Elmore Leonard - Bandits

Jack said, “Cully, I’m not talking about a bank. This is much bigger than a bank.”

“I thought you were an undertaker.”

“I’m taking a leave of absence or I’m quitting. I don’t know yet.”

“I’m not doing any armored cars, either. Christ, I’m sixty-five years old.”

Jack said, “Cully, I’m looking at a score where if you plan it out carefully, as you know how to do, not miss anything that could blow up in your face, we walk off with five million. Cash.”

“Jack, what’s money? I got enough to last me the rest of my life, if I die Tuesday.” Cullen paused. “I can’t do another twenty-seven. I come out I’d be… Christ, ninety-two. Broads’d be saying, ‘Look out for Cullen, he hasn’t been laid in fifty-four years.’ ”

“I’m gonna get some more information and then… I could make you a proposition. If it looks right. But I think you have the head for this kind of a deal.”

“Speaking of which,” Cullen said, and gave Jack a nudge.

“What?”

“Head. I’ll see if Anna Marie wants to give me some. I hear it’s becoming the thing even outside, girls getting to like it. I mean nice girls.”

“You’re feeling pretty frisky, aren’t you?”

Cullen turned to look at him. He said, “Jack get me out of here, will you?”

At Mullen & Sons, backing the hearse toward the rear door, it opened and there was Leo waiting for him. Jack saw him in the outside rearview mirror, Leo motioning to him now to come on, hurry. By the time Jack had the hearse positioned, Leo’s face was right next to him in the side window, Leo tense, all eyes.

“Will you get out of there?”

“I would, Leo, if I could open the door without breaking your nose.” Leo stepped back and Jack slipped out from behind the wheel. “What’s the matter?”

“There two guys just came in. They want to see Amelita Sosa.”

“She isn’t here.”

“ I know she isn’t here, for Christ sake.”

“Leo, calm down. What’d you tell them?”

“I said she wasn’t here.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“They don’t believe me. They want to look around.”

“Couple of Latin dudes?”

“ I don’t know what they are.”

“Little black-haired fellas…”

“Jesus Christ, will you go in and talk to them?”

“Wait. First, what’d you say? She’s not here and never was? I hope that’s what you said.”

“I told them I don’t know anything about it, I wasn’t here yesterday. I was across the lake. I drove over there Saturday evening and didn’t get back till last night.”

“Did you sweat when you were telling ’em all that?”

“You think it’s funny. We could get in a lot of trouble doing this.”

“Doing what? We’ve never even heard of Amelita. Amelita what? No, sorry, nobody here by that name.”

“You don’t care-that’s the trouble, how we get involved in something crazy like this. You don’t care or have any feeling about this business.”

“Leo, I’ve been trying to tell you that for three years.”

He found Colonel Dagoberto Godoy in Buddy Jeannette’s visitation parlor, saw him from behind and then in profile and knew it was the man without ever having seen him before. It was in the way he moved, with a lazy, confident stride, like he was inspecting the premises and should have a swagger stick under his arm. There was even a military look to his tan, mod-cut suit, his black tie and aviator glasses.

Standing still the guy didn’t look very mean or nasty. If anything he looked like Harby Soulé, the husband of his old girl friend, Maureen; and Harby had always seemed to Jack to look more like a headwaiter than a urologist-whatever urologists looked like-with his thin slicked hair and little pencil mustache. The colonel was maybe five seven and would go about a hundred and a half. One thing that could be said in favor of this deal, all the bad guys so far were little fuckers.

Now the colonel was inspecting Buddy Jeannette, looking closely into the open casket. Concentrating as he was, he jumped as Jack said, “Pretty nice work, uh? You should’ve seen him when he came in.” Jack, gazing down at Buddy’s waxen face, stood next to the colonel. “I think we took ten years off him, not to mention how we had to, you know, fix him up.”

Close by, the colonel’s voice said, “Are you the one I should talk to?”

“His funeral’s tomorrow morning. Going out to Metarie Cemetery for his final resting place.”

“I ask you a question.”

Jack turned, looked at a glistening cap of hair before lowering his gaze to the man’s rosy-tinted glasses.

“I heard you. I’m the one you should talk to if that’s what you have in mind. What do you want to talk about? A deceased member of your family?”

“A deceased friend,” the colonel said. “You brought her here yesterday from Carville, the leprosy hospital.”

“I did? Or somebody else?”

“You or somebody-what difference does it make? I want to see her. Amelita Sosa.”

“We don’t have anybody here by that name. We have this gentleman here and that’s it. No, I take that back; we also have Mr. Louis Morrisseau. But no Amelita Sosa. I’m sorry.”

The colonel stared, giving him a haughty look, and said, “If you aren’ sorry, you going to be.” He walked off across the parlor. As he reached the open doorway he called out a name that sounded like Frank something. Frank Lynn? Jack, following him, wasn’t sure.

As he reached the opening he saw the Creole-looking guy from the Exxon station coming out of another visitation room. Shit, it was the guy, all right. The one with the nappy hair who stood directly in front of the hearse and didn’t say one word.

The colonel said the guy’s name again. It was “Franklin.” And then began speaking in rapid Spanish, ending it with a question. The guy frowned without changing his expression much and said, “Como?” The colonel began again in Spanish, then broke off and said in English, “Is this the one who brought Amelita from Carville or not?… Amelita , the girl yesterday.”

Jack watched the guy’s eyes come over to look right at him and hold without much of an expression-the same expression as yesterday, when he got out of the hearse and walked past the guy, that deadpan look that told nothing.

The guy, Franklin, said, “Yes, it’s the same one that drove the coach. But I don’t know if the girl was in it.”

There was something strange here. The guy had a distinct accent. There was no doubt in Jack’s mind the guy was some kind of Nicaraguan. But why would he have trouble understanding the colonel’s Spanish, if they were both from down there?

“He wouldn’t let us look in the coach to see if she was inside.”

“That’s enough.” The colonel snapped it at him and turned to Jack. “You drove to Carville. You pick up a body. All right, where is it?”

“Who said I went to Carville?”

“He did, Franklin. You heard him.”

“I think Franklin’s mistaken. Where’s he from?”

“Where is he from-he’s from Nicaragua. Where you think he’s from?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said, “that’s why I asked. How long’s he been here?”

Franklin was looking from one to the other.

“What are you talking about? What difference does it make?”

“Maybe, you know, we all look alike to him. Maybe the guy he saw resembled me.”

Jack believed the colonel would like to hit him with something.

“You going to say there was another guy look just like you, but in another coach went to Carville yesterday?”

“Well, you know the coaches, as you call them, all look alike. Am I right? Why couldn’t it have been another guy that looked just like me?”