Swag (23 page)

“Yeah,” Cal said, “I think he would. He knows I know he's got some money. Yeah—”

“Then you got the two of them looking at each other, the one guy facing a conviction. What's the other guy going to say to him?”

“He's going to say, Jesus, it's a shitty deal, but hang in there, man. It's like, Gee, I'm sorry you got leukemia, but there isn't anything I can do about it.”

“And what's Stickley thinking, feeling his temporary freedom? He's already served time, he knows what it's like in there.”

“He's thinking, Why me and not them? See,” Cal said, “the trouble is I can't mention the money to him, let him know he's been fucked over. We can't let that out yet to anybody.”

“You don't have to tell him,” Emory Parks said. “His buddies, maybe his roommate if he's one of them, they don't know what's in Mr. Stickley's head. They don't know what he knows or doesn't know. He was in jail, they couldn't touch him, they hold their breath. But if he's out—can they take a chance letting him go to trial? Won't the cops try and plea-bargain with him? They already shot poor Billy Ruiz. They going to take a chance on this cat telling stories about them?”

“It's interesting,” Cal said.

“It's not only interesting,” the little prosecutor said, “it's all you got. Unless you find out one of them's been jumping that cute little black chick in the office. Then you got a lead on something else.”

“Listen,” Cal said, “I think I've got enough to work on for a while. Yes sir, I believe this could open it up.”

“If you plant a little seed with this Stickley before you turn him loose.”

“Yeah”—Cal was nodding—“make sure he realizes what a shitty deal he's getting.”

“Not only a shitty deal, make him realize life can be dangerous out there. Man disappears for a time, they find him in the trunk of a car out at the airport. Say to him he ought to be very careful where he goes, where he meets his friends.”

“Yeah,” Cal said, “get him to reconsider who his friends are, who can do him the most good.”

“That's it.” Emory Parks smiled then. “You're going to take all this back to Thirteen hundred and Walter's going to say, ‘You've been talking to that fat little nigger again, haven't you?' And you'll say, ‘Well, I just picked at his brain a little.' ”

“Your ass,” Cal said. “I'll tell him I figured it all out myself. You got a free lunch, you fat little nigger, what more do you want?”

22

“
WHY DON'T YOU JUST NOT
say anything?” Stick said. “If you don't talk for a while, it's okay with me.”

“Look, I'm sorry,” Frank said. “You think I'm blaming you, for Christ sake? I'm trying to find out how it happened.”

“How it
hap
pened? I reach for the box and the guy, the cop, puts a fucking gun in my face is how it happened. They're waiting there—this great idea—they know exactly where it was.”

“But how could they?”

“How do I know? They found out or somebody told them—shit, I don't know. This fucking great idea—I should be in Florida right now, I'm facing a robbery conviction.”

“Conspiring to commit larceny from a building,” Frank said.

“At the moment. But the cop, you know what the hotshot cop says? ‘Maybe at the exam we'll change it to robbery armed. And if we do that, we might as well go all the way to murder, right?' ”

“The guy's blowing smoke up your ass. I think they'll go in on the larceny thing and get it thrown out.”

“Yeah, well I'll tell the judge that, you don't think I'll get convicted. I'm facing the fucking thing and you're sitting home with your nice thoughts.”

They walked along in silence, away from the Wayne County jail building down St. Antoine toward the parking structure. It was four in the afternoon, warm and sunny. They had walked down this street once before—it seemed a long time ago—on their way to the Greek place, the Bouzouki.

Frank said, “You want a drink?”

“I want to take a shower and change my clothes,” Stick said.

Frank was silent again. Everything he said came out wrong, not the way he intended it, or Stick would turn it around. He didn't know what to say to him, but he kept trying anyway. Walking along in silence, Stick next to him, was worse.

“There was a cop, a hippie-looking guy,” Frank said, “he was out a couple of times. Came with a search warrant the first time. I said, You don't need that, we got nothing to hide. He found the dough under the sink. I told him it was our nest egg, we'd won it at the track.”

“He talk to anybody else there?”

“He talked to everybody. The ladies told him we're consultants.”

“How about Arlene? He talk to her?”

“I don't know, I guess so.”

“She was away,” Stick said, “in Chicago or someplace.”

“She's back now. I've seen her a couple of times.”

“But you don't know if he talked to her.”

“You afraid he told her something? What's the guy know? There's one little piece in the paper about you. It said you'd been arrested, but it was only speculated, in connection with the Hudson's thing. See, they're not playing it up because they don't have a case against you. They start bragging they got the guy and then you walk out, they don't look so good.”

“Who'd you talk to?” Stick said. “I mean the girls there.”

“I talked to Karen and I talked to Jackie. They say, What's this with your buddy? I told them it was all a dumb mistake. You walk in, you're going to buy a doll, send to your little girl, they think you look suspicious for some reason and they arrest you. They get it cleared up, you'll be out, we'll all be laughing about it,” Frank said. “Don't worry about the girls, they don't know anything.”

“Arlene does,” Stick said.

“What? There's nothing anybody could tell her.”

“I'm saying Arlene knows about us.”

It took Frank a moment. He almost came to a stop. “Wait a minute, you mean
you
told her something?”

“I didn't tell her anything,” Stick said. “The bar in Hazel Park, we took the money from the guy? She was there.”

“Come on—”

“Sitting at the bar with her friend.”

“Jesus Christ—you sure?”

“Am I
sure
? She told me, she's sitting there. We push her in the room with everybody, we didn't even see her.”

“But—she didn't go to the cops?”

“I think we'd of heard.”

“Then what's she doing? She want something?”

“I don't know. I'm going to have to talk to her.”

“You don't
know
? You discuss this with her—when was that?”

“Just before she left. I haven't seen her since that night.”

“Jesus Christ,” Frank said. “That's all we need.”

Stick felt a little better. Frank wasn't his calm, casual self anymore.

“Latest development,” Detective Calvin Brown said into the phone, “I didn't get to him soon enough. While we're having the lunch, his roomie put up the bond.”

He took a sip of coffee as he listened to the little prosecutor and put the cup down on the metal desk in the little gray partitioned room that was called his office: Criminal Investigation Division, fifth floor, 1300 Beaubien.

“It could be all right,” the little prosecutor said, “if the man's been thinking and he realizes they could be worried about him and that's why they wanted him out. But you don't know, do you, the extent of his imagination.”

“I don't know,” Cal said. “He sounds like a country boy, but I really don't know.”

“You don't want to find him dead before he has a chance to learn who his true friends are, do you?”

“No, I sure don't.”

“Then you better see about talking to him pretty soon. Maybe go so far as to mention some money being taken. I've been thinking about that.”

“I have, too,” Cal said. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“This other Ryan, man used to work with me a long time ago,” Leon Woody said. “His name was
Jack
Ryan. We work for this man was in the carpet-cleaning business? Get in a house, we see some things we like, we leave a window unlocked, come back at night. He was a nice boy, Jack Ryan.”

Sportree came in from the kitchen with a drink in each hand. Frank Ryan thanked him as he took his and waited as Sportree handed the other drink to Leon Woody and went out again.

“No, I don't think I ever heard of him,” Frank said.

“He wanted to be a baseball player.”

“Is that right?”

“Play in the major leagues. Nice boy, but he couldn't hit a curveball for shit.”

“I guess it's pretty hard,” Frank said, “you don't have an eye.”

Sportree came in with a drink for himself and sat down.

“See, what I'm thinking,” he said, “man was in the joint once, he sure don't want to go back.”

“There's no reason he will,” Frank said, leaning forward now, sitting on the couch. “All they got on him, he might've been
think
ing about robbing the place. How do they prove he knows there's money in the box?”

“I'm thinking I don't know what he's thinking,” Sportree said. “Maybe he believes they can put him away. He does, he might want to tell them things, give them some names, uh? And they tear up his piece of paper.”

“He wouldn't tell them
any
thing,” Frank said. “I know he wouldn't.”

“Thing that bothers me most,” Sportree said, “man was in the joint. See, he think different after that. He finger his mama to stay out in the fresh air.”

“Look,” Frank said, “if they had something on him, it'd be different. If they were really going to hit him and he saw he was going to take the whole shot. But he knows if he waits them out, keeps his mouth shut, they're going to have to let him go. All he did, he picked up a box.”

“
The
box.”

“Yes, and they assumed things too quick, he'd been in on the hit and somebody in the office would identify him. Otherwise they'd have let him walk out with it and then nailed him. But they were too eager, little too sure of themselves.”

Sportree looked over at Leon Woody.

“That'd be nice he don't say nothing,” Leon Woody said, “and they say to him, Thank you, we sorry we bothered you, man, let him go. That'd be nice. But the way I see it, they going to take him down in the basement and whip the shit out of him and pull his fingernails out 'less he start to talk to them.”

“Come on,” Frank said, “they don't, they can't get away with that stuff anymore.”

“Hey shit, they don't,” Leon Woody said. “If he the only one they got, they going to do something with him, drop him out a window on his head, he don't start to talk to them. Say he try and run away.”

Frank looked at Sportree. “How about I bring him around, you talk to him?”

“Might be an idea.”

“I think you should,” Frank said. “You got any doubts at all, talk to him. You trust me, don't you?”

“You not arrested,” Sportree said. “Not yet.”

“I mean wouldn't you trust me? If it was me instead of him? It's the same thing. I give you my word the guy won't talk.”

Sportree said, “He knows about Billy getting hit, don't he?”

“I told him Billy wanted it all for himself and it was something had to be done.”

“You make up a story, you not too sure of him either.”

“No, it was so he'd go in and get the box, not change his mind.”

Sportree and Leon Woody sat in silence, staring at him.

Frank shook his head. “Hey, come on, what're you thinking about? You're not sure you can trust the guy, you want to kill him, for Christ sake?”

“Frank,” Sportree said, “we known each other a long time, longer than you known him. He start mentioning names, your name's going to be on the list, too. Everybody's name. Next thing, they got us in there for murder. Something a dead man did, and we didn't even make it, did we? Got nothing. But nothing is better than being in there for murder, and the only way we can have some peace of mind is to know your friend isn't going to tell them anything. You agree?”

“But he won't,” Frank said. “I give you my word he won't talk.”

There was a silence, and again they stared at him. Leon Woody took a sip of his drink. Sportree's fingers fooled with his trading beads.

“I'll bring him here,” Frank said.

Sportree nodded. “I be anxious to see him.”

23