the Big Bounce (1969) (9 page)

Since yesterday.

Man, pretty soft.

I'm not staying there, I work there.

Yeah, with all that stuff walking around in the bathing suits, uh?
Billy Ruiz's grin stretched wider. Don't tell me, baby.

It beats picking cucumbers.

Anything would beat it.

You almost got them in?

A few more days,
Billy Ruiz said. They bring out these nice boys from Bay City and Saginaw as pickers yesterday? Christ, they can't pick their nose. Half of them don't show up this morning.

More work for you.

I got enough. Hey, you didn't hear about Frank?

What'd he do now?

He got laid off.

Come on, you're shorthanded.

I mean it. He's been drunk all the time, you know, with the money? He don't show up yesterday. He don't come out this morning, so Bob Junior fires his ass and tells him to get out.

What's he drinking for?

Billy Ruiz frowned. Because he's got money, what do you think?

Dumb bastard.

Sure. Tell him that.

Did he go home?

He say his truck won't make it to Texas.

All he's got to do is get on a bus.

You can't tell him anything, that guy.

Ryan drove Billy Ruiz to the migrant camp to the road leading into the camp dropped him there and headed back to Geneva thinking about Frank Pizarro and his slick hair and his sunglasses and his big mouth. Frank Pizarro was a mistake. He'd remember him with all the other mistakes he had made and promised never to make again. It was easy to make promises, but, God, it was easier to fall into things.

He turned at the Shore Road and at the last second turned left again at the first block and came up behind the IGA store. There were so many cars in the parking lot he had to drive in to get a look at the throwaway stack of boxes and cartons near the door. And when he saw it, it was a pile of boxes like any pile of boxes. It could have been the same pile that was here Saturday except that he didn't see a red Stroh's beer case.

Driving out the Beach Road, he kept thinking about the beer case, wondering about it, until he told himself to either do something about it or forget it, but quit thinking. He couldn't trace an empty beer case that had been thrown away two days ago, so forget about it. What he couldn't forget completely was Frank Pizarro. He shouldn't have ever let him get close. He should have known Frank Pizarro the first time he ever saw him. It wasn't a good feeling to have something hanging over you. Something you shouldn't have done but did.

Or something you should have done but didn't. He remembered it as soon as he saw the girl from No. 5.

He had put Mr. Majestyk's car in the garage and was walking up the lane behind the cabanas to his room when he saw the girl and remembered it. She was backing out of her carport, edging out, in her shiny tan Corvair. Then she was looking right at him, waiting for him to reach her.

I wondered I thought you were going to fix my window.

He wouldn't have remembered her if she had not been coming out of No. 5. She was dressed up: white beads, a white beaded clip in her hair, sunglasses with white rims and little pearls, made up and dressed up, sweater and purse on the seat next to her.

The window,
Ryan said. Listen, I haven't forgotten. I got tied up.

Do you think tomorrow?

First thing.

Well not too early. I am on vacation.
She laughed.

Anytime you say.

Fine, then.
She hesitated. Can I give you a lift? I'm going into Geneva.

I just got back.
She didn't look bad. About third string, but not really bad dressed up.

Well, then, thank you,
Virginia Murray said and backed out a little more, slowly, before finally pulling away.

What was she thanking him for?

The back door to No. 5 and the window that was supposed to be stuck were right there. Ryan looked at the window, not closely but from a few feet away. He walked off toward his room.

Later on he went up the road to the A & W Drive-In for cheeseburgers and root beer and then played a couple of rounds of Putt-Putt golf. The redhead from No. 9 was there with her little girl, the woman in tight slacks and big white earrings and a band in her hair. She looked pretty nice, but Ryan let her go; he didn't like the idea of the little girl there. By the time he got back to the Bay Vista, it was after eight. A couple of men were on the patio smoking cigars and some kids were playing shuffleboard, but most of the people were inside now, playing cards or putting kids to bed. He thought about stopping in to see Mr. Majestyk, but then he thought, What for? So he went to bed with True, the Man's Magazine. He read The Traitor Hero France Forgave,
skipped The Short Happy Life of the Kansas Flying Machine,
and got partway through Stalin's $10 Million Plot to Counterfeit U
. S
. Money
before he said the hell with it and picked up his sneakers and went out.

Chapter
8

HE LIKED BEING ALONE. Not all the time, but when he was alone, he liked it. He liked it now with the surf coming in and the wind stirring in the darkness. He could be alone on a beach anywhere. The houses back up in the trees were dark shapes that could be the huts of a village. The boats lying on the beach could be sampans used by the V
. C
. The word was they had brought in a load of mortars and automatic weapons, Chicom supplied by the Chinese, and he was on a one-man recon patrol up north of Chu Lai somewhere; get in and chart the V
. C
. ammo dumps and radio positions to the fleet sitting five miles out in the stream. It was funny people were afraid of the dark. What some guys did in the war, Underwater Demolition or the Special Forces guys, moving through the jungle at night with an M-16 and their faces black, one false step and you've got a pungi spike up your behind. And some people would be afraid to be out here. If you could buy the nerve to sneak up on people who were waiting to kill you, then it wasn't much to sneak up on people who were afraid of the dark. It was funny, but it was also a good thing people were afraid of it.

You got used to it, that was all. You made up your mind you were going to be good at it and not panic. It was something you developed in your mind, a coolness. No, cooler than cool. Christ, everybody thought they were cool. It was a coldness you had to develop. The pro with icewater in his veins. Like Cary Grant. Pouring champagne for the broad or up on the rooftop and the guy with the steel hook instead of a hand coming at him, he's the same Cary Grant. No sweat. That was good when he threw the guy and as the guy fell his hook scraped down the metal slant of the roof, making sparks.

Cary Grant was a good jewel thief. But it never showed what he did with the jewels after he stole them. There was an Armenian guy in Highland Park who would take TV sets, clothes, furs, things like that; but what if you brought him a $100,000 diamond necklace? Harry, I got this $100,000 diamond necklace. What'll you give me for it?
Could you see Harry?

But no more of that. Without a car and 150 miles from a pawnshop, they could keep their TV sets and suitcases. No, no more of that anyway.

During the time he had worked with the colored guy, Leon Woody, they would look for the easy ones first: newspapers on the front steps, or houses that were dark in the early evening with the shades down, or houses where the lawns needed to be cut. They would make notes on the houses they liked. They would note down what lamps were on at what time, and if the same lamps were on two or three nights in a row one or two downstairs and one up they would go to the front door and ring the bell and if no one answered, they'd go in.

Leon Woody's favorite way was to go up to a house in the afternoon and ring the bell. If someone answered, he would tell the person they were looking for odd jobs painting or wall washing or cleaning up the yard. The person, the lady, would almost always say no, and Leon Woody would ask about the people next door, if the lady knew if they were home or not. Sometimes the lady would say no, they were away for the summer or in Florida, handing it to them. Leon Woody would shake his head slowly and say, Doggone, we is sure doin' poorly,
putting on his dumb-nigger act but looking at Ryan and just barely almost smiling. If the lady did have work for them, Leon Woody would say, Oh, thank you, ma'am. We sure do 'preciate it. But seein' it's so late, maybe we best come back in the morning.
And walking away from the house, he would say to Ryan, In the morning, she-it.

If no one answered, they would park in the drive and knock at the back door. If still no one answered, they would go in, usually through a basement window, and look for luggage first, something to put stuff in. Then they would walk out the front door carrying the suitcases full of clothes, fur coats, silver, and the TV's and radios whatever they thought was worth taking and throw it in the car.

They had always stayed cool during the B & E's, not showing each other anything but feeling it inside. One would never say to the other, Come on, let's go.
Or look anxious to get out. The idea was to walk through it, take your time, pick up what you wanted. Once Ryan walked into the den and Leon Woody was sitting down reading a magazine with a drink in his hand. That was about the coolest until the afternoon the guy came with the dry cleaning. Ryan went to the door: he took two suits and a topcoat from the guy, thanked him, and put the clothes in a suitcase. Thanking the guy was the touch. It was a hard one to beat. Leon Woody came close the time he answered the phone and the guy calling wanted to know who the hell this was speaking and where his wife was. Leon Woody said, Waiting for me up in the bed, man. Where do you think?
And hung up. They gave themselves a few more minutes, just enough time, and were up in the next block when the cop car pulled in front of the house.

Once Leon Woody brought along a set of power tools he had stolen somewhere and they plugged into the porch light and drilled the lock out of the front door. Ryan said it made too much noise. Leon Woody said yeah, but it seemed more like the professional way. It was good to vary the style, he maintained, so all your B & E's didn't look alike. He was a funny guy, a tall skinny jig who had played basketball in high school and got college offers but couldn't pass the entrance exams even at the jock schools. Leon Woody's problem was heroin. He was strung out most of the time Ryan knew him and it was costing him fifteen, twenty dollars a day. But he was a good guy and he would have gotten a kick out of the job Sunday, walking into the house with fifty people out in front eating hamburgers.

There were lights in the darkness, but they were pinpoints, cold little dots off somewhere in the night, as far away as stars and not part of the beach, not part of now.

There was another light, faint orange, above him. The lake frontage had climbed gradually from the low rise at the Bay Vista to a steep bluff above the beach: a brush-covered slope rising out of the sand and lined every two hundred feet or so by wooden stairways that reached up into the darkness.

Ryan stared up at the slope as he walked along, as the realization that he was wasting his time sunk in and became a fact. Finally he stopped. He should have stayed in bed. What was he supposed to do, guess which stairway led to her place? Then what, if you found it? Go up and knock on the door and act casual and say, Hello, I just happened to be walking by.
The hell with it.

Nancy watched him. Above him, up on the bluff, she had watched him pass. She had watched him stop and stand for a moment gazing up the slope; now he was coming back. Nancy walked into the orange glow of the post lamp a girl in a dark sweater and shorts and sneakers and out of it, a dark figure again moving down the stairs to the beach.

She waited, one hand on the railing. He was staring up at the slope and not until he was almost even with her did his gaze drop and there she was, stopping him only a few strides away.

Well, Jack Ryan,
Nancy said. What a surprise.

Ryan walked up to her and she didn't back away or shift her position. She was at ease. She had been waiting for him, expecting him, and he could feel it.

I was taking a walk,
Ryan said.

Uh-huh.

You think I was looking for you?

Uh-unh, you were taking a walk.

Just up the beach, nowhere special.

I believe it,
Nancy said. Do you want me to walk with you?

I was going back.

Why don't you relax a little?

Walking along the beach, doing something, he felt better; though he was still aware of himself walking along next to her. They didn't talk much at first, just little probing introductory questions that Nancy asked about the migrant camp and Camacho and picking cucumbers. He answered them simply: The camp was okay. He didn't worry about Camacho. Yes, picking cucumbers was hard work. They stopped to light cigarettes and he felt her hair against his cupped hands as she leaned in and saw her face clearly for a moment in the glow of the match. She was really nice looking. The rich girl in the movies.

You look like somebody in the movies,
Ryan said.

Who?

I can't think of her name.

What type is she?

Like you. Dark hair, long.

Is she sexy?

Yeah, I guess so.

What was she in?

I can't remember right off.

I probably didn't see it anyway. I don't go very often. Just sometimes.

They walked along in silence and Ryan said, Do you watch any television?

Hardly ever. Do you?

If it's something good.

Like what?

A war movie, something like that. Or spy stuff.

Wow, real-life fakey drama.

They don't have to be true, long as they're good.

They're boring.

Well, what do you like, then?

Doing something.
She looked up at him with the dark hair slanting close to her eye. Something that makes an impression. Something that leaves a mark.

Like what?

I don't know. A bullet maybe. That would be a good clean example.

Shoot somebody?

Shoot something hear it go off.

How about dynamite?

Beautiful. I think dynamite would really be fun.

But you have to put in your detonators and wire the charge and string the wire out how about a grenade?

Oooo, a grenade, yes! Just pull the pin and throw it.

Or hook it up to a trip wire,
Ryan said. As a joke.

I think I'd rather throw it,
Nancy said. The other way you might have to wait too long.

Okay, but where're you going to throw it?

I'll have to think about it,
Nancy said. I picture throwing it up on a porch or through a window. Isn't that funny?

A guy was telling me, during World War Two the Japs would send these Geisha girls over to our lines bare naked but with grenades under their arms; then they'd come in and the American guys would tell them to put up their hands and wham.

Do you believe that?

A guy told me that was there.

I don't believe it.

Why not?

Why would they walk in? Why not just throw them?

Because they were ordered to. The Geisha girls.

Why no clothes? I think your friend's putting you on.

He's not a friend. He's just a guy I know.

I'll bet he wasn't even there,
Nancy said.

I don't care,
Ryan said. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. I don't care one way or the other.

Nancy was looking up the slope. She stopped, her gaze holding on the bluff, and Ryan stopped with her. How about rocks?
she said then. What if we used rocks and pretended they were grenades.

And do what?

Throw them.

You want to throw rocks.

Find some, come on.

A nutty broad. God, looking for rocks. Very seriously in the dark looking for rocks. It was a dumb thing to do, but he was feeling pretty good now. Little rocks or big ones?

I think a little smaller than my fist,
Nancy said. They shouldn't be too heavy.

No,
Ryan said. You can't have them too heavy. How many you need?

Just a few. We'll make them count.

Very nutty broad. They took their rocks and went up the next stairway they came to, up to the lawn of a house that was totally dark, partly obscured, and shadowed by trees and shrubbery.

They're probably at the club,
Nancy said, her voice low and close to Ryan.

You know them?

I don't think so. Everyone along here belongs.

You're going to throw a rock at that house?

Uh-huh, right through the picture window.