When the Women Come out to Dance (2002) (15 page)

Shit. . . . Okay, she'd play the game, but not undercover.

She'd first let him know she was a federal officer and see wha
t he thought about it.

Could Carl be a bank robber?

She'd reserve judgment. Assume almost anyone could a
t one time or another and go from there.

What Karen did, she came home and put a po
t roast in the oven and left her bag on the kitchen table, open , the grip of a Beretta nine sticking out in plain sight.

Carl arrived, they kissed in the living room, Karen feelin
g it but barely looking at him. When he smelled the pot roas t cooking, Karen said, "Come on, you can make the drink s while I put the potatoes on." In the kitchen, then, she stoo d with the refrigerator door open, her back to Carl, giving hi m time to notice the pistol. Finally he said, "Jesus, you're a cop."

She had rehearsed this moment. The idea: turn saying
, "You guessed," sounding surprised; then look at the pisto l and say something like "Nuts, I gave it away." But she didn't.

He said, "Jesus, you're a cop," and she turned from the refrigerator with an ice tray and said, "Federal. I'm a U
. S
. marshal."

"I would never've guessed," Carl said, "not in a millio
n years."

Thinking about it before, she didn't know if he'd wig ou
t or what. She looked at him now, and he seemed to be taking i t okay, smiling a little.

He said, "But why?"

"Why what?"

"Are you a marshal?"

"Well, first of all, my dad has a company, Marshall Sisc
o Investigations. . . ."

"You mean because of his name, Marshall?"

"What I am--they're not spelled the same. No, but as soo
n as I learned to drive I started doing surveillance jobs for him.

Like following some guy who was trying to screw his insurance company, a phony claim. I got the idea of going into law enforcement. So after a couple of years at Miami I transferre d to Florida Atlantic and got in their Criminal Justic e program."

"I mean why not FBI, if you're gonna do it, or DEA?"

"Well, for one thing, I liked to smoke grass when I wa
s younger, so DEA didn't appeal to me at all. Secret Service guy s I met were so fucking secretive, you ask them a question , they'd go, 'You'll have to check with Washington on that.' See , different federal agents would come to school to give talks. I g ot to know a couple of marshals--we'd go out after, have a few beers, and I liked them. They're nice guys, condescendin g at first, naturally; but after a few years they got over it."

Carl was making drinks now, Early Times for Karen, Dewar's in his glass, both with a splash. Standing at the sink, letting the faucet run, he said, "What do you do?"

"I'm on court security this week. My regular assignment is warrants. We go after fugitives, most of them parole violators."

Carl handed her a drink. "Murderers?"

"If they were involved in a federal crime when they did it.

Usually drugs."

"Bank robbery, that's federal, isn't it?"

"Yeah, some guys come out of corrections and go righ
t back to work."

"You catch many?"

"Bank robbers?" Karen said. "Nine out of ten," lookin
g right at him.

Carl raised his glass. "Cheers."

While they were having dinner at the kitchen table h
e said, "You're quiet this evening."

"I'm tired, I was on my feet all day, with a shotgun."

"I can't picture that," Carl said. "You don't look like a U
. S
.
m arshal, or any kind of cop."

"What do I look like?"

"A knockout. You're the best-looking girl I've ever bee
n this close to. I got a pretty close look at Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, when they were here shooting Scarface? But you're a lot better looking. I like your freckles."

"I used to be loaded with them."

"You have some gravy on your chin. Right here."

Karen touched it with her napkin. She said, "I'd like to se
e your boat."

He was chewing pot roast and had to wait before saying, "I
t old you it was out of the water?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't have the boat anymore. It was repossessed when I
f ell behind in my payments."

"The bank sold it?"

"Yeah, Florida Southern. I didn't want to tell you when w
e first met. Get off to a shaky start."

"But now that you can tell me I've got gravy on m
y chin . . ."

"I didn't want you to think I was some kind of loser."

"What've you been doing since?"

"Working as a mate, up at Haulover."

"You still have your place, your apartment?"

"Yeah, I get paid, I can swing that, no problem."

"I have a friend in the marshals lives in North Miami, o
n Alamanda off a Hundred and Twenty-fifth."

Carl nodded. "That's not far from me."

"You want to go out after?"

"I thought you were tired."

"I am."

"Then why don't we stay home?" Carl smiled. "What d
o you think?"

"Fine."

They made love in the dark. He wanted to turn the lam
p on, but Karen said no, leave it off.

Geraldine Regal, the first teller at Sun Federa
l on Kendall Drive, watched a man with slicked-back hair an d sunglasses fishing in his inside coat pocket as he approache d her window. It was nine-forty, Tuesday morning. At first sh e thought the guy was Latin. Kind of cool, except that up close his hair looked shellacked, almost metallic. She wanted to as k him if it hurt. He brought papers, deposit slips, and a blan k check from the pocket saying, "I'm gonna make this ou t for four thousand." Began filling out the check and said, "Yo u hear about the woman trapeze artist, her husband's divorcing her?"

Geraldine said she didn't think so, smiling, because it wa
s a little weird, a customer she'd never seen before telling her a joke.

"They're in court. The husband's lawyer asks her, 'Isn't i
t true that on Monday, March the 5th, hanging from the trapeze upside down, without a net, you had sex with the ringmaster, the lion tamer, two clowns, and a dwarf ?' "

Geraldine waited. The man paused, head down as he finished making out the check. Now he looked up.

"The woman trapeze artist thinks for a minute and says
, 'What was that date again?' "

Geraldine was laughing as he handed her the check, smiling as she saw it was a note written on a blank check, neatly printed in block letters, that said: THIS IS NO JOKE
IT'S A STICKUP! I WANT $4000 NOW!

Geraldine stopped smiling. The guy with the metallic hai
r was telling her he wanted it in hundreds, fifties, and twenties , loose, no bank straps or rubber bands, no bait money, no dy e packs, no bills off the bottom of the drawer, and he wanted hi s note back. Now.

"The teller didn't have four grand in he
r drawer," Daniel Burdon said, "so the guy settled for twentyeight hundred and was out of there. Slick changing his style--we know it's the same guy, with the shiny hair? Onl y now he's the Joker. The trouble is, see, I ain't Batman."

Daniel and Karen Sisco were in the hallway outside th
e central courtroom on the second floor, Daniel resting his lon g frame against the railing, where you could look below at th e atrium with its fountain and potted palms.

"No witness to see him hop in his BMW this time.

The man coming to realize that was dumb, using his ow
n car."

Karen said, "Or it's not Carl Tillman."

"You see him last night?"

"He came over."

"Yeah, how was it?"

Karen looked up at Daniel's deadpan expression. "I tol
d him I was a federal agent and he didn't freak."

"So he's cool, huh?"

"He's a nice guy."

"Cordial. Tells jokes robbing banks. I talked to the peopl
e at Florida Southern, where he had his boat loan? Found ou t he was seeing one of the tellers. Not at the main office, one o f their branches, girl named Kathy Lopez. Big brown eyes , cute as a puppy, just started working there. She's out wit h Tillman she tells him about her job, what she does, how she's counting money all day. I asked was Tillman interested, wan t to know anything in particular? Oh, yeah, he wanted t o know what she was supposed to do if the bank ever go t robbed. So she tells him about dye packs, how they work , how she gets a two-hundred-dollar bonus if she's ever robbe d and can slip one in with the loot. The next time he's in, cut e little Kathy Lopez shows him one, explains how you walk ou t the door with a pack of fake twenties? A half minute later th e tear gas blows and you have that red shit all over you an d the money you stole. I checked the reports on the other robberies he pulled? Every one of them he said to the teller, no dye packs or that bait money with the registered seria l numbers."

"Making conversation," Karen said, trying hard to maintain her composure. "People like to talk about what they do."

Daniel smiled.

And Karen said, "Carl's not your man."

"Tell me why you're so sure."

"I know him. He's a good guy."

"Karen, you hear yourself ? You're telling me what you feel
, not what you know. Tell me about him--you like the way h e dances, what?"

Karen didn't answer that one. She wanted Daniel to leav
e her alone.

He said, "Okay, you want to put a wager on it, you sa
y Tillman's clean?"

That brought her back, hooked her, and she said, "Ho
w much?"

"You lose, you go out dancing with me."

"Great. And if I'm right, what do I get?"

"My undying respect," Daniel said.

As soon as Karen got home she called her da
d at Marshall Sisco Investigations and told him about Carl Tillman, the robbery suspect in her life, and about Daniel Burdon's confident, condescending, smart-ass, irritating attitude.

Her dad said, "Is this guy colored?"

"Daniel?"

"I know he is. Friends of mine at Metro-Dade call him th
e white man's Burdon, on account of he gets on their nerves always being right. I mean your guy. There's a running back in the NFL named Tillman. I forget who he's with."

Karen said, "You're not helping any."

"The Tillman in the pros is colored--the reason I asked. I
t hink he's with the Bears."

"Carl's white."

"Okay, and you say you're crazy about him?"

"I like him, a lot."

"But you aren't sure he isn't doing the banks."

"I said I can't believe he is."

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Come on--if he is he's not gonna tell me."

"How do you know?"

She didn't say anything and after a few moments her da
d asked if she was still there.

"He's coming over tonight," Karen said.

"You want me to talk to him?" "You're not serious."

"Then what'd you call me for?"

"I'm not sure what to do."

"Let the FBI work it."

"I'm supposed to be helping them."

"Yeah, but what good are you? You want to believe th
e guy's clean. Honey, the only way to find out if he is, you hav e to assume he isn't. You know what I'm saying? Why does a person rob banks? For money, yeah. But you have to be a moron, too, considering the odds against you, the security, cameras taking your picture. . . . So another reason could be the risk involved, it turns him on. The same reason he's playin g around with you. . . ."

"He isn't playing around."

"I'm glad I didn't say 'sucking up to get information, se
e what you know.' "

"He's never mentioned banks." Karen paused. "Well, h
e might've once."

"You could bring it up, see how he reacts. He gets sweaty
, call for backup. Look, whether he's playing around or love s you with all his heart, he's still risking twenty years. H
e doesn't know if you're onto him or not and that heightens th e risk. It's like he thinks he's Cary Grant stealing jewels fro m the broad's home where he's having dinner, in his tux. Bu t your guy's still a moron if he robs banks. You know all that.

Your frame of mind, you just don't want to accept it."

"You think I should draw him out. See if I can set him up."

"Actually," her dad said, "I think you should find anothe
r boyfriend."