Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

She brushed the hair from her eye, nodding toward Ryan’s table. “The one today. You know.”

“Son of a gun. I don’t believe it,” Bob Jr. said.

As Bob Jr. looked around, his broad back, the checkered shirt tight across his shoulders, was close to her and she rested her hand lightly on his arm.

“He’s taking his time about it, isn’t he?” the girl said.

“He’s taking more’n I gave him.”

“Maybe he’s decided to stay.”

“He’ll leave if I got to run him down the highway with a stick.”

“Maybe he’s not afraid of you.” She ran her hand up his arm to the shoulder. “Look what he did to the Mexican.”

“He doesn’t have to be afraid,” Bob Jr. said. “Just have some sense.”

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“If he isn’t out of here before we leave.”

“I’m ready anytime,” Nancy said.

Mr. Majestyk was studying his glass. He said, “Listen, what I was thinking-what if you came to work at the Bay Vista?” He looked up at Ryan, as if surprised at what he had said. “Hey, what about it? Forty bucks a week-no, I’ll pay you fifty, also you get room and board, nice room you can fix up.”

“Doing what?”

“Anything needs to be done. Painting, taking care of the beach, repairs. I got this arthritis in my hands. See them knuckles?”

“For the rest of the summer?”

“Rest of the summer, maybe longer. I’m thinking of staying open for hunting season. Get these guys up from Detroit, give them nice rooms, feed them. You ever cook any?”

“I worked in a place once. Like a White Tower, only bigger.”

“You cook, huh?”

“Fry chef.”

“After hunting season, I don’t know. If we had good hills for the skiers, but that’s all up by Petoskey.”

“Who’s there, just you and your wife?”

“She’s been dead two years. But my daughter, she lives in Warren, comes up a couple times a year with the kids. Ronnie and Gayle-boy, those kids. It was my daughter fixed the place up for me, you know, picked out the drapes and the studio couches and all the pictures, everything.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know.” The girl with Bob Jr., Nancy, was looking at him again and it gave him a funny feeling, as if, like the waitress in the red pants, she knew all about him. More than he knew about her. He watched her slide off the bar stool and he watched Bob Jr. stand up and look right at him.

Mr. Majestyk leaned into the table. “Do you want me to tell you something?”

“Just a second. I think we got company.” Mr. Majestyk straightened and looked up as Bob Jr., coming first, edging past the people at the bar, reached the table. The girl stood by the bar, waiting for him.

“What’re you trying to pull?” Bob Jr. said to Ryan. “Are you trying to get cute with me?”

“Jesus Christ,” Mr. Majestyk said. “Who would want to get cute with you?”

“Hi, Walter.” Bob Jr. was serious. He didn’t smile.

“Hey, where’s your Lone Ranger hat?”

“Walter, you mind if I have a word with this guy?”

“Let me see,” Mr. Majestyk said. “Yes, I think I would.”

Bob Jr. was looking at Ryan, not listening to Majestyk. “You know what I told you this morning. I said at the time I wasn’t going to tell you again.”

“Then, what are you telling him for?” Mr. Majestyk asked.

Bob Jr. said to Ryan, “We better step outside a minute.”

Mr. Majestyk moved his hand across the table toward Ryan. “Stay where you are.”

“Walter, this is company business.”

“What company? Does he work for your company?”

“We paid him off and he agreed to leave,” Bob Jr. said. “On the strength of that agreement, I’m going to see he lives up to his end.”

“Hey, Bob,” Mr. Majestyk said, “don’t give me any agreement crap, all right? You paid him because you owed him the dough. Now he don’t work for you anymore and there isn’t anything you can do to make him leave if he don’t want to.”

“Walter, you’re a friend of my dad’s and all, but this is between me and him.”

Ryan finished the beer in his glass and poured it full again. He was keeping a good hold, but it was almost too much, and it would be easy to let go, Bob Jr. standing close to the table with his hands on his hips and his big silver cowboy belt buckle shining level with his eyes.

Ryan said, not looking up, “Why don’t you quit standing there? Why don’t you and your friend sit down and have a beer?”

Mr. Majestyk smiled. “Now, that’s a nice suggestion. Bob, what do you say? It’s early.”

“We’ve had ours. We’re leaving now and I expect this fella’s leaving the same time we are.”

Ryan looked up at him. He said, “Don’t press it, all right? Not anymore.”

“Listen, boy, if I didn’t have somebody with me, I’d pick you up and carry you out.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Ryan said.

Mr. Majestyk was watching him. His gaze shifted to Bob Jr. and he said, not hurrying it but before Bob Jr. could say anything, “I invited this guy to have a beer with me. I’m not through yet and he’s not through. Maybe we’ll have a couple more pitchers, maybe we’ll have ten more. I don’t know. But what I want to know is if you’re going to stand there until we’re finished.”

“Walter, I told this guy this morning what he had to do.”

“Fine, you told him. Now, Bob, either sit down or stand someplace else, all right?”

“You’re saying I’m butting in. Walter, I’m saying this guy and I have business.”

“Let’s say we’re both right,” Mr. Majestyk said, “and neither of us will give in to the other. Meanwhile you left that nice-looking young lady standing by herself. Is that nice, Bob? What would your father say? What would your wife say?”

Bob Jr. hesitated long enough to show them he wasn’t being forced into anything he didn’t want to do. And when enough time had passed, looking at Ryan and slowly moving his gaze to Mr. Majestyk, he said, “I’ll run her home, but don’t be surprised if you see me again.” He had to give Ryan another look before turning away.

The girl waited with her arms folded, watching Ryan, then looking up at Bob Jr.’s tight, serious expression as he came toward her. She said, “Wow,” and walked out ahead of him.

“Do you want to know something?” Mr. Majestyk said. His eyes were a little watery; he was feeling the beer, but he spoke quietly, well enough controlled. “You probably wonder why I want to hire you. Why you. Do you want me to tell you why?”

“Go ahead,” Ryan said. The guy was going to tell him anyway.

“This might sound nuts, I don’t know, but I saw the movies, right? And I talked to the sheriff’s cops about you and I said to myself, ‘That’s a good kid. He stands up. Maybe he’s had a rough life, bummed around, and had to work. No chance to go to college, no trade-‘ You don’t have a trade, do you?”

“Not that pays anything.”

“Right,” Mr. Majestyk said. “No college education, no trade. I think to myself, ‘What’s he going to do? He’s a good one. He’s got something other guys don’t have. The son of a bitch stands up. But listen, I know this. It isn’t easy always to keep standing up. I mean, it’s better if you got somebody to help you once in a while. You understand what I mean?”

Just picturing the girl standing there, waiting by the bar, and the way she looked at him before she walked out, gave him the funny feeling again.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“So I said to myself, ‘Do you want to see him throw his life away, bumming around, getting into trouble, or you going to help him? Give him an opportunity, a place to live, something to do.’ “