the Big Bounce (1969) (13 page)

You drove up with the migrants, uh?

That's right. This crew leader offered me a job, so I figured why not?

Christ, you sure belted him.

Well, he had it coming. If it wasn't me, it would be somebody else.

Mr. Majestyk finished his beer and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. What have you got to do?

I'm still clearing that frontage, all the driftwood and crap.

Hey, we never figured your day off.

I thought Saturday,
Ryan said.

Saturday's out. That's our busy day, people leaving, new people coming in. Tomorrow or Friday.

Tomorrow's all right. I don't care.

You got nothing to do, take a run up and see that property. rogers, the sign says.
Mr. Majestyk paused; he made a decision, and looked right at Ryan and said, I see you got a car.

It's just borrowed.

I didn't think she gave it to you.

When Mr. Majestyk paused again, Ryan waited; he wasn't going to help him; if the guy wanted to stick his nose in, he'd have to think of a way to do it.

Finally Mr. Majestyk said, That's the car she run the two guys off the road with.

I figured,
Ryan said, from the dings in the front end.

The one kid has got two broken legs and internal injuries.

You told me.

Long as you remember,
Mr. Majestyk said. He dropped it there.

Ryan had a cigarette and stretched out in the sun for a half hour, then got going on the frontage again, raking out the tangled brush and crap and dragging it into a pile. He was burning it when Mr. Majestyk came grinding across the uneven ground in his bulldozer, a stubby yellow machine that Ryan figured must be the smallest one made, though, God, the diesel engine made a racket. Mr. Majestyk showed him the gears and how to raise and lower the blade and for the next couple of hours Ryan played with the bulldozer, gradually digging out a hollow to bury the junk in that wouldn't burn.

When the beer drinkers from No. 11 came down with the Scotch-Kooler, he knew it was after four, time to knock off. He'd bury the junk tomorrow. No, Friday. He was hot and sweaty from two and a half hours in the field; he was wearing just his cut-off khakis, so he walked out into the lake and swam to the raft and back. He wasn't a good swimmer; he had no endurance, but his form was good and it wasn't any harder than swimming out to the boat last night. That was funny, he hadn't thought about her all day. He thought about a beer and walked across the beach within ten feet of the beer drinkers ready to say hi
if they looked at him, but they were laughing at something and didn't seem to notice him.

Hey, you got a phone call!
Mr. Majestyk was crossing in front of No. 1 from his house.

Where?

No, a message. I told her you were working. She says to tell you six o'clock.

She give you her name?

Mr. Majestyk's solemn expression held on Ryan. Maybe you're crazy, she isn't.

Ryan moved off. The hell with him and what he thought.

He was near the swimming pool when Virginia Murray came out of No. 5. He saw her waiting for him and there was nothing he could do about it.

Hi I thought you were going to fix my window.

She was in her aqua bathing suit. She had come in from the pool, had seen Ryan, had wiped the oil from her face, and gone out again.

Hey, I forgot no, I didn't forget, I just couldn't get to it today.

Could you look at it now?

Her figure was all right. Pretty good, in fact: nice bazooms, good legs, not too fat, but sunburned and sore-looking; over a week here and still sunburned.

Listen, I would but I got to run. This person is waiting for me.
He was moving away. Tomorrow for sure, okay?
She was nodding as he turned and that was the end of it.

He turned off the Shore Road and followed the winding drive through the trees to Old Pointe Road, then crept along until he saw the new-looking white two-story house with the attached garage and well-kept shrubbery. The name on the mailbox, R. J. Ritchie, made him hesitate. He hadn't got a good look at this side of the house last night. They had come around through the trees and he had waited by the garage while Nancy went in for the wire. He turned into Ritchie's drive slowly.

You're late, Jackie.

Her voice came from above. From one of the second-floor windows. He saw her now, leaning on the windowsill, looking down at him. Walk in,
she said. The door's open.
She was holding something in her hand. Ryan pulled close to the garage and stopped. Looking straight up now, he saw the gun. Nancy was pointing it at him.

Chapter
11

RYAN WENT FROM THE KITCHEN into the living room, taking his time as he looked around, the appraiser getting the feel of the place: the white walls and the dark wood in the quiet of early evening, the hardwood floor and the Oriental rug and the iron stairway that came up out of the living room floor and curved once into the ceiling. The dining room, too, through the open doorway was white and dark with a heavy table and wrought iron things on the wall.

You would have to be a weight lifter to clean this place. He walked over to the den and looked in. It was paneled, stained a gray-green with canvas chairs and big blue and green ashtrays. He wasn't sure of the paintings; maybe they were all right, but he couldn't put a price on them. The color TV he could get a hundred and a half for. He came back into the living room to the sliding glass doors along the front wall. Below, out past the sun deck, he could see the swimming pool and the lawn. Standing closer to the glass, he could see part of the patio.

He turned as Nancy came down the stairs brown legs and a straw purse, then tan shorts and sweater and her dark hair.

She said, Did you go to the lodge?

It came as a little shock feeling inside him that he hadn't gone out to look at Ray's hunting lodge, that he had forgotten all about it.

I didn't have time.

She stared at him a moment and turned away.

I got hung up with work,
Ryan said, following Nancy down to the lower level, to the activities room bar, then through the sliding screen doors out to the patio: Ryan watched her drop the purse on the umbrella table.

Is it loaded?

She was facing him now, her cool look gone and smiling a little. Of course it's loaded.

What kind is it?

Twenty-two.

You going to shoot something?

We could. Windows are good.

We've done windows.

Not with a gun.

Have you?

Not in a while. Hey, are you hungry?

I guess so. Were the windows around here?

Uh-huh, when I first came up. I knew there wouldn't be anything to do.

So you brought a gun to shoot at windows.

And boats. Boats are fun.

I imagine they would be. How about cars?

I didn't think about cars.
She seemed pleasantly surprised. Isn't that funny?

Yeah, that is funny.

I just wanted you to know we have it.

There's a difference,
Ryan said, between breaking and entering and armed robbery.

And there's a difference between seventy-eight dollars and fifty thousand dollars,
Nancy said. How badly do you want it?

The telephone rang in the activities room. Nancy's gaze held on Ryan; she was watching for his reaction. He showed nothing, keeping his eyes on hers, and she smiled a little and walked off.

When she was inside, Ryan took the long-barreled target pistol out of her purse. He knew the kind; he'd sold them at the sporting goods store. He extended his arm, aiming and putting the front sight on the lamppost. He pulled the clip out of the polished hickory grip; it was loaded, all right. Then he shoved it back in and returned the gun to her purse.

He walked out by the swimming pool with his hands in his pockets, past the swimming pool and across the lawn. He could still feel the polished grip in his hand and the balanced weight of the gun. He saw himself pulling the gun out of his raincoat as he walked up to the cashier's window not a bank, God no a small loan company like the one Bud Long worked for, with two or three people behind the counter. As he pulled the gun Leon Woody would turn from where he was filling out a loan application and go over the counter and clean the place. They would have studied the place and timed it so that he'd walk in a few minutes before closing. Hit the place and then get out fast. They had talked about it once. Just once. Because it would be robbery, armed, and it could take all the nerve they had ever used during all the B & E's put together and it still might not be enough to go in with a gun.

He walked to the edge of the lawn, to the bluff that dropped steeply to the beach, down to all the sand and water. The boat was gone; the guy from the club must have come and picked it up.

It was quiet and the grass felt good. He turned and started back. It was a funny thing, he had never in his life cut grass. The lawn had been cut recently and it was better than any infield he had ever played on. You would have to play the ball different on grass like this; it would skid and take low hops. You'd have to get used to playing it and then it wouldn't be too bad.

Nancy was on the patio holding a tray, placing it on the umbrella table now and looking out toward him.

He felt all right but not completely at ease. It was a before-the-game feeling, or a walking-through-somebody's-house feeling. He wouldn't show it; he'd had enough practice not showing it; but he couldn't do anything about the feeling being there. The girl and the swimming pool and the patio, but something was wrong. For some reason it wasn't as good as sitting in the Pier Bar at six o'clock with an ice cold beer and not having to think about anything.

Beer or Cold Duck?
Nancy was waiting for him with two bottles of beer on the tray, a bottle of mixed Cold Duck, and a pasteboard bucket of fried chicken. I phoned for it,
Nancy said. It isn't very good chicken, but I didn't imagine you'd be taking me out to dinner.

Ryan opened a beer and sat down in a canvas chair. He lit a cigarette and now he waited. But she outwaited him and he said, Who was it? Ray?

Ray called this afternoon. It was Bob Junior,
Nancy said. He wants to come over.

What did you tell him?

I told him I'm tired and I'm going to bed early. He said something clever and I told him if I saw his truck drive up, I'd call his wife.

I don't get that,
Ryan said, going out with him.

It was something to do.
She was pouring a glass of Cold Duck at the table. I guess to see if he had the nerve more than anything else.

You've got a thing about nerve.

She turned with the glass in her hand. What else is there? I mean, that you can count on.

What if your nerve gets you in trouble? What if Ray finds out?

About Bob Junior?

Of if somebody tells him they saw us together.

Nancy shrugged, the little girl movement again. I don't know. I'd think of something.
She pulled a chair close to his and sat down. Why all the questions? A little nervous, Charlie?

You said Ray called earlier.

He won't be up until Saturday. He has to go to Cleveland.

What does that mean?

It means he'll be in Cleveland and won't be here Friday night. How does that grab you?

But the money will.

It has to be if they pay them Saturday.
Nancy waited. That's why I've decided we should sneak in the lodge tonight.

Ryan shook his head. Not till I look at it in the day.

You've seen it before.

Not with this in mind.

I've been thinking about it all day,
Nancy said. Sneaking in and going through it in the dark.

Tomorrow's my day off,
Ryan said. I can go over sometime tomorrow.

Okay, I'll go with you. Then we'll sneak in tomorrow night.

He wished he could ruffle her, shake her up a little. It might not work,
Ryan said. You know there's that possibility.

But we'll never know unless we try,
Nancy said. Will we?

Ryan ate some of the chicken and with the second bottle of beer began to relax. But as he relaxed he became aware of something happening. Nancy sat next to him, facing him, a brown knee almost touching his chair. She would hold a piece of chicken in both hands and take little bites as she watched him. She would sip her wine and look at him over the rim of the glass. She would move her hair from her eye and let it fall back again. They ate in silence and he let it work on him. Sitting low in the chair and now lighting a cigarette, aware of the dark-haired girl close to him, giving him the business, and Ryan said to himself: You are being set up.

He was being offered the bait, shown what it would be like. He had been taken up on a high mountain by Ann-Margret and was being shown all the kingdoms of the world, all that could be his. While off from them, across clean tile, the underwater lights of the swimming pool glowed in the dusk.

How do you get that sure of yourself? Ryan thought.

And then he thought, She makes it look easy.

She'll do it one time and get fifty grand and never know it's hard.

He could break into a place and Leon Woody could break into a place and all kinds of other guys could break into places, most of the guys pretty dumb or strung out, but that didn't mean she could do it. It wasn't like throwing rocks and running, it wasn't a game; it was real and maybe she could do it without clutching up, but how did she know until she had done it and found out what it was like? That's what got him. If it was so easy, what did she need him for? Like he was some stiff she was hiring to do the heavy work. Like she could do it, but she didn't want to strain herself and get a hernia.

Ryan said, If you were going to break into a place, how would you do it?

Nancy thought a moment. I'd try the door first.

What if somebody's home?

Oh, I thought you meant the lodge.

Anyplace, if you wanted to break in.

I guess,
Nancy said, I'd still try the door.
She smiled a little. Very quietly.

What if it's locked?

Then I'd try a window.

And if the windows are locked.

I don't know; I guess I'd break one.

You know how to do that?

Hey, but in the summer you wouldn't have to,
Nancy said. You could just cut a hole in the screen.

If there's a window open.

She sat up. Let's do it. Break into somebody's house.

What for? There's no reason.

For fun.

And Leon Woody said, Like, man, a game?
And he said to Leon Woody, riding along in the carpet cleaning truck, Yeah, sort of a game.

Ryan said, Have you ever done it?

Nancy shook her head. Not really.

What do you mean, not really? You either have or you haven't.

I've looked through people's houses when they weren't home.

And you think it's fun.

Uh-huh, don't you?

And Leon Woody said, Do you know what you get if you lose the game?
And he said to Leon Woody, That's part of it. The risk.

How do you know if you have the nerve?
Ryan said to her.

Oh, come on.
Nancy reached toward the umbrella table for a cigarette. What's so hard about sneaking into a house?

There.

Ryan waited. He watched her light the cigarette and exhale smoke to blow out the match. He waited until she looked at him and then he said, Do you want to try it?

No rocks tonight,
Ryan said. Okay?

No rocks,
Nancy said. I've decided if there aren't any lights on, no one's home. It's dark enough but it's too early for people to be in bed.

Maybe they're on the porch.

Maybe,
she said. Of course where the lights are on, they might still not be home. I always leave a light on.

I guess most people do.

So we'll have to go up close and take a look.

She was at ease, Ryan could feel that. He couldn't imagine her not at ease. But she still could be faking it. It was still talking and not doing and there were a few miles of nerve between the two.

Which house?
Ryan said.

I was thinking that dark one.

Let's go.

He would remember, after, that he'd said it. She didn't have to plead with him or push him. She stood relaxed, watching him, and when he said, Let's go,
she smiled he would remember that too and followed him across the beach, up into the tree darkness that closed in on the houses, out of the trees and across a front lawn and up the steps to the porch of the house that showed no lights, doing it now and not fooling around, hoping he was shaking her up a little.

Ryan pushed the doorbell.

What do you say if someone comes?
Her voice was calm, above a whisper.

We ask if they know where the Morrisons live.

What if that's their name?

He rang the bell again and waited, giving them enough time to come down if they were upstairs in bed. He waited another moment, putting it off, then opened the screen and tried the door. The knob turned in his hand.

I told you it wasn't hard,
Nancy said. She started past him into the house.