Elmore Leonard: Bandits

Mario shook his head. “Not me, man.”

“Yeah, but what was funny, the guy’s talking about balls while I have his right in my pocket. Still, I never threatened him. Give me the keys or I turn you in. Never, not a word. Later on, the next time I saw him, he said he was impressed I never tried to act tough. It showed class.”

“Jesus,” Mario said.

“And now he’s dead.”

“You want another hit?”

“No, I’m gonna switch.”

Jack was at a table now, tired of standing. He looked up to see Leo coming away from the bar and noticed they’d turned the lights on. It was raining and looked greenish out on Canal Street, through the big plate-glass window, the sky pale green and everything else dark. Leo stopped and took a sip of the martini so he wouldn’t spill any of it. His thin hair was pasted to his head, his raincoat soaking wet, his expression, Jack saw, concerned, very serious.

“You okay?”

Jack thought of saying, Compared to what? But kept it simple and said, “I’m fine,” giving it just a hint of innocent surprise. He felt himself alert, his body floating comfortably while his mind buzzed with words and pictures, wide awake. He said, “How’s Buddy doing?”

“Buddy’s done,” Leo said, “ready to receive visitors.” He looked at Jack’s glass. “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“It’s a Sazerac.”

“When’d you start drinking Sazeracs?”

“I think about an hour ago. I don’t know-what time is it? It’s getting dark out.”

“Half past five,” Leo said. He placed his martini on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m driving over to the Bay. I told Raejeanne I’d be there for supper.” With his serious expression. “You gonna be all right?”

“I know I’m safe here,” Jack said. “I go outside I’m liable to get run over by a car.”

“You’re going to Carville tomorrow. You won’t forget, will you?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’ll be back by seven. There’ll be a rosary for your friend Buddy. Some priest from Kenner, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.”

“Something he always wanted,” Jack said, “a rosary.”

Leo said, “Oh, I had a call from Sister Teresa Victor at Carville a while ago. There’s somebody wants to go with you to pick up the body. You don’t mind, do you? Have some company?”

Jack said, “Aw, shit, Leo. You know I can’t talk to relatives, they’re in that state. You’re asking me to drive a hundred and fifty miles up and back, my head aching trying to think of words of consolation, Jesus, never smiling. Going to the cemetery’s different, you don’t have to say anything. Sometimes they even seem happy… Shit, Leo.”

Leo sipped his martini. He said, “You through?” and took another sip. “The one that’s going with you isn’t a relative, it’s a sister, a nun, who knew the deceased when she was in Nicaragua and, I think, brought her up here for treatment. I was still prepping your friend while Sister Teresa Victor’s telling me this on the phone. Then something came up, she had to cut it short.”

“The one I’m picking up is a nun? The dead one?”

“Look,” Leo said. “The deceased is a young Nicaraguan woman, twenty-three years old. I wrote her name down, it’s on the counter in the prep room. Also the name of the person that’s going with you, a Sister Lucy. You got it?”

“What’d she die of?”

“Whatever it was you can’t catch it. Okay? You pick up Sister Lucy at the Holy Family Mission on Camp Street, tomorrow, one o’clock. It’s near Julia.”

“The soup kitchen.”

“That’s the place. She’ll be waiting for you.”

“We run out of conversation we’ll say a rosary.”

“There you are.” Leo finished his martini. “You gonna be all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You won’t forget. One o’clock.”

“No problem.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea you stayed in tonight.”

“You still worried about me?”

“You see your old pal on the table, the next thing I know you’re eighty proof. Who drank the Sazeracs, Buddy or Helene?”

Jack smiled, feeling relaxed, wise, confident, in his favorite place to drink at the end of the day; rainy outside and growing dark, ideal conditions. He said, “You want me to tell you about Helene, don’t you? What it was like seeing her again. You’re dying to know, aren’t you?”

“I told you,” Leo said, “I was somewhat apprehensive when I heard.”

“Then you’ll be glad to know my heart didn’t leap.”

“How about any other area on your person?”

Jack shook his head. “The thrill is gone. She’s got curly hair now and it makes her look different. Hey, but, Leo?” Jack smiled. “Mmmmm, did she smell good. Had on a kind of perfume I know is expensive ’cause I picked up a bottle off a dresser one night in the Peabody Hotel, in Memphis, and gave it to Maureen.”

“Guilty conscience,” Leo said.

“Maybe. Maureen goes, ‘Jack, this costs a hundred and fifty dollars an ounce . You bought this? Tell me the truth.’ You know how Maureen looks you right in the eye? It was after I’d left Uncle Brother and Emile-”

“After they fired you.”

“And everybody thought I was on the road selling coffee. There was a friend of mine did that, sold La Louisianne. I’d say good-bye to Maureen Sunday night and not see her again till Friday. I’m back in New Orleans or at the Bay while some conventioneer in Nashville is asking hotel security, ‘But how could anybody get in the room when the chain’s still on the door, when we woke up this morning?’ ”

“How did you?” Leo said.

Jack heard the clink of silverware-Henry the waiter setting a table-and in that pause realized he had never talked to Leo about details. Or told anyone before how he’d met Buddy Jeannette. Well, Buddy was dead. It was okay to tell about that night. But was he talking too much? He said to Leo, “The point I was making, I always felt Maureen suspected I was into some other line of work. I didn’t know shit about coffee other than you drink it. But I know she never said a word to anybody.”

Leo said, “Unlike another girl we could mention that we happen to be talking about, as a matter of fact.”

“You get something in your head, Leo, that’s it.”

Leo said, “Jack, you’ve always been a little crazy, but you were never dumb. The Jesuits taught you how to think to some degree, put things in their proper order. What I’ll never understand is how you could let that redheaded broad lead you around by your privates-”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“When you had a wonderful girl like Maureen dying to marry you. A girl that has everything, looks, intelligence, a good Catholic upbringing, she even cooks better than your mother or Raejeanne.”

Jack said, “I saw you working for your dad and her dad, Leo. I saw if I married her I’d become a Mullen and Sons son-in-law, and I wouldn’t need a Jesuit education to tell me I’d be stuck for good, committed. Like doing time.”

Leo said, “Maureen wouldn’t a cared what you did for a living. She was crazy about you.”

“Maureen wants security and everything to be nice. That’s why she married the doctor, that little asshole with his bow tie, his little mustache. But that’s beside the point,” Jack said. “You want to know why I didn’t marry Maureen? It wasn’t ’cause she was so sweet and nice. Hell, I could’ve changed that, got her to lay back and recognize the difference between bullshit and real life. You want to hear the real reason? Since I’m telling you my innermost secrets?”

“You mean since you’re shitfaced,” Leo said, “and won’t remember it anyway.”