Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

Andre Patterson saying, Yeah, making the cock tails for the salesmen flashing around the hotel, listening to all the big deals, the cock tail music coming out the wall, standing at attention in your little red jacket, man, hair combed nice, yes sir, what would you like? And for the young lady?

Maguire thinking of a snowbanked Durant Mall in Aspen, deep powder on the high slopes, the rich ladies in their snow-bunny outfits. Then thinking of the Pier House in Key West, sitting out on the deck with a white rum and lemon, six in the evening. Places out of the past. Thinking of fifteen hundred bucks and what they could scrounge out of the lockers, maybe two three hundred more each. Thinking of islands and palm trees… get out of the cold, the slush, try the Mediterranean for a change, Spain, the south of France. Fifteen hundred guaranteed. Maguire liked to be outdoors. He liked to work outdoors, if he had to work. What was he doing in Detroit? Like a guilt trip, always coming back to Detroit, visit his mom and tell her yeah, everything was great. Listen to her describe her poor circulation and Detroit Edison rates and finally saying, Hey, thanks very much for everything, accepting the hundred dollar bill she always offered and getting out of there.

Andre Patterson saying, No security people. Walk in, pick up the wallets, watches. All right, everybody take off your clothes, get in the shower. Carry their clothes outside and throw ’em in the bushes-they all running around the club nekked.

Maybe wear ski masks, something like that?

Andre saying, Wear a tuxedo you want to. We going to the club , man.

That would be funny, tuxedos. It was good to keep it light, have a couple of drinks, smoke a joint before going in… lock the outside door after you… little details to think about. Watch the door that went from the locker room to the grill-

Maguire said, “I haven’t done this in a couple years. I mean I haven’t ever actually done it, Christ, gone into a country club.”

Andre said, “Who has?”

They went in on a Wednesday, August 16, four o’clock in the afternoon, when all the doctors and sales reps would be out there playing golf, rolling Indian dice for drinks, talking their locker room talk with all the obscene words they couldn’t say at the office.

They parked the van Cochise had picked up and went in a side door that led directly into the men’s locker room-without the ski masks, too hot-Andre Patterson wearing a knit cap and faking some kind of Jamaican-Caribbean British-nigger accent, Cochise wearing a red and white polka-dot headband that bunched up his Afro like black broccoli. Maguire had quit his job at the hotel cocktail lounge, had a photograph taken for his passport application, then let his dark, black-Irish beard grow for three days. Once in the locker room he picked up a green Deep Run golf cap and set it on low over his sunglasses. He and Andre carried 9mm Berettas, brand new; wild-ass Cochise went in with a sawed-off double-barreled Marlin to scare the shit out of the members, get their attention quick and make them behave.

Maguire was nervous going in, Christ yes, but he wasn’t too worried about the Patterson brothers overreacting, becoming vicious. There was a moment right in the beginning when they either grabbed control of the situation and it went smoothly, or they didn’t grab control and it could turn into a fuck-up with a lot of yelling and jabbing. That moment of surprise-

The golf club members talking loud, their voices coming from the shower and the rows of lockers, middle-aged men in their underwear and towels, shuffling around in paper slippers… looking up and seeing, Christ, a wildman, a Mau-Mau, twin blunt holes of a Marlin pointing at them, Oh, my God! Sharp little startled sounds, seeing two mean-looking black guys with guns-

Then silence.

God Almighty, was it a revolution or a holdup? Hoping all they wanted was money. Andre Patterson telling the members in Jamaican to be cool, mon, and go in the shower room. Herding those wide-eyed, slow-moving white bodies in there, guns touching naked flesh-go on, mon, move your chickenfat ass-like a scene in a high-class concentration camp, moving them into the gas chamber. Getting the shit-scared locker room attendant to start opening up the lockers. Cochise going through the shoeshine room and the service bar into the ladies locker room-yeah, let’s get everybody in here-the three of them actually grinning. Sure, because they knew they had it in their hands now. Unbelievable, Maguire thought, relaxing a little, already seeing himself and the Patterson brothers talking about it after, laughing, giggling at the scene, retelling parts of it one or the other might have missed.

Maguire dumping the clubs out of the golf bag, hanging it over his shoulder and throwing in all the wallets and watches, silver money clips with the club crest, a few pinkie rings, electric razors, hair-blower for Cochise-all the stuff he got out of the lockers. Unbelievable, the doctors and sales reps contributing something over twenty-five hundred in cash, like eight-fifty apiece.

Still talking about it the next day at Andre’s, eating Chinese food, reading about it in the paper, ARMED TRIO ROBS COUNTRY CLUB. Bet to it, cleaned it out. All those chickenfat doctors out on the links, a man lining up a putt not knowing at that moment he was getting robbed.

They had fun talking about it. Maguire borrowed Andre’s car, picked up his photos and a passport application at the post office, brought back some more scotch, shaved, cleaned up, and they went over the scenes again, waiting now for the man to send them the fifteen hundred each.

Talking about Cochise bringing the five women in through the service bar from the ladies locker room on the other side. Four ladies going to fat, holding their towels up around their titties. One not too bad, nice blonde, quiet, fairly calm, Maguire might’ve set up for a drink at some other time. Cochise pulling the towel off the last one, hearing her squeal as he poked her in the ass with the cut-down Marlin.

That was the highlight, making them all drop their towels or take off their extra-size undies once they were in the shower with the men. The men standing there trying to hold in their stomachs, looking at the bare-naked ladies, at their big titties and bushes. So that’s what so-and-so looks like without any clothes on, Jesus. Looking, making little mental notes. Couple of the women sneaking glances at the guy’s shriveled-up joints. The shower room full of bellies and dimpled asses that looked like they’d been kept in a dark cave for years.

Andre Patterson saying, “I advise you all to go join Vic Tanney quick as you can, else you gonna die soon.” Then saying to a little guy with muscles in his arms and shoulders, who kept staring at Andre, not interested in the naked ladies, “Don’t do what you’re thinking, man, or you gonna die right now.”

See, relaxed but very alert.

Cochise bringing in the two waitresses and the bartender, making them take their uniforms off and get in with the naked club members. Andre saying, Hey, I can’t tell the rich folks from the help. Funny guys, half-stoned but they knew what they were doing.

Maguire saying, “Something like that, you could sell tickets to, you know it? I mean there some people would pay to see a show like that, fucking X-rated stick-up.”

Maguire picking out a set of woods for himself, Andre taking a whole big bag of clubs that must’ve been worth eight hundred dollars, he said for playing at Palmer Park. Hey, shit, can you see it?

Sometime during the evening of the day after, Cochise went out to pick up some grass, trade in some of the country club items maybe.

He came back with about eighteen members of the Detroit Police Department, Christ, through the door with guns and kneeling on them before they knew what was happening.