Elmore Leonard - Bandits

Right away he tried to think of a clever line, a quick, offhand comment. He would have said to Helene the first thing that came to mind: “Boy, you must really cook good.” For Lucy he’d try a little harder.

But then, when he saw the way she was looking at the car, not the least bit surprised, curiosity messed up his concentration. So he didn’t say anything. He angled across the one-way street to bring the hearse in close behind the limo. Then, just as Sister Lucy was saying, “That’s my dad,” a black guy in a tan chauffeur suit was getting out.

Giving Jack a crack at another line. There was another obvious one. But now he was thinking that if her dad rode around in a stretch limo this was a nun from a very wealthy family. Which he’d never heard of before. But could explain how she’d bought the VW in Nicaragua-something he’d been wondering about. Except she would have taken a vow of poverty along with chastity and obedience… And by this time it was too late to think of anything clever. She was out of the hearse as her dad made his appearance.

He came ducking out of the car quick and agile, that wiry kind who reaches his fifties with still a lot of boy in him. Jack saw his energy, then his confidence in the relaxed way he stood: arms open to his daughter but with the elbows tucked in, cocking his head now, holding that pose as he called to her. “There’s my girl. Sis, I mean to tell you, you look just great.” He seemed easy to type, coming out of a limo in his soft calfskin jacket and tailored jeans down on his hips, his cowboy boots. But Jack wasn’t sure if he looked like a retired rodeo star or a movie producer. He had seen movie producers on location in New Orleans, had watched them shoot in the Quarter realizing, shit, that’s what he should be, a movie actor. It was strange to see Sister Lucy going into a man’s arms, giving him a kiss on the cheek. He held onto her, patting her back with big hands for a man his size, a ring gleaming there, which Jack squinted to appraise. Now they were talking face to face-she didn’t have his nose-her dad keeping a hand on her arm.

Jack turned to slide open the glass partition. He could see the crown of Amelita’s head, her body encased in the plastic bag. “You okay?” She murmured something and he saw her move. “Hang on. It won’t be long.” Amelita seemed like a very patient girl. She didn’t have Bambi eyes, but they were nice ones, a liquid brown.

The plan was to drop Lucy off so she could get her car. She’d said “my car,” which had sounded strange, vow-of-poverty-wise, another one to add to the list of questions he might ask her sometime. He’d take Amelita to the funeral home and Sister Lucy would call later with the next move. Some plan. Leo would be there by seven. It was now a quarter to-

Sister Lucy was motioning to him, her dad looking this way. Jack got out and walked over. She said, “Jack Delaney, my dad,” letting it go at that.

Her dad put his hand out and said, “Dick Nichols, Jack. It’s a pleasure.” Rough hand and a rough face up close; he had curly hair going gray but a dark mustache. Rodeo star, not a movie producer. “I don’t envy you your job, caring for the dead, but I guess somebody has to do it. My broker and’n accountant I had one time were buried from Mullen’s. I ‘magine you’ve heard of the Saint Clair funeral people in Lafayette…”

Jack said, “I don’t think so.” Her dad’s driver, standing by the car, was watching him. Young black guy with shoulders in that tan double-breasted suit.

“Way the oil business is causing heart attacks those people stay busy, I mean to tell you.”

Sister Lucy said, “My dad lays pipe,” with her dry tone, “and builds those offshore platforms.”

“Uh-unh, I got shuck of that, Sis, before I had to eat it.” He grinned, shaking his head, and looked at Jack. “There was a time-see, I started out I was selling oil leases, then I got into drilling and lost two, what you might consider, fortunes before I was thirty years old. Blowouts, both times, wiped me clean. But back starting out, man, I scraped, borrowed, signed notes on everything we owned to put two hundred fifty thousand in a lease block. Sis’s mom says, ‘But, honey,’ “-changing his tone to sound vague-” ‘if the deal goes bust how do we eat?’ I said, ‘We eat it, sweetheart. That’s the business.’ ”

When Sister Lucy said, “How is mother?” Jack looked at her. She didn’t sound too interested.

But then when her dad glanced at his driver and said, “Clovis put her on the plane to New York this morning, she’s just fine,” Sister Lucy seemed to perk up. Jack caught it.

She said, “To buy clothes, I imagine.”

Dick Nichols said, “She isn’t going all that way to buy toothpaste. You see the light on in my office late at night, that’s me turning out hundred-dollar bills. Hey, but it’s fun. I’m in the helicopter end of the business now.” He said to Jack, “Tell you what, I’ll lease you a 214 Super-Transport Bell for ninety-five grand a month. How’s that sound? Mullen could be the first funeral home in New Orleans to offer burial at sea. Take ’em out over the Gulf a few miles, the priest reads the prayer, sprinkles on some holy water, and out they go. Listen, I’d rather have that’n get taken to Saint Louis Number One and stuck in a vault. All those people crowded in there with their statues and monuments, uh-unh. I like the country, Sis, I always have.”

She said to Jack, “My dad lives in Lafayette and my mother lives here in New Orleans.”

“I have visiting privileges. If I call first and talk sweet.”

She said to Jack, “My dad can get you into Galatoire’s without waiting in line.”

Giving him that quiet look, something between them he could feel, as her dad checked his watch and said, Hey, he’d told them seven, and told Jack he and Sis were going over to Paul’s and have them some crabs and shrimp and good conversation; stay away from politics they might just find something they could agree on-her dad grinning-now that she had her head on straight again. What did that mean? Jack wanted to look at her, frown, make a face, but her dad had him locked in, shaking his hand, saying it was awful nice talking to him and hoped they could do it again real soon. There. When that was done and Jack was finally able to turn to her, she was still looking at him with that quiet look. She said, “My dad can even get into K-Paul’s without waiting in line,” touched Jack’s hand and said, “What do you think of that?”

Buddy Jeannette’s rosary was going on in the small parlor, the mechanical drone of fifty Hail Marys recited by family and those who hadn’t got out in time. Jack, watching from the front hall, counted thirty-seven sitting and kneeling, the priest leading the rosary from the prie-dieu at the casket-a Batesville made of hand-rubbed walnut with the Cameo Crepe interior. Buddy had apparently left his widow in good shape. She was older than Jack had imagined her, a petite little thing, sitting on the edge of a wing-back chair saying her beads, somewhat apart from the others. What was she thinking about with that faraway look, lips barely moving? He wanted to hold her hand and say something to her. He had seen more than a thousand people in these visitation rooms and was never sure who was mourning and who wasn’t. He wanted to tell her what a nice guy Buddy was, that everybody liked him, a lot…

Leo said, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

Jack turned from the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

Leo said, “I go up to the bathroom, there’s a girl in there brushing her hair’s supposed to be dead. I’ve never had that happen before.”

“If I remember correctly,” Jack said, “you’re the one sent me to get her. You said you’d talked to Sister Teresa Victor.”