Elmore Leonard - Bandits

Cullen and Jack Delaney were walking along a wide hallway, past open doors and the sound of television voices, that would take them to the nursing home’s lounge: Cullen wearing a velour bathrobe over his shirt and pants, running his hand along the rail fixed to the wall; Jack feeling awkward, holding back to stay with Cullen’s slow pace. The hall smelled to Jack like a Men’s room.

They came to an old woman tied in a wheelchair. Jack saw her reach for him, her hand a claw with veins and liver spots. He slipped past her with a hip move and saw another old woman in a wheelchair, waiting.

“What do you mean, people your age?”

“I’m sixty-five. Mary Jo thinks that’s old enough.”

Jack touched the sleeve of Cullen’s burgundy velour robe. “What’re you wearing this for?”

“I can’t take a chance. I wear the robe and move slow, so I’ll look sick. You were paroled. I got a medical release. They call it de carceration prior to sentence termination, make it sound official. But I don’t know if I look okay they can put me back in or not.”

“Cully, if they gave you a signed release, you’re out. Christ, you had a heart attack…”

“Yeah, and they took me to Charity in leg irons and handcuffs, with a lock box over the cuffs in case I tried to pick ’em lying there with a oxygen mask on my face trying to fucking breathe. All the time I was in the hospital they had me shackled and chained to the bed, up until I had the bypass. That’s the way they do it. Doesn’t matter how sick you are.”

They came to the lounge that was like a church social hall with its tile floor, an array of worn furniture, hand-drawn announcement posters on the cement-block walls; a bunch of gray heads, some of them dozing, some watching television. “ ‘General Hospital.’ “ Cullen said. “That’s the favorite. Me, I like ‘The Young and the Restless,’ they get into some deals.” Jack steered Cullen to a sofa. A bare maple coffee table stood close, a small glass ashtray on it filled with butts. When Jack brought out his cigarettes Cullen said, “Lemme have one.” He said, “Kools, uh? I’m not particular; shit. I’m suppose to quit, but we all have to die of something. When I got sick up there I wrote to Tommy, I said, ‘Promise me if I die in this place you’ll bring me home to New Orleans, I won’t have to be buried at Point Lookout, Jesus, and never have any visitors.’ Next thing I know I’m in Charity.”

“Tommy come to see you?”

“Yeah, he comes. I’ve only been here, be a month tomorrow. Mary Jo never comes. I think she’s saying a rosary novena I don’t fuck up here and they have to take me back. With my cigarettes.”

“Can’t you leave if you want?”

Cullen thought about it, looking off. “I’m not sure. I guess I could. But where would I go?”

Jack hesitated before he said, “Maybe I’ve got something might interest you… the old pro, huh? You don’t look sick to me.”

“No, I’m feeling pretty good.” Cullen leaned toward Jack, lowering his voice as he said, “I’ll tell you something. Place like this, you wouldn’t believe it. There’s more pussy around here’n you can shake a stick at.”

Jack looked over the lounge, saw nothing but little bent-over ladies with gray hair, some of them tied into their wheelchairs.

“I think I’m about to get me some,” Cullen said. “See the one right across from us? The one reading the magazine? That’s Anna Marie; she’s in a private room. See how she sits with her legs apart and you can see London? That’s body language, Jack. I read a book on it. You can look at people and tell what’s on their mind. Like the body is speaking to you.”

Jack looked at little Anna Marie, who had to be at least seventy-five years old. “What’s her body telling you, Cully?”

“You kidding? Look. It’s saying, ‘Put it to me, kid, it’s been a long time.’ You know how long it’s been for me, since I got laid?… The last time was December the twenty-second, 1958. I went in my last bank January the third, 1959. Art Dolan, the fuck, breaks his leg going over the teller’s counter-I should’ve known he was too old-and I spend the next five months in Central Lockup, no bond. They knew I’d have left facing fifty to life, no chance of parole, and they were right. Oh, well, that’s what I get helping out a pal.” Cullen exhaled, sounding tired, his stomach filling his shirt in the robe hanging open.

Jack said, “I might have something to talk to you about. Depending if you’re up to it.”

Cullen, still watching Anna Marie, began to smile and leaned toward Jack again. “There was a woman, a new one that came in the other day. The story gets around how a young guy broke in her house, stole seventeen bucks she had in her purse, and raped her three times in three different places. I mean different rooms, on the floor, on the bed and somewhere else. The woman’s seventy-nine years old. I’m listening to these ladies talking about it. Anna Marie says, ‘Well, for seventeen bucks she sure got her money’s worth.’ You see what I mean? She’s got it on her mind.”

Jack said, “That’s interesting, Cully. I don’t doubt for a minute you’re gonna get Anna Marie to ring your bell. You have a nice way about you.”

“Well, I try not to give anybody any shit. You know. What’s the percentage?” Cullen’s gaze moved off and stopped. “You know who that is? Jack, look. The guy in the wool shirt hanging out? That’s Maurice Dumas. You’ve heard of him, Mo Dumas, one of the great trombonists of all time. He played with Papa Celestin, he played with Alphonse Picou, with Armand Hug… You’d see all those guys at the Caledonia Bar on Saint Philip. Go in there after a funeral you’d see every one of ’em there. You know what he does now? He goes in people’s rooms and steals clothes, puts ’em on. Go on over and look at him, he’ll have about three shirts on and a couple pairs of pants. He doesn’t think anybody notices.”

Jack said, “I’m looking for a guy that’s a little more professional, Cully. How many banks was it you’ve done in your life, about fifty? You know, it’s amazing, if I hadn’t stopped there in front and saw you in the window…”

“I think it’s sixty something. You get around these people you start to forget things. Old guy’s son comes in to see him, the old man looks at him, says, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ This simp says, ‘It’s me, dad, Roger. Don’t you know me?’ I think this particular old man is faking. That’s one way. Or you make excuses for your kids. Tommy Junior’s sold out, he’s scared to death of Mary Jo, a broad that goes through life sewing on buttons for something to do. But I don’t say nothing. What’s the percentage? She thinks I’m dying to live there, blow smoke all over her fucking house.”

“You know how to read people, Cully.”

“I knew when to get my ass out of a bank if it didn’t feel right. And I always looked like a customer, too. None of this going in with a shotgun and a ski mask. That’s the wild-ass amateurs. They go in and start screaming and everybody in the place turns around, they take a good look at the guys and then make ’em in a show-up.”

“There you are, what I’m getting at,” Jack said, “you’re a pro.”

“Yeah, but I’m not doing any more banks. They got tricks now, they hand you a stack of taped bills that’s hollow inside, with a dye in there that’s set off by some kind of a timer. I don’t know how it works, this fish was telling me about it. Not here, Christ, Angola. The teller picks the stack up off a battery plate in the drawer and the guy says ‘it starts to think.’ You put the take in your clothes or in a bag and as soon as you get outside, like in twenty or thirty seconds, the thing pops and you got red dye all over you. And tear gas, all this shit going off. It’s like you come out of there with a sign, I just robbed the fucking bank.”