Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

“That’s what you said to yourself.”

“Maybe not in those words.”

“I go to work at the Bay Vista.”

“Say till Labor Day, then we see what happens.”

“Janitor at a motel.”

“Not a janitor.”

“Handyman. I become your handyman and I’m all set.”

“Listen, I’m not giving you anything. You come to work for me you work. Maybe I find out you’re a bum and I got to throw you out.”

“If I take the job.”

“If you take the job, right.”

“You going to protect me from Bob Junior too? See nothing happens to me?”

Mr. Majestyk stared at him. He did not move or show anything in his eyes, though a line seemed to tighten down the sides of his nose. He sat hunched forward, not taking his eyes from Ryan, and finally he said, “You can stand up, but Jesus Christ you’re dumb, aren’t you?”

“I never asked you to stick up for me.”

“Forget it,” Mr. Majestyk said. “All right?” He said it quietly, his expression dead. “I’m going home. Come with me or stay, I don’t care. If you feel like it, think over what I said and if you want to work, come by my place tomorrow morning eight o’clock. If you don’t want to, don’t. Either way you’ll do what you want.”

He went to the bar to settle their bill and walked out without looking back.

“What’s the matter?” the Indian-looking waitress said to Ryan. “Doesn’t he feel good?”

“He went home, that’s all.”

“He said you could have whatever you wanted.”

Ryan looked at her. “I never asked him for anything.”

“Who said you did?” The Indian-looking waitress took away the empty pitcher and glasses. A few minutes later she watched Ryan pick up his bag and walk out.

THE PICTURE WINDOW of Cabana No. 5 looked out on the shallow end of the swimming pool, a deserted pool at nine in the morning, partly in shade, unmoving.

Virginia Murray had been up since a quarter to seven. She had eaten breakfast: orange juice, toast, and Sanka, straightened the kitchenette, made her bed, showered, removed the curlers from her hair and combed it out, and had put on her aqua bathing suit and terry-cloth robe. She had also written to her mother and father, telling them, oh, was it ever good not to have to get up and rush to work. She didn’t mind at all now the other girls not coming. It was more of a rest being alone.

Sitting on the couch across from the picture window, and with the floral print draperies drawn open, she could look straight out to the swimming pool and the cabanas across the way and see it all framed as a scene, a stage set, while she remained in the darkness of the audience. She thumbed through McCall’s . She looked at her watch: a little after nine. She pulled at the bra of her one-piece aqua bathing suit where the edge dug into her chest. She looked in the straw bag next to her to make sure the Coppertone was inside. And the Kleenex. And comb, which she took out of the straw bag now and went into the bathroom and combed her hair again in the mirror, her head turned, cocked slightly, the corner of one eye watching the movement of the comb, the eye now and again meeting the eye in the mirror and looking away. She returned to the couch and sat on the towel she had spread over an end section. As she picked up McCall’s again she saw two little boys standing at the edge of the pool.

The Fisher boys from No. 14, one of the cabanas facing the beach. In a few minutes their teenage sister would come to watch them; then the father would come and later on, about eleven, the mother. By that time most of the Bay Vista people would have appeared: the children first, the children suddenly everywhere, the adults coming out gradually, saying good morning and carefully choosing lounge chairs, moving them closer together or farther apart, turning them to face the swimming pool or the sun or away from the sun.

The Fishers would come to the pool.

The couple on their honeymoon would come to the pool. From No. 10, the cabana directly across from Virginia Murray’s.

The family with the little dark-haired children, probably Italian, would come to the pool and the mother would talk to Mrs. Fisher, the two women with heavy legs and beach coats and straw hats with ornaments in the bands that looked like pine cones.

The people in No. 1 would stay on their lawn at the umbrella table and from the shade watch their children on the beach.

The two young couples in No. 11-without children or away from them-who were building a wall of empty beer cans along the railing of their screened porch (Virginia Murray had counted and estimated over 100 cans by Sunday evening) would go down to the beach at ten; one of the men would come up for the Scotch-Kooler of beer just before noon; they would all come up for lunch at one, return to the beach at two, and begin drinking beer again at four, at ease, the men saying funny things and all four of them laughing.

The woman in No. 9, the redhead who wore makeup to the pool, would come out with her little girl about eleven, though the little girl would have come out several times before to watch the other children. Sometimes the little girl would beg to go down to the beach and play in the sand, but her mother would tell her, Cheryl Ann, it was too sunny today.

There were other people at the Bay Vista, in the cabanas and in the motel units facing the Beach Road, who would be at the swimming pool sometimes and at the beach sometimes. Virginia Murray recognized most of them, but she had not labeled them or decided anything about them.

There was Mr. Majestyk, too. He seemed nice. Friendly in a brusk, uneducated sort of way; walking around in his undershirt-always the undershirt and a baseball cap-always going somewhere to fix something or moving the diving raft farther out or driving his bulldozer around the beach.

And since yesterday morning, Jack Ryan.

There was no doubt in Virginia Murray’s mind now; he was the one in the newspaper picture with the baseball bat. It was amazing that she still had the paper, over a week old, and yesterday, wrapping her grapefruit rind in the paper, seeing him in the picture and then seeing him here. She had watched him all yesterday afternoon; the same one all right.

She sat on the couch in her aqua bathing suit, gazing out the picture window of No. 5, waiting for the day’s activity to begin and trying to think of who Jack Ryan reminded her of. Sort of the type who’d wear a black leather jacket. Sort of. But he wasn’t dirty or greasy-looking. It was the way he stood. Like a bullfighter. That was it-like the one on the poster in their rec room at home: Plaza de Toros de Linares and below it the bullfighter standing with his feet together, his back arched and his cheeks sucked in, looking down his chest at the bull twisted around his body.

She had not seen him speak to anyone but Mr. Majestyk and she wondered what it would be like to talk to him, though she knew they had nothing in common; he wasn’t her type. She pictured herself alone in Cabana 5. Late at night. She saw herself reading in bed, then turning off the light and lying in the dark. It wouldn’t happen right away. But after a few minutes she would hear the sound, the scratching sound-no, more of a creaking sound-the screen door opening. She would lie in the dark with her eyes open and hear someone moving about the front room. She would hear him in the hall, then see his dark shape in the bedroom doorway. She would wait until he was in the room before switching on the light. “Can I help you?” Virginia Murray would ask. It would be Jack Ryan, a kitchen knife in his hand as he came toward the bed.

She would have to think about the next part a little more. It was still not clear exactly what she would say. Her voice would be calm, not soothing really but having the same effect, and her eyes would hold his, showing not fear but understanding. Gradually he could relax. He would put the knife down. He would sit on the edge of the bed. She would ask questions and he would begin to tell her about himself. He would tell her about his past life, his problems, and she would listen calmly, not shocked by anything he said. He would ask her if he could speak to her again and she would touch his arm and smile and say, “Of course. But right now you’d better run off to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”