Stick (17 page)

FROM THE OFF-SIDE OF
the guest house they walked out toward the road, crossed the front of the property through stands of acacia trees and came all the way around to the driveway. Kyle asked questions and he told her to wait, not now. He told her to stay in the trees, he'd see about getting a car, if he could sneak one out of there.

But when he came to the corner of the garage and saw the van right there, the rear doors open, six pots of flowering plants standing on the cobblestones, he thought of taking the van and liked the idea. He didn't see Moke or the guy with him until they came out of the morning room and stood on the lawn to decide where they'd look next: go down to the cruiser tied up at the dock or over to the guest house. After a few moments they walked off toward the tennis court: a heavyset Cuban-looking guy, big hands hanging empty; Moke holding a long-barreled revolver at his side, but not wearing his hat.

The hat was on the driver's seat in the van. Stick reached in for it and saw the key in the ignition. He
took the hat—glancing inside the crown to see the inscription,
Bullrider,
but no toilet paper in this one—and placed it behind the left front wheel, against the tire tread. He got up in the seat then and watched through the windshield. As soon as the two figures, way off now, walked around the front of the guest house and were no longer in sight, Stick turned the key. He let the engine idle low, backed up slowly, got the van turned around and looked out the window at Moke's Bullrider straw squashed flat on the cobblestones before heading down the drive, past the house to the trees in front. When Kyle got in she said, “When can I ask you what's going on?”

“While we're having dinner,” Stick said. “Look in the glove box and see if there's a registration.”

She said, “You like to know whose car you're stealing?” They followed Bal Harbour Drive to the gatehouse, followed the exit lane out and Kyle said, holding a plastic-covered registration, “Charles Buck, an address in South Miami.”

Stick said, “Does that tell you anything? How about Chucky Gorman a.k.a. Charles Chucky Buck?”

They left the van in Bayfront Park, walked to a restaurant in Coral Gables, a favorite of Kyle's, where they dined in the seclusion of the garden patio and Stick told quietly how Rainy Mora was murdered.

Kyle did not interrupt. She seemed awed. When he had finished the story she asked questions, in turn, quietly. There was no hurry and she wanted to understand it and how he felt about it. They sipped wine, they ordered avocado and crabmeat . . .  What was most difficult for her to understand was why he hadn't gone to the police.

Stick said, “The first thing you have to realize, the police aren't my friends.” He said, “You're not only the best-looking girl I've ever known you're the smartest, by far, and I respect your judgment
but
—two things. Rainy's dead. He knew what he was doing, he knew what could happen to him, and it did. The other thing, I've already been to a correctional institution, I'm not going to put myself in a position like I'm asking to go back. I go to the cops with my record, tell my story, the first thing the state attorney'll do is try to get me to change it. He'll take the position, the only reason I'm talking to him I was working with the Cubans, but we had some kind of disagreement, so now I want to cop. The state attorney won't ever believe I was along for the ride or to keep Rainy company and make a few bucks. Why would I do that? I'd have to be crazy, guy with a record. But if I'm not, then they give you
that business—if I'm smart I'll accept a plea deal, accessory or up as high as second degree, like they're doing me a favor, if I tell who pulled the trigger. Now I think
I'd get off. But only after six months to a year in Dade County with a bond set around a quarter of a million.”

“I know several good lawyers,” Kyle said.

“Well, if they've had any experience along these lines they'd want ten up front and another fifteen if we go to trial. But even if I had the money I wouldn't give it to a lawyer.”

“Don't worry about that part, the money.”

“I appreciate it,” Stick said, “but it's got nothing to do with lawyers. See—if I can explain it—you know Chucky deals, you know what goes on around here, the dope business. But you have to look at it from the inside maybe to understand what I'm talking about. I wasn't an innocent bystander, I was
there.
Rainy was there, too, but he didn't make it.”

She said, “Don't you
feel
anything? How can you remove yourself from it?”

“You mean do I feel anything emotionally?”

“Yeah. How can you be objective?”

“Well, the only emotion that enters into it is fear—you see a guy with a submachine gun . . .  I don't think I'm explaining it right. Am I
mad
at anybody?” He paused as though he had to think about it. “Yeah, I am. I'd like to kick Moke's teeth in. But then I think I would anyway, just knowing him. The guy with the machine gun, I don't know who he is but, yeah, I think the cops should take him off the street,
for the good of mankind. Chucky, you know he's a bad guy—you want to see him go to jail?”

She said, “But he seems so harmless . . .”

“Does it have to be something personal? Like he kills a friend of yours? He didn't kill Rainy, he sent him to
be
killed. And me with him because I walked around his house and told him I didn't see anything I liked. Or maybe—give him the benefit—he told them to take me instead of Rainy because he didn't know me. But he sent the two guys in the van to Barry's house, we're pretty sure, because it's Chucky's van. And if they put me against the wall and you happened to be there, a witness . . .  you see what I mean? That's your weird client you imitate and your dad doesn't think is very funny. I tend to go along with your dad. So, you want to turn Chucky in? What's he done you can give the state attorney to make a case?” He smiled at her. “I haven't had anybody to talk to before this. I keep going 'round and 'round.”

She said, “I don't know how you've kept it in. You must think about it all the time.”

“For a while I did.”

“Why didn't you run, get as far away as you could?”

“I thought of that, too.”

“But you stayed,” Kyle said. She gave him an appraising look, thoughtful, as though to see into him
and discover something he didn't understand himself. “Why?”

“I don't like to keep bringing it up,” Stick said, “but I was into some heavy stuff and did time for it. I've met a lot of people with poor manners and ugly dispositions. Guys that chew with their mouth open. So it isn't like I'm new in the life. Something like this happens, the first thing you do is hide. Then you peek out. Then you come out a little way, look around. Come out a little farther. Finally you come all the way out, and in this particular situation a strange thing happened. Nobody recognized me.”

“I did.”

“Except you. I got to the point I was going to leave because I couldn't see myself going up to the top floor of Chucky's building, fifteen stories with a rail this high on the balcony, and demand anything. Like the five thousand for delivering the suitcase . . .  Which he still owes. Then I go to work for Barry and find out he and Chucky are buddies, they double-date out on the boat. What's this, a sign? Maybe I should hang around, see what happens.”

“What you're really saying,” Kyle said, “you're not looking for a warm, safe place, are you? You like the action.”

“I was in Las Vegas once,” Stick said, “I was driving from L.A. to Detroit and I stopped in Las Vegas because I'd never seen it. I walked around all afternoon
to the different hotels, lost twenty bucks, went back to the Travel Lodge and slept for a couple of hours. I went back out that evening, made the rounds again, had a warmed-over roast beef dinner at one of the hotels, lost forty bucks . . .  Nothing had changed from the afternoon. The same people were playing the slot machines, there was the same litter and dust. There was a longer line now for the show at the Frontier, see Wayne Newton in his outfit. The place is all colored lights and chrome, red carpeting—you know what it looks like—but it's dirty, like a circus. Everything looks soiled. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I drove straight through the night and most of the next day to Vail, Colorado. From all that phony glitter to Vail, where even the Holiday Inn sign is carved on
a log; you have to look to find the name of the place. I go in a restaurant there, now it's all crepes and patty melts. People at the next table are ordering claret and soda, talking about the Woody Allen film they're going to see. And you know what? I walked around there half a day, the place bored the shit out of me, I had to get back to Detroit . . .  You been to Vegas?”

“Couple of times.”

“You like it?”

“How about cheap perfume covering up b.o.?”

“There you are. You been to Vail?”

“Once, in the summer.”

“You like it?”

“It's all right. I wouldn't want to buy a place there and have to go all the time.”

“Good, you know what I'm talking about,” Stick said. “Could you live down on South Beach?”

“Well, it's an interesting area—yes, I could live there for a while.”

“But you like Palm Beach.”

“It's clean,” Kyle said.

“See, I don't have a goal 'cause I don't seem to know what I want. Money, yeah, you have to have money. But I wouldn't want to be Barry, I wouldn't trade with him, live the way he does . . .  You think I'm looking for action?” He seemed intent, wanting an answer.

“No, I said you like the action. You seem to.”

“Maybe I do, to a certain extent. People race cars two hundred miles an hour, climb mountains . . .  I tend to get in the way of people who carry firearms. Or I put myself in the way.”

Kyle hesitated, staring. “I hate to ask, but, . . .  it's happened before?”

“As a matter of fact, twice.”

“People have tried to kill you?”

“Well, two guys tried to mug me one time. One had a gun, the other a knife . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I shot 'em. I didn't feel I had a choice. The other time, two guys that Frank and I were doing business
with set us up. We had a meeting, it was suppose to be a payoff; but they came out with guns instead of money, so . . .  I shot 'em. I've shot four people. I'm not the least bit prejudiced, I don't know if you happen to know that, but I'm not. But I've shot four people and all four happened to be colored guys. I mean it just happened that way. My closest friend in the can, outside of Frank, was a black guy. I get along great with Cornell Lewis, he's black . . .  It's very strange.”

Kyle said, carefully, taking her time, “Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? About yourself?”

“I think we're up to date now,” Stick said. “I told you about my daughter . . .”

“A little.”

“I hope you can get to meet her sometime.”

“I'd like to.”

“The only thing I haven't told you about is the tornado I was in when I was nine years old, in Norman. That was the scaredest I've ever been in my life, see a house blow away, gone . . .  It was before we moved to Detroit.”

She said, again carefully, “You accept what happens to you. You have the ability to detach yourself, look at things objectively.”

He frowned. “You mean after or during?”

“I'm trying to find out what moves you.”

“I thought I told you—being with you. But you don't believe me.”

“You want to sleep with me, that's all.”

He stared at her face in shadowed light, wanting to touch her.

“You're smarter than that,” Stick said. “I know you're smarter than I am, that doesn't bother me. If I were the money whiz and you were, say, a bartender, you'd still be smarter only it wouldn't be as obvious. It doesn't matter who's what, we can talk without beating around. I could tell you I'm in love with you and you can be glad to hear it or you can clutch up and want to run, but there it is . . .  What do you think?”

She hesitated. “Are you being romantic now?”

“I'm trying to tell you how I feel without exposing myself. You know what I mean.”

“Playing it safe.”

“I guess. I don't know.” She said, “I have a feeling you don't see us walking off into the sunset.”

“In a way, that's what I
do
see,” Stick said. “They kiss and it says The End. What happens after that is the part that's kind of hazy. Me coming home with cement dust all over my work clothes and pulling my pickup into the garage next to your Porsche.”

She said, “Why not sell investments? I know you have the talent and I could help you get started.”

“Well, it'd be better than you learning a building trade. And I would appreciate your help and pay attention. But I'd also be a little, well, uneasy.”

“Why?”

“I'd be afraid—don't laugh, but I'd be afraid you'd try to make me over, into somebody else.”

She didn't laugh; she was surprised. “Why would I do that?”

“I don't mean intentionally, I don't think you'd be aware of it. I think it's an instinct girls have, some girls, anyway. Like wanting to have a horse when they're around twelve. Young girls write to guys doing time; they think they can bring out the good person that's inside this mean, miserable son of a bitch that hates everybody. Or I'd start wearing suits and change on my own, become somebody else. You'd look at me and think, who's this guy? What happened to that nice, simple boy from Norman?”

She smiled a little as he did. “The nice, simple boy from Norman. That's how you see yourself? Come on, tell me the truth.”