Swag (24 page)

“
I THOUGHT WE WERE COMING
right back,” Arlene said, “but we went to St. Louis for the Gateway Nationals and I spent three days in the courtesy trailer passing out beer and soft drinks. Least it was air-conditioned. God, it was so hot and dusty at the track you wouldn't have believed it. But the only times
I
had to go out was when they gave out an award and I'd pose with Larry Huff and Chuck Hurst and Bob Amos and those guys. I got a lot more pictures. Oh God, but there was a terrible accident. This Pro Stocker went out of control about nine hundred feet down the track, went through the guardrail, flipped over—fortunately there weren't many people in the stands that far down—”

“Arlene.”

She stopped.

“Have you told anybody about seeing us?”

“What?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I shouldn't have mentioned that to you, should I?”

“You did,” Stick said. “I've been a little anxious wondering if you told anybody.”

“I haven't. Honest to God, I haven't told a soul.”

She was afraid of him and afraid of showing it. He saw it in her expression again, in her eyes, as he had seen it, momentarily, when she had opened the door and he was standing there. Then covering up quickly with a smile that must have ached: Come on in, stranger. Gosh, it's been awhile, hasn't it? And getting rapidly into what she had been doing the past two weeks. Busy, God, she'd never been busier.

They were alone in her apartment in the quiet of a sunny afternoon. Arlene had come up from the pool a few minutes before—Stick had watched her from the balcony—and she was still in her lavender little two-piecer with her beads and rings and damp, tight-curly red hair, looking fragile and afraid. He wanted to touch her, put his arms around her, and feel the calm settle in her body as she realized there was nothing to be afraid of. But he knew he had to approach her gradually, that if he raised his hands she might scream and run from him.

“I believe you,” Stick said. He tried a little smile and meant it. She was still tense but trying not to show it, standing in the middle of the room with the photographs and the life-size cutout of her in her silver Hi-Performance Cams outfit. They were both awkward standing there, not knowing what to do with their hands. Arlene touched a Maltese cross hanging from a thin gold chain and held on.

“How about the guy you were with? You didn't tell him you knew us?”

“Honest to gosh, I really didn't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. . . . Well, I knew he wouldn't want to get involved, and you know, his wife finds out he was there with somebody. So I didn't say anything.”

“Why didn't you tell the police? Leave him out of it.”

“Well”—she made a face, frowning—“it's hard to explain. You want to sit down and have a drink or something? I don't know why I told you before. Maybe because I'd had all those drinks and wasn't feeling any pain, but I could sure use one now.”

Stick made her a Salty Dog and then changed his mind and fixed one for himself, something to sip on. They sat down on the couch, Stick anxious but covering it pretty well, showing her she didn't have anything to worry about. He remembered telling Frank about Arlene knowing. It popped into his mind with the realization, an instinctive feeling, he shouldn't have; he should have waited at least, talked to Arlene first. Dumb, telling Frank because he had wanted to give him something to worry about. Would Frank tell the others? He said no, there wasn't any reason for him to tell them. But it continued to come into his mind, wondering about it and not being sure. Arlene sitting there, not knowing—he wanted to hold her.

“I liked you,” Arlene said. “I mean I
like
you. The way it happened, it was funny, and it wasn't like you were robbing the bar, you were taking it from, you know, taking it from the one who did rob the place, like it was his then, and taking it wasn't a bad thing, it served him right. It was
funny.”
She smiled a little. “God, I can still see it.”

“Well, did you wonder,” Stick said, “if we did it all the time? I mean, if that was what we did?”

“I didn't think about it.”

“You must've, a little.”

“I didn't. I said it wasn't any of my business. I thought—this may sound funny—I thought if you wanted to tell me, it was up to you.”

“But if I had, then what would you think?”

“Well, I'd think that . . . you trusted me. You felt close enough that you could tell me something like that and know you didn't have to worry about it.”

“You mean you wouldn't care?”

“Well, it isn't I wouldn't care. It's—see, I
have
thought about it and I always think, well, there's a reason. Like you have to have money for something. You need it desperately and nobody'll loan it to you, so you're just doing it for, whatever the reason is, and you're not going to do it anymore after.”

“Arlene, I've held up a lot of places.”

“Don't tell me, okay?”

“See, I can say I did need the money, as desperately as anybody needs it who doesn't have any. But I stole it.”

“Why do you keep saying that? I don't want to know, okay?”

“You know about the Hudson's robbery?”

“Oh God. Don't.” She squeezed her eyes closed with an expression of pain.

“I was in on it,” Stick said. “That's why I got arrested. It wasn't a mistake.”

He told her about it, describing what he did, his part in the robbery, trying not to minimize or make excuses, telling it quietly and seeing her eyes open to watch him with an expression that gradually lost its tension as her face, with its delicate features, became composed and her eyes took on an expression of calm awareness, as though she were looking into him and seeing more than a man involved in a robbery, someone else inside the man. He was aware of this as he spoke, feeling an intimacy between them that was different, softer yet stronger than what he had felt making love to her, and he knew why he was telling her about himself. He needed her.

He said, “I don't know what to do.”

She moved to him on the couch, still looking into his eyes, and took his face in her hands and kissed him, then put her arms around him and drew him against her body.

They were in darkness now, in her bedroom, lying be-side each other. He had slept and was awake, staring at the ceiling, at a faint reflection of light from the other room.

He said, “Can you go away for a while, till we see what happens?”

“Why?”

“Maybe some race or a convention coming up?”

“I'm not going to do that anymore.” She sounded a little mad and surprised. “God, what do you think I am?” When he reached over and touched her she waited a moment and said, “Don't you love me?”

“I really do.”

“Say it.”

“I love you.” He made his voice softer and said, “I love you—I never loved anybody so much.”

He felt funny hearing himself and felt her breath come out in a little sigh as she turned to cling tightly against him and that part was good. He could feel her and knew by the touch who it was, the firm little body against his. He felt good. But God, he ought to take one thing at a time and save the best, put it someplace where it wouldn't get hurt. He knew he loved her. Like waking up and being somewhere else. He could hardly believe it.

“I'm not going to stay here,” Arlene said. “I'll move out tomorrow, the stuff's not mine anyway. But I'm not going away—unless you want to and we go together.”

“I got to stay for the pretrial thing, I can't jump bail. You get brought back with handcuffs on and they got you cold.”

“Okay, I'll get another apartment, then,” Arlene said, “something cheaper. I've got enough to live on for at least a month.”

“I can help you out there.”

“No, I'll get another job if I have to. Tell you the truth, I'm awful sick of that silver outfit.” She paused a moment. “It's funny, I just feel different with you.”

“Everything could work out,” Stick said. “They drop the charge and we get out of here and that's it. Clean living from now on. I'm liable to even get a job, too.”

Arlene laughed, a muffled sound close to him that he liked.

“That'd be nice of you,” she said.

They held onto each other in the darkness. Pretty soon he'd get up and see if the car was downstairs. If it wasn't, he'd pick up a car somewhere, one last time. Everything could work out, that was true, it was possible.

As long as he stayed alive.

When Emory Parks walked into Cal Brown's drab gray partitioned office on the fifth floor, Cal looked surprised first, then turned on a little grin, and Emory knew he had something good to tell him.

“I saw Walter downstairs.”

Cal's grin faded. “He told you?”

“He was in a hurry. He said, Stop up and see the boy if you get a chance. All right, boy, what you got?”

Cal was happy again. He said, “The guy out in Bloomfield Hills with all the firearms? He got broken into again last night.”

“They know where to go, don't they?”

“Maybe not
they
this time,” Cal said. “One gun was taken, a Walther P-38, nine millimeter. The family was upstairs sleeping, didn't hear a thing.”

“It could've been somebody else.”

“You want to bet?”

“You're going to assume it's one of the whities. All right, if it makes you happy, but which one?”

“I like Mr. Stickley.”

“That's a good first choice,” the little prosecutor said. “But what if Mr. Ryan's in with the brothers—assuming there's more than one brother, which I'm inclined to believe—”

“Me, too,” Cal said.

“—and they say to him, ‘Hey, man, he's your roomie, you do it.' Then Mr. Ryan might have to get himself a weapon.”

“I don't like it that way,” Cal said. “Then it isn't divided up right. I want to see Frank and Ernest on the same team. I mean if the brothers are going to fuck over one of them, why not both?”

“You know what?” the little prosecutor said. “I believe you just said the magic word.
Both
. Why not? It wouldn't be any harder to take two whities as one, would it?”

Cal smiled. “But the whities have a gun now. Somebody's been doing some thinking and I like it.”

“You talk to them yet?”

“It's on my list of things to do,” Cal said. “I want to talk to one of the young ladies out there, too, Miss Arlene Downey, the one that was a little edgy. I've been looking into their friends and acquaintances through the computer, a nifty little machine, and you want to hear a it's-a-small-world story? Miss Arlene Downey, we find, was a witness to a holdup a month ago, the Saratoga Bar in Hazel Park. And the Saratoga Bar? Why it's on the list of twenty-five or so that fit the style of our friends Frank and Ernest.”

“It certainly is a small world,” the little prosecutor said, “You don't suppose she's working with them?”

“I don't know,” Cal said, “but I'm sure anxious to find out.”

24

I GO DOWN TO GET
the car last night,” Frank said, “it's not there. I thought maybe I forgot where I parked it. I looked all over. Christ, I thought, I parked it right in front, it's gone. I thought somebody stole it and I got to call the police.”

“You call them?”

“No, I go back out this morning, it's there. This afternoon it's gone again. Then just now—I don't know what the hell's going on.”

“I had the other set of keys,” Stick said.

“Why didn't you tell me? I'm thinking. Am I going crazy or what?”

“I got to get permission?”

“Save me some trouble, that's all. Where'd you spend the night?”

“With a friend.”

“I didn't know you had any.” Stick didn't smile and Frank said, “I'm kidding. What's the matter with you?”

“I didn't think it was funny.”

“How about this one? We were so poor when I was a kid if you didn't wake up Christmas morning with a hard-on you didn't have anything to play with.”

“You been talking to Barry.”

“I just saw him outside. He was asking about you.”

“How about Sportree, he been asking, too?”

He slipped it in and caught the startled look on Frank's face.

“Well, sure, he asked about you. He called me, in fact. He said, Why don't you make the bond on your friend? You want him sitting in jail?”

“Wanted me out, uh? In case I start getting too friendly with anybody? I can hear him: ‘We don't know your friend, man. We don't know where his head's at on this thing.' He wants to talk to me?”

“Naturally he's concerned,” Frank said. “Right, because he doesn't know you. But listen, I was the one suggested the two of you have a talk. He wasn't anxious or anything, he said maybe that was a good idea.”