Swag (29 page)

“I like this one,” Frank said. “I don't want to see it get damaged.”

“Then come back tomorrow.” Stick paused. “Wait a minute. What're we arguing about?”

“I don't want to park it up on the roof,” Frank said.

Arlene paid the cabdriver and turned around to see a porter picking up her two suitcases. The porter asked her, What airline, ma'am? Arlene said thank you, but she'd take the bags herself, they weren't heavy. The porter, without a word, set them down and turned away as she picked them up. Arlene was afraid to let the bags out of her sight. She had never been so tense. She went through the automatic doors that opened in front of her, beginning to angle toward the right as she entered the terminal, knowing Delta was over there, the counters running the length of the right wall. She had come in and walked over that way before, going to Atlanta and Daytona Beach for NASCAR races.

But this time Arlene stopped.

Directly in front of her, high above the American Air Lines counter, was a giant black rectangle with white lighted letters and numbers that listed departures. It was strange the way her gaze saw, not a list of flight numbers and cities, but only one.

LOS ANGELES.

FLIGHT 41.

5:30 P.M.

ON TIME.

She looked over at the clock high above the Delta counter.

A quarter to five.

Arlene thought of her friend in Bakersfield. She thought of the Grand Nationals coming up, the week after next. She thought of Hollywood. That was strange, Hollywood. She thought of the silver costume. And she thought of her age, twenty-six. In a month, twenty-seven. Why'd she think of that?

Arlene walked over to the American counter.

Frank and Stick came across the enclosed overpass that joined the parking structure to the main entrance that was on the second level of the West Terminal, Detroit Metropolitan. They had walked from the parked T-bird, carrying their bags, about two hundred yards.

Frank said, “You got the keys?”

Stick said, “What keys?”

“The
car
keys.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stick said.

Maybe he wouldn't be coming back with Frank in a couple of weeks. Let him get the car by himself, he loved it so much.

They crossed the roadway and passed the cars being unloaded and the porters and the hand trucks—none of the porters offered to take their bags—and entered the terminal through the automatic doors.

“I don't see her around,” Stick said.

Frank's gaze followed Stick's, studying the people walking around and waiting, most of them waiting at counters, some sitting down in the rows of seats. The place didn't seem very busy.

There were several lines at the Delta counter. Frank picked the shortest line, behind two people. Stick waited with him a minute, then stepped over to a line of three people. Frank gave him a look. Ten minutes later Frank was still behind the two people. Stick was at the counter. Frank came over. He said to the reservations clerk, “Mr. Ryan and Mr. Stickley. I believe you're holding a couple of seats for us. The Miami flight.”

The clerk stepped over to a machine, punched a few keys, waited while the thing clicked back at him, and punched a few more. He did it again and stepped back to them saying, “Yes, you're confirmed on Flight Eleven-eighty, departing at five forty-five from Gate Twenty-nine. Will you be checking your luggage through?”

“Yes, we will,” Frank said.

Behind him, Stick said, “I don't see her anywhere.”

Frank said, over his shoulder, “She's probably at the gate already, picking her seat.”

The clerk was holding up an American Air Lines ticket envelope, looking at it. He said, “I see this was left for you. It has your names on it.” He handed the envelope to Frank.

Stick saw the names, written in ink, as Frank took the envelope.
Mr. E. Stickley, Mr. F. Ryan
, one above the other.

The clerk said, “If you'll put your luggage up here, please—” He was holding the luggage tags.

Frank shoved the American Air Lines envelope into his inside coat pocket and reached down for his suitcase. Behind him, Stick was picking up his ratty-looking bag. Behind Stick, somebody said, “Just a moment, please.”

They both looked around. Frank said, “What?”

There were two of them, thirty-year-old guys in neat, summer-weight suits, no hats. They looked like pro football players. No they didn't, they looked like cops.

One of them had his badge case open already, giving them a look at his shield. He said, “State police. I'd like you, please, to pick up your suitcases and go around the counter over there to that door you see marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
.”

“What is this?” Frank said, indignant. “What for?”

The state policeman said, “Pick up your bag, buddy,
now
.”

“I just want to know what's going on, for Christ sake. I mean what is this? You accusing us of something, or what?”

Frank stopped as Cal Brown came in and walked up to the two state cops and showed them his credentials. They nodded and said something to him.

Stick was watching. He said mildly, “I hope this doesn't take too long. We got a flight to make.”

Cal Brown turned to them sitting at the metal table in the bare, brightly fluorescent-lighted room, and gave them a nice smile.

“You got a flight, I got two warrants,” he said, taking them out of his jacket, giving them a flash of the Mag holstered under the jacket, and holding the warrants up for them to see. “This one's for search. You mind?”

“If we miss the flight, you got to pay for it,” Frank said.

“No, the airline'll put you on another one free of charge,” Cal said. “I mean if you're going anywhere.”

Stick said, “If you want to look in our bags, go ahead. I mean maybe if we hurry up, we can get it done. What do you think?”

They watched as the two state cops came over and opened their suitcases and began going through them, taking out each item of clothing separately and feeling it.

Frank sat back and lighted a cigarette. He said, “I hope, when you're through, you guys put it all back the way it was.”

Stick said to Cal, “You mind I ask what you're looking for?”

“Yeah, I do,” Cal said.

They unrolled socks and looked inside shoes and studied their toilet kits very closely. The one going through Stick's bag took out a wad of bills and looked over at Cal. Cal shook his head. Frank stared at the money, then at Stick, but he didn't say anything to anybody, not until the two state cops were finished.

“Is that it, Officers?”

Cal Brown said, “Now if you'll stand up please, gents, and empty your pockets—lay whatever you have on the table.”

“Come on,” Frank said, “pat us down if you want. You think we're carrying guns, for Christ sake, on an
air
plane?”

“Get up,” Cal said.

Stick took out his wallet, the car keys, a pack of Marlboros, matches, and a comb.

Frank started with his coat. He took his sunglasses case and the American Air Lines envelope out of his inside coat pocket. He pulled out his wallet and a clean, folded handkerchief.

Cal looked at the American envelope. Why, if they were flying Delta—He picked it up.

Stick was watching him. Frank was digging for loose change in his pants pocket.

Cal took a piece of paper out of the envelope. He unfolded it and a locker key fell to the table. He looked down at the key, then at Stick, then at the piece of paper for a moment, and handed it to Stick.

Stick looked at the two words written in ink in the neat, slanting feminine hand.

I'm sorry.

He kept looking at the words.

Cal handed the locker key to one of the state cops, who studied the number on it as he walked out.

Frank was frowning, not knowing what was going on.

“What's it say?”

Stick handed him the note. He said to Cal, “Maybe somebody left that, we got it by mistake, you know?”

“With your names on it?” Cal said.

Walking through the terminal, the two state cops were behind them carrying their bags. Cal was right in front of them, holding tight to the small, light-blue suitcase. No one they passed stopped or turned around or seemed to notice that the two in the middle were handcuffed together.

They went through the automatic doors and down the sidewalk, away from the entrance, to wait for the police car to pull up.

Frank said, half whispering against his shoulder, trying not to move his mouth, “Of all the ones, all the broads that'd jump at the chance, I mean
jump
, you pick that turkey. Christ, and I let you, I go along. What'd you say, the great judge of broads? ‘She's a good one.' Your exact words, ‘She's a good one.' ”

“She didn't mean this to happen,” Stick said. “It's not her fault.”

“Whose fault is it, mine? What'd I say? Let's put it in the car and go, take the swag and run, man, and not get anybody else in the act. Remember that? Hey, remem-ber the rule? Don't tell anybody your business. Nobody. Especially a junkie. Shit, especially a broad. One you pick.”

The police car was pulling up to them.

“What do you think I went to the trouble to think up all those rules for? You remember the ten rules? We act like businessmen and nobody knows our business. You remember that?”

Stick said, “Frank, why don't you shut the fuck up?”

About the Author

E
LMORE
L
EONARD
has written more than forty novels, including such bestsellers as
Up in Honey's Room
,
The Hot Kid
,
Mr. Paradise
,
Tishomingo Blues
,
Pagan Babies
, and
Glitz
—and nearly as many short stories. Many of his books have been made into movies, including
Get Shorty
and
Out of Sight
. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

Elmore Leonard and

Swag

“[An] uncanny sense of plot, pace, and [an] inexhaustible flair for the nervous rhythms of contemporary urban speech. . . . Leonard is a superb craftsman and his writing is a pleasure.”

—
Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Everything Leonard touches turns to gold. He has a wonderful ear for the way the kind of people you'd never want to meet talk, and his own prose is lean and shifty. . . . He writes a love scene even better than he writes a murder, and when it comes to plotting, he has more moves than Bobby Fischer.”

—
Boston Globe

“When Mr. Leonard is observing, satirizing, plotting, working up suspense, thickening the air with menace, discharging it in lightning flashes of violence, exposing the black holes behind the parts people play . . . he gives us as much serious fun per word as anyone around.”

—
New York Times Book Review

“[
Swag
is] a brutally up-to-date crime novel and a good one.”

—
The New Yorker

“
Swag
hits dead center . . . captures a slice of urban life better than anything else I've read.”

—
Detroit Free Press

“Elmore Leonard's writing is as lean as a good steak . . . marbled with humor, unexpected turns, and snappy dialogue.”

—
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Elmore Leonard is the real thing . . . he raises the hard-boiled suspense novel beyond the limits of the genre. . . . He paints an acute picture of the world that is all too real and recognizable.”

—
Washington Post

“A brilliant caper.”

—
New York Times

“Elmore ‘Dutch' Leonard is more than just one of the all-time greats of crime fiction. He's fast becoming an authentic American icon.”

—
Seattle Times

“Nobody but nobody on the current scene can match his ability to serve up violence so light-handedly, with so supremely deadpan a flourish.”

—
Detroit News

“The debate over who's the all-time king of the whack job crime novelists just ended. Living or dead, Elmore Leonard tops 'em all.”

—
Sun-Sentinel
(Ft. Lauderdale)

“A giant among writers of crime fiction.”

—
Columbus Dispatch

“A major literary star. . . . He defies categorization, and when you do try to categorize him, you are invariably wrong.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“Very fine. . . . Elmore Leonard is truly a great writer.”

—
Washington Times

“Elmore Leonard is arguably the best living writer of crime fiction.”

—
Roanoke Times & World News

“The man knows how to grab you.”

—
Entertainment Weekly

“Leonard's cinematic grasp of scene and setting, his ability to arouse within us a helpless sympathy for even the lowest of his characters, his quirky pacing and plot twists, and his sly humor and artfully oddball prose sear our eyeballs and keep the pages turning.”

—
Miami Herald

“The best writer of crime fiction alive.”

—
Newsweek

“Leonard is the best in the business: His dialogue snaps, his characters are more alive than most of the people you meet on the street, and his twisting plots always resolve themselves with a no-nonsense plausibility.”

—
Newsday

“Elmore Leonard is the Alexander the Great of crime fiction.”

—
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette