's brother. Was always in the bag or stoned."

"Bigger but dumber." Robin stood there admiring her work.

"Woodrow Ricks. We used to call him the Poor Soul."

Skip was nodding.

"I can see him. Fat, sloppy dude with curly hair. He'd do this little wiggle and pull his pants out of his crack. Kind of sissified."

"Afraid of the dark," Robin said.

"That's right, we'd turn the lights out on him and he'd have a fit.

Hey, but he always had dough, huh? Mark'd make him pay for everything."

"That's why Mark let him tag along. Mark would run out of money, he'd get Woody to call home and Mom would send a check. You remember their house? The indoor swimming pool?"

It gave Skip instant recall.

"That's where we did it underwater. Yeah, we'd go there weekends to party." He grinned at the memory of that big glassed-in room, voices echoing.

"Everybody'd get smashed, tear their clothes off and jump in the pool."

"Sometimes with our clothes on, " Robin said.

"Their mother used to lurk. Remember that? Never said a word to anyone, but you'd see her lurking. She was a boozer. Mark said she drank at least two fifths a day."

Skip closed his eyes against the naked-light glare, to rest them, and listened to Robin tell him how Mark and his mom didn't get along, Mark being a little smarty pants How Woody was her favorite, her little prince, nursed him till he was about sixteen and they started drinking together. Skip grinned at that. Heard how the dad was gone by then, divorced, kicked out without a dime, the money being on Mom's side of the family. Her old man had invented hubcaps or some goddamn thing for the car business and made a fortune. Then when Mom finally drank herself under and they had the reading of the will, guess what?

Skip opened his eyes.

"Mom's favorite made out."

"Woody scored something like fifty million," Robin said, "plus the house."

"And Mark got cut out for acting smart," Skip said, "picking on his brother."

"Well, not entirely. Mark got two million and blew it trying to put on outdoor rock concerts in Pontiac. Usuallyin the rain. He bought a theater and now he does plays and musicals. I think with Woody backing him," Robin said.

"It's a second-rate operation, but it's show biz. You know what I mean? Mark's a celebrity. People magazine did a feature on him.

"Yippie turns Yuppie. Sixties radical cleans up his act and. goes legit in regional theater." I couldn't believe it. They mention Eldridge Cleaver, what he's doing now, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, like Mark was in the same league with those guys."

"You're pissed off," Skip said, " 'cause you never got your picture in the paper. Or in the post office."

Wrong thing to say. Her eyes flashed at him.

"Sixties radical my ass. Mark was nothing but a media freak. He played to the TV cameras."

Skip said, being gentle with her now, "Sweetheart, that whole show back then was a put-on. You gonna tell me we were trying to change the world? We were kicking ass and having fun. All that screaming about Vietnam and burning draft cards? That was a little bitty part of it.

Getting stoned and laid was the trip. Where's everybody now? We've come clear around to the other side, joined the establishment."

"Some have," Robin said.

Look at her telling him that with a straight face. Skip stared at the red names shimmering there on the wall, flashing at him.

"Mellow me down with the acid," Skip said, "paint the names on big so they'll burn into my brain. You been taking me back to those days of rage and revolution, huh? I'm into a goof, but I can hear and think.

What I don't see are Mark and Woody snitching on us. They weren't into anything heavier than a peace march. What'd they know about our business? Nothing."

Robin said, "They knew I was meeting you in L.A.

Mark did. I saw him just before I left."

"Well, that doesn't mean he told where to find us."

"Skip, I have a feeling, okay? I know he did."

Man, she did not like to be argued with. Never did. It tightened up her face, put a killer look in her eyes.

"Okay, they informed on us and now they're sitting on fifty million bucks. You look around this dump you're living in and you feel they owe you something. Am I telling it right?"

"We feel they owe us something," Robin said.

"Fine. How much?"

"Pick a number," Robin said.

"How about seven hundred thousand? Ten grand for every month we spent locked up. Three fifty apiece."

"I was in longer than you."

"A few months. I'm trying to keep it simple."

"Okay, how do we go about getting it?"

"I ask for it as a loan."

"Seven hundred big ones. I can imagine what they'll tell you."

"Maybe the first time I call."

"Then what?"

"Then late one night their theater blows up."

Skip said, "Hey, shit," grinning at her.

"The subtle approach, blow up their fucking theater. I love it."

"The smoke clears, I try again."

"Pay up or else."

"Wo. This isn't extortion, I'm asking for a loan."

"That what you're gonna tell the cops?"

"I haven't threatened anyone."

"They're still gonna be all over us. Shit, me especially, I'm the powder man She was shaking her head at him in slow motion.