Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

He had the feeling he shouldn’t move too fast-like reaching out to pet an animal that might take his hand off if he didn’t do it gently. All the wallets were in the beer case with all the names in the wallets of the people who had been robbed and a minute before she had been holding the case over him, ready to drop it on him. Now she was a girl sitting there, being a girl, trying to hook him the old way and pretty sure she could do it. And even turning on the fake girl stuff, she looked better than any girl he had ever seen before.

What Ryan did, sliding in beside her, he put his hands against the back of the chair and moved in to get his mouth on hers, his hands supporting him before sliding down to her shoulders, her hands coming up around his neck and fooling with his hair as she pressed against him. Their mouths came slightly apart, giving her just enough room to say, “Let’s go upstairs.”

He walked home carrying the beer case, along the beach, along the cold-sand edge of the water, feeling the night breeze and the soreness in his jaw and shoulders. He saw himself walking along the beach in the darkness, then saw himself standing by the bed buttoning his shirt and pushing it down into his pants, Nancy a soft, dark shape against the white sheets, lying on her back unmoving, one hand on her stomach, her legs a little apart, her eyes looking at him with a calm, nothing look. He had dressed in front of girls lying in bed before. He had said things that made them laugh or giggle or smile; he had grabbed for them again and wrestled with them and rolled off the bed with them and had slapped their bare tails and said, “See you,” and some of them he had seen again and some he hadn’t. He liked girls. He had never forced a girl to go to bed if she didn’t want to. He had never said, “Come on, if you really love me.” He had had fun with girls and the girls had had fun. He thought he had had fun with Nancy. Now he wasn’t sure. Did he have fun with her because he was with her or did he have fun only because he’d gone through the motions and only the motions were fun?

Every one of the other girls he could remember had been a living person and now he wondered if he had ever thought of Nancy as a person. He couldn’t picture her when she was alone. He couldn’t picture her yawning with no one watching. The broad in the backseat of the station wagon, the ten-buck broad with the two guys and the dollar-a-bottle beer-he didn’t picture her as a person, either. Thinking about it didn’t make sense and he became aware of himself again, the sand and the darkness and the surf coming in. He put the beer case down and cupped his hands against the breeze to light a cigarette. He saw his hands in the glow of the match. He saw himself walking along again: a hot dog Jack Ryan who had just notched up another one and was now having his smoke.

And Leon Woody says-

No, Leo doesn’t say anything. Jack Ryan says it. He says the hot dog only thinks he notched one up, like any hot dog who thinks he’s a hot dog. But what happened, he was notched. Hooked, notched, and set up.

Whatever he did now, he had to do something with the beer case first. He was approaching the Bay Vista and he thought of the vacant field next to Mr. Majestyk’s house.

Ryan was exactly the way Nancy imagined he would be. Very basic but in control, and thorough. Sort of a natural. Neat body-bone and muscle and good moves-which he had probably been working on since he’d first discovered there were girls in the world. He had to pose after, taking his time getting dressed, and she had pictured him doing that too.

Jackie was all right. It would be fun to grab the money and meet him in Detroit and spend about a week with him in Florida or on Grand Bahama and then, before breaking it off, take him home to meet Mother.

Lying on the bed, one hand on her stomach, her other hand playing with a strand of her hair, Nancy heard herself say, “Mother, this is Jack Ryan.” She saw her mother in the shade of the palm tree, her cigarette case, lighter, and vodka and tonic on the glass-top table. She saw her mother lower the thick novel to her lap, slip off her reading glasses, and hold them, interrupted, under her chin, her eyes on Ryan and her mouth forming the smallest gesture of a smile. Her head would be cocked very slightly, alertly, and she would seem to nod, a slight smile and a pleasant hint of a nod, but not giving away any of herself in the look: withdrawn, peering at him through little brown stones, observing him and sensing something was wrong.

“Jack’s from Detroit, Mother.”

Watch the eyes, the little brown stones. Watch Jack Ryan. He looks away from Mother. Mother isn’t bad-looking at all for a forty-four-year-old mother, chic and slick and wearing white and pearls to set off her tan. But Ryan isn’t sure about her. She hasn’t said anything, but she scares him. Little Mother pushes him off-balance with her cool. He looks around the patio. He puts one hand in his pocket to show he’s at ease and looks at the small, curved swimming pool and then toward the white stucco house, trying to think of something to say. It would be good, Nancy thought. It would be fun to bring him in and let him loose. It would be fun to watch Mother watching him: afraid he might touch something or come toward her, watching him calmly but afraid to move, sitting perfectly still and waiting for him to go away.

“Mother, this is Jack Ryan. He breaks into houses and almost clubbed a man to death.” That could shake her up a little.

Maybe. Though the thing with the two boys in Lauderdale didn’t seem to shake her-the two boys she had met at Bahia Mar and had brought home because her mother was out and only Loretta, the maid, would be there.

She was fifteen then. She could still see the two boys standing with their hands on their hips in shorts and tight football jerseys with numerals, 23 and 30-something. They were both over six feet and could chugalug a can of beer in less than twenty seconds, tall and slouchy with their hands-on-hips, time-out pose, but still little boys. She didn’t put them in the same class now with Jack Ryan. Size didn’t count. Anyone under 21 or who wasn’t married (a new qualification) or had never been arrested for felonious assault, was still a minor.

They sat by the little curved pool with three six-packs and a transistor radio and the boys beat time on the arms of their chairs when they weren’t drinking the beer. Loretta, black face and white uniform, would appear at the door leading into the sunroom, frowning and trying to catch Nancy’s eye. One of the boys said, “Your maid wants you.” But Nancy pretended she didn’t see Loretta and the two boys got the idea.

Nancy said, “It’s too bad we have to be spied on. If we were alone, we’d probably have more fun.” One of the boys said, “Yeah,” and the other one said, “Like doing what?” And Nancy said, “Like going swimming.” One of them said, “But we didn’t bring any suits.” And Nancy said, “So?”

She watched them each drink their beer while they thought of a way to get rid of Loretta and while Nancy knew all the time how they would do it. They couldn’t lock her in her room; Loretta had the key.

So they used the box spring and mattress from Nancy’s room, sliding them quietly over the tile to Loretta’s open door. She didn’t see them. When she did look up, and they heard her muffled voice inside, a wall of striped mattress ticking covered the doorway. They laughed, Nancy laughed with them leaning against the box spring while they brought chairs to wedge between the mattress and the opposite wall in the hallway. Then they ran outside and took off their clothes and dove in. The boys did. Nancy went to her room and put on a two-piece semibikini. She turned off all the lights in the house and the swimming pool lights too, hearing the boys yelling hey, what’s going on! But when she came out and they saw her, they grinned and one of them whistled and the other one said, “Hey, now, yes !” The wet young athletes in their wet, sagging jockey shorts.