Elmore Leonard - Bandits

Jack didn’t say a word, waiting.

“I said, ‘Did the colonel tell you where we met?’ My dad shook his head. ‘No, he didn’t.’ I asked if the colonel had told him why he wants to find the girl. My dad said, ‘No, I don’t believe he did.’ I said, ‘Do you want me to tell you why?’ He said sure. I said, ‘Because he wants to fucking kill her, that’s why.’ ”

There was a silence. Jack didn’t move. She kept looking at him and he said to her, “So you let him have it.”

“I gave him every murder and atrocity I could remember. My dad said, ‘You don’t believe that stuff, do you?’ I said, ‘Dad, I was there . I saw it happen.’ He didn’t like that. He said, ‘Yeah, but it’s a war, Sis. Awful things happen in a war.’ I said, ‘How would you know? You don’t fight wars, you finance them.’ “ She raised her sherry and took a sip. “So much for dinner with dad… I had softshell crabs.”

Jack said, “Lucy Nichols, you’ve come a long way from the nunnery.”

She said, “But not from Nicaragua. He’s brought it here.”

Jack said, “Bertie knew it was your dad, huh?”

“He’s given a list, rich guys in the oil business. He looks at the names, he knows Amelita and I flew to New Orleans, he finds out I live here. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, I think the idea of using my dad has enormous appeal. He could be in Houston raising funds, but he’s not, he’s here. New Orleans is a contra shipping point; they have arms and supplies stored here waiting to go out.”

Jack felt an urge to get up, move. He reached for a cigarette instead. One more. If he ever started smoking again it wouldn’t be Kools. He sat back looking at her legs stretched out on the coffee table now, ankles crossed. One sandal was loose and he could see the curve of her instep. He wondered what she was like, when she was a girl, before she became a nun.

She said, “Sometime, within the next few days, I have to get Amelita on a flight to Los Angeles.”

“That doesn’t sound too hard.”

He wondered if she’d ever suddenly with somebody gone swimming in her underwear at night, in the Gulf of Mexico off Pass Christian.

She said, “I suppose not. If I’m careful.”

He watched her draw on her cigarette, turn her head slightly to exhale a slow stream.

“And somehow, before Bertie gets ready to leave with his funds, I have to think of a way to stop him.”

Jack waited a moment. He said, “And”-feeling himself alive but not wanting to move now, not wanting to ruin the mood-“you’re wondering if a person with my experience, not to mention the kind of people I know, might not be able to help you.”

Lucy’s eyes moved, her quiet gaze coming back to him. She said, “It crossed my mind.”

He wondered if she had ever made love on a beach. Or in bed. Or anywhere.

“What you’re saying,” Jack said, “you don’t care if Bertie leaves…”

“As long as the money stays here.”

Jack drew on his cigarette, taking his time. Shit, he could play this. This was his game.

“What does he do with the checks?”

“They’re made payable to, I think it’s the Committee to Free Nicaragua. Something like that.”

“He puts them in the bank?”

“I guess so.”

“Then what? Where would he buy the guns?”

“I suppose either here or in Honduras-that’s where their arms depots and training centers are. But I’m sure he’d take American dollars and exchange them for cordobas to pay his men.”

“How? By private plane?”

“Or in a boat.”

“From where?”

“I have no idea.”

“Ask your dad.”

“We’re not speaking.”

“Both of you aren’t, or just you?”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Ask him where Bertie’s staying.”

“He’s at a hotel in New Orleans.”

“You’re kidding.”

“But I don’t know which one.”

“You’re gonna have to kiss and make up with your dad before we can start to move.”

Now Lucy was hesitant. “You’re saying you’re going to help me?”

“I’ll tell you the truth, I’ve never heard of one like this before. You’re breaking the law, a big one. But you can also look at it another way, that you’d be doing something for mankind.” Jack paused, realizing he had never used the word mankind before in his life. “I mean if you want to rationalize. You know, tell yourself it’s okay.”

“I don’t think we need to look for moral permission,” Lucy said. “I can justify this in my mind without giving it a second thought. But if the idea of saving lives doesn’t move you enough, think of what you might do with your share. I’d like to use half the money to rebuild the hospital. To me, that would seem all the justification we need. But the other half would be yours, if that’s agreeable.”

Jack took his time, wanting to be sure of this. “You’re telling me we’re gonna keep it?”

“We can’t very well give it back.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“He told my dad he’d like to raise five million.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jack said.

Lucy’s eyes smiled. “Our savior.”

JACK PULLED UPto the front entrance of the Carrollton Health Care Center. He was out of the hearse when the young light-skinned black guy dressed in white came running through the automatic doors waving his arms, telling him, “Get that thing out of there. Man, those old people look out the window, they have a fit and die if they don’t fall down and break their hip.”

Jack looked at the name tag on the guy’s white shirt. “Cedric, I’m picking up…” He had to get the note out of his suit coat pocket then and look at it. “I’m picking up a Mr. Louis Morrisseau.”

“He’s ready, but you have to do it ’round back.”

“How about the death certificate?”

“Yeah, Miz Hollenbeck has it.”

“Where’s Miz Hollenbeck?”

“She in the front office there.”

“Why don’t I go in and get the death certificate and then drive around back? How would that be?”

“But was Miz Hollenbeck say for me to tell you,” Cedric said, holding his shoulders hunched, the building behind him, then moving his head, giving it a slight nod to the side. “You see anybody in the window look like an alligator? That’s Miz Hollenbeck.”

Jack looked over at a row of front windows.

“You want people to die?” Cedric said. “You want that woman to climb on my ass?”

Jack said, “Hey, Cedric, turn around.”

“She watching?”

“Look, will you-the second window, there’s a guy in a maroon bathrobe. You know his name?”

“Where?” Cedric said, coming around casually. “In the bathrobe, yeah, that’s Mr. Cullen.”

Jack said, “I knew it,” grinning, and yelled out, “Hey, Cully, you old son of a bitch!”

“Oh, man,” Cedric said to him, “would you leave. Please?”

Jack took care of Mr. Louis Morrisseau, got him on a mortuary cot tucked away inside the hearse, now parked at the service entrance. He locked the door, hurried back inside, and there was Cullen waiting for him.

The bank robber. Angola celebrity.

“You’re out,” Jack said. “I don’t believe it.”

They hugged each other.

“My boy wanted me to stay with them, I mean live there,” Cullen said. “It was Mary Jo was the problem. She’d been thinking about having a nervous breakdown ever since Joellen run off to Muscle Shoals to become a recording artist… See, Mary Jo, all she knows how to do is keep house. She don’t watch TV, she either waxes furniture or makes cookies or sews on buttons. I never saw a woman spend so much time sewing on buttons. I said to Tommy Junior, ‘What’s she do, tear ’em off so she can sew ’em back on?’ I got a picture in my mind of that woman biting thread. First day I’m there, I look around, I don’t see any ashtrays. There’s one, but it’s got buttons in it. I go to use it, Mary Jo says, ‘That is not an ashtray. We don’t have ashtrays in this house.’ I ask her, well, how about a coffee can lid I could use? She says if I’m gonna smoke I have to do it in the backyard. Not in the front. She was afraid the neighbors might see me and then she’d have to introduce me. ‘Oh, this is Tommy’s dad. He’s been in the can the last twenty-seven years.’ See, it’s bad enough Joellen takes off with this guy says he’s gonna make her a record star. Mary Jo sees me sleeping in her little girl’s bedroom with the stuffed animals and Barbie and Ken and she can’t handle it, even sewing on buttons all day. She keeps sticking her finger with the fucking needle and it’s my fault. So I have to leave. Tommy Junior says, ‘Dad, Mary Jo loves you, but.’ Everything he says ends in ‘but.’ ‘You know we want you to be happy, but Mary Jo feels you’d be much better off in a place of your own, with people your own age.’ How do you like it? This’s the place of my own.”