Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

“A good day,” Ryan said again.

There was seven hundred and seventy dollars even. They had been lucky. Even with the uneasy feeling before, it had come off all right. Even the amount seemed like a sign of luck. Seven hundred and seventy.

He counted off two hundred dollars. “For Frank,” Ryan said to Billy Ruiz. But he hesitated, held it. He counted off a hundred and handed him that much. He counted two hundred again. “This is for you.”

“Hey”-Pizarro was holding the bills open on the steering wheel-“what kind of cut is this?”

“Your cut,” Ryan said.

“How much you get?”

“Seven hundred.”

“And I get a hunnert, that’s all?”

“That’s scale for waiting in the truck.”

“Man, I told you. I owe Camacho four hunnert fifty dollars.”

“That’s right,” Ryan said. “You told me.”

Billy Ruiz was staring at him. Ryan felt it and looked at the bony, yellowish face with its stained-looking, wide-open eyes.

“I didn’t sit in no car,” Billy Ruiz said.

“Are you complaining, Billy?”

“I went in with you.”

“Would you have gone in without me?”

Ruiz said nothing. He stared out through the windshield now, watching the road and the car ahead of them. Ryan’s eyes dropped to the money, folding it, but he could still see Billy Ruiz. The dumb bastard; the dumb cucumber picker. Ruiz wouldn’t have gone near the house alone. He wouldn’t have walked past it. Dumb skinny blank-eyed little weasel that tells you all the places he’s been and how much he can drink and all the broads he’s had, with his pants too long and sagging in the seat, too dumb to know how dumb he looks, how skinny ugly baggy-assed dumb.

He peeled two twenties and a ten from the roll of bills and nudged Ruiz’s arm. Ruiz looked at him with the blank look. He looked down at the money and he grinned. He was happy. Fifty bucks. God.

Pizarro could shove it. He was through with them now and everybody was paid.

But it stayed in his mind. You never should have let them into this, he thought, then told himself to forget it. In time this would be past him and he wouldn’t worry about it or think about it again. Look at all the things you’ve done that you never think about anymore, he said to himself.

“Hey, this is the place,” Billy Ruiz said. He was kneeling up against the front seat, his head lowered and pointing to the left side of the road. “See, the golf course along here. Then”-he waited as they moved past the fairways and scattered greens-“up there, see? The road goes in. See the sign?” It was an Old English-looking board sign hanging from a chain between two posts and painted green. On it in white letters were the words THE PONTE, and below them, smaller, PRIVATE.

“Remember, I was telling you?” Billy Ruiz said. “This is the place. All along here where the rich ones live. Man, they got homes back in there-big, big-Christ, make that brown one look like a goddamn chicken house.”

Ryan looked out the back window as they passed the entrance road and continued along another stretch of fairways. He noticed the same cars following them.

“You’ve been back in there?”

“I tole you,” Billy Ruiz answered. “Last year we go in take a look around, they kick us out.”

“Who kicked you out?”

“I don’t know. Some guy.”

“Police?”

“No, no. Like a gatekeeper. There used to be a little house there where the road go in? He come after us.”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’d have to see it.”

“I tole you, it’s perfect.”

“If you say so.” Let it die, Ryan thought. He hunched forward and watched the road ahead. In a couple of minutes it would be over; he’d pile out with his bag and that would be it. But there was one more thing to make sure of.

He waited until they were passing the motels on the outskirts of Geneva Beach, passing the Putt-Putt Golf now and the Dairy Queen, and could see the stores and the signal light a couple of blocks ahead. The IGA supermarket was on the right.

“There,” Ryan said. “You see the IGA?”

“It’s closed,” Pizarro said.

“Remember it.” Ryan watched as they covered another block. Now he could see the PIER BAR sign on the left, the white building and the boat docks beyond it. Maybe a couple of beers, he thought. And something to eat. He’d still be in Detroit by nine.

“Right here,” he said to Pizarro.

“What?”

“I’m leaving you,” Ryan said.

“Man,” Billy Ruiz said, “how can you go? We got things to do.”

They were approaching the Shore Road-Main Street intersection and Pizarro was slowing down now for the traffic signal. “You go around the block to the back of the IGA store,” Ryan told him. “You’ll see a lot of boxes and junk piled up. That’s where you dump the beer case. You got that? Nowhere else.”

“Listen,” Pizarro said, “I tole you, I got to make some more money.” He was stopping now behind a car at the intersection.

Billy Ruiz was frowning. “What do you go for? We can make this every week.”

“You and Frank do it,” Ryan said. As the panel truck came to a full stop he had the rear door open and was out, dragging his canvas bag after him.

Billy Ruiz was close behind him, crouched in the open doorway now. “Wait a minute. Man, we should go somewhere and talk.”

Ryan said, “Watch your fingers, Billy,” and slammed the door. Walking across the street to the Pier Bar, he heard Pizarro call something and heard a car blowing its horn and then another one, but he didn’t look back. No, sir, that was over.

Bob Jr. said, “What do you mean he took your keys?”

“I mean he took the keys,” the girl said. “So I can’t drive the Mustang.”

“Well, sure, because of last week.”

“The creep,” the girl said.

“He doesn’t want you getting in any more trouble.”

“I like the way you stick up for him.”

“Well,” Bob Jr. said. “It’s his car.”

“It is not. It’s in my name. I made sure of that, Charlie.”

“Well, he gave it to you.”

“Big deal.”

“When do you go to court?”

“I don’t know. Next month.”

“I understand one of the boys is really hurt.”

“That’s too bad,” the girl said.

“I guess it’s his own fault.”

“You bet it is,” the girl said.

Bob Jr. eased lower in the white lounge chair. “Listen, why don’t you come on over here?” he said to the girl, whose name was Nancy and who had been living in Mr. Ritchie’s house since early June. “Why don’t you sit down and relax a while?”

“I’m going to go in and get a sweater.”

“Bring me one.”

“None of Ray’s would fit you.”

“I was just kidding. I don’t need any sweater.”

He turned, shifting his weight, to watch Nancy walk toward the house. She could stand about ten pounds but, damn , that was a nice little compact can in the white shorts and the striped top you could see down, and she knew it too, whenever she bent over. He watched her slide open the glass door that led into the activities room. That’s where the bar was. Maybe she’d bring out some drinks.

That’d be something. Get her to loosen up and relax. It was quiet now except for once in a while the faint, faraway sound of a boat motor; quiet and nice with the patio and swimming pool and most of the lawn in the shade; quiet and private with the stockade fence on both sides of the yard and, out in front, against the sky, the edge of the steep slope that dropped down to the beach: forty-eight steps and two landings. He ought to know because he had put the new stairway in the end of June with the two pickers helping him and Nancy lying around in the little two-piece outfit with her belly button showing. He had been coming back ever since.