Elmore Leonard - 52 pickup

Leo said, "You know this for sure?"

"No, I'm making it up," Alan said. "Leo, I saw the correspondence with the Internal Revenue office, their stationery, Department of Internal Revenue across the top. I saw his books, I saw his bank balance. The guy gives us five bucks and they want to know where it went."

Alan squeezed the joint between his fingernails and got a last suck out of it before he dropped the burned brown stub in an ashtray. He said, "If you want to know something, I'll tell you. I had a gut feeling the guy was too perfect. We wait for somebody like him like a guy waiting for the most beautiful chick in the world. She comes along, man, there she is. But it turns out her fucking breath smells or something."

"Jesus, all the time we put in it," Leo said. "And the girl-"

"That brings us to something else," Alan said. "The girl. This part I don't like, what we have to do." He looked directly at Leo Frank. "You know why?"

Leo had a puzzled look. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Leo, I asked him. He said it was you told him where to find me."

"I didn't! I never even gave him your last name!"

"Leo, I ask him. I said hey, who told you where I work? He says who do you think? Your friend Leo. His exact words."

"Honest to Christ, I didn't."

"Leo," Alan said, "the show's over, or almost over. I don't give a shit really, it's done. You let me down. Okay, live and learn."

Bobby was still watching Alan, wondering why Alan hadn't mentioned this before, first thing when they came in. He was wondering also why Alan was so cool about it. Alan should be stomping Leo with words, cutting him up; but he was passing it over like it didn't matter. Live and learn-shit.

"But," Alan was saying, "we do have a problem. Somebody got killed. He saw it. At the time he didn't know about us, but now he does."

Bobby Shy spoke for the first time. He said, "He knows about you two. He don't know about me."

Alan looked at him. "That's right. That's why you're going to have to do it. You can walk up to him, shake hands and blow him away. Man won't even know what hit him."

"For what?" Bobby Shy said. "What do I get out of it?"

"Peace of mind," Alan said.

"I look nervous to you?"

"All right," Alan said. "You want to take a chance? He knows she's dead, right? He knows three of us did it. Not just me and Leo, also a spade wears a stocking over his face and packs a thirty-eight Special. Bobby, you been to Jackson. I believe you lived there ten years, armed robbery? You really want to take a chance? His conscience gets to him, he goes to the police and they start ripping the fucking walls out looking for us. Hey Bobby, you want that to happen?"

Bobby Shy grinned. "Listen to the man. Wants me to clean up his mess."

"I thought you were the pro," Alan said. "One likes to pull the trigger."

"Giving me some sweet jive now."

"Shit, you walk up, ring his bell, he opens the door, it's done."

"That's how you do it, huh?"

"Why not?"

Bobby Shy nodded. "Maybe. Do it in the man's house. Make it look like a B and E."

Alan was grinning now. "Hey, possibilities, right? You like it?"

"I'll think on it," Bobby Shy said.

Alan had him; he could feel it. He said, "While you're thinking I'll do a time-and-motion study on the man and I'll let you know when. In fact, you want, I'll go with you."

"Hold my hand?" Bobby Shy said. "I appreciate it."

"We just have to stick together," Alan said, and looked over at Leo to include him. "I mean we start something, we have to finish it. Then-we got time, we got nothing else to do-we look for another guy. Why not?"

He got them out of there and sat down on a pillow to smoke another joint and relax. Jesus, all that footwork took it out of you. Slipping and sliding around, juking the spade and fat Leo right out of their socks. Shit, right out of their shares. But the guy could still be pulling something and Alan decided he'd better think on that a while.

The funny thing was he started thinking about the guy's wife again. At home, in the living room standing there mad with her legs a little apart. Getting in the car in front of the show, giving him the show, her legs apart again, nice glimpse of some inside thigh. He said to himself, Now come on, there's a role in this piece for Slim. How about it? He sucked on the joint and pictured her at home, alone again, and started to put something together.

They went out the door of the apartment building and walked around the corner toward Leo's car. Leo expected Bobby Shy to say something, say it and then maybe hit him. He never knew what Bobby Shy was going to do. He always felt uneasy when he was with him-quiet, easy-moving black dude could have a gun on him right now.

Leo said, "You going home or where? I'll drop you."

"I think over Doreen's," Bobby Shy said. "I got half my clothes there now. I don't know where I live."

He sounded calm. He didn't sound on the muscle at all. Leo said, "Listen, I'm telling you the truth. I didn't tell the guy where to find Alan."

"What difference does it make?" Bobby Shy didn't bother to look at him.

"It makes a difference. Alan's trying to blame me," Leo said, getting a little excited about it now. "If the guy told Alan it was me, then the guy's lying."

"Yeah, okay." Bobby Shy didn't see the point yet.

"And if the guy lied about me-for some reason, I don't know why he would-then he could be lying about not having any dough."

"Alan believed him. He seen the books."

"Let's say Alan also believes I told on him."

Bobby Shy still didn't look at Leo, but he began to put it together in his head. "You saying Alan is dumb to believe the man?"

"I'm not saying that. We know Alan isn't dumb. He's got a weird fucking mind, but he isn't dumb."

"We finding out maybe the man ain't so dumb either," Bobby Shy said. "So what you trying to say?"

"I'm saying either Alan's lying or the man is."

Bobby Shy walked on a few paces, thinking about it, before he said, "Or both of them."

"Or both," Leo said. "I thought of that."

"It's a shame, ain't it?" Bobby said. "Everybody trying to mess up everybody."

"We picked the wrong guy," Leo Frank said. "That's the whole thing. We picked the wrong fucking guy."

It took Bobby Shy the rest of the day to locate a whole lid of Colombian reefer. It was Doreen's favorite. He brought it to her and said he was sorry he doubted her word. No, he hadn't doubted her really, it was only he had to be sure. It turns out, he told Doreen, it was Leo told the man. Because that's what the man told Alan, and why would the man lie about it?

Doreen looked up at him with the eyes, sitting on the edge of the flowery couch, rolling two professional joints, and said, "You never know who you can trust, do you?"

"Deal we been working fell through," Bobby Shy told her.

And Doreen said, handing him a lighted joint, "I admire you, love, but please don't tell me about it. They some things I don't want to know."

"Man was going to pay us a hundred and five grand so we don't tell stories on him," Bobby went on. "But Alan talk to the man, he say he find out the man don't have any money. Owe it all to Uncle Sam."

"Alan told you that, huh?"

"He's the only one talk to him."

"You believe it?"

"That's where we're at," Bobby Shy said.

"Well, you could talk to Alan again, put a pillow over his face."

"Yeah, I could do that."

"Or," Doreen said, "you could go see the man."

"I could do that too."

"Ask him, how come if he's broke he's carrying all that money around in an envelope."

Bobby Shy held the reefer, about to take a drag. "You see that envelope of his?"

"He took it out of his pocket and put it back," Doreen said. "It was thick."