Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

“Marta Diaz, the maid. Sister of Jesus.” Vivian pronounced the name Hay-soos.

Roland said, “Sweet Jesus working on this?” and pronounced it Jesus. “I never knew he had a sister. I never knew what he had. He don’t talk hardly at all.”

Vivian said, “Listen, all right? The recorder is in Marta’s room. Every night she takes the cassette out and gives it to Jesus.”

“Then what?”

“Then-he was bringing it here, but now he gives it to you and you listen to it. You write down the names of men she talks to. If it looks like she’s got something going with one of them, you find out about him, go see him, tell him Mrs. DiCilia would like to be left alone. You understand? You don’t hit anyone unless you ask us first.”

“For how long?”

Vivian shrugged. “Long as she lives, I don’t know. She’s not to see anyone in a serious way that she might go to bed with.”

Roland squinted, like he was looking into sunglare. “Grossi want her for himself?”

“It’s not his idea, it’s the husband’s.”

“The man’s dead.” Still squinting.

“Is that right? But people still do what he wants,” Vivian said. “He wants his wife to remain pure, true to him even after death, and we see to it.”

“That’s a good looking woman,” Roland said.

“Yes, very stylish.”

“And she’s not getting anything? Jesus, she must be dying.”

“Everyone isn’t a sex maniac,” Vivian said.

“You don’t have to be wild with the notion to want some poon.” Roland saw the poor woman alone in her house at night, looking out the window. “Maybe she has some boy sneak in, give her a jump.”

Vivian shook her head. “Marta says no one stays, they don’t go in the bedroom.”

Roland was thinking, You don’t have to do it in the bedroom. Shit, he’d done it in a car trunk, in sand, weeds, an air boat in the middle of Big Cyprus Swamp, one time right on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway like she was sitting on the railing… on floors-all kinds of floors, carpet, linoleum-on a table- He’d never done it on a glass table though.

Roland wanted to get it straight in his mind. “This is Frank’s idea not Ed’s.”

“Like he left it in his will to Ed,” Vivian said. “Watch her so she doesn’t fool around with anyone, ever.”

“Jesus-” It was a hard proposition to understand, cutting the poor woman off like that. But then these guineas did all kinds of things that didn’t make sense. Serious little buggers with their old-timey ideas about honor, the omerta -no talking, man, keep your mouth shut-all that brotherhood bullshit.

Roland said, “It seems to me, an easier way-why don’t Ed tell her, no fooling around. Here’s what Frank wants, dead or not, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

“Why do you ask questions?” Vivian said. “Ed doesn’t like the idea but he’s doing it, uh? For his friend.”

“But he doesn’t want her to know.”

“He doesn’t want to be involved,” Vivian said. “The woman’s also a friend. He wants her to be happy, but he has to do this to her. So he gives it to you because he gave his word to Frank. But he doesn’t want to be in volv ed in it personally. You understand now? God.”

“Who knows about the setup?”

“The three of us. See, he doesn’t even want to hear himself tell you about it. I have to tell you.”

“What about Jesus? He knows.”

“No, he thinks the woman is being protected.”

Roland liked that idea. He thought about it some more and said, “What’d Frank leave her?”

“None of your business.”

“I bet a big shit-pile of money,” Roland said. “And I bet that’s part of the deal. She starts putting out, she gets cut off, huh?”

“Pick up the tapes and listen to them,” Vivian said. “That’s all you got to do.” She rose from the table to walk over to her desk. It was not clean like Ed Grossi’s, it was a working desk with papers and file folders on it. Vivian picked up an envelope that was thick and sealed closed, no writing on it.

“Protect her,” Roland was saying, nodding, accepting the idea. “Keep all these dinks away from her who want to get in her little panties. All right, I guess I can do that.”

Vivian came back with the envelope and handed it to him, saying, “Roland”-reading his mind, which wasn’t difficult-“while you’re protecting her little panties, don’t try to get in them yourself. I told you, she’s a very good friend of Ed’s.”

“We’re all friends,” Roland said, ripping open the envelope, “that’s why we get along so good.” He looked at the money, counting through it quickly, then at Vivian. “I don’t get any extra? Shit, I just did six months at Butler, hard time, lady, and I pick up my paycheck as usual, huh?”

“Join a union,” Vivian said. “What’re you complaining to me for? You got eighteen thousand dollars there, back pay for your six months.”

“The way I see it, chopping weeds at Butler is worth more than that,” Roland said. “Way more.”

DURING THE TIMEMaguire was being held in the Wayne County Jail, downtown Detroit, he’d say to himself, If I get out of this-sometimes even beginning, Please, God, if I get out of this I’ll change, I’ll get a regular job, I’ll stay away from people like the Patterson brothers and never fuck up again as long as I live. At least not this bad.

Sitting there in his cell facing something like 15 to 25, Jesus, the scaredest he’d ever been in his life.

While over at the prosecutor’s office they could push computer buttons and Maguire would appear in lights on the desk-set screen.

CALVIN A. MAGUIRE, Male Caucasian, a date of birth that made him thirty-six, tattoo on his upper left bicep, Cal , in blue and red, a list of arrests going back eleven years, one in Florida, but no convictions.

An assistant Wayne County prosecutor looked at the screen, frowning. No convictions? The guy had stolen automobiles, broken into homes, business establishments, once attempted to shoot a man, apprehended with a concealed weapon, one willful destruction… and no con vic tions? Well, they had the guy this time. Two eyeball witnesses who’d picked him out of a line-up, two positive IDs, man. Calvin Maguire was going away.

The prosecutor’s office also had an impressive computerized light show on the Patterson brothers: Andre Patterson and Grover “Cochise” Patterson, both male Negroes, both with previous convictions going back to ages thirteen and fourteen, and both picked out of line-ups by the same two tight-jawed no-bullshit witnesses. Bye-bye Maguire and the Patterson brothers. The assistant prosecutor was going to trial happy. He didn’t see how he could lose.

Andre Patterson had come to Maguire with the deal. This man was going to pay them fifteen hundred each to go and take a hit at the Deep Run Country Club out north of Detroit. Mess the place up, but mostly mess up their minds, the people out there. Maguire didn’t get it. A man was paying them to hit a place?

Paying them and furnishing clean weapons. The man had some reason he didn’t like the place, or he wanted to pay them back for something, not anybody in particular, the whole place. Maguire said, At a club they sign for everything; there’s no money at a club. Andre Patterson said, But the rich people who go there have money; put it in their locker, go out and play golf. See, they could keep whatever they took. The man didn’t want a cut; it wasn’t that kind of deal.

Maguire was uncertain. What’s the matter with your buddies Ordell and Louis? Why me? And Andre answering that those two were away for a while. No, you my man, only man I know can do it cool, without a nosefull. Maguire told Andre he was doing fine without the thrills; he had a job he thought he’d stick with at least until the end of the year, then take off.