He had a gun, the Glock he took off Tiny Banger. Try to explain that: an armed convicted felon shoots a girl he said was trying to kill him.
He heard her call his name and came out from the kitchen with a fifth of Jack Daniel's and a couple of short glasses, a dish towel over his shoulder. He said to the well-mannered girl waiting in the doorway, Black's your color, you make it work.
I look good enough to eat?
If you weren't here on business. Let me have your coat.
It's all right, I won't be here long. She was unbuttoning the raincoat, both of her hands out of the pockets. Foley took the moment to pour a couple of doubles. Dawn came over, took one and drank half of it and put her glass on the table again.
Foley said, The FBI was here.
She seemed to pause. Really?
Lou Adams called off his dogs. I'm helping him think of a new ending for his book.
The coat hung open now, Dawn's hands in the pockets again holding it against her hips. Foley took a look at her slim-cut underpants and a shorty T-shirt that hung almost to her navel. He said, Tell me what it is about a girl's navel? It catches the eye and won't let go.
I suppose, Dawn said, because it's right in the middle of the playground. You didn't call. I took it to mean we won't be getting back together. But if I'm on my own, Jack, I get both houses.
How do you take over the deeds?
Little Jimmy loves me. He'll do what I ask.
I'll bet he won't.
Jack, believe me, okay?
Jimmy's changed, Foley said. He picked up her glass, offered it and she took it in her left hand.
I don't see any way you'll get the properties.
You don't know him. Little Jimmy gives me the houses and I let him keep the building.
You know what Cundo would say about that?
Dawn finished the drink and handed Foley the glass. She put her hands on her hips inside the raincoat, giving Foley pretty much the whole show. I'm his heir, Jack. I put in eight years waiting for him. He comes out and beats me up.
You have to be Jimmy's heir, he owns everything.
Foley moved closer and put his hands on the curves of her shoulders and felt her stiffen and gradually relax. You tried to shoot me a while ago, missed and broke somebody's window.
You think I should pay for it?
I think you ought to learn how to shoot, you want to kill me. He felt the barrel press against his stomach. The thing is, you don't have any reason to shoot me. Jimmy's showing his manhood now. He said he watched you do Cundo and then you made him clear the table. He's breaking his word, but doesn't care. Zorro told him you're a witch, so he doesn't have to keep any promise he made. You can shoot me you understand I'm only making a point but it won't get you any closer to Jimmy. You can put his little face between your jugs and purr, Jimmy won't give up the houses. He says he'll die first. And you say, what? He may have to?
No, what I say, I'll swear I saw you throw Tico off the roof.
You can't even put me there, Foley said. I hate to say it, but it looks like you're out of business. Jack, her voice soft, you don't mean that. I'll give you the name of a lawyer, if she can practice out here.
Your problem, you've been thinking about doing Cundo for eight years. Still, I bet Megan'll see you get no more than twenty-five to life. Foley telling her in his natural way. Jimmy said you put on a show at dinner. He had no idea what you were up to.
Jack, don't do this to me.
She let him lift the raincoat from her shoulders to slip down her back and fall with a thud as the gun hit the floor. He brought Tiny Banger's Glock out of his back pocket, stooped to lay it on the cocktail table and picked up the pack of Slims. Dawn took one and Foley struck a match and held it for her.
You know I could never shoot you, Dawn said. I wanted to scare you, that's all.
You did.
Get you to help me. I aimed over your head.
Help you do what, get away?
Giving her the idea, and she picked up on it.
Yes, vanish.
But what did you learn?
I was too impatient. She looked up at him getting a plea in her eyes. Jack, we think alike. We could disappear together, change the way we look
Grow beards?
We're the Psychic Doctors. You'll have to make up another name, something more exotic than Foley. I've got all the lyingaround money we'd need, close to a hundred thousand. We go to Costa Rica and decide what we want to do. A bank, Dawn said, smiling at the idea. I've never robbed a bank. But we'd go for the vault, not one of the tellers. We'll go big-time for a change.
He watched her in her little white panties sink into the sofa and pour herself a drink and place Old No. 7 on the table again, close to Tiny Banger's gun.
Foley noticed, Foley telling her, Buddy, my old partner, and I thought of going big-time, just the two of us get into the vault. Buddy said, 'You want to go in, scream at everybody to hit the floor and then wait, looking at our watches for the vault to open? That's what you want to do, with all the things can go wrong?' I told him he was right and we never went for the vault.
Jack, that kind of a heist, you have to plan every step, know what to look for. I'll bet I could visit a bank a couple of times and know how to make it work.
Foley said, Is it a robbery or a heist?
Don't make fun of me, okay?
Foley said, You want to go for six and a half million in houses, you give me up for a punk, a guy plays roof ball. For what? Keep the expenses down? Stick to bunko, getting it off of rich women. Foley said, I was ready to take a chance on you. Some- times I have weak moments. But you sneaked up on Cundo and shot him for a couple of houses. That's your style, not mine.
Because you know him? Dawn said. You had nothing in common with him. I told you, think of Cundo the way you see a bank you're gonna rob. It's nothing personal.
We jailed together almost three years, Foley said. He thought
I was still watching his back and I was playing ghost doctor.
But he wasn't like you at all. He was vicious, he killed, he beat hell out of me.
You had it coming, Foley said. I did too. He could've shot us and felt okay about it, but he didn't. In his macho way he laid it on you.
The guy-thing, Dawn said. I can't believe you two were friends. It's beyond me.
I didn't judge him, Foley said. We walked the yard and kept our eyes open.
She didn't understand that or ever would.
So he brought it back to what was important.
You think you can vamp Jimmy out of the house? You won't even get close to him.
What does that mean, Dawn said, you're blowing the whistle on me? She placed her glass on the table, picked up the Glock and put it on Foley.
He said, You don't hear 'blow the whistle' so much anymore. One I like, you ask if I'm gonna put the stuff on you. I say no, I've never ratted out anybody in my life. It's how the law gets you in their sights.
Dawn held the Glock in both hands aimed at his chest. You want to shoot me?
I don't want to, but you're standing between me and my retirement. I've got enough trouble, Jack, without worrying about you.
He said, You think the gun's loaded?
She raised it to his face and stared at his eyes to read him.
If it was, Foley said, you think I'd leave it on the table?
Now she wasn't sure. He was so fucking hard to read.
What am I suppose to do now, Dawn said, lay it down? You were ready to pull it out of your pocket, shoot me if you had to. It's why you acted so cool. She brought the pistol down to his T-shirt again at arm's length and delivered her line:
So long, Jack.
He didn't move, didn't hunch or turn away as she squeezed the trigger and heard the empty sound, a click, and yanked back the slide and let it snap closed, squeezed again and got another click, but no sounds after that when she squeezed and squeezed a few more times. Dawn said, Shit, and eased back in the cushions.
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I didn't think you'd believe me, Foley said. Now where are you? Gonna dye your hair red and wear dark glasses? Go ahead, I won't tell the cops. You're none of my business.
She said, Jack ?
He said, You have anybody in your world can hide you? Or they all dead? That's what you should do, look at the spirit world, talk to some women died in prison, get an idea what it's like.
She said, Jack, couldn't you help me? Get me out of town? I'll pay you.
How much?
Ten thousand.
I make that stirring up ghosts.
Jack, come on, help me out.
A minute ago you said, 'So long, Jack,' expecting to kill me. Where'd you get that, the movies? I told you there weren't any bullets in the gun. All you had to do was believe me. Dawn, you're psychic, you're suppose to know the gun was empty.
I did, but it didn't make sense. Why would you carry a gun with no bullets in it?
You have a gun, I know I can take it away from you. I don't need one. Two weeks ago I was a convict. I don't want a gun. You understand? Now you're trying to bribe your way out of doing time.
What's wrong with that?
I can't say I blame you. You'll go nuts inside.
So help me out, Dawn said. You know what I see in your future? In ours, the best time of our lives coming up, on a beach in Costa Rica.
And one night you shoot me in the head while I'm asleep. You know what I see in your future? Foley said. Fences topped with razor wire. Bunch of hefty broads standing around looking at the new girl.
You're no fun, Dawn said, and took a few moments before pushing up from the sofa. That's it, huh?
It's what happens, Foley said, in the life. You go down.
Chapter THIRTY
ONCE THE BODIES WERE RELEASED, CUNDO AND TICO WERE given separate parlors in LoCicero & Sons Funeral Home in Santa Monica. Jimmy Rios testified as an eyewitness to Cundo's murder: shot and killed by Dawn Navarro one night while Jack Foley was visiting a friend in Beverly Hills, a famous film star, who said yes, it was true, Jack Foley was helping her accept her husband's death.
If Jack had been here for the dinner, Jimmy told the police, Cundo, like a father to me, would still be alive. Tico Sandoval, they believed, fell to his death while measuring the roof for Cundo's welcome-home party.
Dawn Navarro, who had hidden the bodies in a freezer, was the prime suspect in Cundo Rey's death. The pistol used in his murder was found in the canal in front of his house.
Sierra Sandoval came to mourn her boy. She stared at him in the casket, Tico wearing his lavender scarf around his neck like an ascot. Sierra stayed an hour, watching the boys from the hood passing through to look at Tico, Sierra imagining one of them on the roof with her baby, playing that game.
Mike Nesi came, his left arm in a cast, his right hand sticking out of his open shirt, the rest of the arm taped to his body. He said to Foley, You owe me nine bills for the hospital and two bills the Cuban squirt owes me. Foley and Zorro threw him out the front door of the funeral home.
A photo of Foley with Jimmy Rios appeared in the Los Angeles Times over the story of the bodies found in the freezer. He wondered if Karen Sisco saw it and might give him a call. It would be up to her; he wasn't making any moves in that direction.
When Lou Adams and Ron Deneweth dropped in, Lou stood looking at Cundo waiting for his eyes to open, his lips to come unglued and tell him Foley was in on his death. Lou would turn Foley around on the spot and cuff him and he'd have the ending for his book. Lou waited. Cundo refused even to blink.
Lou went up to Foley and said, I'm going back to Miami and you're on your own. You'll hit another bank 'cause it's your nature. Go ahead, I don't give a shit what you do.
You have an ending for your book?
Not yet, I can't wait for you, I got to think of something.
How about this, Foley said. Because of the awful pressure you put on me, I've given up robbing banks for good.
Lou squinted as Foley told him, Don't ever doubt the power of prayer. I asked God to help me stay out of banks. I prayed to find honest work I could do, and the next day Jimmy offers me one of his homes. I can take my pick, the white one full of pictures of Dawn and a painting of her bare naked. Or I can have the pink one.
He gives you a million-dollar house free?
Jimmy feels he owes me for standing behind him. He said, 'Jack, I love you, man. You save me from that bitch wanted to take my homes and kill me. Which one you want?' I took the pink one worth four and a half mil, Foley said. I had to, it's my favorite.
It's the pressure I put on you, Lou said, turned you away from a middle-age life of crime. That's not a bad ending.
Every half hour Jimmy played a recording of Alto como la luna, done in a slow tempo for the warmth of it, Cundo Rey's favorite.
There were women who came to kneel by the casket and look at Cundo. They made the sign of the cross, kissed the tips of their fingers, some of them, and touched their fingers to his lips glued shut. There were more women than Foley imagined Cundo had known, Foley looking for a girl with dyed hair wearing dark glasses.
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Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs
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