Swag (26 page)

“We walked into places thirty times,” Frank said, “no problem. How about once more? What's the difference?”

“The difference, they were guys in aprons and A&P coats. This guy's a pro. He's into, Christ, probably everything you can think of. He has people
killed
.”

“And he thinks we're a couple of hicks,” Frank said. “That's what I keep thinking about.”

“I know you do, and maybe there's a way to use it, if you know what I mean. But it's something we'd have to give some thought to. Remember, I'm going to court the day after tomorrow and I might not be around for awhile. We'll have to wait and see.” Stick got up from the table and took his cup into the kitchen. When he came back in he said, “I'm going to see Arlene. Hang onto that Scotch bottle till I get back.”

He spent the night at Arlene's, patting her, saying, “Come on, it's okay,” telling her as calmly as he could not to worry, the cop didn't know anything—that's the way they were, they showed their badge and were very official and serious and tried to scare you into admitting things, but it was all fake. Arlene said she hadn't told the cop anything. Good. Thank God, good, she hadn't slipped him anything, not knowing she was doing it. He got Arlene calmed down and lay there in the dark most of the night staring at the ceiling, hoping Frank was in bed and not out looking for a gun. He had a pretrial exam to face that could be the first step to putting him away and he had to worry about Frank and Arlene and the jazzy colored guy that had really fucked them over and they hadn't even felt it. It was a terrible mess, but it was also kind of interesting, exciting. He was getting to the point, feeling it, that he didn't have much to lose and maybe a lot to gain. What he had to do, lying there in the dark, was consider his options. Like:

Run.

No, don't run. Maybe don't move at all. Don't even look around. Forget about the money, somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred grand, the cop had said, implied. He believed the cop. So write it off.

To what?

The principle: Don't ever do business with a colored guy, especially one who's smarter than you are.

The funny thing was he still kind of liked the guy, Sportree—Maurice Jackson, his real name—Sportree in Detroit's black ghetto “Valley” and out on West Eight Mile. He admired him, the way he pulled it, and really didn't blame him. Why not? Sportree didn't give a shit about them one way or the other. Shit, if you're going to knock down a department store, get involved in murder, what was surprising about fucking over a couple of poor dumb white boys? Sportree didn't owe them anything.

They owed him something, though.

He sure hoped Frank was in bed.

He knew how Frank felt because he felt the same way. You could admire a guy's method, but you didn't have to grin and look dumb when the guy was putting it to you. You could
act
dumb, yes, if it helped the cause. And the cause was him and Frank, nobody else anymore. Except Arlene, but that was different.

All right, the options.

Sit tight. Don't say a word. Hope the larceny charge is dropped and go back to pouring cement and drinking beer and watching TV. Thank God you made it through and promise never to do it again.

Or, go for the prize. Get the fucker, sitting there blowing his Jamaican smoke.

Take the Luger P-38 and put it in the guy's face and say, “Give me the money; man. Be cool, man.” All that
man
shit. “Be cool or else you're a dead nigger.”

That sounded pretty good lying in the dark. Next to him, Arlene moved and he could hear her breathing.

Make sure Leon Woody was there and give him some of it. See it? The Luger, a good-looking, mean-looking, no-bullshit handgun. “Hey, man, you know what we do down in Oklahoma to guys like you?”

No, keep it straight. Who gives a shit where you came from or what they do in Oklahoma? He didn't even know what they did.

Keep it personal. He liked both of them. Leon Woody, too, with his little girl, he seemed like a nice guy and couldn't picture him shooting Billy Ruiz in the back.

He respected them.

But he also wanted them to respect him. And that was the whole thing. His only option.

It was about four thirty in the morning by the time he figured out a way to do it that might work.

At seven thirty he woke up Arlene and said, “Come on, you're moving to a motel. And this time don't leave a forwarding address, okay?”

“They're sitting there in their swimming trunks taking a
sun
bath,” Cal said. “These two assholes, it hadn't even entered their heads something was funny.”

He was talking to his superior now, Detective Lieutenant Walter Shea, in the lieutenant's office at 1300.

“How about the stolen gun?” Walter said. “Somebody's been doing some thinking.”

“I'm pretty sure it was for protection,” Cal said. “Stickley's. In case the blackies came after him. But now things are different, a little more interesting.”

“You didn't search his place, then.”

“What do I want to find the gun for? I'd have to arrest him.”

“I'm grateful you're telling me all this,” Walter said, “so I won't feel my twenty-seven years were wasted.”

Cal nodded politely. “Yes sir, I can use all the experienced advice I can get.”

“Emory suggest you go for a deal?”

“What's to make a deal about? I think they realize now they don't have anything to sell. Names, yes. Except that if Frank Ryan starts naming names, somebody's going to name his name right back. Because I'll bet you eighty-seven thousand bucks he was in the office when the window washer got it.”

“So where are we?”

“Still watching,” Cal said. “But I think the clowns are about ready to come out and put on a show.”

26

“
YOU TELL HIM MY COURT
date's tomorrow,” Stick said, “so if he's worried and wants to talk, it's got to be today.”

“You were right there, you should've picked up two of these.” Frank was sitting hunched over, examining the Walther, hefting it, feeling its weight, looking at its Luger profile in his hand. The box of cartridges was on the coffee table.

“Why would I get one for you?” Stick said. “I don't even know what fucking side you're on. I believe you told me more'n once you knew him a hell of a lot longer than you'd known me.”

“That's what we should do,” Frank said, “get in an argument. It just seems like, I don't know, we need more time to get ready.”

“If he's setting up a hit on me, it's got to be today,” Stick said. “Tomorrow I'm on the stand, you know that.”

“But he doesn't know it,” Frank said.

“Right. That's why he's going to have to move fast once you tell him and he finds out, I mean if he still wants me. I'll tell you something else I've been thinking,” Stick said. “If he wants me, I bet he wants you, too. Why not? He's not going to split with you, he's already jacked you out of a cut. But if you found it out—he doesn't know what you'd do. So if he sets me up, why not set you up, too? Two birds. Two dumb fucking dumb white birds. I bet he says he wants you to be there.”

Frank called Sportree and told him about Stick's court date.

Sportree said, “Yeah? Hey, yeah, I'd like to talk to him, as I told you. Let me get back to you.”

Frank hung up.

Stick said, “He calls back, then we wait, then we call him back.”

Frank said, “Jesus, I hope it works.”

Stick said, “You hope it
works
? If it doesn't work, we're fucking dead.”

“He didn't say anything about me being there.”

“Wait,” Stick said.

Sportree called back in twenty minutes. He said, “How about I meet both of you—”

Holding the phone, Frank looked over at Stick.

“—but I prefer you didn't come here, your friend going to court and everything, you understand?”

“Where?” Frank asked.

“How about—I mean you sure you can do it, nobody following you—how about this motel, call the Ritz Motel, out Woodward near that hospital, almost to Pontiac. Look for Leon's car, light-blue '74 Continental. Make it nine o'clock.”

“Just a minute.” Frank put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Stick. “He wants to meet at a motel out by Pontiac, tonight.”

“We walk in and Leon or some jig steps out of the can shooting,” Stick said, “while Sportree's home watching Redd Foxx. I thought he was going to say some back alley, or an empty building. Tell him we'll meet him in front of the police station, talk in the car.”

“Come on,” Frank said. He was nervous holding the phone with Sportree on the other end.

“Tell him we'll think it over and get back to him. That's good enough.”

Frank told him.

Sportree said, “Hey, don't be too long. I send somebody to pick you up.”

Frank hung up. “He says he'll send somebody for us.”

“I bet he will. One thing we know,” Stick said, “no, two things. He can't take a chance doing it at his place. He's got too much going on there. And we're not going to get in with a gun. So you see any other way?”

“No, I don't guess so.”

“Let's get going, then.”

“Okay,” Frank said. He laid the Luger on the coffee table and got up. “What're you going to wear?”

A half hour later Frank called him again from the Graeco-Roman lobby of the Vic Tanny on Eight Mile Road, almost directly across from Sportree's Royal Lounge.

“We decided it'd be better if we came to your place,” Frank said.

“I
told
you,” Sportree said. “Man could be followed, he bring 'em here. You want to get me in the shit? Frank, hey, use your head.”

“No, we decided,” Frank said. “Get Leon there so he can listen. We'll leave now and be very careful of tails and be there in about a half hour.”

“Frank, listen to me—”

Frank hung up. He reached into the big pocket of his safari jacket for a pack of Marlboros.

“He doesn't like it.”

“I bet he doesn't,” Stick said. Stick was wearing his light-green sport coat he'd bought in Florida. The right side hung straight, tight over his shoulder, with the Luger filling the inside pocket. They lighted cigarettes and stood by the showcase window, looking out across the parking lot and the flow of traffic on the wide, parkway-divided lanes of Eight Mile. It was a long way over there to Sportree's and the traffic was getting heavier. They concentrated on the cars that, every once in a while, pulled into Sportree's side lot.

A young guy with a build came over from the counter in his tight Vic Tanny T-shirt and tight black pants and asked them if they were members. Frank said they were thinking about joining but were waiting for a friend. The Vic Tanny guy invited them to make themselves comfortable and when their friend came he'd be happy to show them around and describe the different membership plans.

“It might not be a bad idea,” Frank said. “Work out two, three times a week, get some steam or a sauna.”

“I could never do pushups and all that shit,” Stick said. “I don't know, it sounds good, but it's so fucking boring. The thing to do, just don't eat so much.”

“I don't eat much,” Frank said.

“You drink too much. You know how many calories are in a shot? What you put away, those doubles, it's a couple of full meals.”

“What do you do, count my drinks?”

“I can't,” Stick said. “I can't count that fast.”

“Jesus—” Frank said and stopped, looking out the window. “There we are. Light-blue '74 Continental. Son of a bitch, how does he afford a car like that?”

“Maybe he lives in it,” Stick said.

They watched the car pull off Eight Mile into Sportree's parking lot. A half minute later Leon Woody appeared, coming around front to the upstairs entrance, and went in.

Frank said, “What if there's a guy in the lot parks the cars?”

“I haven't seen anybody,” Stick said, “but if there is, we go home and think of something else quick—”

“Maybe we should give it a little more time. I told him a half hour.” Frank looked over at the Vic Tanny guy behind the counter, talking on the phone now. “Let's let him give us the tour. Maybe there's some broads in the sauna.”

No parking-lot attendant, no one coming in behind them or going out. There was nothing to it. Frank pulled the T-bird into an empty space next to Leon's light-blue Continental. They got out. Frank waited, standing by the rear deck of the T-bird.

Stick walked around to the right side of Leon's car and opened the front door. He looked at Frank.

Frank nodded.

Stick took the Luger out of his coat pocket, felt under the seat to make sure it was clear and there was enough room, and slipped the Luger under there, carefully, and closed the door. He opened the rear door and reached in to feel under the front seat, closed the door and nodded as he walked out to where Frank was waiting.