Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

“Well, it’s natural, isn’t it?”

“Natural doesn’t mean you got to think about it all the time.”

“Is that right? What do you think about?”

“I got plenty of things,” Mr. Majestyk said. “For example, should I stay up here year-round? I mean, what’s in Detroit? I might as well live here. I mentioned keeping the place open for hunting season?”

“You said something about it.”

“Well, I got another idea. A hunting lodge.”

“Like Ritchie’s?”

“Naw, that’s a farmhouse he fixed up. You know what an A-frame is?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Like a Swiss-looking place-a steep roof almost comes down to the ground? For people who ski. They’re building them all over up north. Prefab.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“Take two of them,” Mr. Majestyk said. “Big ones, each sleeps about ten with the loft upstairs, and join them together with a central heating system.”

“You already got the cabins,” Ryan said.

“I’d have to put in new heating units. It gets twenty below, them little units in there would quit. No, I don’t mean here. There’s some property I know a guy wants to sell-off by itself, woods, a lake. You know the road there it goes through the migrant camp and up past Ritchie’s lodge?”

“Yeah?”

“Go past it about a half a mile, you see a sign, ROGERS, turn left and follow the road up the hill through the woods.”

“Out away from everything.”

“Right. Build the A-frames there, get twenty hunters, twenty-five bucks a day each-three full meals, all the mix and ice and everything included for twenty-five bucks a day.”

“That’d be all right.”

“In the heart of deer country. But you see with the lake you got the bird hunters too. These guys-Christ, I know a dozen guys I could call, they wouldn’t hesitate. And they all got friends who hunt.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

Mr. Majestyk stared at Ryan, then shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You’d make five hundred bucks a day.”

“Gross. Yeah, but I’d need a guy, maybe a couple of guys who could cook, you know, and knew how to handle guns.”

“What’s the problem?”

“No problem, just finding the right guys. You know anything about guns?”

“I used to sell them,” Ryan said. “Hunting rifles, shotguns, at this sporting goods store.”

“I thought you were a cook?”

“Yeah, I did that too. Fry chef.”

“Are you a good cook?”

“Sure. It was mostly these chefburgers, but lunchtime you’d have everything going-filets, fried eggs, pancakes, club sandwiches. The waitresses would call the orders and you had to keep it all going.”

“For a young guy,” Mr. Majestyk said, “I guess you’ve done a few things.”

“A few.” He told Mr. Majestyk about working at The Chef and the sporting goods store and at Sears but didn’t mention the carpet cleaning job because that was where he had met Leon Woody.

A friend of Ryan’s had the job first. The friend wanted to quit and go to electronics school, but he didn’t want to let his boss down, he said, so he told Ryan about it. Good pay, not too hard, these big, beautiful homes you work in, and the women, these rich babes, honest to God you wouldn’t believe it what some of them wear around the house, showing you the goodies, boy, some of them just asking for it. Ryan said, yeah? And his friend said, you know, bending over to do something and no bra on? Or these babes that let their housecoats come undone?

Ryan never did see anything like that. He seldom saw anyone at all except when they arrived and when they left. He realized after a few weeks that the guy had been pulling his chain about the women, but that was all right. He liked the job. What he liked about it especially was being in a strange house and seeing personal things that belonged to people he didn’t know. It wasn’t the same as being in a friend’s house. It gave him a funny feeling, especially when he was alone in a room, in the silence after he had turned off the machine, or alone going up the stairs to do a bedroom. It was a feeling as if something was going to happen.

Until this time Ryan hadn’t stolen anything since grade school when they used to steal combs and candy bars from the dime store. The only big things he had ever stolen and ever thought about were a baseball glove, hat, spikes, and a green jersey with yellow sleeves from Sears. It wasn’t too hard. Everybody on the 8th-grade team did it, making about four trips each at different times with raincoats or shopping bags, twelve guys and not one was caught, though two guys got the wrong color jerseys and when they went back, they were out of the green and yellow.

It was a time Ryan was working in a room alone that he thought of coming back to the house later. The woman happened to mention they were leaving for Florida the next day. Ryan thought about it while he worked, trying to imagine the feeling of being alone in the house at night. He began to wonder then if he had enough nerve to go into a house while the people were sleeping, or not knowing if they were asleep or awake or what. God, you’d have to be good to do that. But if you were sure of the layout of the house, if you were sure there wasn’t a dog, and if you had a good way to get in, it could be done.

He was working with Leon Woody when he thought of the way to do it. They would move the furniture out to the middle of the floor and shampoo the carpeting around the walls first, then move the furniture back and put aluminum foil pads under the legs. Ryan positioned an end table, reached into the draperies, and unlocked a side window. He pulled his hand out and saw Leon Woody watching him.

Leon Woody shook his head, grinning. Ryan said, “What’s the matter with you?”

Leon Woody said, “Nothing,” still grinning.

He didn’t bring it up until they were in the truck. He said, “Man, why would you want to get the company in trouble? You want to go in, pick a house we haven’t been to.”

Ryan told him he was crazy or didn’t know what he was talking about. Something like that.

“You think I don’t know?” Leon Woody said. “I’ve been watching you looking around. Let me tell you something. You go in where they’re home and sometime some hero is going to blast your ass, man. You go in when they’re not home, when you know it and have it in writing they’re not home.”

“You’ve done it?”

“Do it, man. I do it.”

“I’ve only done it once.”

“And about to do it again.”

“I wasn’t going to take anything.”

Leon Woody looked at him. “Then, why do you want to go in?”

“I don’t know.” It sounded dumb. “Just to see if I can, I guess.” It still sounded dumb.

“Like, man, a game?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“You know what you get if you lose the game?”

“That’s part of it. The risk. There’s got to be a risk.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Seeing if you can do it, I guess.”

“No baby, that’s not the other part. The other part is a white Mercury convertible and fifteen suits and twelve pairs of shoes and I don’t know how many chicks I can call anytime of the night. Anytime .”

“If you want money,” Ryan said, “that’s something else.”

“Man, it’s the whole something else. You going to tell me you don’t want it?”

“Sure, everybody wants enough to live on. I mean to live well.”

“Do you live well?”

“I get along.”

“Do you live well?”

“Not that you’d call, you know, comfortably.”

“Well, man,” Leon Woody said, “let’s make you comfortable.”

It was hard, when he thought about it, not to think of it as a game. A kick. He was breaking the law and knew he was breaking it, but he never thought of it that way. It was funny, he just didn’t. It was wrong to break into somebody’s house, okay, but he wasn’t taking anything they really needed . A TV set, a mink jacket, a couple of watches, all insured; maybe they’d get two-fifty, three hundred for the load. The insurance company pays off and the guy buys another TV set, another fur for his wife, and a couple of watches, everything at a discount because he’s a big shot and has all kinds of ins . The guy probably got the money to buy the stuff in the first place by screwing somebody in business. It was all right in business, but it wasn’t all right going through a basement window. Why not?