Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

Still softly, close, holding on, Ryan said, “What’s the matter?”

“I have a little sore there,” Virginia murmured. She sounded half asleep, drugged.

“A sore?”

“From my bathing suit. It rubs.”

“Aww, I’m sorry.” He eased his hand away, working it across her back, his fingers touching gently until he found the zipper of her dress. He began pulling it down and could feel her bare skin as it came open. She didn’t seem aware of what he was doing until her dress was open to her waist. His hand went in to rest on the curve of her hip and her eyes, inches away from him, snapped open.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She kept staring at him.

“Did I hurt you again?”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She kept looking at him.

“Just tell me why not?” Ryan whispered, gentle and patient.

Her voice was low, but very clearly she said, “Because it’s a sin.”

“What do you mean, a sin?”

“It’s a sin.”

“A sin-what are we doing?”

“You know what we’re doing,” Virginia said.

“It’s natural. I mean it’s the way we are-”

“If you’re married,” Virginia Murray said.

“We’re just fooling around.” Ryan smiled at her.

“To me it’s a sin.” Virginia hesitated before adding, in a hushed tone, “I’m a Catholic.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Ryan said. “So am I.”

“You are not.”

“I am. Honest to God.”

“Say the Apostles’ Creed.”

“Aw, come on.”

“If you’re a Catholic, you know the Apostles’ Creed.”

“O my God I’m heartily sorry-”

“That’s the Act of Contrition!”

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty,” Ryan said. “Creator of heaven and earth-come on, what is this?”

“Will you get off me, please?”

“For Christ sake, you started it.”

“Please don’t use that language.”

“You parade around without any pants on.”

Virginia pulled away from him, turning out of his arms, and put her hands over her face. Her hands muffled the words as she said, “Please leave.”

“What?”

“Leave!”

“God, you think I’m going to stay?” Ryan pushed up from the bed and straightened his pants. “I think,” Ryan said, “you ought to make up your mind, that’s all.”

“I thought you’d come back last night,” Nancy said.

Ryan was driving the Mustang. He glanced at her and brought his gaze back to the road. They had passed through Geneva Beach and were coming out on the highway south, out of tree shade into open sunlight. “I wanted to,” Ryan said, “but he was still hanging around.”

“So?”

“I mean he was watching.”

“So what if he was?”

“I didn’t want him asking any questions.”

“Are you afraid of him?”

Ryan glanced at her again. “No, I’m not afraid of him-why should I be afraid?”

“I love his house,” Nancy said. “God.”

“He likes it.”

“He’s the justice of the peace,” Nancy said. “Did you know that?”

“He told me you’re going to appear in his court.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“What’d you do it for? Run the two guys off the road.”

“Because they were asking for it, I guess.”

“You could have killed them.”

“I’ll have to decide how to handle your friend at the hearing,” Nancy said. “Should I be the sweet little girl or try to impress him?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’ve never seen him in court. Is Ray getting you a lawyer?”

“I suppose so. We haven’t discussed it.”

Off the highway, on the gravel road now, the Mustang trailed a mist of dust that rose and thinned to nothing in the sun glare. On both sides of the road the fields stretched flat and empty to distant trees.

“This has all been picked,” Ryan said. “They’re working down a ways toward Holden now and I sure hope Bob Junior’s with them.” He let the Mustang crawl along, the gravel rattling against the car’s underbody.

“Way over there”-Ryan pointed. “There’s some pickers.” He waited until they were a little farther up the road, coming even with the pickers. “See how you straddle the row? These people are the only ones who can work bent over like that all day.”

“You did it,” Nancy said.

“I like to broke my back. After the first day I thought I’d have to quit. I guess you have to be raised a picker to be any good. Billy Ruiz, little half-pint of a guy, he’ll outpick anybody.”

They moved along the ruts, Ryan squinting out at the field lying still in the August heat and at small groups of figures, far out, working slowly along the rows but appearing to be standing in one place.

“They got to get the crop in this week,” Ryan said. “A few more days and they’re too big for pickles and all you’ve got are cucumbers-”

“I love pickle facts,” Nancy said.

Ryan looked at her. “Have you ever thought about it?”

“All the time.”

“If the grower can’t get enough pickers, I mean, good pickers to get his crop in on time, he loses his shirt. That’s why he needs the migrants.”

“I love farm labor facts, too.”

The Mustang approached the barn and outbuildings and beyond them the row of one-story buildings that were weathered a clean gray and stood in the open like a deserted Army post left to rot. As they drew closer there were signs of life: the clothes hanging on the lines and the sound of children playing.

The children, in the worn, hard-packed field next to the barn, stood for a moment watching the Mustang, then came running after it, yelling in a mixture of English and Spanish. A woman in a T-shirt and blue jeans stood in the doorway of her home; another sat on a turned-over washtub wearing a man’s straw hat. There were women in the shade of the washhouse and a woman in the open sunlight, half turned, motionless, her arms raised to the clothesline of faded denim and khaki, her gaze following the Mustang and the children running in its dust.

Ryan could hear the children and could feel the gaze of the women. He said to Nancy, “See that, like a tool shed? That’s where I lived, three of us in there.”

“Nice.”

“I don’t know. It really wasn’t so bad,” Ryan said. “It’s true what you hear about migrant camps, the awful way the people live. But when you’re living here, I mean everybody in it together, you get used to it and laugh at different things and it really isn’t so bad. We’d play ball in the evening or a guy would get his guitar out and, you know, everybody would sing.”

“Sounds like fun,” Nancy said.

Ryan looked at her. “All right, it wasn’t fun , but it wasn’t so bad, either.”

“Are you ready?” She was pouring Cold Ducks into a stem glass. She had brought the bottle in a bag of crushed ice and two glasses.

“Not right now,” Ryan said.

The road curved out of the camp area and made a little jog and seemed to narrow with the trees closing in on both sides. About a hundred yards up the road they came to Ray’s place. It was in a clearing with a circular drive leading in and out, a two-story farmhouse that had been faced with green-stained logs and converted into a hunting lodge.

Nancy said, “Have you been inside?”

“No, this is the closest I’ve been.”

“He has deer heads and Indian blankets on the walls.”

“Well, it’s a hunting lodge,” Ryan said.

He turned into the drive and followed it in low gear as he studied the place. The drive was empty and the place looked deserted; still, he kept going, following the curved drive out again to the road.