Elmore Leonard - Tishomingo Blues

"I'm trying to think… Yes, I would, please. I'm trying to think of what else I haven't done that people do. One comes to mind-haven't camped out."

Anne said, "So you've never gotten laid in a tent," coming out with a glass of white in each hand.

"I have other strange places."

"Movie theater?"

"Many times, in my youth."

"Airplane?"

"Once, on a red-eye. How about you? What's the strangest place you ever did it?"

"You mean straight fucking?"

"What else we talking about?"

"You don't count a blow job."

" Blow job, you get that anywhere."

She said, "Let me think… How about on the floor?"

"Everybody does it on the floor now and then. You think that's a strange place?"

She said, "I don't want to play this anymore."

Like that. Like when she and Jerry argued… Robert picking them up to go to some function, a wedding, and Jerry's yelling at her for never in her fuckin life being ready on time and Anne would say, "I don't want to talk about it." Jerry would look ready to smack her, but never did. He'd cool off and later on be calling her Queenie.

She said she didn't want to play anymore and Robert said, "That's cool," not caring one way or the other. He looked down at the crowd breaking up and Dennis, out of the tank now, talking to Diane Corrigan-Cochrane-that was her name-the Eyes and Ears of the North Delta, Robert thinking Dennis should have him some of that. Cute woman in her little shorts.

Anne said something.

"What?"

"I said is this going to work? What we're doing?"

"Gonna work fine."

"Jerry thinks you're crazy."

"He's told me that. But he's here."

She said, "I have a bad feeling about it."

Robert said, "Want me to hold you? Tell you everything's gonna be all right?"

"I'm serious, and you make fun of me."

He could tell her she was easy to make fun of , any time she became serious like that, having the bad feeling. But he didn't. No, he showed her he was as sensitive as he had to be, saying, "What's wrong, baby? What you worried about?"

"I keep thinking," Anne said, "something's going to happen to Jerry."

What she meant was hoping . Robert said, "Like he could get popped?"

"It's possible, isn't it?"

"You play the grieving widow till the lawyer cuts you a check?"

"You're not funny."

"Wear a black thong bikini around the pool?"

She walked away from him.

Robert said after her, "My sensitivity stretches so far and it snaps back on me."

Dennis asked the TV lady if she'd have a drink with him, the least he could do, telling Diane she was the best dive-caller he'd ever had, and the bestlooking-as she followed him around behind the tank. He said he had to change first and she said, "Go ahead, I won't look." He watched her bend her head back to gaze straight up the ladder, then at the ground beneath the scaffolding where Floyd was shot, and then at him as he stood naked stepping into his underwear.

"I thought you weren't gonna look."

She said, "I lied."

They brought chairs from the patio bar out to the edge of the lawn, away from loud voices, a party going on, and sat next to each other with summer drinks, in the dark, Dennis' gaze on his ladder that rose against the sky and stopped, not going anywhere.

Her voice, close to him, quiet, said, "How long have you been hauling it around?" "Four years."

"Are you tired of it?"

"I'm getting there."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"Where're you staying?"

He turned his head to see the soft expression in her eyes, waiting.

"I have a landlady who stays up late."

"You want to go to Memphis?"

"Is that where you live?"

She nodded. "After I do the news?"

He said, "There's nothing I'd rather do than go to Memphis," and let it hang.

She said, "But there's a lot you have to think about."

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe it."

She said, "You were on the ladder that night, weren't you?"

He nodded, their eyes still holding.

" Arlen and the Bug?"

He nodded again.

She looked away, toward the ladder, before turning to him again. "I don't understand. Why you're telling me now."

"I don't know either. You asked… If you hadn't I probably wouldn't have said anything."

"You needed to tell somebody."

"Who doesn't know? It's not like getting something off my chest and now I feel better. But you're the one to tell-maybe that's it-the TV lady, if I'm gonna tell anybody. Outside of a lawyer. But don't put it on the air yet, I won't admit it. You have to wait."

"Until what happens?"

"Till you see how it ends."

"What do you think will happen?"

"I haven't any idea."

It was only a few minutes later Robert showed up.

He said, "You all like to be alone?"

In that moment Dennis had to make up his mind. If he said yes, they'd like to be alone, he risked Diane bugging him until he told her everything that was going on. But if he said no, they wouldn't, he might never get to Memphis. All that in his mind when Diane said she had to go get ready for the eleven o'clock news. So Dennis said he was tired, he'd find Charlie and go on home. Robert said he'd drive him, but why didn't they relax and have a drink first. "There's something I want to tell you."

Now Dennis sat staring at the ladder with another vodka collins and Robert instead of Diane.

"You haven't made up your mind yet, have you?"

"To sell my soul? No, I haven't."

"You can't beat the deal."

"I don't have any offers to compare it to."

"There's poverty. What you gonna do when you can't dive no more? Listen, I'll answer any your questions and I'll be honest with you. What we in is a dirty business, but it's where the money's at. I want you in so I'm upping the pay schedule. Twofifty the first year. Five the second. We jump now like Regis does on his show to one million the third year. Also bonuses, also what you make off your Dive-O-Rama. Wuz wrong with that?" Robert grinned and sipped his drink. "How Miles Davis says it. 'Wuz wrong with that?' In his voice."

"What about Jerry?"

"Yeah, what?"

"What's he do? You said he use to be into arson."

"And high explosives, he learned about in the Nam. Jerry shipped home a footlocker full of C4 when he got out and was in business."

"With the Mafia?"

" Detroit, they call it the Outfit. Jerry did some work for them till they got involved with his brother. Two of the Outfit dudes wanted a cut of the land development business, the manufactured homes? The next time they went to see Jerry's brother, they come out of the office, get in their car and it blows up. From then on Jerry had an understanding with the wiseguys. Leave him and his brother alone and he won't blow up any more their cars."

"How'd he get away with it?"

"Jerry's a hard-on, doesn't give an inch. Also he was related, like a second cousin, to the guy running the Outfit at the time. One of those blood things where they have to get along. The way I met him," Robert said, "I'm running Young Dogs and there's a rival gang, the Cash Flow Posse, giving us trouble. I hire Jerry-this was back ten years-to throw some pipe bombs in their crack houses. Worked better than a drive-by, it put 'em out of business. So then I bring Jerry in as the muscle. You know what I'm saying? The enforcer, keep the Young Dogs in line, thinking straight. Pretty soon we partners. Then he steps up another level saying he's the boss, gonna run the show. He's the fivehundred-pound gorilla and what am I gonna fuckin do about it? But I owed him, 'cause he set up how to maintain the money, ways he learned from his brother to keep it away from the tax people. He did take a fall, went to Milan for a couple of years and that's where he got his master's degree. Learned from the big boys, the Wall Street types, how to hide money without leaving tracks."