Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

Something like that. She pictured the two of them sitting on the beach, but it was a glimpse of a scene. That would be later on. There would be time for that later.

Now, sitting on the couch, she saw him coming out from between No. 10 and 11 carrying the long aluminum pole with the fine net on the end of it. She looked at her watch. Nine twenty.

She watched Jack Ryan dip the net in the water at the deep end and walk the length of the pool with it, skimming the surface to pick up leaves and dead insects. He said something to the two Fisher boys and they grinned at him and jumped into the water, trying to touch the net end of the pole. He moved gradually back to the deep end, intent on what he was doing, his elbows out and his arms rigid, holding the pole: a boatman, not a bullfighter, a dark gondolier with no shirt or shoes or belt-he should have a big wide black belt-and not khaki pants cut off above the knees, some other kind, whatever gondoliers wore. Virginia couldn’t remember. It had been four years ago with her mother and father, the year she had graduated from Marygrove College.

When the Fishers’ teenage daughter appeared, walking along the side of the pool, Virginia Murray got up and went into the bedroom. In front of the mirror she tied a kerchief loosely over her hair, the eyes not looking into the eyes in the mirror but aware of the fixed semiexpectant expression of her face. She turned to go out. But now she went to the window next to the bed, unlocked it, and tried to raise it from the bottom. No, it wouldn’t budge. It still wouldn’t budge. Virginia returned to the front room, folded the towel over her arm, picked up the straw bag, and stepped out of No. 5, letting the screen door close gently. Putting on her sunglasses, looking up at the sky and the trees this beautiful morning, she strolled over to the swimming pool.

“Just the bugs and crap,” Mr. Majestyk said. “You can vacuum the bottom tomorrow.”

“What else?”

“The beach. Rake it up where the kids had the hot dog roast. Maybe you should do that next.”

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

Mr. Majestyk looked at him. “Then the shower head in Number Nine. She says it just drips out. Leaks up in the ball joint.”

“I don’t know how to fix any shower.”

“You clean it out. You take it off and bring it over the shop, I’ll show you how to clean it. The tools are in the storage room next to yours.”

“What else?”

“I got to check. I’ll let you know.”

“I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”

“So get up in the morning. I eat at seven. You want to eat, you eat at seven.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mr. Majestyk said. He walked off between 11 and 12.

Ryan worked a flat, almost empty pack of Camels out of his pants pocket and lighted one with the aluminum pole angled down into the water from under one arm. The first drag tasted awful because he hadn’t had any coffee or anything to eat.

He started along the edge again, holding the aluminum pole rigid.

Virginia Murray said, “I wonder if you might have time-”

But he was past her, the pole angled into the water and the net skimming the surface.

She waited for his return pass. Almost to her lounge chair. Now.

“I wonder if you could look at my window?”

“What?”

“I have a window I can’t budge. It won’t open at all.”

“What one are you in?”

“Number Five.”

“Okay, I’ll look at it.”

“It’s all right when there’s a breeze from the front. I can leave the door open and just lock the screen.”

“I’ll look at it. Number Five.”

“When do you think you could?”

“Well, I’ll finish this, then I got another thing.”

“Thank you very much.” Her eyes dropped to McCall’s and she turned a page. She had spoken to him.

Ryan circled the pool, around the diving board, and moved down to the shallow end. That was enough bug-catching for one day. He carried the pole across the shuffleboard courts to the equipment storage room in the motel, mounted it on its wall hooks and picked up the toolbox, then cut across to No. 9 and knocked on the door. A little girl came and stood looking up at him through the screen.

“My mother’s still asleep.”

“I just want to fix the shower.”

The place smelled funny; it needed to be swept out and the kitchen cleaned. The little girl’s milk and cereal were on the table with an open loaf of bread and open jars of peanut butter and grape jelly.

“You had your breakfast?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I haven’t had mine yet,” Ryan said. “Hey, you know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

“Course.”

“Why don’t you make me one while I’m fixing the shower?”

The bedroom door was open, but he didn’t look in going past it. The bathroom was a mess, sand and dirty towels on the floor, the top of the toilet tank heaped with curlers and cosmetics. He had noticed the redhead yesterday, alone here with her little girl, not bad looking and built, but now he crossed her off as a possibility. He got the shower head loose with a wrench-easier than he thought it would be-and went back to the living room.

“Hey, that looks good. You’re a good sandwich maker.”

“My mother taught me,” the little girl said.

“It’s perfect. Listen, I’m going to take it with me, okay?”

He got out of there. He ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the way over to Mr. Majestyk’s, cutting around behind the cabanas, taking his time. The Bay Vista wasn’t a bad-looking place: two rows of identical tan-painted cement-block cottages extending to the beach and hidden from the Shore Road by a seven-unit motel. Ryan was in No. 7, the end one behind the office. All of the cottages faced in on the swimming pool or the patio or the shuffleboard courts or the barbeque grilles except No. 1 and No. 14; they looked out over the beach and rented for twenty dollars a week more than the other units.

Mr. Majestyk’s tan ranch house was on beach frontage adjacent to No. 1. His beige Dodge station wagon was in the garage next to his light-duty bulldozer with a scoop on the front. Mr. Majestyk was in the breezeway between the house and the garage, in the screened area he used as a workshop.

“Here’s the shower thing.”

Mr. Majestyk nodded. “You got the beach done?”

“I’m going to do that next.”

“I’ll show you how to clean this.” Mr. Majestyk wiped his hands on a rag and took the shower head. “It’s got to be freed up. Clean out all the corrosion and crap.”

“Maybe I better do the beach first, you know, before a lot of people get down there.”

“Yeah, what if the lady wants to take a shower?”

“I don’t think she ever does.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Well, what would she take a shower for now? Ten o’clock in the morning?”

“Go on do the beach. I’ll clean it. Listen, we eat at noon or six, depending whether I got to be in court.”

“I forgot you’re a judge.”

“J.P. Today we eat at noon.”

Ryan went to the garage and came back. “I don’t see the rake.”

“It’s around by the front.”

Ryan moved off again, rounding the corner of Mr. Majestyk’s house into sun and evergreen shade, the sun hot on the thermopane picture window, flower beds edged with stones painted white: an Army-post garden except for the birdhouse and the plastic flamingoes feeding beneath it.

He picked up the rake and went down to the beach and started cleaning up, raking the charred wood and wrappers and pop bottles left from the hot dog roast. He’d have to get a box or something. But first he’d work along the beach and make about five or six piles. It was good being in the sun, hot, with a nice breeze every once in a while. He put on his sunglasses and lit a cigarette. There weren’t many people around. The beer drinkers from No. 11 were still quiet, not talking yet. The couple from No. 10 were on a blanket, off by themselves. The little kids from No. 1 were playing in the sand and a few boys were fooling around with a plastic baseball and bat.