Swag (2 page)

“I thought he was the one,” Frank said. “But now I see him again, I'm not sure.”

Ernest Stickley, sitting about fifteen feet away, was staring at him. Frank met his gaze and held it a moment before looking at the prosecutor again.

“I mean maybe it's the same person, but I have to tell you I've got a reasonable doubt it isn't. I can't
swear
it's the same person.”

“You're sure one day,” the little prosecutor said, “now today you're not?”

“I didn't say I was sure. The police officer asked me if he was the one and I said, I think so. I said, He's certainly not any of those other ones.”

The little prosecutor didn't seem to be having fun anymore. He began trying to put words in Frank's mouth until Stick's lawyer, appointed by the court, felt he had better object to that and the judge sustained it. Then Stick's lawyer put a few words of his own in Frank's mouth the way he slanted his question and Frank repeated no, he could not positively identify anyone in the courtroom as the person who'd driven off in the '73 Camaro. The prosecutor wouldn't let go. He went at Frank again until the judge told him to please introduce a new line of questioning or else call another witness.

The prosecutor thanked the judge—Frank wasn't sure why—and the judge thanked Frank as he stepped down. The judge was quiet, very polite.

Watching all this, especially watching the guy from the used-car lot, Frank Ryan, Stick kept thinking. What the hell is going on? He couldn't believe it. He sat very still in the chair, almost with the feeling that if he moved, this Frank Ryan would look at him again and squint and say, Wait a minute, yeah, that's the one.

The guy from the used-car lot went out through the gate. Stick didn't turn around, but he had a feeling the guy was still in the courtroom.

He watched the officer who had arrested him take the stand, wearing slacks and a black leather jacket that was open, his holstered Police Special on a direct line with Stick's gaze.

The patrolman recited in Official Police how he and his partner had noted the Indiana license plate on the alleged stolen vehicle and had pursued the suspect, witnessing how he had apparently lost control taking a corner upon entering Grand River Avenue and proceeded to sideswipe three cars parked along the west side of the street. Because of the traffic they were not able to keep the suspect in sight, but did locate the vehicle in a parking lot adjacent to the Happy Times Bar located at Twenty-nine twenty-one Grand River. Upon entering the premises the patrolman asked the bartender who, if anyone, had come in during the past few minutes. The bartender pointed to the person later identified as the suspect. When approached, the suspect said, “What seems to be the trouble, Officer?” The suspect was placed under arrest and informed of his rights.

“And is that person now in this courtroom?”

“Yes sir,” the patrolman said to the smart little prosecutor. “He's sitting right there in front of me.”

Stick didn't move; he stared back at the policeman. Finally his lawyer leaned toward him with his cigar breath and asked in a hoarse whisper if he would be willing to take the stand, tell what he was doing in the bar and how he got there, show them he had nothing to hide.

Stick whispered back to him, “You out of your fucking mind?”

He didn't have to go up there and testify to anything if he didn't want to. They'd have to prove he had gotten out of the '73 Camaro and walked into the Happy Times Bar, and there wasn't any way in the world they could do it.

The prosecutor tried for another few minutes, until the judge called both attorneys up to the bench and politely told the prosecutor to please quit mind-fucking the court, produce some evidence that would stand up in trial or else everybody was going to miss lunch today. That was how Stick got off.

2

AFTER HE WAS RELEASED HE
didn't see the guy from the used-car lot in the courtroom or in the hall. He saw him on the steps outside the building, lighting a cigarette, and knew the guy was waiting for him to come over.

“You want one?”

“I'm trying to quit,” Stick said. He hesitated. “Yeah, I guess I will,” he said then and took a Marlboro from a pack the guy offered.

Holding a lighted match, the guy said, “I'm Frank Ryan. I wasn't sure if you heard my name up there.”

Stick looked at him. “I heard it.” Neither of them offered to shake hands.

Frank said, “You're lucky. That judge seemed like a nice guy. No bullshit.”

“I guess I was lucky, all right,” Stick said, looking at the guy's neatly combed hair. He was an inch or so taller than Stick, about six feet even, slim build in his green, lightweight, shiny-looking summer suit, with the coat open. Stick had on the same yellow, green, and blue sport shirt he'd worn for almost a week. He said, “It's funny how sometimes you get lucky and other times everything goes against you.”

“It is funny,” Frank Ryan said. “You want to get a drink or something?”

“I wouldn't mind it. I was in that Wayne County jail six days and six nights and they didn't serve us any cocktails or anything. I guess that's when you were deciding I wasn't the guy after all.”

“You were the guy,” Frank said.

Looking at each other, squinting a little in the sunlight, they were both aware of the people passing them on the steps and could feel the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice rising above them with its big plate-glass windows. Stick said, “You got a place in mind?”

They walked down St. Antoine toward the river and over a side street through Greektown to the Club Bouzouki. Stick had never heard of the place or the drink Frank ordered once they were sitting at the bar. Ouzo. Frank said why didn't he try one; but Stick said he'd just as soon go with bourbon, it seemed to do the job. He looked around the place, a big, flashy bar, mirrors and paintings, a dance floor and bandstand, bartenders in red vests, but only a few customers in here at eleven thirty in the morning. It was dim and relaxing. Stick wasn't in a hurry. It was up to Frank; it was his party. He didn't seem to be in a hurry either. He sipped his milky-looking drink and said to Stick he ought to try it sometime. It tasted like paregoric, so it ought to be good for the stomach. Here he was, after six days in jail, sitting in a bar shooting the shit with the guy who'd put him in then gotten him out. Even though it didn't make sense, Stick wasn't going to rush it.

“You know, the whole thing was,” Frank said, “I had a feeling you thought I was a cluck. I catch you dead nuts in the middle of the act, you don't even act nervous or anything.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Stick said. “You walk up to me—you think I'm going to get out and run? I got the thing in
Drive
.”

“I know, but it was what I felt. Like you're thinking I'm too dumb to do anything about it.”

“I wasn't thinking so much of you as just getting out of there.”

“See, I go to the show-up,” Frank said, “and I'm still a little pissed off. So I identify you. As far as I know, the cops have you nailed down, so it doesn't make any difference. Then I find out I'm the only eyeball witness they got. Also I find out your name's Ernest.”

“That's it,” Stick said, “Ernest. But I didn't pick it.”

“I started thinking about that old saying about being frank and earnest,” Frank said. “You be frank and I'll be earnest.”

Stick waited. “Yeah?”

“It seemed to fit.”

“It seemed to fit what?”

“Also I learned a few things about your record, about doing time at Milan. You want a cigarette?”

“I got to buy some, I guess, if I'm going to keep smoking,” Stick said.

Frank struck a match and held it for him. “Something I was wondering,” he said. “If you got a gun. If you ever carried one.”

“A gun?” Stick looked at him. “You don't need a gun to pick up a car. You don't
want
a gun.”

“Well, I didn't know if that was all you did.”

“I'll tell you something,” Stick said, “since you'll probably ask me anyway. The other night—I hadn't picked up a car in over five years. That's a fact.”

“But you picked up plenty before that, uh?”

“You could be a cop and I could give you places and dates, but it wouldn't do you any good. Time's run out.”

“Well, you know I'm not a cop.”

“That's about all I know,” Stick said, “so I'll ask you a question if it's okay. What're you besides a used-car salesman and a sport that drinks a white Greek drink that looks like medicine?”

“I don't drink it all the time,” Frank said. “Only when I come here.”

“Is that your answer?”

“I'm not ducking the question. It's not so much what I am,” Frank said, “as what I want to be.”

“Yeah, and what's that?”

Frank hesitated, drawing on his cigarette, then took a sip of the milky-looking ouzo. “What do they call you? Ernie?”

“You call me that, I won't answer,” Stick said. “No, I used to be Ernie, a long time ago. Still once in a while people call me Ernest. It's my name, I can't do anything about that. But usually they call me Stick. Friends, guys I work with.”

“Because you stick up places?”

“Because of my name, Stickley, and I was skinny, like a stick in high school, when I was playing basketball.”

“Yeah! I did, too,” Frank said. “Was that down in Oklahoma you played?”

“Up here. I was born in Norman,” Stick said, “but I guess you know that, uh?”

Frank nodded. “I don't detect much of an accent, though.”

“I guess I lost most of what I had,” Stick said, “moving around different places. We come up here, our family, my dad worked out at Rouge twenty-three years.”

Frank seemed interested. “We got a lot in common. My old man worked at Ford Highland Park. I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, came to Detroit when I was four, and lived here, I guess, most of my life, except for three years I spent in LA.”

“You married?” Stick asked him.

“Twice. And I got no intention right now of going for thirds. Let's get back,” Frank said. “I want to ask you, you never stuck up a place? Used a gun?”

Stick waited a moment, like he was trying to see beyond the question, then shook his head. “Not my style. But since we're opening our souls, how about you?”

“Uh-unh, me neither,” Frank said. “Well, years ago I was into a little burglary, B and E. Me and another guy, we didn't do too bad. But then he went into numbers or something—he was a black guy—so I quit before I got in too deep. In and out, you might say.”

“You never used a gun during that time?”

“We didn't have to. We only went into places there wasn't anybody home.”

“But now you got a sudden interest in guns, it seems.”

“Not a sudden interest.” Frank came around on his stool, giving it a quarter turn. “I've been studying the situation for some time now, ever since I got back from LA, reading up on all the different ways people break the law to make money. You know why most people get caught?”

“Because they're dumb.”

“Right. Or they're desperate. Like a junkie.”

“Stay away from junkies,” Stick said. “Don't have any part of them.”

Frank raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You believe that, uh?”

“It's the first rule of life,” Stick said. He finished his drink, making sure he got it all, shaking the ice in the empty glass. “I'd buy a round,” he said, “but I got eight bucks on me and it's got to last till I find out where I'm at.”

Frank looked over at the bartender and made a circular motion for a couple of more. He said to Stick, “Don't worry about it. Listen, I was going to ask you what you had in mind. The cop I talked to said you were unemployed.”

“Not in Florida. I can get all the work I want in Florida. Cement work. I was going back there to see my little girl.”

“I understand you're divorced, too.”

“Finally. Listen to this, you want to hear something? We're living in Florida, my wife starts bitching about the hot weather, how she doesn't see her old friends anymore, how her mom's driving her crazy? Her mom lives down there. Wonderful woman, old lady's never smiled in her life. She's watching television, that commercial used to be on a couple years ago about brotherhood, working together and all? It shows all these people standing in a field singing that song—I can't think of how it goes now. All these people singing, and in there you start to recognize some celebrities, Johnny Carson . . . lot of different ones. Her mom squints at the TV set and says, ‘Is that niggers?' I'm taking her to the eye doctor's, the car radio's on. Every Friday I'd take her to the eye doctor's. She listens to this group playing some rock thing and says, ‘Is that niggers?' We come back up here, sell this house we got that's right off the Intercoastal—come back, my wife's still bitching. Now it's the cold weather, busing, the colored situation, shit, you name it. We're arguing all the time, so finally we separate. Not legally, but we separate. Now what does she do? She goes back to Florida and moves in with her mom. Divorce was final last month.”